I Start with a Bad Hand!

He glanced at me, who was neither standing nor sitting, then walked briskly to my side and plopped down next to me. I, still neither standing nor sitting, stared at him with a puzzled expression.

‘Ah, he wants my spot. He’s marking his territory now.’

Deep inside, even though I knew this thought was absurd, I wanted to firmly believe it. I quietly picked up my bag, willing to yield my seat to the second prince, and subtly moved to the next one. However, before I could get far, my desperate escape was thwarted by the second prince.

“Sit down.”

His command, as if to a dog, frustrated my silent attempt to disappear. Annoyed, I responded almost spitefully.

“Excuse me?”

“The professor is coming in. Sit down.”

Surprised by his words, I looked forward and indeed, the professor was already at the podium. Caught in an awkward posture, I was forced to sit down as the professor eyed me curiously. He quickly introduced himself without much fuss and began calling the students’ names.

“Dietrich Degoph.”

At the professor’s call, I quietly raised my hand instead of responding aloud. I hoped no one would pay attention to me. However, in a classroom sparsely populated with students, it was inevitable that they would notice someone sitting so close to the second prince.

The expression on the second prince’s face was one of surprise when I raised my hand.

“It must be because of the name.”

Though I hadn’t counted, whenever I introduced myself as “Dietrich,” people often reacted like the second prince did. Once, someone even whispered to a friend, “That’s my uncle’s name…”

While I was lost in these thoughts, trying not to consciously acknowledge the second prince sitting beside me, his name was also called.

“Icarus Del Ros.”

Icarus Del Ros. Icarus. I rolled the name around in my mind.

Despite the sound of it, it had always felt somewhat ominous since I first heard it. This was separate from my personal grievances against the second prince.

To name a child after a mythological figure who flew too close to the sun and fell to his death.

‘It’s like naming someone after Niagara Falls or Grand Canyon.’

But soon after, I dismissed the thought, reasoning, “Yes, perhaps there is no Greek or Roman mythology in this world, and it could mean something different from the real world.” Then, I firmly gripped my pen to focus on the lecture that had just started. Not even five minutes into the class, my instincts, honed by twelve years of formal education and four years of higher education, had recognized something. This class was insane.

From the dreadful name, “Translation of Thomple Regional Studies through the Historical Conflicts of Modern Cabaluna Continent,” I should have realized, but the class was horrendous beyond comparison to its name. Every word the professor uttered was familiar, yet they merely brushed past my ears.

At that moment, I wondered if the structure of the imperial language that remained in Dietrich’s mind had collapsed. Or perhaps, the professor was a spy from an enemy country intent on destroying the Thomple Empire. “Otherwise, there is no way he could dumb down the students in such a cunning manner.”

It was only the first class, but the professor was sucking the passion for learning out of me like a leech. The exam method was even more appalling. The professor announced that instead of exams, we must submit reports throughout the semester. The moment he uttered the first syllable of “report,” it felt as if a cold dagger was plunged into my heart.

To think I have to write thirty pages of reports twice during the semester! Recalling my countless useless reports written through sleepless nights instantly cooled my hands.

Amidst this dreadful class, the fact that the second prince was sitting next to me didn’t matter at all. No way this class was suitable for freshmen. I became curious about the person who had included such a brutal class in the curriculum for freshmen. “No wonder the second prince was attending this class!”

Although it seemed he had attended school sporadically, the second prince was still in a higher grade than Dietrich. No matter how reckless, a prince wouldn’t attend a class meant for freshmen.

During the remaining class time, I spent tearful moments repenting for my past actions of excluding lists with all sorts of fussiness.

***

“Dietrich?”

Exhausted by the soul-draining class, I was packing up my things when a low voice resounded nearby. Due to the intensity of the class, the second prince’s presence had faded. His significant presence had been blurred by the truly insane class.

With the end of the class, the second prince suddenly tightened the loosened strings of my tension.

“What is it?”

The second prince had now turned his body entirely towards me.

“Your parents must be indifferent too. I thought it was a name only given to boys.”

The nobility of this empire was astoundingly frivolous.

It seemed that the second prince had already received hints from either the Elexion lineage or the unknown princes, who were like young eaglets. If the second prince had only spoken up to that point, like I did with Evan, I could have casually dismissed it with, “Ah, yes. Just, well…”

But then, the second prince leaned in and whispered in my ear.

“Not even knowing whether the adopted child they’d bring into the family was a male or female. Now I see the Duke of Elexion has chosen wisely.”

“Ah, but this guy, really.”

Of course, there was something about Dietrich’s name. It did evoke the image of a general who might bear the expression of a sated lion in the snowy north. It wasn’t quite fitting for someone like ‘Dietrich.’

However, just as one might feel a surge of emotion when someone else criticizes their mother’s cooking as being terrible, regardless of its actual taste, it was human nature to feel a twinge at such moments.

I agreed that Baron and Baroness Degoph might not have had an excellent sense of naming, but I didn’t want to hear it from someone else. It was unbearable to think that they were being compared to the scoundrels of the Elexion family just because they lacked a bit in naming sense.

Moreover, I didn’t want to receive such sarcastic comments about the name from Icarus, a person whose name was on the level of ‘Niagara Fall.’ Frankly, any name seemed better than ‘Niagara Fall.’

Eventually, I broke my principle of being ‘invisible like air, unseen,’ and responded to the second prince’s shallow provocation.

“It’s a name given in accordance with an old legend from my hometown. It’s a name given to a girl to ward off misfortune and wish for long-lasting happiness, filled with affection.”

I made sure to press each word firmly, desperately hoping that my insinuation that ‘just by the name, I will live longer than you’ would resonate with him. To my surprise, he lifted the corners of his mouth and laughed.

“You speak when you choose to.”

“You didn’t even give me a chance to speak.”

In the moment, the words blurted out, and I wanted to punch Icarus right in the face.

“I overdid it.”

Sitting next to the second prince wasn’t a good sign to begin with, and there was no need to prolong the conversation further. Although it had only been a week since I had joined the academy, it wasn’t difficult to understand how loose-lipped its members could be.

Getting further entangled with the second prince would surely lead to rumors. Even without intentionally looking, the second prince, who shone brightly, invalidated my efforts to maintain a blurry impression. Simply sitting next to him seemed to force me into the same spotlight, despite my attempts to appear dim and unfocused!

Regardless of how wretched I felt, fortunately, the second prince didn’t seem too upset by my somewhat retort-like response. Just as he was about to speak again…

“Icarus.”

A voice suddenly called out the second prince’s name. Curious about the bold soul who called him, I glanced towards the source of the sound and saw the crown prince standing there.

Damn, just when I thought he was calling out names!

Luckily, it seemed I was hidden from view by Icarus. After speaking to someone in the hallway, the crown prince flashed a slight smile. Such a smile from the ‘icy’ crown prince was usually reserved for Roxanne, so she must have been waiting outside.

“Well, that defeats the purpose of avoiding the class.”

It was like trying to escape a tiger only to embark on a safari tour.

Icarus glanced back in response to the call, gave a casual wave as if to acknowledge, and then looked back down at me with an exaggerated expression of regret, shrugging his shoulders.

“I’d like to talk more, but unfortunately, I must go now.”

Waving his hand dismissively, he quickly reached the classroom door with his long strides. Watching the back of the second prince, which could double as a door, I felt as shredded as a zookeeper mauled by a giraffe.

Let’s retract.