"Papa…? Where are you…?"
The voice was soft the first time uncertain, searching.
Then it came again, louder.
"Papa!"
The word rang across the classroom with startling clarity.
Silence followed.
Not the casual silence of students pausing mid-conversation but a heavy, suspended stillness, as though the entire room had forgotten how to breathe. Chairs creaked faintly. Someone's pen rolled off a desk and hit the floor with a hollow tap that sounded far too loud.
Yuuta's blood ran cold.
The students glanced at one another in confusion, expressions shifting from irritation to curiosity to disbelief.
"Papa?" someone whispered.
"In college?"
"Who's calling their dad here?"
But Yuuta already knew.
His mind went blank utterly, terrifyingly blank like a screen flickering to black.
That voice.
There was no mistaking it.
He rose from his seat slowly, almost mechanically, as if his body had moved before his thoughts could catch up.
Why is my daughter here?
The question echoed violently inside his skull.
It wasn't possible. Elena had been at home. She was supposed to stay there. She wouldn't just wander into a college campus alone.
Unless....
His breath hitched.
Unless she hadn't come alone.
Yuuta's jaw tightened as realization dawned with dreadful clarity.
It wasn't that Elena missed him and came searching.
It was that she brought her.
"That lizard…" he muttered under his breath, dread curling in his stomach. "But why?"
The answer came before he could finish the thought.
A presence entered the hallway.
At first, it was subtle an unnatural stillness in the air. Then came the drop in temperature, sharp and immediate. Students nearest the door shivered instinctively.
She Walked in Hallway.
Erza.
Tall. Strong. Elegant.
She wore an emperor-white dress that flowed around her like moving silk, every step measured and deliberate. The fabric caught the light, shimmering faintly as though woven from frost itself. Her pale skin seemed almost luminescent beneath the fluorescent lights, and her violet eyes scanned the room with calm, sovereign authority.
As she walked forward, the air around her crystallized into tiny droplets of ice, forming and dissolving in slow, glittering spirals before falling like fragments of starlight. The illusion was breathtaking like a goddess descending quietly into a mortal world that did not deserve her presence.
No one spoke.
No one dared.
Even those who didn't understand what they were seeing felt it the weight of her existence pressing down on them. Instinctively, students straightened in their seats. Some shrank back. Others stared, entranced.
Yuuta stood frozen.
His worst speculation had become reality.
And just behind her...
Small footsteps echoed softly in the hallway.
Yuuta's body moved before his thoughts did He somehow sense Erza and Elena where other just wondering, Why they felt pressure.
The moment Yuuta felt that suffocating cold seep deeper into the classroom, he dropped back into his seat and then slid down further until he was crouched beneath his desk like a criminal hiding from a searchlight.
He pressed himself against the metal frame, heart hammering violently against his ribs.
He was afraid.
Not of embarrassment.
Not of rumors.
But of her.
"Why did she come here…?" he muttered under his breath, barely daring to breathe. "Didn't she agree to give me one year? What's the point of coming here now?"
His mind raced wildly, each possibility more absurd than the last.
Does she want to kill me in front of everyone?
Make an example out of me?
Prove some kind of royal point?
It sounded ridiculous even to him. Erza had no reason to slaughter a classroom full of harmless students.
And yet....
She had crossed galaxies to find him.
Appearing in his college without warning was nothing compared to that.
The hallway outside grew quieter.
Then came the unmistakable sound of small footsteps.
Light. Eager. Unafraid.
Elena.
She reached Class D and, without hesitation, grabbed the sliding door handle.
The door burst open with a loud metallic sound that echoed through the room.
"Papa! Elena is here to meet you!" she announced brightly, her voice ringing with cheerful excitement as she stepped inside.
She giggled as if this were the most normal thing in the world.
The classroom fell into stunned silence.
Dozens of eyes turned toward the doorway.
A small girl stood there white hair shimmering under the fluorescent lights, crimson eyes wide with innocence. She looked impossibly delicate and strangely out of place in a room full of college students.
Whispers erupted almost instantly.
"Who is that child?"
"Why is there a kid here?"
"Is this someone's little sister?"
"Look at her eyes…"
"They're red."
