I Start with a Bad Hand!

“…What?”

“Does venting your inferiority complex on me make you feel less miserable, Aiden Douglas?”

Above all, I hoped Klaus wouldn’t see the brawl I was about to start. At that, Aiden’s face crumpled.

I hadn’t given much thought to Aiden Douglas due to the whirlwind of life. Despite his occasional hostile demeanor towards me, I hadn’t paid much attention to it, mainly because I had various reasons not to.

The dominant reason was, ‘Why should I even care about such things?’

‘It’s like asking if I’d notice a few moths flying into a house that’s on fire.’

Moreover, whether those moths were just moths, silkworm moths, or case-bearing clothes moths, it wouldn’t matter.

‘I had subtly mocked him before, but honestly, it was the kind of nonsense you could dismiss if you just relaxed your brain a bit.’

So, after becoming possessed in this novel, so many people have been jumping into my burning life with a gas can that Aiden felt like just another moth.

‘I had been ignoring him all this time. I didn’t expect him to pick a fight so openly.’

“…Just a lowly country noble dares to…”

“That’s right. As you said, I am a lowly country noble and not well-versed in the capital’s affairs. But you should have restrained yourself. I didn’t know why someone from an illustrious earldom would care about someone like me.”

For a moment, I hesitated. Should I stoop to this level of base speech? Do I need to engage with Aiden by resorting to the kind of talk I despise, the type employed by the type of people I loathe the most? However, Aiden interpreted my silence differently.

“Why stop talking? Got scared? Finally figured out you’re out of your depth?”

It seemed right to proceed. After a brief pause, I said,

“Your father was disgracefully stripped of his knighthood in that war where my father was granted a title by His Majesty the Emperor.”

“…What?”

“I’ve never once imagined a knight who abandons his lord and comrades in battle… If your grandfather hadn’t made notable contributions, you could have lost your lands too.”

The list of nobility that Irene had given. While others might have skimmed through it, for some reason, Aiden stood out. My effort in picking this fight paid off here. Aiden’s smile twisted as he stiffened it and glared at me.

“And you seem to really take after your father.”

I thought it was a despicable act to drag parents into a mere quarrel. And indeed, I was that despicable person.

As soon as Aiden heard those words, he started striding toward me threateningly, even as a few from the fencing club tried to hold him back, he roughly shook off their hands. I looked straight at Aiden.

‘Hmm?’

But just before colliding with me, Aiden stopped a step away, merely gritting his teeth. In that unexpected moment of restraint, I thought of Cedric and Elius, those scoundrels who had just been hitting and grabbing others…

‘No, why are the leads worse than a mere extra baron?’

“What do you mean by that, Degoph. You’d better answer clearly.”

While I was briefly lost in thought, Aiden asked with his face turning red up to his neck.

“You are as great as your father, as the scion of a noble count’s family.”

There was no other meaning. I shrugged my shoulders just as Aiden had done once.

“You’re getting arrogant thinking you’ve managed decent results with your petty tricks. Wake up. Don’t you think about what comes after graduating from the academy in a few years?”

I don’t think about it.

“So, why can’t you ever win? If you’re as thoughtless as you claim, why are you struggling like this? Can’t you even show results as decent as those achievement by petty tricks?”

Aiden’s face, now stern, bore no trace of a smile. I patted his shoulder twice as he came close enough to charge at me.

“Lighten up. It’s because of you that it seems like I really said something right.”

“This is real!”

“And next time you want to talk to me, come after washing up like a human.”

I tapped Aiden’s reddened shoulder out of embarrassment and walked past. As I passed by a whole bunch of the dumbstruck fencing team, I heard someone hurriedly sniffing, detecting a smell.

After that day, Aiden diligently poked around my daily life, inquiring about various topics including family, wealth, grades, and even my facial expressions that day. He watched over me so attentively that even Agnes started to recognize his face.

“What’s with him?”

Why does he keep picking fights with you like that? Agnes asked with a deeply furrowed brow.

