My High School Nerd Rival - Chapter 64

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Episode 64
Do you know?
A question laden with meaning was about to spill from his lips.
Buzz. Buzz.
Ivy’s phone vibrated inside the jacket pocket she’d tucked it into.
Of all the timing.
She pulled at the hand holding hers. For a moment she felt his grip tighten, but it proved to be an illusion—her hand slipped free easily enough.
The call was from Owen, and Ivy answered with her eyes squeezed shut.
Predictably, his voice came through shrieking, “Where on earth are you?”
“I’ll be there in a minute. I’m just looking around a bit.”
Ivy ended the call quickly.
An awkward silence settled between them.
She should have asked about what he’d meant to say before, but once the moment had slipped away, the words wouldn’t come.
“……Well.”
“The Library is faster this way.”
Just as Ivy managed to speak, Cyrus turned briskly toward the deeper reaches of the Alley.
A few steps ahead, he glanced back over his shoulder, his eyes narrowed.
As if asking why she wasn’t following.
Ivy hurried after him in quick, short steps.
Once they emerged from the Alley onto the wider street where people milled about, he pulled ahead by several paces, widening the distance between them.
Ivy made no effort to close it.
When the Library finally came into view at the end of the street, he stopped and turned to face her at last.
It seemed his escort ended here.
As she stepped closer to him, Ivy wondered what kind of farewell would suit the moment.
What if she shut her eyes tight and said, “See you at school”?
Would he stare at her blankly, not understanding?
Or would he give some halfhearted grunt like he always did at school?
She came to a stop before him and slipped the Jacket from her shoulders, folding it carefully before extending it toward him.
He took it without a word.
In that final moment when their eyes met, Ivy chose instead—
“……I owe you my thanks.”
—to wear a mask.
It was the only right choice, and yet her own voice sounded strange to her.
Cyrus didn’t answer. He simply took the Jacket she offered and draped it over his arm.
Her phone buzzed again, urging her forward, so Ivy turned immediately toward the Library.
She returned the Slippers and traded them for the Formal Shoes—an instrument of torture by any measure—before making her way back to the Library’s main hall.
She met Owen and, slipping naturally into exchanges with several people in the Reception Hall, came out through the front gates where a Black Sedan waited for her.
The moment she settled into the back seat, Owen, who had the steering wheel in hand, unleashed the barrage of complaints he’d been holding back.
“Your Highness, where exactly have you been?”
“Not far. There’s a Market in front of the Library, so I just had a look around.”
“Good heavens.”
Owen glanced at Ivy in the rearview mirror.
As if checking her safety anew.
“……I know. I’m sorry.”
Ivy understood what he was worried about.
“I know I could have put others at risk too.”
The royal family’s emphasis on “security” wasn’t merely about protecting the royals themselves.
The influence of a single person could spread unpredictably to those around them, spiraling easily into tragedy.
“Since you seem to be reflecting on this, I won’t belabor the point. However, there was that incident not so long ago…….”
By “that incident,” he seemed to be referring to the matter with Fabian.
Her fingers curled slightly atop her knee.
When Easter Break ended, the new semester would begin. What state would he be in when he appeared then…….
Or would he even appear at all?
“Wandering alone is dangerous. In every respect.”
“……But I wasn’t alone.”
Ivy found herself murmuring the words.
“Pardon?”
“No, nothing. The interview’s coming up soon, right? And then the banquet.”
“Yes, just change your clothes and we’ll begin. Rest for now.”
Following his suggestion, Ivy leaned deeply back against the seat.
She had returned to her familiar world.
Through the window lay a long row of colorful tents, and the fact that Ivy had been inside them only moments ago now felt impossibly distant.
The person standing there—had she been Evelyn, or Ivy?
Or was she simply herself, defying either definition?
Ivy shook off the thought and let her gaze fall downward.
Her eyes wavered slightly—an unexpected mark had appeared on her fingertip.
Yellow paint.
Probably picked up when she painted the Easter Egg at the Market.
She touched it gently with her other hand.
