I Don’t Want to be an Ojakgyo (23)

“Why?”

When I asked why she didn’t eat, Shushu scratched the back of her head as she made an excuse.

“Oh, that’s…… I needed to finish making the project model. And I wasn’t that hungry.”

Shushu’s face hardened as she responded. Then, she muttered “….why am I making excuses?” to herself. I could see Shushu’s scarlet eyes peering at my expression. Shushu pretended, but she was slightly scared of my face. I tried my best to keep soften my expressions by relaxing my eyes and smiled. Shushu relaxed slightly at my expression and replied.

“And you, Cory, you don’t eat proper meals either. Why are you saying that to only me?”

Shushu whined as she pouted. I remembered what the prince told me at Shushu’s words.

‘Shuraina’s gotten a lot lazier because of you.’

I suddenly felt guilty and hurriedly checked the clock. If we went now, we could still get a sandwich.

“…..let’s go eat.”
“What, now? I’m really okay though.”

Shushu kept saying no, but I dragged Shushu with me to the cafeteria and got two sandwiches. Then, even though I was trying to not eat before, I ended up eating a sandwich.

I worried that the snacks that I was bringing to the club were a bad influence to Shushu, and wondered if I should bring less snacks in the future.

Once all classes had ended, I headed to the third year classes. There was someone I had to meet.

After going up the stairs, I headed to the third year blue class. Class was over so most students should have left, but that person probably stayed.

When I opened the classroom door, there was a man with orange hair like Shushu’s who was sitting crooked on his chair. He seemed bored; he was twirling a pen with his hand on the desk, then saw me and waved his hand.

With his long orange hair tied in a high ponytail, the boy’s silver eyes held a dangerous look. The ends of his eyes were tilted downwards in a bow shape, but he didn’t seem to be smiling at all. But I didn’t give too much thought to it. He was always like that.

“Haha, isn’t it sir Cory?”

Yvnes Lunaasha. The boy in front of me was called Yvnes Lunaasha. He was the son of the kingdom’s most powerful merchant group, the Lunaasha Merchant Group. He was young, but he was incredibly rich. But he wasn’t rich only because he was the son of the merchant group head.

Yvnes had been financially active ever since he was young. He had a history of asking his father for his percentage of the merchant group, then increasing the worth of it in multiples.

Moreover, the head of the group had persuaded him to combine their assets, and he was currently working at the proxy head of the merchant group. He had skill for someone so young.

When Yvnes came towards me, I looked at him and opened his mouth.

“The item?”

When I went directly to the main topic, Yvnes put his hand on my head and opened his mouth. His face seemed to hide some sort of plan and made him look like he was full of himself.

“My little junior, you’re going straight to the subject without even properly greeting me?”

I slapped Yvnes’ hand off of my head, then took out some magic stones from my pocket and showed him. Yvnes’ crescent-shaped eyes opened slightly.

He held up each of the magic stones from my hands and awed.

“Oh, as always! The magic stones that you crafted are always great. I’m always awed when I see it, you know?”

Yves laughed again.

“Then I’ll gratefully take these again.”

Yvnes took the stones from me, then put a box with something in it onto my palm.

“There’s more people looking for Shunivalen’s newest magic items these days, so it’s gotten hard to collect. It’s like trying to pick a star from the sky, you know? This was the only one in an auction. I barely got it.”
“Okay. You did well.”
“Haha, hearing such a compliment from my esteemed junior makes me so happy. Oh, right. I have something to tell you.”

I received the item, so I had no more business to do with him. The longer I stayed, the more I would lose from him. Last time, he tricked me with a rumor about Shunivalen and made me buy items that I didn’t even need. I turned around and hurriedly exited the classroom.

Yvnes looked at Cory, who had left without hearing everything he had to say, and wiped off his sales smile off of his face.

His silver eyes went back to their normal size and glinted dangerously.

“Hmm, his instincts really have gotten stronger than before.”

Yvnes looked at the magic stones in his hand.

“But it would’ve been good for him to listen to this one.”

He dusted off his seat as he stood up.

“I was going to tell you that I’m going to meet the Shunivalen that you like so much.”

Well, he was going to ask him to pay up for that information, but. No, maybe Cory already knew?

Muttering to himself, Yvnes also headed out of the classroom.

Chapter 4. I Don’t Want a Merchant Head’s Son

I didn’t know if it was just my mood, but it always felt like the last day of the semester had great weather. My eyes fluttered slightly at the pouring sunshine.

I raised my hand to shield myself from the sun. My hand’s shadow let me open my eyes properly.

At the main entrance of the academy, there were countless carriages and unhose (magical items that you could ride on) waiting. There were also people busily moving back and forth carrying luggage.

