Leon's POV
Lex, Daniel, Raymond, and I were hanging out in my dorm room, sipping drinks and snacking.
These weren't at all the same kind of treats we prepared for the tea parties; they were high in proteins, vitamins and had the right and had the right amount of fat (yes military snacks). We even had a nutritious soda.
That went for the school uniforms, too.
"Did you guys hear?" Daniel said, munching something . "Two of the rich first-years already got engaged. The girls are some of the nice ones, too—Milly and Jessica. Wish one of the lucky guys could've been me."
Raymond clearly tried to keep a calm face even as Daniel sulked, but he still had a gloomy air.
He actually looked like he might burst into tears at any moment. I couldn't blame him; he had feelings for Milly.
"It's only natural they'd go for guys with higher status than us. We never stood a chance." Raymond paused. "Yeah, as long as Milly's happy, that's all that matters."
I'd asked the two, Lex was more ilof a tag alone as he hadn't had a crush yet.
The two of them were feeling blue.
The wealthier men had a lot more to offer the women and had been very proactive. There hadn't been much of an opening to mount a counter-attempt.
Milly and Jessica were ideal partners, the top of their class, after all. Men were starting to quarrel over women of lesser quality.
Also, things just weren't so bad for boys from families of earl rank or higher. Most of them already had partners picked out for them, as was the case with Prince Julius and Angelica.
Daniel downed his soda all at once. "There's no hope left for me this year.
The only girls left are witches!"
There were a lot of girls who looked down on men.
Raymond nodded. "We just had bad luck. I mean, we have Prince Julius and the rest of the elites in our year. Compared to them, we're nothing."
With handsome looks, social status, and tons of money, they were in a different league. We couldn't even begin to measure up. What's more, with their arranged marriages they no need to compete. No wonder they got to relax.
"Hey, Leon." Daniel turned his concern on me. "Are things going well for you? You've been with that scholarship student this whole time, right? Have you given up on marriage?"
I sipped on my juice. "I haven't given up. I've been sending out invitations, but all the girls are turning me down."
"You'll dig your own grave by being too sympathetic," Raymond lectured.
He pretended to be tough, but I knew he was worried about me.
"You've been too fixated on the scholarship girl. That's why the others won't come near you. You should put some distance between you."
Lucle had said the same thing. He'd even warned me that some upperclassmen had been forced to accept marriages with unfavorable conditions simply to avoid graduating without a partner—conditions like allowing their wives to have other lovers, even besides a demi-human servant.
How demeaning. Essentially, I'll give you an heir, but you have to financially support me and all my lovers, (just like Zola).
Even worse, some women made these contracts with multiple men in succession and siphoned off as much money as they could while they lived the high life with their lovers.
From their point of view, they were leaving heirs in their wake, so it was a fair trade.
"Leon," Daniel said suddenly, "your older brother is in the general class, right?"
"Yeah." I still wanted to drag Nicks along with me to the higher class, but he refused.
A shame. I'd have liked for us to share this misery together.
"The girls in the general class aren't bad," Daniel went on, "but for some reason the girls in the higher class…" It was true, the girls in the general class were mostly quite normal.
They were still hard to appease when it came to marriage, or so I'd heard, but they were preferable to the girls we had to please. At the very least, they didn't have slaves to wait on them.
In fact, only a certain window of women had slaves. It was frowned upon in earldom families and above, and commoners couldn't afford them.
And here I was, stuck in that super-fun middle… "You know," I said, "when I heard my brother talk about all of this, I wanted to punch him in the face. I want to be in the general class, too," I complained. "Then I wouldn't have to suffer."
Tears welled up in Raymond's eyes. "Yeah! Why does getting married have to be so hard?"
I wondered what he and Daniel would think if I said, Because we're in an otome game.
"By the way," Lex said, wiping his eyes, "have you guys heard all the fuss about Prince Julius lately?" He was probably trying to distract us from our woes.
"What about him?"
I continued nursing my drink as I listened. The prince and his cronies were far removed from the rest of us. I was curious enough to listen, but it was rather irrelevant to my life, outside of whatever Olivia got up to.
Meanwhile, there always seemed to be drama going on with the prince. Had Marie triggered one of his special events from the game or something?
"Oh, I know what you're talking about," Daniel joined in. "Marie, wasn't it? The other girls have been getting real nasty with her."
Of course they were. It was only natural, when Marie kept cozying up to His Highness.
"They're saying the bullies' ringleader is the prince's fiancée—that duke's daughter. But he yelled at her and made her quit," Raymond said. "The stories I've heard seem pretty credible. It might be legit."
I choked on my drink.
"H-hey, are you okay?" Raymond reared back in surprise.
"Do you know something about this, Leon?" Daniel asked eagerly.
I shook my head, "Nah, it just went down the wrong pipe." I wiped my mouth with a cloth, then dabbed at the cold sweat on my brow.
The event where the prince lashed out in anger at his fiancée was supposed to take place much later in the game.
To make matters worse, while Olivia and I were close, I saw no signs of her bonding with any of the love interests.
What in the world was going on?
Trying to get my mind off these things I asked
"So what are you're plans for the culture festival."
Daniel and Raymond answered
"" nothing, will just wander around looking at other students stalls"
"Hey! if you want you can help me with my tea Cafe"
""Sure why not" "
" So what about you Lex,? "
" Me!, I'm going to join the air bike races in the later stages of the festival, but I wouldn't mind joining you for a while, till Im needed. "he said with a smile.
But he had to ask something Taboo right after.
"That reminds me, since non of us has a girl I guess that means we will attend the culture dance alone."
And with that the doom and glom returned to the room.