I Start with a Bad Hand!

“What? What’s going on?”

I frowned and looked at my target. The arrow was lodged right in the center, but something felt off. It wasn’t exactly where I had expected it to hit. The score was decent, but the result wasn’t what I had anticipated. It was a feeling I was experiencing for the first time since I started archery. I glanced back and forth between my arm, the bow, and the target.

“Strange.”

From one side, I could hear Agatha, the archery instructor, guiding the new and recently admitted students. I briefly looked at Roxanne, who was seamlessly blending into the group with a gentle smile, then drew my bowstring again.

“Why is my skill declining like this?”

I lowered my bow and stared at the target. Once again, the score wasn’t bad, but I felt something was slightly lacking.

“Dietrich, is something wrong?”

“Oh… no. It’s just not going as well as I thought.”

“It’s because you took a break from training. You were slacking off during the holidays.”

Only Agatha seemed to have noticed this, but she didn’t make a big deal out of it. As I stood there frowning at the shooting range, an archery club student passing by nudged me and spoke.

“What are you doing?”

I glanced at him and was about to respond when he looked at my target, playfully wrinkled his nose, and then rested his arm on my shoulder.

“Your skills haven’t gone anywhere. You’re the pride of the archery club.”

At his exaggerated praise, I relaxed my frown and laughed it off.

“Pride, really?”

“Of course. You’re the star of our friendly matches.”

“If you keep this up, I’m leaving.”

We chuckled and caught up on each other’s news. Suddenly, I felt a prickling sensation as if someone was staring at me. I looked around, but no one was looking my way; everyone was focused on their own targets.

“What? Was I just imagining things?”

As I turned my head back, feeling embarrassed, I noticed Roxanne’s silver hair shimmering in the sunlight as she adjusted her posture under Agatha’s guidance. Her silky hair swayed like water, momentarily capturing my attention.

“This is no time to be staring at someone’s hair.”

But soon, my gaze returned to the target in front of me. Despite laughing off the flattering remarks, the decline in my skill still bothered me. Just as I was about to draw my bowstring again with a nagging feeling in my heart.

“Oh, that person, could it be…?”

A short gasp from behind was followed by a stir among the people at the archery range. The commotion, which I thought would be brief, continued even after I had shot a few more arrows. There weren’t many things that could excite people at the archery range, so I turned my head in curiosity.

“Roxy.”

“Huh? Oh, Prince, I mean, Elius?”

Standing there was an unwelcome presence. Elius, now wearing the academy uniform.

The few new archery club members stared at him with disbelief and sparkling eyes. No one could take their eyes off Elius as he approached Roxanne, looking at him with an expression of unexpected surprise.

“What brings you here?”

“Just curious to see how well you’re doing without me.”

Elius carefully took Roxanne’s delicate, bright hand and gave her a slight smile. I turned my gaze away from the scene and muttered to myself.

“If you graduated, just leave the school already…”

Elius had graduated from the academy last semester and naturally moved on to the scholarly institute. It wasn’t common for a member of the royal family to go straight to the scholarly institute, so there was quite a consensus within the academy about the reason: that he enrolled specifically to see his fiancée.

‘Definitely not in his right mind.’

Both Cedric and Elius. To enter a place like the scholarly institute just to spend more time with Roxanne.

‘You really have to be that crazy to be a main character.’

I often ignored Elius, who frequently visited the archery range and hovered around. Although it was quite annoying to see him constantly watching, it was bearable. However, seeing him apply something—ointment or lotion—directly to Roxanne’s reddened fingertips after each class was not exactly a sight I wanted to witness up close.

“Seriously, your fingertips hurting from shooting arrows is normal. He should know that…”

Without calluses, it would be painful all the time. However, it seemed there were people who found his incomprehensible actions quite impressive. Soon, a small trend began at the academy, where couples expressed their affection by applying ointment or cream to each other’s hands.

‘Ridiculous trends really do catch on…’

I pretended not to see the couples fervently massaging each other’s hands as I walked down the hallway. Despite being far removed from it all, they managed to infiltrate my daily life in various ways. I realized their influence was expanding when Agnes mentioned it.

“…Who joined the drama club?”

It was past lunchtime, and the cafeteria was sparsely populated. This semester, Agnes and I managed to schedule at least one day with no classes. This meant taking three exams in one day, but it was worth it for a full day of lounging in the dormitory.

While still in my training clothes and eating, Agnes suddenly spoke up as if she had just remembered something.

“Hey, guess who joined the drama club?”

I responded while lazily spooning my soup.

“Who?”

Agnes leaned in and whispered.

“The Princess of Elexion.”

“…Roxanne?”

“Yep. The drama club members keep sneaking glances at her, pretending not to be interested. I saw her act for a bit…”

“Is she good?”

Agnes mumbled with a somewhat frustrated expression.

“…Pretty good.”

Then, looking around at the few students in the cafeteria, she lowered her voice further.

“They say she even got special training from Eliza Raphel to join the drama club.”

“Eliza Raphel?”

Who is that… My expression prompted Agnes to mutter, “You write scripts and don’t know the famous actress? She starred in the play ‘Light of Dawn,’ oh, never mind. Forget it.”

“That’s interesting. She also joined our archery club this time.”

“Really? Wow, so she chose completely different extracurricular activities from last year?”

“Exactly. Are we the only ones who picked the same activities as last year?”

“Nope, just you. I joined the dance class for physical training, remember?”

Agnes replied with a mischievous grin. I knew it; I should have signed up for the music class. But realistically, I couldn’t. I had scripts and actors to manage, even if they seemed indifferent.

“Well, it’s not like I’ll run into Roxanne much even if she’s in the drama club…”

Feeling somewhat tired, I entered the drama class, seeing the same faces from last year. They glanced at me nonchalantly, as if my presence wasn’t surprising. Yet, there was an unusual excitement and tension in the air. At the center of it stood a student, cheeks flushed, responding to the surrounding drama club members..

“Beatrice?”

She was the most promising student in the drama class, sharing the same name as the Baroness Degoph, making her more memorable. There were rumors that upon graduation, she’d join a renowned theater company. More importantly, she was said to be putting everything on the line for this play.

At that moment, a fellow drama classmate, who I had spoken to a few times, approached me.

“Have you heard the news?”

“What news?”

“The Princess of Elexion joined the drama club because she watched last year’s play starring Beatrice.”

She came to the drama class yesterday. She said she loved the play and specifically mentioned she wanted to perform with Beatrice. I glanced at Beatrice’s profile, lit up with a bright smile, before responding.

“Beatrice’s play was indeed interesting.”

“That’s true… It’s really enviable. If the Princess of Elexion has her eyes on her, her life is set even outside the academy.”

Hmm, that’s one way to look at it. I nodded in agreement and resumed eating, massaging my tense neck.

‘I guess I’ll be seeing Roxanne more often this semester.’

Although we didn’t share any academic classes… it would be a lie to say it wasn’t awkward. This had a lot to do with the fact that despite the semester starting, I hardly saw my friend.

“She’s in the final stages of the work. The analysis will be finished soon.”

Irene, who succeeded Elius as the student council president, looked exhausted, her face pale and drawn. Despite being incredibly busy, she was also working on verifying the authenticity of a letter containing Rosamund Elexion’s handwriting, which Godwin had stored. 

Feeling guilty, I pushed the dessert, some chocolates, towards Irene. I watched her accept and eat it before turning my gaze to the window.

“The results should be out around the Spring Ball…”

There wasn’t much time left to conclude these complicated feelings.