Felicia gave me a questioning look. “You did say you wanted to try out the crêpes in that new place by the entertainment arcade.”
“Eh…I guess I did.” I realized she’d been eavesdropping on me.
“So what are you waiting here for? Let’s get going.” She leaned toward me and smiled suspiciously at me. “What do you say? You’ll have three of the prettiest girls in the school keeping you company. Are you man enough to handle all three of us?”
I squared my shoulders and leaned back at her. “Ha ha. Very funny.” Suddenly my eyebrows rose sharply when the proverbial penny dropped. “Three girls?”
“Yeah. Three girls,” Felicia replied, dazzling me with her twin rows of pearly white teeth, while holding up three fingers for me to count.
Hesitantly, I looked toward the opposite side of the room and my anxious gaze fell upon a girl standing at her intelli-desk, her eyes glaring at me on an otherwise impassive yet incredibly beautiful face. She had long, almost snow blonde hair, and almond shaped emerald eyes. Her five foot six figure was trim, slender, and topped with a generous helping of womanly flesh where it counted the most – her chest.
Anri Shirohime was a goddess to us first year students and our class rep.
She was the girl I considered number two in my ranked list of goddesses, both attending and not attending the academy and while it wasn’t the first time our eyes had met, it certainly wasn’t the first time she’d glared at me. I had myself to blame for drawing her ire, and that was because my gaze inexorably travelled from her beautiful face down to her chest and settled there. It wasn’t my fault. A chest as perfectly proportioned as hers demanded attention, and it was a man’s duty to oblige. But leaving that aside, whenever I gazed upon her, I melted like warm butter.
Shirohime was a new addition to our class this year, though not the only one. Graduating from middle school to high school, there had been a reshuffling of class assignments, breaking up some of the established cliques, and requiring the hasty need to form new ones or become a resident of Lonerville for the remainder of the year. Tobias and I had moved up into Class One-Cee together, but Shirohime and a handful of other girls were brought in from other classes in an effort to accommodate new students and compensate for those that had transferred out of the academy. However, this balancing act left us with a classroom of thirty-six students where two thirds of them were girls.
I should mention that the four girls toying with the idea of inviting me to a mixer were part of the new ranks to join Class One-Cee. As such, I didn’t know them well, that is to say, I was less familiar with them than my other classmates, but equally so I knew little about Shirohime.
From her self-introduction at the beginning of the week, I’d learnt that she’d transferred to Telos Academy late last year after moving south to Ar Telica for reasons she would not disclose. When the subject of nominating a class representative arose, she volunteered for the position without batting an eyelid, leaving many of my classmates happy to be spared the need to vote for someone, and many of us wondering why anyone would volunteer in the first place since it was a problematic role to fulfill.
So here I was, moments after locking eyes with her, melting into a puddle of nervous goo as I was consumed by her beauty. However, Shirohime huffed and tossed her hair, then folded her arms brusquely under her breasts as she averted her gaze.
Clearly rejected, I felt my heart sink as I continued to melt away, until Felicia suddenly grabbed me by the shoulders and yanked me up to my feet.
“Okay, girl. Let’s go.” Still holding onto me, she spun me around with a strength that came from long hours of training at her sports club.
“Felicia—!”
“Girl, you complain too much. Onward march.”
“Wait—my bag!”
She picked it up with ease and threw the straps over my shoulder. “Come on, Princess. Let’s get going.”
There was clearly no arguing with her.
Watched by the amused Angela and the disapproving Shirohime, I was marched along by Felicia. Overwhelmed by her surprising strength, my ego took the blow and then withered up on the floor of my psyche, unable to handle the truth that a girl was so much stronger than I was.
The trio ensured I didn’t run away, and thus escorted me down to the shoe lockers. After swapping my indoor shoes for my outdoor ones, Felicia and Angela flanked me as the four of us departed the academy’s high-school building and made our way across the wide entrance, heading toward the mag-lev station.