"And her hair..why is it white?"
At the front of the classroom, Professor Melory cleared his throat and adjusted his glasses, trying to regain control of the situation.
"Now, now," he said carefully, stepping forward with a polite smile. "This isn't really a place for children. How did you get here, little one?"
Elena tilted her head slightly, as though confused by the question itself.
"Elena is here to see Papa," she answered sweetly.
The word Papa seemed to bounce off the walls.
A ripple of reactions spread instantly.
"Papa?"
"Did she just say Papa?"
Professor Melory blinked twice.
"I believe there may be a there is some misunderstanding, here little kid" he said gently. "Everyone here is still very young. I assure you, none of these students are fathers."
A few boys let out nervous laughter.
Elena's small brows knit together.
"But Mama said Papa is here."
The room shifted.
"Mama?" the professor repeated, visibly more unsettled now.
Elena nodded confidently, her small hands clasped behind her back as she rocked slightly on her heels.
"Yes," she said with absolute certainty.
"Mama said Papa is in this room She smelled Papa scent."
The whispers grew louder.
"Wait… she has a mom too?"
"So someone here is married?"
"No way…"
Under the desk, Yuuta pressed his forehead against his knees.
This was worse than death.
This was public execution by social disaster.
He knew what came next.
Because if Elena was here
Then she wasn't alone.
And the air was still getting colder.
The whispers in the classroom had barely begun to settle when the temperature shifted again. It wasn't dramatic no sudden gust of wind, no visible frost but a subtle, creeping chill that made the students nearest the windows rub their arms. A few glanced up at the ceiling as if expecting the air conditioner to hum to life.
"Is it just me, or did it just get colder?"
"I thought the AC was turned off."
Professor Melory frowned slightly and glanced toward the wall unit. It was, in fact, off.
Before anyone could question it further, a faint sound drifted in from the hallway. It wasn't the sharp rhythm of hurried footsteps. It was softer than that measured. Controlled. The quiet brush of fabric gliding across polished tile.
Elena turned toward the doorway instantly, her red eyes lighting up.
"Mama!"
The single word echoed in the silent classroom.
Under his desk, Yuuta felt his stomach drop. His fingers tightened around the edge of the wood as if the furniture alone could shield him from what was coming.
The lights flickered once.
Only once.
Then steadied.
The air sharpened further, crisp and clean, like the first breath of winter. A faint fragrance drifted inside soft lilies blooming in cold air, fresh and impossibly pure.
A long shadow stretched across the classroom floor from the hallway. Elegant. Unhurried.
Then a heel touched the threshold.
Soft.
Controlled.
Another followed.
She stepped inside as though the room had always belonged to her.
Her white dress flowed behind her in quiet authority, the fabric catching the fluorescent light with a faint shimmer, like frost kissed by dawn. Her skin appeared almost luminous beneath the dull classroom lighting not pale in weakness, but radiant in presence. Every movement she made was deliberate, composed, untouched by hesitation.
Her violet eyes lifted.
The classroom fell into absolute silence.
Not the awkward silence of confusion.
The instinctive silence of prey sensing something far beyond them.
Students who had been whispering forgot what they were saying. Someone who had been raising a phone slowly lowered it. Even Professor Melory seemed to lose her train of thought mid-breath.
Tiny crystalline specks shimmered faintly in the air around her shoulders so subtle most dismissed them as tricks of the eye. For a fleeting second, it looked as though microscopic stars were forming and dissolving around her.
Elena ran forward without fear and wrapped her small hand around the woman's fingers.
"Mama, Papa is hiding."
A few nervous chuckles rippled through the class.
"Hiding?"
"Who's hiding?"
Erza's gaze moved slowly across the room. She did not rush. She did not blink unnecessarily. She simply observed.
Every student she looked at felt it not anger, not hostility, but evaluation. As though they were lines of text being read and dismissed.
When her eyes reached the back rows, they stopped.
Under the desk, Yuuta felt it.
Even without looking.
A presence like cold steel resting against his spine.
She had found him.
The temperature dipped one final degree not enough for frost to form, but enough for fear to settle into every corner of the room.
Erza paused just inside the classroom and inhaled slowly.
