My Stepmom is Too Pretty, and It’s Troubling Me – Chapter 111

“Hey, how long are you going to keep sleeping like that?”

“Ugh… is it already over?”

“I’m serious… Why are you here at the Academy if you’re just going to sleep through class?”

“Ugh… I wonder why I even came…”

…Ella sitting next to me poked me to wake me up.

…Now that I think about it, I had indeed spent the time sleeping from the first class to the fourth.

I did wake up in between, but since the class was boring, I just fell back asleep.

“Ugh… ugh… phew…”

Stretching and checking the time, I realized it was precisely lunchtime.

Honestly, there weren’t many other kids sleeping like I was, but what could I do? The classes were just too boring.

If the classes were even mildly interesting, I might have been more inclined to stay awake…

“Sigh…”

“How can you sleep through all the classes from the first hour?! Did you not sleep at all last night?”

“Huh? Not really?”

“Then why…?”

“Well, when it comes to sleep, if you want to, you can definitely sleep more.”

Really.

I’ve felt that way for ages; sleep just works that way. If you really want to sleep, you can go for a long time.

Plus, sitting in a somewhat warm classroom and listening to tedious, drowsy material meant it was unavoidable.

It really was super boring…

Logically, how could anyone not be bored listening to this for an extended period?

I already knew all the content anyway, and since the Academy instructors didn’t wake me up, me sleeping was… an inevitable event.

“Ella, shall we go for lunch?”

“You kept me waiting because you wouldn’t get up!”

“…Oh, right.”

It was lunchtime, but it had already been about five minutes, and there were no other students left in the classroom.

For sure…

“Let’s get up. Karen will be coming soon too.”

“Right, I should have woken up faster!”

“What can I do if I’m sleepy? And couldn’t you have woken me up a little earlier, Ella?”

“Huh?”

“Anyway, let’s get up.”

And so I stood from my seat.

By the way… it has only been three days since I started attending the Academy, but it feels like I haven’t properly attended a class.

“…Should we try attending the afternoon classes?”

“You didn’t do anything at all for the last two days…?”

“Um.”

“Are you an idiot?!”

“Well, that’s a possibility.”

Anyway, I got up with Ella and was about to go look for Karen.

I was about to go look…

“Huh!?”

“…Sister?”

As soon as I opened the door, there was Karen, so there was no need to search.

Karen was startled by my sudden opening of the door and almost stumbled right there.

…Well, in the end, it turned out to be a good thing, right?

“I-I was looking for you because you weren’t coming down to the first floor…”

“Oh.”

“I-I’m so sorry…!”

“No, Sister…? You really didn’t have to…”

It seems Karen was a bit shaken since the timing of me opening the door was quite sudden.

If it had been a regular day, she wouldn’t have been particularly worried, but… this time the timing was the issue. She looked a little more shocked than usual.

“Sister, could you please… get up first?”

“Ah, y-yes! I’ll get up…! Sorry…!”

Anyway, after helping the startled Karen back up, we set off for lunch.

Of course, I first picked up our Rize before heading to the campus restaurant, and so the four of us set out for lunch.

Since lunchtime was quite generous in time, I had told Rize to meet us at the front of the Academy main building around lunchtime.

It didn’t really take up much time.

“What do you all want to eat?”

“I-I’m fine with anything…!”

“Whatever the young lady and Misses desire is more than enough for me.”

“…It seems there’s no one else who can make a decision besides us two, Ella.”

“…True.”

Even though the four of us were walking together, it seemed only Ella and I were involved in decision-making.

Well, at least we were still on our way to the restaurant, so that was a relief, right?

“I’m okay with something light. What about you, Ella?”

“I’m rather hungry, you know… unlike some people, I’ve actually been paying attention in class… um…”

Hmm… for sure.

Unlike me, who hadn’t been paying attention at all, Ella was somewhat diligent in attending classes.

Besides, Karen probably paid attention in class too, so we might as well find somewhere decent to fill our stomachs, right?

Honestly, I would have been fine with just a slice of cake from the cafe.