The paint had dried completely, clinging to her fingertip exactly as it was.
It wouldn’t come off.
* * *
In the Reception Hall, Cyrus made further impressions on several professors.
His conversations with each were distinct, yet their substance was nearly identical.
Tests of curiosity and potential—probing to see how much a mere high school student could understand and interpret.
Cyrus didn’t dislike being tested, so he answered every question flawlessly.
Yet in a single moment—
when “Princess Evelyn” took her leave from those around her and departed the hall, he forgot the theory he’d been explaining and let his gaze follow her.
A perfect smile.
The shoulders that had been hunched beneath his Jacket were now held straight and tall.
So flawlessly composed that it almost felt strange.
Cyrus’s hand creased the Jacket deeply in his grip.
Could it truly be the same person who had worn Slippers and his clothes to wander the Market just moments before?
“Quinton?”
“……My apologies. To elaborate—”
The world of scholarship, which valued rigor and clarity above all else.
When Cyrus opened the door to his house, the first thing to welcome him was the daffodil in the entryway.
“Cyrus, you’re home?”
His mother had apparently been reading in the living room. She came to the entrance to greet him, still holding her child development textbook, unset from her hands.
“I can’t tell you how happy it makes me that you’ve come home, even if only for today.”
In fact, he had planned to stay in the Dormitory throughout Easter Break.
A professor from the university he hoped to attend had simply asked him to come to the reception.
“I’ll just have dinner and return to the Dormitory right away.”
“Why not stay a bit longer?”
“I didn’t submit an Overnight Leave Request.”
With that terse reply, he handed his mother the transparent bag he’d been carrying.
“Oh my!”
When was the last time Cyrus had painted an Easter Egg? Seven years old?
Joy bloomed across his mother’s face, no less bright than it had been then.
“Did you paint this?”
“Who else would have?”
His mother took out the Egg and examined it from every angle. The crude thing delighted her.
What mattered was that her son had painted it himself.
Of course it did—that was who she was.
“Did you make both of them?”
“Well…… yes.”
Cyrus considered for a moment, then simply agreed. It was easier that way.
“I’ll have to display them in the entryway. Go wash your hands.”
Cyrus nodded lightly and headed straight for the bathroom.
And as he reached out to turn on the water—
he paused, staring down at the back of his hand.
Yellow paint was smudged there.
There was no need to wonder where it came from. The same color was on the Egg now sitting in the entryway.
He touched it gently with his other hand.
The paint had dried completely, clinging to the back of his hand exactly as it was.
It wouldn’t come off.
Period 8
Easter Break had ended, and the students returned to school.
Or rather, they were dragged back—the sight of them flopping face-first onto their Dormitory beds the moment they arrived made that the more accurate word.
The beginning of the Third Semester.
Warm sunlight fell pleasantly through the windows.
Ivy, as always, wore her hair unstyled and long, obscuring half her face behind her Glasses.
Just moments earlier, her roommate Joy had rushed at her with a comb, saying, “I’m not asking for makeup, just—can we at least brush your hair a bit?”
As if that were even possible.
Her tangled hair was a blessing, a shield for her face.
If she brushed it neat and someone caught a glimpse of “Princess Evelyn” in her features, that would be a problem.
‘Especially Cyrus.’
Ever since she’d encountered him by chance at the Easter event, Ivy had been living in anxiety through the rest of the break.
What if he’d noticed? What if he’d figured it out?
Today was the crucial moment to find out.
If he showed even the slightest hint of suspicion, then…….
‘What would I even do?’
……Nothing came to mind.
‘I’ll figure it out after I see. No point worrying beforehand.’
With that thought, she opened the door to the Latin Classroom for her first class.
A few early arrivals were chattering noisily, and directly across from them, by the window, he sat.
Spring’s inspiration clearly hadn’t found its way to him.
Not judging by the black hoodie draped over him as always.
Ivy tossed her bag onto the seat next to his. No need to check if it was empty.
His head lifted slightly.
Cyrus’s gaze swept once across Ivy’s face, then lingered on the ends of her fallen hair.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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