There.
Beneath the scent of chalk dust, cheap cologne, and old wooden desks—she found it.
Him.
Warm. Familiar. Unmistakably human.
Her lips curved upward.
It was not a gentle smile.
It was the smile of a predator who had already located its prey.
In the back row, Fiona happened to glance up at the wrong moment. The instant her eyes met Erza's violet gaze, her stomach twisted violently. A cold wave washed over her body, and she gripped the edge of her desk to steady herself. She didn't know why she felt so afraid—only that every instinct in her body told her not to breathe too loudly.
Erza walked past her without a word.
Her steps were slow.
Measured.
Unhurried.
She did not need to search.
She already knew where he was.
Under the last desk near the wall, Yuuta tried to make himself smaller than humanly possible. His heartbeat pounded against his ribs like it was begging to escape.
She found me.
Of course she found me.
Before Erza could reach him, Elena slipped ahead, her small shoes tapping loudly against the floor. She stopped at the desk and bent down cheerfully, peeking underneath.
"Papa! Why are you hiding?"
The classroom erupted in gasps.
Yuuta slowly lifted his head from beneath the desk, forcing a strained smile onto his face.
"I'm not hiding," he said quickly. "I just dropped my pen, my child."
Elena blinked, her expression shifting into concern.
"Oh… Elena thought Papa didn't want to see Elena and Mama. That's why Papa was hiding."
The whispers in the room grew louder.
Erza stopped directly in front of the desk. Her shadow swallowed him completely.
Her voice came out calm.
Too calm.
"So you were not hiding… mortal?"
Yuuta swallowed hard and crawled out from beneath the desk, brushing off his uniform awkwardly.
"How could I hide from you, my Queen?" he said nervously. "You're capable of finding me light-years away. I truly only lost my pen."
Her violet eyes studied him without blinking.
"If you do not stand before me properly," she said evenly, "I will ensure you remain six feet beneath the earth for the rest of your life."
The threat was delivered in the same tone someone might use to comment on the weather.
Yuuta didn't hesitate.
He rose fully to his feet and stood in front of her.
The reaction from the class was instant and explosive.
Gasps.
Murmurs.
Someone dropped a pen.
The class Introvert Clown the unserious, always-joking Yuuta was standing face-to-face with a woman who looked like she had stepped out of legend. And a child had just called him Papa.
"No way…"
"He's actually married?"
"She's… unreal."
"And that kid…"
Shock quickly shifted into fascination.
Several girls stared openly now, reevaluating everything they thought they knew about him. The boys, meanwhile, looked as though their pride had been personally attacked.
Yuuta stood awkwardly in front of Erza, feeling the weight of every eye in the room.
Beside him, Elena happily grabbed his sleeve.
Erza remained still, poised, her presence dominating the space without effort.
The classroom buzzed with disbelief, awe spreading like wildfire.
In a single moment, Yuuta had gone from background noise to the center of attention.
And judging by the way Erza's eyes gleamed faintly
This scene was far from over.
Erza stood in the doorway.
The Dragon Queen of Atlantis. Ruler of the most powerful kingdom in existence. And she was standing in a cramped college classroom, her violet eye scanning the room with cold, detached interest.
She was watching Yuuta.
Why? He didn't know. Couldn't guess. His mind was still reeling from her arrival, from Elena's entrance, from the sheer impossibility of this situation.
Then she looked around.
The noise in the classroom was loud not the focused murmurs of students working, but the chaotic buzz of confusion and speculation. Whispers bounced off the walls. Questions flew between desks. No one knew what was happening, but everyone had a theory.
Erza's voice cut through it like a blade.
"Silent, humans."
One word.
Just one.
And the classroom went dead.
Not the kind of silence that comes from people choosing to be quiet. The kind that comes from people losing the ability to speak. Every mouth closed. Every throat tightened. Every pair of eyes widened with primal, inexplicable fear.
It was domination.
Pure and absolute.
Erza didn't need to raise her voice. Didn't need to threaten. Her presence alone was enough—a weight pressing down on every human in the room, reminding them of their place in the cosmic order.
She looked around. Searching.
Then Elena pointed.