“Just leave it. He’ll tire himself out eventually.”

“There are other things to leave be. It’s not just a day or two; why is he like that?”

But I couldn’t bring myself to say that, just like him, I also stoop to mocking family, grades, and even physiological smells when Agnes isn’t around. It was a bit embarrassing.

“Do you think intervening helps the honor of Degoph? It’s really unseemly.”

Then, unable to bear it any longer, Agnes threw in a comment at Aiden’s provocation. Aiden’s mocking response drew Agnes into this sordid fight as well.

Thus, the ugliness and pettiness blended into an escalating dogfight. Aiden and his crew ‘accidentally’ tripped people, ‘accidentally’ spilled trays, and ‘accidentally’ spouted rude remarks more frequently.

Fortunately, whenever I was about to trip over these ‘mistakes,’ Agnes quickly grabbed my hand, and when I was about to get hit by a tray, Klaus helped me. Once, Klaus had hurriedly pulled me away to avoid a spilling tray, ruining his uniform with leftovers. Until then, Aiden’s group, who had been laughing, suddenly turned solemn, offering an exaggerated apology.

“…Pathetic bastards.”

It was the first time I heard Klaus mutter a curse in a quiet voice. Yet, Aiden did not back down. He persistently scratched at my daily life like nails on a chalkboard, playing a discordant harmony, but there was one time when Aiden turned pale and seemed at a loss.

It was when he saw Irene’s distorted face.

Like someone who had witnessed centipedes mating, Aiden had a bewildered look, as if he had been caught doing something he shouldn’t have. So… he looked disgustingly like a boy slightly in love as he gazed at Irene.

As usual, Aiden casually started a quarrel that sounded like a greeting. Unfortunately, I was carrying tea leaves, preparing to have afternoon tea with Agnes and senior Irene.

Aiden blocked my path lightly and sneered.

“Wow, now you’re even taking on a maid’s duties? You’ll have plenty of that to do once you’re outside anyway.”

“…What an impolite thing to say?”

Just as I was about to retort, the expression on Aiden’s face when he came face to face with Irene, who had come out to meet us, was a fleeting moment of confusion, followed quickly by a hint of despair.

“Senior Irene, that’s not it. I… um…”

…He didn’t apologize as much even when he spilled leftovers on Klaus’s clothes. They’re from the same ducal house, and, even more, the senior wasn’t directly involved in this incident. Yet, Aiden was apologizing to Irene in an unusually earnest manner. Why?

“Apologies should be made to Dietrich, not me.”

At those words, Aiden truly backed down for the first time. His reaction oddly brought Roxanne and those other crazies to mind. People in this novel’s world, even if reluctantly, go out of their way because of what that child says. And they acted that way because…

‘Could it be, could it be….’

From then on, I began to observe Aiden from a distance, reaching an unwanted conclusion.

“I think Aiden really likes Senior Irene.”

“Who does?”

“Aiden.”

At this, Agnes had a look as if she’d seen a cockroach flying through the air.

“What are you talking about? Are you out of your mind?”

“I want to deny it too. I want to disbelieve it, but he makes it too obvious.”

The way his voice gets louder unnecessarily when the senior passes by, how his body stiffens, how he provokes crazily as if he’d been shot, only to become as quiet as a mouse at the sound of the senior’s voice.

“Ah, that’s nonsense. Wake up, really. Why would you match such a guy with the senior?”

Even Agnes, who strongly denied it, mumbled a few days later with an expression like someone who saw cockroaches breeding in midair.

“It really seems like it….”

I really hate it. Why does he like the senior? Why him? Agnes chewed over this reason while eating, walking, and even doing her assignments. I was the same. And always the conclusion was, ‘All of Aiden’s stats have piled into his inability to read people.’

And that perception of Aiden, which had been merely annoying to Agnes, became the reason she came to see him as a cockroach stuck to a friend’s back that needed to be smashed.