---
When Eileen first entered the university, she was faced with cruel bullying.
Having entered at an early age thanks to a letter of recommendation from the Prince, it would have been strange if students and professors did not feel hostility toward her.
Although she considered this inevitable, at times it was difficult for her.
Spending whole days without communication, she withdrew to her room in the dormitory and recorded in the diary the events of the past day, remembering Cesare and the knights in the capital.
How beautiful it would be to have someone with whom one could talk and laugh.
But Eileen well understood that the very entry into university was already for her an enormous success.
She couldn't allow herself to complain of loneliness and difficulties.
She must have achieved outstanding successes to thank Cesare, who supported her both materially and morally.
In moments of fatigue she thought of him.
Reread his letters again and again until they came to unfitness, and calmed her troubled heart.
Stubbornly being occupied every day, she, fortunately, received a reward for her labors.
University lectures, which in the beginning seemed to her insurmountable, became understandable.
She learned to cope with synopses, assignments, experiments and exams with which she was faced for the first time in life.
With Lucio she became acquainted when her successes set about gradually to improve.
One day in the library Eileen saw a large man.
With disheveled hair and large glasses on face, he indecisively shifted before the librarian, holding in hands a note.
Long hesitating, he finally gathered spirit and whispered:
"E-er... tell me, when... she will return..."
"Will return when the time comes."
Apparently, he wanted to take a book which already someone had taken.
The librarian indifferently answered, even not having glanced at him.
Dispiritedly having turned around, the man collided with Eileen and started.
His gaze fell on the book in her hands.
Widely opening eyes, she asked:
"You wanted to take this book?
I am now returning it."
She smiled and added that he could immediately take it, since of other searchers, probably, there were none.
But an answer didn't follow.
Eileen's smile froze when she realized his silence.
Then she embarrassed-ly pronounced:
"A...
Pardon if it's unpleasant to you."
She regretted that she’d been so friendly with a person who, probably, didn't desire to communicate with her.
But suddenly the man trembled and began to fidget:
"N-not unpleasant...
S-simply... to me f-first time someone approached..."
His face reddened, and Eileen felt an unexpected proximity.
Because for her it too was for the first time.
At that time no one started talking with Eileen.
Even if she herself tried to begin a conversation, she was simply ignored.
The majority only threw at her disdainful gazes, considering her kindness unpleasant.
Therefore today she again regretted that she was obtruded and spoiling people's mood.
But for the first time she received an answer.
She involuntarily widely smiled, even not noticing how intently the man looked at her, and cheerfully answered:
"For me this too is the first time when they answered me!"
Thus Eileen and Lucio set about to communicate.
Many laughed, seeing how they often walk together.
She more than once heard mockeries about that "strange people hold together."
But Eileen didn't turn attention to this.
To her there was no time, she was occupied with study.
She simply rejoiced that she had a conversational participant with whom one could share daily trifles.
Lucio turned out to be a very kind and nice senior student.
As was clarified, he studied the same specialty, and helped Eileen to adapt to university life.
He found time to help her with study, and later set about to give her his things when Eileen set about constantly to lose something.
One day he even gifted to her a new handkerchief when she lost hers.
"It is too expensive..."
"W-want that y-you would i-use it... yourself..."
The handkerchief looked very high-quality.
When Eileen in embarrassment tried to refuse, Lucio, redder than ordinary, stuttering, muttered:
"W-want that y-you would i-use it... yourself..."
In the end Eileen gathered all her savings and bought for him a similar gift.
To misfortune, the handkerchief soon again was lost.
When she apologized before Lucio, he gifted to her a new one.
Besides that, Lucio loved to make for Eileen various gifts.
A beautiful bottle for water, a small plate and fork for a snack, pens and notebooks for notes—all these were trifles.
When she tried to refuse, saying that she couldn't all this thank, Lucio was strongly upset.
He so was saddened that Eileen in the end was forced to accept his gifts, although she continued to lose them.
So or otherwise, thanks to Lucio she could get used to the university.
When her successes improved, and professors set about to turn attention to her, other students too gradually set about to communicate with her.
She had many friends, but closest of all for her always remained Lucio.
Their friendship, it seemed, moved smoothly until one day it was broken off suddenly.
"P-pardon...
I am a b-bad... p-person..."
Lucio unexpectedly came to her by night, muttering something incomprehensible, returned all things which Eileen had lost during this time, and ran off as-if he were being chased.
She didn't manage even properly to ask what was happening.
On the following day she learned that Lucio had taken a leave of absence.
In a few months after the sudden disappearance of Lucio Eileen too received a letter from mother and, having interrupted study, returned to the capital.
With time she forgot about Lucio...
"I didn't recognize you, senpai."
But now he appeared before her completely different.
If Eileen took off glasses and trimmed her bangs, then Lucio too had shortened his disheveled hair and ceased to wear glasses.
He no longer stuttered and didn't avoid the gaze, so that she scarcely recognized him.
When Eileen glanced at him with admiration, Lucio slightly embarrassedly lead with a hand over his cheek—a habit which remained with him from those times when he felt awkwardness.
And his face weakly turned rosy, exactly as before.
Memories of those innocent days floated in memory, and Eileen couldn't restrain a smile.
"Eileen-nim...
You have so strongly changed."
But Lucio had been transformed not only externally.
While Eileen with surprise examined him, the professors addressed her.
"Eileen-nim.
We congratulate you with... marriage."
It was awkward for them to use respectful forms of address, and they spoke like broken mechanical dolls.
Looking back at the surrounding servants, they reached out to her a thick folder.
"This is... research works published in the journal...
Thanks to the magnanimous permission of His Excellency..."
When the professors finally were tangled in words, Eileen, slightly violating etiquette, interrupted them:
"Professor..."
"..."
"Please, address me as before.
I am all thus same your pupil who has what to learn from you."
They for some time looked at her, and then looked at each other.
Then, clearly tense, set about to speak:
"In actual fact, we came to..." And said the unexpected: "With the permission of His Excellency, we would like to help you in the research which you are now leading."
***
The man desperately rolled eyes.
This was one of the few parts of his body which he still could freely move after he’d been deprived of limbs.
Rotan indifferently looked at him, releasing smoke of a cigarette.
Having smoked a little more, he thrust the burning stub into the man's mouth.
That one writhed from pain when the fire scorched the flesh.
"Kh-kheu... kkhkhkh..." Convulsively restraining a groan, the man with all forces tried not to make noise, knowing that his tormentor didn't like superfluous sounds.
The rustling of turned pages was distributed in the room filled with the scent of blood and groans.
This unnatural sound belonged to Cesare.
Sitting relaxed in a chair and lazily leafing through a book, he suddenly asked:
"Eileen?"
"She is receiving guests who arrived earlier than expected.
However among them was found an uninvited one—Lucio Gaetani."
There was no need to explain who this was.
Cesare remembered all that was connected with Eileen.
"I permitted the visit of guests," slowly closed the book Cesare, "but didn't speak that into the house it's possible to let in insects."