"Mama!" Her tiny finger extended toward the middle of the room. "See that human? The one from the picture!"
Erza turned.
Her violet eye locked onto a girl sitting near the window.
Black hair. Amber eyes. Slim figure. Blushing in the photograph blushing now, under the weight of that ancient gaze.
Fiona.
The name meant nothing to Erza. The face meant everything.
This was her. The one from the photograph. The one holding Yuuta's hand. The one making him smile like that.
Fire and snow.
That's what their eyes were when they met.
Fiona's amber warm, human, uncertain.
Erza's violet cold, ancient, absolute.
Erza moved.
She crossed the room in silence, her white dress flowing behind her like a winter storm. Students shrank back as she passed. Desks seemed to shift away from her path. The air grew colder with every step.
She stopped in front of Fiona.
Towered over her.
Fiona felt it immediately the pressure. Not physical, but existential. Like standing at the edge of a cliff. Like looking into an abyss that was looking back.
She couldn't speak. Couldn't move. Could only stare up at this impossible woman and wonder if she was about to die.
Erza's hand shot out.
She grabbed Fiona's face. Fingers cold against warm skin. Held her there trapped, helpless, nothing.
"So." Erza's voice was quiet. Intimate. Deadly. "You are the one who is close with that pathetic mortal."
The classroom heard.
Mortal.
The word registered in a dozen minds simultaneously. But no one could speak. No one could move. The weight of Erza's presence held them all in place.
Fiona trembled.
Her heart pounded. Her breath came in short gasps. Something in her eyes something no one else could see flickered with recognition. With fear.
"W-Who are you?" The words barely escaped. "And what... what mortal?"
Erza's lip curled.
She pointed. One elegant finger extended toward the back of the room. Toward a Yuuta. Toward the trembling figure standing.
"That mortal."
Erza's eye flicked toward Yuuta. Cold. Dismissive.
She pointed at him without looking away from Fiona.
Erza leaned closer. Her lips brushed Fiona's ear. Her voice dropped to a whisper that carried ice and fire in equal measure.
"I don't know what relationship you share with this mortal. But his life is in my hands." A pause. "And I do not want you close to him."
She pulled back slightly. Let her words settle.
"If you do not want to die..." Her voice was soft. Merciful. Almost kind. "Stay away from him. I am merciful enough to give you a warning."
Fiona shook.
Her entire body trembled. Tears pricked at the corners of her eyes. She wanted to speak. Wanted to ask a thousand questions. But nothing came out.
Nothing could come out.
Erza held her gaze for one more heartbeat.
Then the pressure disappeared.
Erza stepped back. Turned away. The invisible weight that had been crushing the room lifted like a fog burning away in morning sun.
The classroom exploded.
The classroom was alive again.
The invisible domination pressure was gone, and the murmuring started immediately a wave of confused, frightened, utterly bewildered whispers that washed across every corner of the room.
"What's going on here?!"
"Who IS she?!"
"What does she mean by 'mortals'?!"
One girl clutched her friend's arm, her voice shaking. "Did she just threaten Fiona?! Did you see that?!"
The boys in the back were completely lost. They stared at Erza like she was a creature from another world which, technically, she was. Their mouths opened and closed, but no coherent words came out.
Professor Melory stood frozen at the front of the room. His lips moved. His throat worked. But whatever force had silenced them still clung to him like a physical weight. No sound escaped.
Meanwhile, Erza surveyed the chaos with cold disinterest.
She turned to Yuuta. Her violet eye fixed on him like a predator watching prey.
"So." Her voice was casual. Almost bored. "This is the college you spoke of, mortal?"
Yuuta nodded frantically. "Yes! Yes, Miss..I mean Your Highness, this is my college!"
Erza's gaze swept the room again. Taking in the desks, the books, the terrified students.
"Interesting."
The whispers continued. Growing bolder now that the pressure had lifted.
Wild theories. Impossible speculations. Students trying desperately to make sense of what they'd just witnessed.
"She must be some kind of actress, right?"
"Did you see her eyes? That's not normal."
"Maybe she's from one of those rich families that never leave their estates?"
"Look at her dress. That's not modern fashion."
Then the real chaos started.