- II -
Telos Academy was built upon Telos Island, aptly named after the Telos Conglomerate or Corporation that leased it from the city-state governing authority some three decades ago. The island was one of three plateaued rocks rising from the waters of the horseshoe shaped harbor that was several kilometers wide.
A broad bridge connected the island to Ar Telica city’s Ring Zero. It was long enough to span the kilometer distance from the island to the harbor shore, and wide enough to support four lanes of vehicular traffic. Sidewalks ran on either side of the bridge, used by thousands of students in the mornings and afternoons. Those students that didn’t care for walking over the bridge could travel aboard the overhead maglev service that looped over to the island and back to the city. The entrance to Telos Academy was scarcely two hundred meters away from the foot of the bridge, and only a hundred meters from the maglev station.
As I exited the academy grounds, surrounded by Angela and Felicia, with Class Rep trailing behind us, I inwardly debated suggesting we take the bridge. I didn’t exercise much outside of physical education class, and the walk would do me some good. After all, it was rare for Tobias and I to head off in separate ways, and whenever we left together he made it a habit for us to catch the maglev back to the city. Thus I considered a change of pace might be good for me, but the girls had other ideas, and guided me toward the steps leading up to the elevated mag-lev station.
After climbing the steps, I joined the throng of students pushing their way to the entrance. When it was my turn, I swiped my student ID over the turnstile scanner, and once past the butterfly gates, I headed for the platform. For a few seconds, I lost sight of the girls and breathed a sigh of relief, thinking that if I couldn’t see them, then they couldn’t see me. But my freedom was short lived. A hand snaked out between the waiting students and grabbed me by the arm, pulling me to where the trio were grouped together.
“No running away,” Felicia quipped, then glanced up the line. “Oh, it’s here.”
The mag-lev swooshed down the line and pulled up to the platform with a loud hiss. As soon as the doors opened with a hiss of their own, the stampede to get aboard began in earnest. I was pushed and shoved and generally carried along by the wave of students eager to board the mag-lev. Somehow I ended up squished between a handful of senior students, all of them towering around me. For several seconds I believed I was still stuck in middle-school. Nothing had changed, and clearly not my lack of height, so I proverbially battened down the hatches, and tucked in my arms over my carry-bag.
Though the mag-lev pulled away smoothly, I struggled to maintain my balance, and so too did a number of the students around me. Bodies shifted about as they sought better footing. Bumped from behind, I was pitched face first into someone’s chest, realizing only moments later that the softness cushioning the impact was a pair of voluptuous breasts wrapped in a bra and white school blouse. With my nose filled with the scent of a girl’s perfume, I hastily pulled back ready to apologize, but the words died on my lips at sight of the girl’s angry face.
Despite our cramped surroundings, Anri Shirohime succeeded in raising a hand and delivering a slap that sounded as loud as it was hard, and for a few seconds I saw stars circling around me head. Unfortunately, as the mag-lev swayed someone again pushed me from behind, and once more I was pitched into her glorious bust.
- III -
“I said I was sorry,” I repeated for the umpteenth time as I walked with Felici
a, Angela, and a furiously red Class Rep out of the mag-lev station situated a few hundred feet from the entertainment complex located in Ring Zero. All four of us were walking toward it since the crêpe shop was situated within the complex that was also home to the multi-level gaming arcade I frequented often enough to consider it a home away from home.
“So how were they?” Felicia asked.
“Huh?” I gave her a perplexed look.
“Her bust. How was it?”
I gaped like a fish out of water, and blushed hotly as the memory of being nestled between Class Rep’s immense bosom pushed all other thoughts aside.
Felicia’s laugh sounded distant. “Hey, Anri. Do you see that? Your breasts left him speechless. You took his breath away.”
Shirohime’s eyebrows twitched. “Don’t call me, Anri.”
“Oh come on now, we’re all friends. You can me Feli. And you can call her Ange. And you can call her Cass—I mean you can call him, Cass.”
