Chapter 54: You Should Be My Partner

However, she still wanted to see the photos of Yuriko.

Under that temptation, she chose to sit down next to Yuri.

Seeing her sit, Yuri enthusiastically shared the magazine and even thoughtfully flipped to the first page where Yuriko appeared.

“Look, she’s beautiful, isn’t she?”

Nomily looked at the photo of Yuriko and Carmilla in the magazine, her brow furrowing slightly.

She flipped forward a few more pages and did not stop until there was no more content featuring Yuriko.

“Why are they all group photos?”

Yuri stared at her with a grin, flipped back to the first page, and then said to the photo as if casually, “Hey, Nomily, don’t you think Yuriko and Carmilla look like a perfect couple? Their photos look so natural together, especially these last few. I ship them so hard!”

“Wha — a couple? How can two girls look like a married couple?”

Nomily covered her small mouth and continued to browse those photos.

Looking at them now, their photos did seem quite natural.

Coupled with the magazine’s atmospheric captions — some of which were themed around romance — the knight-attired Yuriko and Carmilla really did look like a couple.

The following Villainess Series also carried an air of obsessive love.

Yuriko had been chatting with Carmilla, but hearing Yuri’s nonsense again, she ignored Carmilla and turned to Yuri.

“Yuri, don’t make jokes like that. What if people take it seriously?”

Yuri leaned back and spread her hands.

“Eh, I didn’t start it. I just saw it on the Academy Forum~”

“The Academy Forum?”

That couldn’t be right.

The weekly magazine had just gone on sale this morning; how could rumors spread so quickly?

Yuriko opened her phone and entered the Academy Forum to search for news.

After a bit of searching, she actually found a post related to her.

Looking at the category, there was actually a section dedicated entirely to her.

“When did a section get created under my name?”

Yuriko had not paid much attention to the Academy Forum lately and had no idea this existed.

She knew there was a subsection for Olesia and a section for discussing the Academy’s beauties, but when did she get her own dedicated space?

“Heh heh, you’re behind on the news. This happened two weeks ago. I even managed to become a Vice-Moderator!”

Yuri showed her phone screen, which proudly displayed the Vice-Moderator tag for Yuriko’s section.

‘You actually became a Vice-Moderator!’

Yuriko decided she would take a good look at what was happening in this section once she got back.

For now, however, she checked today’s posts.

Clicking on a post from today, Yuriko noticed the poster’s name.

“Yuri, this account named ‘Fate’s Favor’… isn’t it yours?”

Yuriko did not remember Yuri’s account name, but she remembered her profile picture.

This account had the exact same one!

“Heh heh~”

“Don’t ‘heh heh’ me! I bet half the posts in this section are yours. Your level is already so high!”

Yuriko reached out and pulled Yuri’s cheeks to both sides.

She did not dare use real strength, though, only giving them two symbolic pinches before letting go.

“It would be such a waste not to share all this firsthand information. Look, this section is completely under my thumb now. They’d kick out the moderator before they’d ever dare kick me!”

“Sigh, just don’t post anything weird in there,” Yuriko sighed.

She could not control Yuri and could only offer a few words of advice.

After all, her current persona was that of a warm and kind classmate.

“Heh heh, don’t worry. I know what to say and what not to say. I’m just posting some trivia about your life at the Academy~”

Yuriko checked; indeed, Yuri had not posted anything inappropriate.

She just shared daily tidbits every couple of days — things like what she ate or how fast she ran in Physical Education Class — details that anyone could find out with a little effort.

‘I hope she stays this well-behaved.’

Nearby, Nomily had finished reading today’s posts.

She looked up at Yuriko and then at Carmilla as if she had discovered a new world.

Her face was full of shock and disbelief, along with a hint of… jealousy?

“Yuriko, you and Carmilla… you aren’t really in that kind of relationship, are you?”

Nomily looked up with a glimmer of hope in her eyes, unaware of her own emotions.

“No, we’re just close friends. Those are just rumors started by people online. Don’t believe them, Nomily.”

Having received the answer she hoped for, Nomily let out a sigh of relief.

Yuri took in Nomily’s reaction, and seeing her relief, she turned back to Yuriko.

“But you two do seem much closer than before. You’re always stuck together after class. Are you sure you won’t actually end up as a couple one day?”

‘…’

Yuri really had a knack for speaking the truth, and Yuriko had actually considered it.

But it was just a thought.

Yuriko did not have the courage to confess to Carmilla.

Moreover, she had the goal of competing for the Star of the Academy.

She did not have the luxury of dating before that, especially with a mountain like Olesia standing in her way.

Even with her Phantom, victory was not guaranteed.

“Since you’re so worried about my love life, Yuri, why don’t you just be my girlfriend? That way, if you spread rumors, you’ll be embarrassing yourself too.”

“Eh?!”

Carmilla and Nomily cried out at the same time.

Yuriko looked at Carmilla and saw their expressions of pure shock.

She knew they had taken her joke seriously.

“Yuriko… so you actually like Yuri?” Carmilla covered her mouth in disbelief.

Did Yuriko prefer Yuri’s quirky personality over someone like her?

“I’m joking! How could you take that seriously? Yuri teases me every day, and even I get annoyed. I just wanted to stage a small counterattack.”

Clearly, the counterattack had no effect on Yuri.

Instead, it had nearly landed a critical hit on the two girls beside her.

“Is that so? Yuriko, you nearly scared me,” Carmilla let out a long breath.

Yuri hugged herself and swayed, a starstruck expression on her face.

“Oh, you nearly scared me to death! So Yuriko was just joking. I was already thinking about how many children we’d have after getting married~”

Her dramatic display made Yuriko unable to resist giving her a playful chop to the head.

“Ouch!”