I had already mailed all of my items a while back, so I just needed to carry myself into my carriage. It was always a good idea to keep the carriage as empty as possible. Harun always had a lot of luggage.

And just as I thought, after a few moments of waiting for Harun, I felt like the carriage sat a bit lower than before. Then Harun entered, and he explained that there were some things that couldn’t fit in the luggage holder and had to bring in to the carriage. He then placed them on the bottom of our seats.

Seeing how messy and busy Harun was, it truly felt like vacation had begun.

“Shushu.”

I was staring out the window with my head on my hand when I heard a voice calling my name. I sat blankly before turning my head.

Right on the opposite side of me, the DuBois unhose was parked. As expected of a powerful magic family, they weren’t using a horse-driven carriage but a magically powered unhose. I stared at the unhose before looking at Cory.

Cory opened the glass window of the unhose and called my name again. When I met his eyes, he held out a poster from his pocket. That poster was one of the posters we had collected during club hours when we were discussing what we wanted to do during vacation.

“I”m going to order something from Third Street’s Miss Bakery. I want strawberry tart.”
“I want grape.”
“Okay, you’re getting a grape tart. What did Hylli say he wanted to eat?”
“Apple.”

He also had his head propped on his hand, then smiled a much gentler smile than in the past.

“Contact me, please. If you need a helper for managing requests or creating magical items, don’t forget me either.”

At his words, I breathed onto the window to create steam and drew a circle on the window. Cory smiled and said that he would visit with some tart, and I drew a smiley face on the window.

The carriage began moving to begin our journey home, and I waved goodbye to Cory.

I didn’t think that I would have anything to do during vacation except work on requests, but there was a lot more than I had initially thought. I needed to play with Hylli and Cory in the city, I needed to go to Hestia’s house to play and work on vacation homework, I needed to visit Hazel’s home and experience the beauty clinic for free and provide feedback, and I needed to play with Kareem.

Lining it all up in my head, it was all playing.

“…..wow.”

I cheered internally.

Unlike my past life, I had no circumstances that caused problems for me. It made me feel a lot more laid-back.

This was the first vacation that I had with tons of free time, and I wondered if it was okay for me to just play freely, just this once. Until now, I had worked on requests, clubs, swordsmanship classes, and had foregone sleep to work. Wouldn’t it be okay?

The carriage shook as it ran across unpaved roads. I held onto the handles in the carriage and stared out the window.

The sky was clear without a single cloud. My eyes followed the sky.

Right next to me, Harun spoke loudly in the carriage. Maybe he was excited because of vacation, maybe he was excited because he could speak with Hestia, but his voice was loud and high-pitched. The problem was just how high-pitched Harun’s voice was.

I opened the window. As soon as the wind blew, my hair blew in my face, and I floundered in my hair for a bit.

Once I was finished fixing my hair back, I looked in front to see Hestia and Harun both staring at me. Both of them had dumb expressions on their face and burst into laughter as I finished spitting out the hair that had gotten into my mouth. Apparently, they thought that I had fallen asleep while looking out the window.

Harun changed the topic from what he was talking with Hestia to me. Man, I should’ve just pretended to sleep.

“Anyway Shushu, you really never came to visit. I waited for you every day.”

My older broth, Harun, complained as if he couldn’t believe it.

I looked at Harun. Familiar sky blue hair with black eyes.

After I had entered Augran Academy, I couldn’t meet with my older brother often. It was because our classes were different, our grades were different, and nothing really coincided. Even our class times didn’t work out together, so I was studying during Harun’s breaks and Harun was in classes when I was in breaks.

When I bumped into him during the semester, he would keep me with him and told me stories about this and that and wouldn’t let me go for a while. He wanted to come over and talk often, but I was so busy that I couldn’t find the time.

I looked at Harun’s dejected form and proposed a compromise.

“Oppa, you come find me.”

When I said that with my chin still on my hand, Harun looked at me with a deadly glare.

“…….do you know how many times I came over to your class? You were never there when I went! Be honest Shushu. You’re avoiding me on purpose!”

I avoided Harun’s gaze at his words. Hestia, who was laughing at the scene in front of her, decided to poke the sleeping bear.

“Shushu said older brother Harun is annoying~.”
“Hes, shh.”
“Ugh, Shushu! Are you really going to be like this!”
“I’m gonna be like that.”

At Hestia’s words, Harun seemed shocked and murmured, “A, Annoying?” in a childlike, shocked voice.

He was bigger than me in size, and he was acting all cute when he was my blood brother. I scrunched my nose in distaste.

Did I avoid Harun on purpose during the semester……… Hmm, maybe.

I didn’t say it out loud, but in truth, that statement wasn’t completely wrong.