"And this, my friends, marks the end of this story, yet also the beginning of the sweetest love story of the Imperial Academy."
Daniel Whitedawn deliberated, letting his voice trail away and echo throughout the room. There was a short moment of silence among the Salvation Club, followed by the harmony of applause that could almost match the energy from when the club was first formed.
Jay Short raised his hand to demand attention, though Daniel was too drowned in his emotions to notice. Jay eventually gave up and asked without permission, "So is this story actually true?"
"Without exaggeration," Daniel replied, shaking his head rhythmically with his eyes shut, "I still remember the moment when they stared into each other's eyes with that bittersweet affection. I couldn't help but feel like I was the backdrop for a romantic play."
William tilted his head in skepticism and whispered to the group of people sitting next to him, "Yeah, I can't imagine that."
"I can see that happening between any two people BUT Nathan Modernson and Jennifer Lumendra," Leo also whispered in his own circle.
Neither of them could hear each other over the distance, but Ash Robert, who was sitting backward on a chair that happened to be between the two groups, heard both comments and tried his best to hold back his laughter. "Weren't you there, David?" he called out to David. "Is Daniel telling the truth?"
"I was still in the manor," David said with a relaxed smile. After dwelling on Nathan's intentions and failing to find any reasonable answer, David Edmonds eventually relinquished the matter and simply felt fortunate that his clan's secret was no longer on the verge of exposure. That was, if he didn't mess with Nathan Modernson, which he never planned to do anyway. If he could get someone as powerful as him as his true companion, then there was only good news that everything had turned out this way.
Amidst the chaos, the door of the Salvation Club was pushed open, revealing Nathan and Jennifer standing side by side. They were arguing about something, though the atmosphere wasn't as heated as usual.
"Actually," Nathan said with sarcasm, "your refusal is a very clear breach of the fourth commandment AND the ninth commandment. Miss Lumendra, you are on the verge of the promised consequence that would follow if you keep disobeying the rules."
"What consequences will I be facing, President Modernson?" Jennifer hissed back. "I thought the rules were set to secure the students' freedom; it isn't really freedom if I can't decide what to do, is it? There is literally a commandment saying that you can't forcefully order other people around."
Nathan sighed and waved his fingers from side to side in disappointment. Only then did he realise that the entire Salvation Club, or probably better known as the Justice Knights now, had their eyes fixed on him.
"What are you all looking at?" Nathan squinted his eyes in suspicion. "Is there something on my face?"
"Yeah, Daniel is DEFINITELY lying," William whispered again.
"What did I just say?" Leo followed. "Those two falling in love with each other? That's funny."
If Jennifer heard the commentary, she would probably start firing at William and Leo too. Fortunately, she didn't. Unfortunately, Nathan did.
"Excuse me, what?" he raised his voice in concern. "What kind of misinformation did this guy spread?" He pointed to Daniel and interrogated him.
"Can you two kiss again?" Charlotte chimed in. "I'm sure it will be as sweet as Daniel described."
Daniel, who thought she was there to save him, frowned in despair.
Nathan opened his mouth in growing fury, but eventually let out a deep breath. What was broken had already been broken; all he could do right now was glue the pieces back together as tightly as he could.
"Don't believe a single word coming out of this guy's mouth." His finger was still pointing toward Daniel. The latter nodded enthusiastically and confirmed, "Yeah, I was just joking. Don't take it seriously."
"What are you talking about?" Jennifer said. "Nathan and I did indeed kiss."
Nathan instantly covered her mouth with his hand. "Don't believe her either!" he shouted, then whispered in Jennifer's ear, "Do you know what it means for two aristocrats to kiss? Do you really want to marry me?"
Amid the loud wheeze that echoed through the room, Jennifer shook Nathan's hand off violently and yelled in annoyance, "I wouldn't mind. I'd rather marry you than someone the head of the clan arranged! At least you don't put up an act in front of me!"
Nathan's eyes widened in disbelief, holding back his urge to say, "But I don't want to marry you." He was, however, intrigued by the phrase Jennifer had chosen. Head of the clan? Why didn't she just say "my parents" for simplicity's sake?
"You guys treat this as such a big deal," Monica groaned in boredom. "When's your wedding? Don't forget to invite me."
"After we do," Jennifer continued, "we can just continue with our own lives. Husband and wife are just names anyway; they don't affect how we treat each other."
Nathan thought about her sentence for a while. If that reality could be actualised, then it was probably far from as bad as he thought. In fact, it would save him a lot of trouble anyway. He rubbed his chin with his thumb, pretending to ponder the matter for a bit longer, and eventually nodded in approval. "Actually, I'm in."
"Hold on there for a minute," Genesis interrupted while everyone else was stunned by Nathan's careless response. "Neither of you is of marriage age."
Nathan and Jennifer looked at him and exclaimed, "Who cares?"
"Rules are created to be followed, no?" Genesis furrowed his eyebrows, feeling confused rather than offended.
"To those who created the rules, not always," Nathan affirmed with a smirk.
The members of the Salvation Club applauded loudly. Some of them clapped so hard that their palms turned red. Most of them smiled, in contentment and malevolence, drowning in the pleasure of the realisation that they were the ones siding with the person who could create and alter the rules.
Looking at these smiles before him, Nathan's reality blurred. There wasn't happiness in these smiles, only pride in the realisation that they were now superior to others. In his eyes, the students' faces seemed more like those of a band of phantom devils than regular humans. These were the faces of people who had been suppressed under a ruler just a couple of months ago. He couldn't help but wonder: Did he truly set these people free from their cells? Or did he simply appoint them as the wardens they all once hated?