“No, I’ll just stick to calling him a pervert.” The glare Shirohime directed at me blew away the memory I had of her breasts cushioning my face. “He may not look manly but he’s just as perverted.”
I blinked sharply and glowered at her. “Hey, that’s not fair. I wasn’t trying to bury my face in your chest. I was pushed. How many times do I have to tell you?”
“Pushed? Five times?” Shirohime looked ready to slap me again. “And the last time you didn’t even bother moving away.”
“Ah—” My voice caught and I floundered for a several seconds. “Well. I didn’t see the point.”
Felicia chuckled, but Shirohime looked moments away from going ballistic. “What was that?”
“Well, if I was going to get pushed again, what was the point of trying to avoid it?”
“You mean you deliberately stuck your face in my chest?”
I shook my head weakly. “I didn’t do it deliberately. I just gave up trying not to.”
Shirohime circled around Felicia and approached me. “You little pervert.”
I stared up at her. “You’re not going to hit me again, are you?”
“I have every intention of pummeling you into the ground.”
Angela snuck into the argument. “Class Rep, you’re setting a bad example. You’re supposed to look out for your classmates, not beat them up.”
Shirohime shot the blonde girl a heated look. “For him, I’m willing to break the rules.”
Felicia stepped in between Shirohime and I. “Now, now. No harm done. Anri, you’ve just made all of her—I mean his—Christmases come together.”
“Anjeur!” Shirohime scowled at her.
Felicia wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “Girl. You are way to tense.” Then she leaned closer to Shirohime and whispered softly into her. The effect was immediate as Shirohime paled then became despondent.
I strained to listen but all I could catch was, “…besides…want to…closer…him…?”
Shirohime exhaled quietly, then folded her arms under her bust as looked away with an embarrassed look on her face. “Fine. You have a point….”
Felicia gave her a friendly shake. “You’ll see. It’ll all work out in the end.”
Shirohime pouted. “It better work out….” She flicked an annoyed glance at me.
I put the words together in my head.
You want to get closer to him.
Puzzled as I thought it through, I experienced a weird sensation run through me, and soon felt invisible fingers squeeze my heart as I watched the goddess Anri Shirohime sulk while standing before me. My thoughts jumped over several possibilities before landing on one that felt like falling on a bed of nails.
Could it be that she likes someone…and that someone isn’t me…but that someone has something to do with me?
I couldn’t endure standing on that possibility, so with my heart beating painfully in my chest, I turned away and walked with stiff steps toward the entertainment complex, arriving a minute later at the crêpe shop with its colorful pink entrance and light pastel colored walls.
But the only someone that I know is…Mat.
I stared up at the shop’s entrance.
When life gives you lemons, make lemonade.
I sucked in a lungful of air until my chest hurt, briefly overwhelming the pain in my heart, and strode up to the shop’s entrance. However, I soon realized what I was doing and came to an abrupt stop.
With its colorful façade, I judged this shop was built to cater for girls. It wasn’t the kind of place you expected to find a boy from our Academy unless he was in the company of a girlfriend, or someone he was courting. In fact, as I looked through its front windows, I could see girls from Telos Academy occupied all the chairs at the tables. This was not an appropriate place for someone aspiring to one day be a manly young man. At that realization, a strong wave of uncertainty washed through me, and I began backing away from the entrance, coming to a stop when I felt hands on my shoulders.
“Seriously,” Felicia said, “you can be a handful. Why’d you run off?”
“I didn’t run off. I walked off,” I replied gloomily.
“Well, whatever. But what are you doing now?”
“Leaving.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t think this is a good idea,” I retorted as she pushed me firmly toward the shop doors. “Wait—you’re going the wrong way.”
“No, I’m not.”
“No, seriously. I can’t do this.”
“Yes, you can. I invited you and we’re here now. And I happen to be quite hungry. So enough procrastinating. It’s not like you’re getting married, so why are you suddenly getting cold feet?”