"Wait.....WAIT...this is Yuuta's wife?!"
The entire row snapped their heads at him.
Yuuta stiffened.
"First of all," someone said slowly, "how did he even meet her?"
Silence.
Then...
"Bro must've done black magic."
"No, no, no...this is divine fraud. There is no way this is legal."
Someone grabbed their head. "He pulled a 10/10 baddie like it's a gacha pull???"
Another leaned back dramatically. "I don't know what god he's praying to, but I need that prayer list immediately."
A pause.
Then, completely serious:
"I'm converting. From today. I don't care what religion it is."
The class erupted.
Yuuta slowly sank lower in his seat as the whispers turned into full-blown disbelief.
"Bro is NOT beating the allegations."
One girl blonde hair pulled back, sharp eyes behind glasses murmured to her friend.
"Okay, this is going to sound crazy." She bit her lip. "But what if... what if Yuuta slept with her when she was drunk? And then ran away? And now she found him and came for revenge?"
Her friend's eyes went wide. "That's insane!"
"I know! I'm just making assumptions!"
Erza's head turned.
Her violet eye fixed on the blonde girl with laser precision.
"Your statement is accurate."
The classroom went silent again.
But this time, the silence was different. It was the silence of shock. Of disbelief. Of minds struggling to process information that made absolutely no sense.
The blonde girl stared. Her mouth hung open. Her eyes were the size of dinner plates.
"I...I was just..." She pressed both hands to her mouth. Her voice came out muffled. "I was making assumptions! I didn't actually....oh my god."
The room erupted instantly.
"HE DID WHAT?!"
"YUUTA?! OUR YUUTA?!"
"WITH HER?!"
"No way… that can't be true."
"She's saying he slept with her and then ran away?"
The atmosphere shifted.
The earlier disbelief turned heavier… sharper.
"That's not just shocking… that's serious."
A student slowly stood up, face tense.
"If that's true… then this is not something we can treat lightly."
Another voice cut in, lower this time.
"We need to verify this. Rumors like this can destroy someone's life."
Silence followed.
The laughter was gone now.
Only unease remained.
Someone glanced toward Yuuta's seat.
"…He needs to explain this himself."
Fiona sat frozen at her desk. Her amber eyes had gone wide. Her face was pale. She stared at Yuuta like she'd never seen him before.
Yuuta wanted to die.
Professor Melory finally found his voice.
"SILENCE!"
The word boomed across the room like a thunderclap. Years of commanding unruly culinary students finally paid off everyone froze instantly.
Melory's face was red. His hands trembled slightly against his podium. But his voice was steady, controlled, professional.
"Someone....." He looked at Erza. At Elena. At Yuuta. Back to Erza. His eyes narrowed behind his glasses. "Someone had better explain what is going on here. Now."
Then Professor Melory finally stepped forward.
He'd had enough. The chaos, the whispers, the utter disruption of his carefully planned lecture it was too much. The veins near his temple pulsed faintly beneath his glasses.
"Yuuta."
His voice was stern. Sharp. The voice of a man whose patience had evaporated entirely.
"If you are orchestrating this absurd prank to escape my lecture, you will stop it immediately."
Yuuta shook his head quickly. Panic flickered across his face like lightning.
"It's not a prank, Professor. I promise. I wouldn't do something like this."
The professor's expression hardened. His eyes narrowed behind those thick lenses.
"Then explain it to me." The demand cut through the air like a blade. "How is it that a third-year student in my class is suddenly married and has a child? Do you take me for a fool? You have the audacity to stage this during my lecture? There will be consequences."
The accusation hung in the air like smoke.
Erza's expression changed.
Subtle at first. A tightening around her eyes. A slight stillness in her posture.
Then her gaze shifted toward the professor.
Cold.
Merciless.
How dare this human raise his voice at her human in her presence?
In her presence?
Her fingers lifted slowly.
Not dramatically. Not with flair. Just enough.
The air around her hand shimmered faintly. Thin frost formed at her fingertips—delicate, beautiful, deadly.
Several students felt their breath hitch.
Yuuta felt it too.
The intent.
Sharp.
Decisive.
Fatal.
