Edith looked at him in silence as he smiled at her, his dimples emerging, giving him a cute appearance with the light pink still dusting his cheeks from before. She played with her braid and looked down.
“Do you hit on a girl every time you speak?” she asked.
Rasmus was stunned into silence.
“No…? Can’t I call you pretty?”
Edith remained silent and Rasmus leaned forward, trying to get a better look at her expression. All it achieved was that he nearly lost his balance.
Is that the 3 in Dexterity or the 3 in Agility? he asked himself in frustration.
Having managed to catch himself before toppling over, he asked, “What would you say is on your mind, if I can’t call you pretty? Is there any other adjective to use to tell you, you’re not bad-looking? I can say cute, too.”
Edith chuckled at this. “You, are you nervous?”
“Ah…” Rasmus laughed sheepishly. “It’s that obvious? I actually fled because I was stared at like I was a zoo animal, so I’m still feeling a bit conscious, maybe.”
She chuckled again, still playing with her braids.
“So, really, what’s up? We got class soon.”
“I’m considering skipping, I guess.”
“That so? Let me join you,” Rasmus told her.
“What are you joining me in skipping class for?”
Rasmus sat heavily down on his butt and leaned back, supporting himself on his hands. “I’ve had a headache for a while that just won’t let up completely; let me skip with you.”
Edith was silent for a while, then said, “All right. You don’t have to go back.”
“Thank you.”
They sat silent for some time before Rasmus asked, “Why weren’t you on your walk?”
Edith’s hands, playing with her braids, paused for a moment. “Didn’t feel like it.”
Rasmus thought about this.
It seemed that Edith’s backstory must involve something that troubled her a lot. But he couldn’t let that distract from what he needed to achieve. Fortunately, he managed to get an extra hour now that she decided to skip class, so he could satisfy some of his curiosity.
There was no way he’d uncover everything unless the NPCs would tell him outright what was going on. But seeing as they kept giving him cryptic hints, he sure had no faith in that he would receive the rundown of what was going on. It was simply not feasible.
He tried to put together what he did know, though.
There was something about the geography teacher, Ida had talked with Edith in private about something and then there was the reaction of everyone in class. If the teacher had anything to do with it, he couldn’t say, but he had a hunch these all belonged to the same issue.
“Is there a reason you’re not feeling like going on a walk?”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Edith replied curtly.
“…”
Then Rasmus really could do nothing to satisfy his curiosity. NPC or not, he didn’t want to feel like a big asshole.
“Then I won’t talk about it either.”