This was almost as bad as when the girls of the Cosplay Club walked into my classroom a year ago and surrounded my desk while I was eating alone during lunchtime, Tobias having run off on some errand the details of which I can’t recall. I had honestly feared for my life back then.
No, this isn’t nearly as bad as that occasion.
However, I didn’t realize how wrong I was until the group of us walked into the shop, its interior proving to be far larger than I imagined, and decked out like a family restaurant with tables, chairs, and booths. Within moments of entering the establishment, a young waitress guided the four of us to a booth with a window view. With Felicia pushing me gently from behind, I trailed after the waitress, thus I was the first to walk by another booth with two people in it – a guy and a girl.
I hadn’t even intended to look at them, but an involuntary glance turned into a surprised stare as my eyes met those of Tobias, and both of us jerked sharply at sight of each other.
“Cass?”
“Mat?”
“What are you doing here?”
“I was invited. What about you?”
Tobias looked distinctly uncomfortable as his gaze flickered over to the girl sitting directly opposite him. My heart groaned in agony and my stomach sank when I recognized the attractive brunette sitting there.
Monique Valjean looked up at me while licking the long spoon she was using to eat her parfait. “You must be Cassidy,” she said, a smirk curling her lips as she eyed me.
“My name is Ronin,” I corrected her.
She tapped her lips with the spoon. “You really do look like a girl.”
“Huh?” I glared down at her.
She waved the spoon at me. “A change of uniform and no one would ever think you were a boy.” She glanced at Tobias. “What do you think Mat? Should we get him a girl’s uniform?”
Standing rigidly, I restrained the sudden urge to punch her, going only so far as to clench my hands into fists.
Tobias’s voice sounded somewhat strangled. “Ah, I don’t know….”
Valjean arched her eyebrows at him, while I scowled at his non-committal reply.
“Really?” she asked. “I think she’d look rather cute.”
Tobias grew even more uncomfortable, but when he looked at me I wondered if he was giving her pr
oposal some degree of consideration. However, seeing the glare on my face, he shook his head faintly and muttered, “No, that wouldn’t be a good idea.” He swallowed hard and shook his head a little more strongly, affirming his opinion. “No, that would be a really bad idea.”
“Well I beg to differ,” she replied, and looked meaningfully at Tobias. “What do you think, Mat? Shall we get him a dress?”
Tobias regarded her reproachfully, sounding distinctly irritated. “Enough with the dress. Okay? Just drop it.”
Valjean’s eyes narrowed. “Mat, I don’t like your tone.”
“And I don’t appreciate you making fun of Cass.”
Her eyes narrowed further. “Are you forgetting who you’re talking to?”
“I’m not.”
“Are you forgetting what I told you?”
He regarded her stonily for a moment. “No, I haven’t. And that’s precisely why I’m telling you to drop it.”
Valjean rose smoothly from the booth seat. “Mat, you and I need to have a little talk.”
“Clari—I mean Monique. Sit down.”
She raised her eyebrows at him before breaking into a wicked smile. “That little slip will cost you, Matrim.”
The waitress attending to us chose to intervene by addressing me. “Ah, Miss—I mean, Sir? This way please.”
Valjean whipped her attention back onto me. “Hey Cassidy. I heard a rumor. I want you to tell me if it’s true or not?”
There are times I’ve wondered if I should have just walked away. Would it have made a difference in even the slightest way? Perhaps not. But back then, I did wonder if I’d made the wrong move.
“What rumor?” I asked her coldly, aware that Tobias was suddenly looking worried as well as confused.
Valjean slipped out between the bench seat and the table, and then stepped up to me. “I heard that you cross-played as the Silver Blue Princess.”
I felt a cold wind blow through me, sweeping away my thoughts, leaving me empty. My legs buckled and I stumbled back a step, feeling my heart pound loudly within my chest, frantically beating against my ribs as despair burst through me, filling the emptiness the wind had left behind.
Gun Princess Royale: Awakening the Princess, Book One Page 3