Before Erza could complete the motion, Yuuta reached up and gently caught her wrist.
"My Queen."
His voice came out quick—still nervous, but softer this time. He forced a faint warmth into it, trying to steady the tension between them.
"…Did you miss me that much while I was gone," he said quietly, a small, uncertain smile forming, "that you came all the way here just to see me?"
Her composure fractured. Just for a heartbeat. Just enough to see.
Ba~dump.
Ba~dump.
Erza's heartbeat stuttered then returned louder, more violent than before.
The shift was immediate.
She froze.
Her raised hand trembled, but not with killing intent this time. Not with dominance. Not with power.
Something else.
Something unfamiliar.
Something she had never allowed to exist for long.
Color crept across her pale cheeks slow at first… then undeniable.
A faint red.
Then deeper.
She stared at Yuuta like he had spoken a forbidden spell one that reached past her defenses and touched something she had buried beneath years of ice and command.
Feelings.
"I....."
The word barely escaped her lips.
It broke halfway.
Her usual composure cracked—not fully shattering, but enough.
Just enough to see it.
A queen who never hesitated…now hesitating because of a single heartbeat.
She pulled her hand back slightly. Her eyes flickered away anywhere but his face.
"W-What?" Her voice was no longer perfectly steady. "W-What are you implying, Peasant?"
Her cheeks flushed even deeper. Almost the color of a ripe apple.
Then.....
The moment shattered.
Something shifted behind her eyes. The warmth drained away. The cold returned—deeper than before, harder than before.
Without warning, her hand shot out and grabbed his neck.
In front of everyone.
In front of the entire class.
"What the hell did you do to me?!"
Her voice was ice. Fury. Confusion. All wrapped into one.
Yuuta choked. His hands came up to her wrist not fighting, just... holding.
"Your Highness..." His voice was barely a whisper, meant only for her. "Please calm down."
The classroom erupted.
No one could hear Yuuta's quiet plea. All they saw was the terrifying woman with her hand around their classmate's throat.
"What's happening?!"
"Is she killing him?!"
"Someone do something!"
Professor Melory opened his mouth to shout...
"SILENT."
Erza's voice cut through the chaos like a blade through flesh.
One word.
Absolute authority.
The classroom went silent again. Completely. Totally. Not a single whisper, not a single breath.
This time, Erza was serious.
She released Yuuta's neck. Turned to face the class. Her violet eye swept across them like a predator surveying prey.
"You disgusting humans." Her voice was cold. Controlled. Royal. "Listen to me carefully."
She paused. Let the silence stretch.
"Whatever you think about me and this human's relationship, I do not care." Each word was precise. Deadly. "But you will not speak about it in my presence."
Her gaze landed on a strong-looking guy sitting in the back. The one who'd been whispering the loudest. The one who'd made the crudest jokes.
His face went pale.
Erza smiled. It was not a kind smile.
"His life belongs to me." She gestured at Yuuta without looking at him. "He is mine. His future is sealed. His fate is in my hands."
She took a step toward the back of the room.
"So if I find any mark on him.."
Another step.
"Any bruise. Any insult. Any harm"
She stopped directly in front of his desk. Looked down at him.
"I promise you." Her voice dropped to a whisper that somehow carried to every corner of the room. "You will never see tomorrow morning. Again."
The guy didn't breathe.
Didn't move.
Didn't even blink.
He just sat there, frozen, as the most terrifying being he'd ever encountered delivered a death threat with the casual ease of discussing the weather..
Erza straightened. Turned away. Walked back to the front of the room like nothing had happened.
Like she hadn't just threatened an entire classroom. Like she hadn't just claimed a human as her property. Like this was all perfectly normal.
Elena tugged at her sleeve.
"Papa!" She waved at Yuuta. "Come home!"
Yuuta didn't move.
He couldn't. He was still on the floor, one hand pressed to his throat, gasping for air. Her grip had been powerful not enough to kill, but enough to remind him exactly who held his life in her hands.
Elena tilted her head. Confused.
"Papa? Are you not coming?"
Erza glanced back. Her violet eye flicked to Yuuta assessing, dismissive.
"Elena. Come here."
"But Mama..."
