1. It Started By Chance.

It started as a forfeit.

A trivial little forfeit.

"Loser has to run out and touch the academy gate."

But they say men never really grow up, no matter how old they get.

What began as something trivial gradually started to escalate in scale.

"Loser buys lunch?"

"Whoever's late tomorrow has to wipe down the training hall."

"Lowest score on the exam has to give the professor a gift!"

The bigger the stakes grew, the more we developed a taste for forfeits,

and before long, the whole game had shifted from who would lose to who could come up with the most creative punishment.

Eventually, someone spoke up as if to end the debate once and for all.

"This is absolutely the last one."

The last person stuck with a forfeit had gotten fed up and decided to go all in.

"Rock-paper-scissors. Loser has to carry out the forfeit."

Simple as it was, for those of us who'd stopped caring about the bet itself and were now entirely focused on the forfeit, it was a perfectly clean solution.

Everyone who'd grown tired of the whole thing agreed.

"So what's the forfeit?"

The one who'd proposed this final round spoke with the confidence of someone who'd already made up his mind.

"Confessing to Elline."

Silence.

"…?"

"Come on, that's a bit much…"

"This guy's crossing a line."

Under normal circumstances, a forfeit was something you laughed off and accepted. But this one had apparently gone too far—the mood turned sour.

"Hey, forfeits are supposed to stay between us. How does dragging someone else into it make any sense?"

"Exactly. What did Elline ever do to deserve this?"

The moment public opinion swung toward rejection for the first time, the proposer's face visibly faltered.

'Pick something else.'

'How about fifty laps around the academy drill grounds instead?'

The conversation was already drifting toward a different topic entirely—but maybe it was pride.

He must have figured that having a forfeit vetoed for the first time in all our history of bets, and specifically because of his idea, would make him the butt of jokes for the rest of his life.

So he doubled down.

"Scared?"

"…"

"…"

A simple word. But an effective one.

That single line made the others glance around at each other.

"Scared? Well, yeah, obviously you'd be scared—confessing to Elline of all people, right?"

The proposer seized the opening and started needling them.

"Hey, it's a one-in-five chance. As long as it's not me, we're fine."

As long as it's not me. Couldn't be simpler.

And he wasn't wrong.

They wanted the thrill, and the logic of "as long as it's not me" was perfectly sound.

"Hmm… come to think of it, I haven't lost in a while."

"Rock-paper-scissors? I'm in. If you're scared, just sit it out."

"Wow, you sure you won't regret this? I was trying to give you guys an out."

The childish pride of academy students with heads too big for their own good—and they caved far too easily.

"Hey, but shouldn't we keep it between—"

Before anyone could stop it,

"If you don't throw, you lose!"

The proposer shouted like he couldn't stand to hear another word.

A loud, unified cry rang out,

and five hands came together in one spot.

As if someone had scripted it,

four rocks and one pair of scissors came into view.

A roughly two-percent probability situation.

"Got him!!!!!"

"Yeahhhhh!!!!"

The four who'd been spared threw their arms around each other in celebration,

"…Oh."

while the one who'd thrown scissors could only stare at his own fingers in disbelief.

And that was me.

* * *

Third year at the academy.

The age when heads are as big as they're going to get, and everyone's place in the world has more or less been decided.

Those with real promise were already exchanging messages with various parties, securing positions or preparing to climb higher. Those who'd come to terms with their limits were simply passing the time with an eye toward graduation.

I was firmly in the latter camp.

Put kindly, I had no rough edges. Put less kindly, I was utterly unremarkable.

The kind of person who'd one day be lumped into the vague "many seniors before you" line at some future enrollment ceremony.

That was me. Rutess.

Third year in the magic department, sure—but no particular standout ability to speak of, and stuck in the support branch, which wasn't exactly the field where you made a name for yourself.

So I'd expected a perfectly uneventful… academy life.

"The bet is the problem."

I walked down the corridor, glaring resentfully at my two fingers.

Why did I have to see those flowers shaped like scissors right at that moment? Spreading all five fingers is so much easier and more natural—why on earth did I only extend two?

"Don't look so miserable, Rutess. You should've thrown something else."

"Right. If you'd thrown paper, you would've beaten all of us."

The not-quite-comforting voices of my two friends barely registered.

"Thanks. Really."

I shouldn't have gotten swept up in this bet in the first place.

We'd come into third year craving some kind of thrill, so we'd started with small bets and worked our way up to forfeits.

But the energy had spiraled out of control, and we'd agreed to end it all with one final round.

And the glorious recipient of that final forfeit was me.

To make it worse, the forfeit was simultaneously the simplest and the most brutal one yet.

Confessing to Elline.

"Why Elline, of all people?"