My High School Nerd Rival - Chapter 81

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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 81
The effects of running about since dawn were clearly taking their toll.
Ivy, her face resting on her folded hands, was breathing deeply within a minute.
Rustle.
Cyrus turned the page. Almost habitually. His eyes tracked the dark lines, but the words weren’t registering.
Without thinking, his gaze drifted sideways.
Sunlight touched the corners of his eyes, almost but not quite.
Cyrus rose quietly from his seat and drew the Science Lab curtains fully closed.
The experimental room’s brightness dimmed a full shade.
He returned to his chair. Fortunately, Ivy hadn’t stirred.
“……Sleep well.”
He murmured the meaningless words while fiddling with the closed book.
Until yesterday, it was a book he couldn’t set down even until dawn.
But now all interest in those pages had clearly faded. The fact that he didn’t even want to open it said as much.
He didn’t need to dig deep to know the reason.
Resting his cheek on one hand, he turned to look beside him.
Ivy Underwood.
He’d known from almost the beginning that this troublemaker was no ordinary person.
Even knowing everyone avoided her, she’d walk right up and speak boldly.
He’d thought it annoying.
But apparently, that wasn’t all. The fact that he’d confessed a truth from his past that he’d never told anyone suggested otherwise.
What was strange was that he had no regrets about it whatsoever.
How odd.
Meanwhile, Ivy would keep her secret hidden from Cyrus to the very end.
Learning her secret hadn’t come from any single incident.
Her disguise was rather clumsy—so transparent that anyone watching her quietly could see through it.
The way she handled certain objects when they appeared, her notably upright posture and gait.
Clearly, she’d been trained until it became second nature.
His eye for detail wasn’t so hopelessly poor that different makeup alone would fool him.
He’d simply chosen not to dig deeper. After all, the world was full of people who resembled one another.
Without that one incident, he might never have been certain.
<Ah, really. I wish I’d eaten some strawberry crepes. The kind loaded with whipped cream.>
A Broadcasting Accident.
When Ivy, under Hacking Suspicion, was huddled in the broadcasting booth of the Gymnasium, hiding from view.
<……I should at least contact Owen. What if he hates me for causing so many accidents every day?>
Her murmured voice had traveled through the booth’s microphone and echoed across the entire Gymnasium.
<And if they tell me to return to the royal family again…….>
Cyrus grabbed a basketball rolling across the Gymnasium and hurled it urgently into the broadcast booth.
If someone came in and heard this, it would certainly become a problem.
After pulling off such a clumsy accident, Ivy had looked at him anxiously, gauging his reaction.
<Did you, maybe.>
She seemed to want to ask if he’d heard.
By any reasonable standard, he couldn’t have missed it.
He’d been about to snap at her, but worried she might cry if he did, so he pretended not to know.
<It was crackling so much I couldn’t hear a word. Just hurt my ears.>
The way she’d laughed in relief……was genuinely worrying.
He wondered how such an inept person had come this far, and feared that at this rate she’d be exposed before even finishing first year and have to go back.
In any case, what mattered was that he and Ivy weren’t pursuing vastly different goals.
Her obsession with being first stemmed from protecting something precious to her.
And Cyrus, too, had something he wanted to protect.
Their objectives were startlingly clear. That their paths didn’t intersect was utterly obvious.
So he decided to pretend ignorance about everything as much as possible.
About Ivy’s true identity.
And about the feelings that arose when he saw her.
It was more advantageous that way.
For both of them.
That was why.
<……you know.>
He’d deliberately averted his eyes from Ivy when she came to return Transformation Story Volume 1.
Though in the end, he’d looked anyway.
Her trembling voice.
And her face, as if she might cry at any moment, her fingers drained of color.
She was incapable of lying.
Something had definitely happened.
When she offered him the book, Cyrus had wanted to ask.
But it might be connected to ‘Ivy’s secret,’ and his prying would only make things worse.
Actually, his reasoning was simpler than that.
He’d prioritized the cardinal rule of staying uninvolved.
Human thought is shaped by environment. The fewer contact points, the fewer his feelings for her would grow.
He’d believed that for certain.
Until Ivy grabbed his arm and asked him something.