"He is in the middle of his academy." The word came out awkward, unfamiliar. "The idiot will come back later."
Elena considered this. Then she brightened.
"Okay, Mama!" She turned to the frozen classroom and waved enthusiastically. "Bye bye Papa, Bye Bye humans!"
She skipped toward her mother.
Erza didn't look back. She simply walked out, Elena trailing behind her leaving chaos in her wake.
The door slid shut.
Silence.
Yuuta stayed on the floor.
His heart pounded. His hands shook. But beneath the fear, beneath the chaos, beneath the absolute impossibility of this situation...
Something else stirred.
What's wrong with her?
The thought surfaced unbidden.
She'd threatened them all. Made it clear she would kill anyone who harmed him. But she'd also made it clear she would kill him at the end of the year.
It didn't make sense.
It sounded like defending. Like claiming. Like...
Like a serial killer who doesn't want anyone else to play with their toy.
He shuddered.
He didn't know what to do with that. Didn't know what it meant. Didn't know if it changed anything.
But for now...
He had to face the classroom.
The movement door slid shut behind Erza and Elena.
The moment they were gone, the classroom exploded.
Not with noise not yet. With movement. Students turning in their seats. Eyes locking onto Yuuta. Whispers building like a wave about to crash.
And then..
The wave hit.
"What the hell was that?!"
"Yuuta, who WAS she?!"
"Did she just say she owns you?!"
"Is that really your wife?!"
"Is that really your CHILD?!"
Questions flew at him from every direction. Too many. Too fast. He couldn't process, couldn't respond, couldn't do anything but stand there as they circled him like sharks sensing blood.
Then he saw Fiona.
She was still seated. Still frozen. But her eyes those amber eyes that usually held warmth, curiosity, something were fixed on him.
And they were filled with betrayal.
Yuuta's heart cracked.
Not loudly. Not dramatically. Just... a small fracture in the already-broken thing that was his emotional stability.
She knows. She heard. She saw.
And now she's looking at me like I'm a stranger.
The whispers around him shifted. Changed. Became uglier.
"So he really did sleep with someone and run away?"
"With a woman like THAT? How?!"
"Look at him. He's nobody. How did he land someone like her?"
"And he's been chasing Fiona this whole time? What a creep."
"Cheater. Probably cheated on that woman with Fiona."
"Or maybe he got that woman pregnant and abandoned her."
"Disgusting."
The word hit him like a slap.
Disgusting.
He'd heard it before. In his own thoughts. In his own self-loathing. But hearing it from others from people who didn't know, couldn't know, would never understand.
It cut deeper than he expected.
Yuuta looked at his classmates.
At the disgust on their faces. At the way some of them physically moved away from him. At the whispers that grew louder, bolder, crueler.
His secret was out.
And in their eyes, he was guilty.
Guilty of sleeping with a woman and abandoning her.
Guilty of chasing Fiona while hiding a family.
Guilty of being exactly the kind of person they'd always suspected he might be.
He opened his mouth to speak. To defend himself. To explain.
But what could he say?
Actually, I didn't know she was real. I thought she was a dream. I was Sixteen. She was drunk. It's complicated.
No. That wouldn't help. That would make it worse.
So he said nothing.
Professor Melory's voice cut through the chaos.
"ENOUGH."
The command was sharp. Professional. The voice of a man reasserting control.
"Whatever personal matters exist between Yuuta and... that woman... are none of our concern." He adjusted his glasses. "We are here to learn culinary arts, not to gossip like common tabloids. Is that understood?"
Grudging nods. Muttered agreements. The class slowly, reluctantly, returned to their seats.
But the damage was done.
Yuuta could feel it in the way people looked at him. In the empty seat beside him that no one wanted to fill. In Fiona's continued silence—her refusal to even glance his way.
He sat down. Opened his notebook. Stared at the page.
The words he'd written earlier extra butter, garlic, rosemary, thyme blurred before his eyes.
One year.
He had one year to survive.
One year to convince Erza not to kill him.
One year to earn the right to keep breathing.
But right now, sitting in this classroom full of people who now saw him as a monster—
He wasn't sure he wanted it.
TO BE CONTINUED