About an hour of agonizing explanation later, I was finally making some progress with Marion. Somewhere along the way he stopped trying to regale me with flowery lines and began to diligently study, and I was happy to see that he could actually apply himself. 

Marion seemed to be very impressionable, which was likely why a single harsh word could make him cry. The reverse was also true. Every time I said something even slightly positive about his work, his orange eyes lit up like the sunset and he tried even harder, so I began begrudgingly encouraging him.

The others had already abandoned us. Asa was deep in a discussion with the librarian, gesticulating energetically as he nodded in response to her words. Rixton had loosened his watchful stance and was paging through a book on knighthood. Camellia was fast asleep at the table, head propped up on the crook of her arm. 

Since Marion was engrossed in a problem for once, I turned in my seat between them and took a closer look at her snoozing face. Her eyelashes were long, and I realized they were the same translucent white as her hair. If she didn't react with such passion to every little thing I said or did and acted as subdued as she looked asleep, I might have thought she was a ghost.

She was smiling, and drooling a little. I wondered if she was having a good dream. I reached out and poked her round cheek, watching my finger press an indent into the pale skin until it turned slightly pink.

"What are you doing?" I hastily withdrew my hand and whipped around to face Marion, trying not to stare at the offending finger. I have no idea what I was doing. "I was watching you two in the cafeteria earlier. You really get along with the prince's fiancée, don't you?" He chuckled. "And she doesn't seem to hate you as much as she did initially."

That was surprisingly observant of Marion. I peered at him with narrowed eyes. "Of course. After all, I have no designs on the prince. Once she realizes that, I'm sure she'll halt her antagonism."

Marion leaned forward, put an elbow on the table, and let his head flop against it to peer over at me. "So you've no designs on the prince? What about having designs on me? I wouldn't mind that at all."

I scoffed. "You? You don't have room for me in your life, with your harem of women."

He had the nerve to look aggrieved. "I have no romantic interest in those women. They just come to me when they need help, and I help them." Almost on cue, a shriek resounded from above us.

A girl appeared out of nowhere, toppling from a ladder leaned up against a shelf. Marion reached out automatically and caught her one-handed, pulling her into a secure embrace. "Are you okay?"

The girl swooned in his arms. I picked a piece of lint from underneath my nail.

"I-I-I'm fine, Lord Marion." He released her with a smile, patting her head in an affectionate manner.

"That's good. Next time, be careful on those ladders."

As the girl stumbled away, I gave Marion an assessing look. "You realize that's why they always fall for you." Usually literally. The noble girls at this academy always seemed to be doing drastic things to get Marion's attention. Either that or there was something in the original game’s mechanics that made Marion a literal girl magnet. "You're going to keep stringing people along if you keep 'helping' them, you know."

"Am I supposed to just let them get hurt?" He shook his head. "I can't do that. It's in my nature to be kind to women."

I turned away from him. A lock of hair had fallen across Camellia's face, and I absently brushed it away. "I understand wanting to help people, but if you ever plan to devote yourself to someone, splitting your attention too much might hurt them."

The hair was no longer in her face, but I couldn’t seem to stop my traitorous hand from caressing the delicate strands at her temple. "If it were me, I would want the one I love to look only at me."

I expected Marion to say something cheesy along the lines of ‘can I be that person?,’ but he was surprisingly quiet.

Maybe I was being a little obvious in my display of affection that even a dunce like Marion could take a hint.

But right now, I'm the heroine. 

Does that mean I'm not allowed to feel like this?