<If you really didn’t care.>
In that moment, he’d understood.
The human brain doesn’t know negation, they say.
Staying uninvolved. Reducing contact points.
Constantly thinking those thoughts had only made him endlessly think of Ivy Underwood instead.
He couldn’t tell someone who occupied most of his thoughts that he ‘didn’t care.’
Not objecting meant there was nowhere left to hide.
It was a cruel thing.
This feeling was unfamiliar to him. That alone felt suffocating.
But with his past and secrets tangled in as well, he couldn’t calculate how to untangle this situation.
And now he could no longer pretend nothing was there, turn a blind eye.
Because it clearly existed.
“……I can’t deny it.”
He murmured quietly and checked the time. More than five minutes had already passed.
He’d promised to wake her, but he didn’t want to disturb her peaceful sleep.
Or perhaps it was a slightly different thought altogether.
“Wake up.”
His voice was barely a whisper.
A cowardly excuse—if Ivy complained when she woke, at least he could say he ‘did wake her.’
Smiling bitterly, he looked at Ivy again. A strand of her hair had fallen across her cheek.
It trembled slightly with her breathing. It touched her cheek when she inhaled, lifted when she exhaled.
It must be tickling her.
Cyrus watched it for a while, then, before he knew it, his hand reached out.
Only then did he realize.
What am I doing right now?
He stopped immediately. A hand’s breadth away from her cheek.
Ivy, deep in sleep, continued breathing evenly. Defenseless, as sleeping people are.
I’m just moving her hair out of the way.
His own thoughts probably came because he knew the truth.
That it wasn’t something so simple.
His fingers, tense with restraint, advanced a little further. This time, he didn’t stop.
Hair softer than expected touched his fingertips.
Beneath it, he felt Ivy’s warmth. Close enough to fit in his palm.
As he tucked the strand behind her ear, his fingers brushed the curve of her cheek. Barely a touch, but in that instant, heat seemed to bloom.
Cyrus withdrew his hand as if burned.
Ivy didn’t move. Oblivious to what had just happened.
Should he be relieved about that?
Or should he apologize?
……Or should he feel worried?
He looked down at his fingertips.
……She really is making him act childishly.
Cyrus deliberately bent his head over the book. Before the warmth in his fingertips could pull him toward her again.
He opened to the page he’d been reading and fixed his gaze on the first line.
He must have read that first line five times over.
And yet he still didn’t understand what the story was even about.
* * *
Ivy opened her eyes and lay still for a moment.
How long had she slept?
Her mind felt remarkably refreshed, as if she’d been asleep a very long time.
“Hasn’t even five minutes passed yet?”
Cyrus had still been looking at his book. Only now did he look up and turn to her.
“It has.”
“……What?”
Ivy bolted upright and checked her phone.
Oh my god. Fifteen minutes have gone by?!
Ivy made a disgruntled face as she held her phone.
“You said you’d wake me up.”
He snapped the book shut and turned to face her.
“I did wake you.”
“How did you wake me?”
“Well…….”
He paused for a moment, thinking.
“Reasonably well.”
That Ivy still hadn’t woken and kept sleeping made her exasperated with herself. She could only sigh.
“Next time, wake me up more forcefully.”
“……Next time?”
“More loudly, I mean…….”
Ivy hesitated for a moment.
“I mean, if. If something like this happens again.”
She quickly added an excuse and scrambled to her feet.
“The afternoon race—I’ll be late. I’m heading out now. You’ll make the Closing Ceremony on time, right?”
Ivy waved at Cyrus as she left the Science Lab, and Cyrus simply nodded.
As Ivy stepped into the Hallway, she walked a few steps before unconsciously bringing her hand to her cheek.
For some reason, it felt ticklish.
“……Whatever.”
She murmured absently and headed out to the Athletic Field. The afternoon sun covered her again, and Joy’s voice reached her from a distance.
“Ivy! Where have you been? The relay order changed!”
“Coming!”
It was time to flip the class president switch back on and run. The afternoon would surely be chaos as well.
Perhaps because of that.
Ivy didn’t notice another presence watching her from the direction of the Science Building as she left.

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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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