[Emotions Running Wild]

The next day.

To secretly talk to Andrei about his family’s intention to adopt Jarvis, I called him out to the rooftop garden during lunch break.

Normally, I would have a fun lunch with Tayte… but this time I gave him a priority.

Incidentally, Cornell and Kleine accompanied Tayte in my stead.

The girls’ talk was lively, and Cornell was super hyped.

――Anyhow, when I told Andrei about the adoption,

“Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeehhhhhh?!?!?!?!?!?!?!”

He was deadly shocked.

“W-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-what do you mean?!”

“You and Jarvis are going to be siblings.”

“I know that part! B-but…”

Andrei fell silent, at a loss for words.

His spirit was completely drained, like a withered flower.

…But I got where he was coming from.

After all, he would become siblings with the girl he had a crush on.

If I were in his position… I was sure I would fall into a spiral of deep worries for a while–no, in fact, there was a chance I would never recover from it.

“Jarvis becoming my little sister… that means, she’s going to call me ‘big bro’… guh!”

Was it just me, or did he look happy for a moment there?

“B-Barrett, what should I do?”

“Andrei…”

I could only shut my mouth.

I had no good solution to offer him.

“N-now that it has come to this… I’m going to propose to Jarvis!”

“Huh?!”

“If we get married, there’ll be no need to adopt her! Jarvis will still become a part of our family and everything will be settled!”

“……”

That would be… a reckless move.

I hate to say this, but he would highly likely get rejected.

It wasn’t a matter of like or dislike. The problem was Jarvis regarded Andrei as a brother. She had no romantic feelings toward him.

–But that wasn’t to say that her feelings couldn’t change. And a small event might just be the trigger it needed.

Proposing was going too far, but if we found a milder way to close the distance between them… Andrei’s feelings should reach Jarvis.

But there was a deadline.

A week later, before Jarvis gave her reply to the Fontana House.

“Andrei, let’s calm down for now.”

“Y-yeah… I haven’t even prepared the ring yet. I have to hi to her parents too—ah! Both of them are in prison! Ah, a-and I also have to get Jarvis’ finger size somehow!”

“Let’s put the proposal talk aside for now, okay?”

He was way too hasty.

I had to come up with a plan while calming Andrei down…

“Oh? What are you guys doing here?”

A female student came in front of me as I was racking my brains.

Like Andrei, she had just joined the Knights of the Academy and she was one year my junior and a part of the harem in the original storyline, Madeline Halman.