This, however, was ironically what he had planned to achieve. He thought he was going to be happy to see the result of his hard work. That was the reason why he decided to make that statement. Only now, when he could see it becoming reality, he couldn't ignore the sharp ache inside him. Even though he told himself everything was for the greater good of this kingdom and his duty as a liberator, something within him told him that intentions should only be considered after the action itself.
To the current Nathan Modernson, even success felt like a burden that criticised him for the way he found solutions to all his problems. Yet the more he succeeded, the less ready he was for any potential failure.
Maybe slaves and masters, prisoners and wardens, commoners and aristocrats, citizens and rulers, were all trapped in their own unique cycles of shackles. No one, no matter how powerful they became relative to others, could escape this despair. Nathan Modernson was living the best life Runalond could offer, yet he did not worry about his future any less than a poor Lostburg citizen. The more he saw of the world, the more he disagreed with the Equilibrium System. He knew he would never be truly satisfied with his life, and he doubted anyone really was. Why bother fearing perfection when it can never be achieved?
He felt like every road he took, could've taken, or was going to take was just another different type of headache, and worst of all, he knew that this feeling wasn't unique to him. If even he, who had experienced nothing but success in this world, was constantly troubled by this headache, who in the realm of Runalond dared to say they weren't?
Jennifer looked at him and commented dully, "You look really stupid right now, you know?"
Nathan took a deep breath and wrapped his arm around Jennifer's shoulder. "I want to talk to you about something, dear wife." All he wanted right now was a quiet space where he could momentarily escape these negative thoughts.
The members of the Salvation Club laughed at how casually both of them took the topic of marriage, especially Daniel Whitedawn, who had still not gotten used to it. He pointed at them with widened pupils and a wide, speechless mouth, not knowing whether to laugh with the audience or question whether this was normal.
Jennifer didn't shake Nathan off this time. "Let's go," she replied in boredom.
"Now that's a phenomenon indeed," William grinned as he fell comfortably back in his chair.
"Things really took a sharp turn, didn't they?" Leo sighed and laid his head onto his crossed arms on the table.
Nathan and Jennifer walked out of the pillar that represented the base of the Salvation Club and headed toward the central tower. There was a very brief moment of silence until Nathan began speaking again. "I know a good place in this academy we can go to."
"Where?" Jennifer asked without curiosity.
"On top of the…" Nathan replied without hesitation, only to realise that he should've probably hesitated a little. "Never mind, we are not getting up there."
"Nice one, Nathan Modernson."
They stopped to get some free iced drinks at one of the drinkeries nearby and climbed on top of the walls surrounding the academy. Sitting on the edge with their legs dangling in the warm breeze, they clinked their drinks together. There wasn't anything to be celebrated. The two probably just did so for the atmosphere.
"Jennifer, do you remember the first time we met?" Nathan began, his eyes looking into the distance rather than at the person he was speaking to.
"No," she mocked. "I forgot, actually."
"I'm just thinking, right, fate really has its own plans. Which of us would have thought that it was going to end up like this? I mean, us two talking about getting married? I would've laughed so hard if I knew this was going to happen back then."
"It's just to avoid trouble on my behalf," Jennifer said. "Like all marriages do in the first place."
Nathan's voice dropped slightly. "That's… not necessarily true. My parents got married because they loved each other, and it rather caused them a lot, and I mean, a lot of trouble."
"Love is not real, Nathan Modernson."
"You think so?"
"It's the truth," she affirmed with more confidence than ever. "All forms of love are just shameful excuses to satisfy desires and profits."
Nathan didn't agree, but he wasn't in the mood for a disagreement. He couldn't lie; there wasn't even any evidence to back himself up or to debunk Jennifer's theory.
"Nathan Modernson, we are the same type of people," Jennifer continued after taking another sip of her drink.
"What type of people?"
"Despondent people," she said gently as a gust of wind fluttered her hair, "people who stopped caring about right and wrong."
Nathan chuckled. "What part of me is despondent?" Only the question wasn't really rhetorical. "I live, like, hundreds and thousands of times better than… than…" He wanted to say "the citizens of Lostburg," but it just wouldn't come out of his mouth, because he knew that it wasn't true.
"All beings are troubled by two inescapable equalisers: desires and death," Jennifer explained. "An unlimited number of things we want and a limited number of days to reach them."
"So it really doesn't matter what you do in your life," she continued. "It's all despair in the end."
"Is that why you care so little about lives?" Nathan asked.
Jennifer confirmed his assumption with silence.
"Well, I'd say you are being way too pessimistic," Nathan stretched lazily. "Even if what you said is true, these are the reasons that we continue choosing to live another day, right?"
Jennifer looked at him, though Nathan couldn't see her expression under the darkening night.
"I… agree with you," he said. "But I just want to stay hopeful, because there's nothing more we can do anyway."
"As long as there is still one person smiling at this moment, the world is not completely hopeless," Nathan persuaded Jennifer, and even more so himself. "I'm just wondering, is what I'm doing bringing more smiles to this world than frowns?"
"That's the stupidest question I've ever heard."
Nathan Modernson sighed. After pausing for a couple of seconds, another question jumped out of his mouth.
"When should our wedding be?"
"Now that's slightly more meaningful," Jennifer whispered softly. "Let's wait until we turn 18."
"All up to you."