“Shall we just go into a nice-looking store? We don’t really know where all the restaurants are yet… and neither does Karen…”

“Ah…”

“…because she doesn’t know that much about the restaurants on the Academy campus…”

…In many ways, Karen’s Academy experience was a bit pitiful.

Though I’d often heard stories from Karen, who had entered the Academy before us, most of them were… somewhat sad.

Starting from the times she ate alone because there was no one else to have lunch with at the Academy.

There was even a time she almost got caught eating bread alone in the bathroom, and it scared her.

Hmm… hmm…

…Thinking back, it really does seem a bit unfortunate.

“…Let’s just go into a suitably decorated place and sort things out.”

That’s just what I decided to do.

After all, it’s not like we all really wanted something specific to eat, so we didn’t have to overthink it.

Plus, since there were still plenty of restaurants left on Academy campus… we could just try out a different place each day?

*

“Yawn…”

“Are you going to sleep again?”

“…I’m thinking about it.”

After lunch, I rested my face on the desk before the fifth class started.

If I buried my forehead on the desk, it could get pretty painful, right?

But if I laid my face on the side, it wouldn’t leave marks as easily, and the desk’s surface was cool, which wasn’t too bad at all.

“…And I was even considering bringing a small pillow next time.”

“Seriously… if you’re going to do this, how did you end up getting such good exam scores?”

“…I thought that was average, you know.”

I had no clue about my exact ranking.

It wasn’t important enough to even ask the Information Guild.

Yet, despite that, Ella had been aware since the beginning that I received high scores.

“By the way, are they not going to change the dormitory rooms based on the class assignment exam…?”

“…Sigh.”

“…Maybe it’s better to buy a new pillow.”

“Don’t sleep, pay attention in class. Do you have any idea how hard it is for me when the teachers look our way?”

“Ah.”

Hmm.

I hadn’t really thought about that.

“So, I’m saying you should at least try to look awake this time!”

“…I’ll try.”

Well, I’d gotten enough sleep at night, and considering I napped from the first class to the fourth, I shouldn’t feel sleepy now.

…Yeah, I definitely did sleep a lot.

The fifth class was on Imperial language and Imperial literature… basically a literature class. And it was also quite boring.

We just looked at and studied notably classic literature and lyrical poetry, which was just… that kind of time?

Besides that, there were various Academy classes like basic mana study, basic magic and elementary magic basics, Imperial history, etiquette, and more… but this was definitely the least interesting one.

I did try to talk a little with Ella to stay awake, but… honestly, it felt impossible.

“Ella.”

“What’s up?”

“…It seems like it’s been a while since I opened a textbook.”

“…Aren’t we off-topic?”

“Anyway, since I’m not going to be paying attention in class, I’ll just read the literature part in the textbook during class to pass the time.”

“H…”

Isn’t this better than sleeping during class?

At least I was reading the Academy’s textbook, and even if we weren’t on the same page… still, I wasn’t sleeping!

Besides, all the literary works here were things I’d already read at least once during my younger days.

As I was chatting with Ella, the bell for the fifth class started ringing, and the instructor walked into the classroom.

She looked about mid-twenties and quite serious just from her appearance.

Hmm… I don’t think there’s much age difference between her and Rosalyn, but they just can’t compare.

“…Huh.”

Suddenly, I found myself missing Rosalyn.

We had been exchanging letters quite frequently since I arrived at the Academy, but still… it wasn’t on a level where we could meet and talk face-to-face.

“…Ella.”

“Yeah, what is it?”

The instructor was about to say something to start the class, but I wasn’t paying much attention.

Since I already knew the content, all that mattered in the end was scoring well on the tests.

“Wake me up when class ends. I want to go to the snack bar.”

“…Huh? No… you…?”

As class had already started, Ella couldn’t yell like before.

Thanks to that, she couldn’t disturb me from sleeping, and I began to doze off, resting my head on the desk.

I was already somewhat feeling down and given how boring the class was, I just didn’t care.

It had been more than a month since I last saw Rosalyn.

There was honestly no way not to miss her. I had actually wanted to see her for weeks now…

…Is it just my imagination, but was I wanting to see her even more now that I was thinking about it?

“…Tch.”

I wasn’t feeling all that great.