"Dammit, Yugo! Tell Elena to cut it out already!"
"Yugo! Save me, please!"
"Aha... ahahaha..."
Yugo let out a hollow laugh as he stepped into the room after school, immediately greeted by the sight of total disaster and desperate cries for help from both Marcos and Melt.
Elena was frolicking about with carefree abandon while Marcos shouted from behind her. Melt was currently cornered by a group of girls radiating pure, unadulterated fury. Raiha paced back and forth, flustered by the state of her friends, while Ryuga looked on with his usual indifference. The room was absolute pandemonium.
Yugo had a pretty good idea of what was going on, but Marcos was the first to lodge a formal complaint.
"Yugo! You’re partially responsible for this, so tell Elena to stop telling people such ridiculous stories!"
"Ah... right. Hang in there, Marcos."
"Don't try to brush me off with half-hearted sympathy! And Elena, you listen to me, too!"
The root of Marcos’s distress was almost certainly the rumor that had begun to circulate through the academy.
On the one hand, Elena had successfully learned how to firmly reject the advances of the Former Hero Candidates—which was a good thing. Unfortunately, those rejections had birthed a new rumor: that she and Marcos were a couple.
The culprit was Elena’s specific method of turning the guys down. "Marcos gets grumpy if I make friends without him," she would say.
While it wasn't entirely a lie, Yugo felt Elena’s interpretation was stretching the truth to its breaking point.
But since she repeated this misleading line every single time a Former Hero Candidate approached her, it was only natural for the student body to draw certain conclusions. Marcos was now being subjected to curious, judging stares from the entire academy as the guy who had pounced on the beautiful new transfer student the moment she arrived.
"I told you, stop spreading lies about me being grumpy! Do you have any idea the looks I'm getting from everyone!?"
"Eeh? But Marcos, you actually were grumpy when I was talking to those people, weren't you?"
"That’s besides the point! Argh, damn it! Another stain on the House of Borg name... If my grandfather or Lord Carlos hear about this, I'm finished!!"
Yugo turned his attention toward Melt, leaving behind the dejected Marcos.
She was currently surrounded by Anhel and the others, who were practically vibrating with rage. It wasn't hard to guess what their grievance was, either.
"Melt... You’ve certainly got some nerve, going on a secret date with Yugo behind our backs!" Anhel growled.
"A sneak attack is a Military Discipline Violation, is it not? And violations of military discipline require severe punishment. Do you understand, forsooth?" Sakura added.
"If you have any excuses, now would be the time. Not that we plan on listening to them," Setsuna said coldly.
"Hey, don't give her the 'your answer isn't heard' routine..." Yugo muttered.
He offered a half-hearted retort to Setsuna, thinking that while she was indeed a dragon who used projectiles, that other guy was purple and carried a gun.
As he tried to play mediator, Melt scurried behind his back, peeking over his shoulder to address her friends.
"But let me ask you this! If any of you were in my shoes, you would have done the exact same thing, right!? You wouldn't just let a golden opportunity like that slip through your fingers!"
"No comment."
"That's a separate issue."
"What you did is the problem; there is no need to entertain hypothetical scenarios, forsooth!"
"Seriously? None of you are going to deny it?"
Yugo couldn't help but throw out another remark, thinking that his female friends were, in a way, incredibly refreshing.
Boos rained down on Melt as she hid behind him.
"You shrewd little thing! Don't think you'll get away with it next time!"
"Truly vile! You are a vile woman, forsooth!"
"If we're using tricks and schemes, I'm the strongest one here. I'll make you regret relying on such petty tactics."
"...Uh, guys? No matter how this fight ends, I'm the one who's going to get caught in the middle. Do any of you actually care about that?"
He understood that the girls' war for affection was intense, but he really wished they would consider the collateral damage hitting him as the man at the center of it all.
Then again, if someone argued it was his own fault for not choosing one girl, he didn't have much of a defense...
Yugo was lost in his own troubles when an unexpected visitor appeared.
"Yugo, are you in here?"
"Oh, Jinba-san? What's up?"
The door swung open, and Jinba of the Security Force stood there. Yugo was surprised by the unannounced visit, but his expression quickly darkened when he noticed the man’s demeanor.
Jinba had visited before to get details on cases or report on their conclusions, but today, he looked different.
Taking in the sight of Yugo and all his companions gathered in one room, Jinba swallowed hard. A grave shadow fell over his face.
"Listen to me, and stay calm," he said. "The three criminals you captured yesterday... they died during interrogation."