He Is Not Leige

Leige also happened to recognise this voice, and before he could let out a single sigh at the thought of not being able to fall asleep or at least think about his current circumstances, he was wrapped up in a tight embrace.

The boy paused in his thoughts, stiffening up nearly imperceptibly before immediately relaxing again.

Although he had been hugged by George before already, it had been less than a week since he had become this 'Leige' person in a game, and in his past life he was, quite tragically, alone. 

So apart from a few bold colleagues, he had never really received much affection and this onslaught coming from George was something he had yet to get used to completely. 

Leige couldn't even get a word out before George let go of him for a second only to softly yet firmly grab his face to inspect him carefully.

"Are you okay? Does it hurt anywhere? Why isn't anyone taking care of you?" his frown only deepened as he scanned the clearly empty room.

"I'm okay." Leige replied, a little dizzy from wave after wave of intense brotherly affection directed at him.

George looked at him once over again.

Leige had pink hair, a colour akin to fluffy cotton candy sold in little stalls in the centre. Once pushed back, it would reveal a silky smooth forehead, just the right size with a healthy glow.

In fact, Leige's whole face looked to be carefully crafted by God himself, and George had often wondered how someone with such angelic features could be so unlikeable and cunning underneath the surface. 

Leige's features leaned to the androgynous side, with a small, narrow nose and high cheekbones, thin yet soft looking lips which fit his slim face perfectly, with a slight tilt to the corners which naturally made him either cunningly attractive or kind and innocent. 

His eyes were not blue, instead a murky sort of grey which had swirls of lighter and darker shades, seemingly more complex the closer they were looked at. 

His overall height was not small, instead slightly taller than average was meant to be for their age group, probably around 174cm. 

However, since the rest of their year shot up like bamboo, he still looked a bit small compared to some of them.

"Leige, I have something I think we need to talk about," George began to speak, testing the waters. 

In fact, he had heard from the people gossiping in his class that Leige had caused trouble again, even going so far as to shame someone for getting into the school and accusing them of using underhand tricks to get in, although the girl was clearly stronger than him and deserved to be where she was. 

Although George didn't want to believe that his Leige had reverted back to his previous ways, he knew it wasn't an unlikely thing to happen considering how it had only been a few days since Leige had completely changed in his eyes. 

Hearing George's serious tone, Leige looked up, instantly sobering up from the dizziness.

"Yes?"

"Is it true that you accused a girl of getting into this academy using underhand tricks, and was therefore knocked out because of it?" George asked carefully. 

Leige looked at him for a moment. 

"Yes. It was a practice match and I provoked her to make her attack me." 

"Why did you feel the need to provoke her?" George asked slowly, looking at the boy who was sitting on the bed.

"Because otherwise she wouldn't attack me." Leige replied steadily, watching as George furrowed his eyebrows.

"Why did you need her to attack you?" 

Leige hesitated. Experiments? Because it was the best way to learn about magic? 

George saw his brother's reluctance to reply and asked another question.

"Do you think you could have approached the situation in a different way?" Leige, who in his past life had never been in this type of situation before, could only think back to the situation at hand before wrinkling his eyebrows.

"It was the optimum solution at the time." after all, only then would she be angry enough to attack him.  

George stared at him. It was unknown what he was thinking.

Leige stared back, however, he was seriously reflecting and honestly saying what he thought. 

It wasn't as though he was incredibly sheltered in his past life... Well, he supposed he was sheltered from the rest of the world, from other people. 

He saw people talk from a distance, but because he had looked like a girl none of the boys had ever taken the initiative to play with him at school, and the girls had their own separate friendship groups.

He himself had also never taken the initiative to reach out to people, explaining why he had no friends, well, maybe except from his assistant and a few colleagues, at his time of death. 

His parents had moved around a lot so he had never felt as though it was necessary to maintain friendships with other people his age, instead choosing to immerse himself in books as he knew they could never leave him no matter where he would be forced to move.  

Therefore, Leige had never been in a situation where he had to reflect on being mean to someone, or where he was in a tense relationship with someone or he had to apologies, and he viewed other people more like objects. 

He had a moral compass of course, and therefore felt guilty if he said mean things, but at the end of the day, to him, other people were much like objects he would either obtain things from or stay away from. 

With Angelica, since he hadn't actually meant what he was saying, he simply assumed that Angelica knew that too and therefore wouldn't feel anything about it.

No matter how flawed that logic seemed to other people, it was how he thought.

George stayed silent for a long time before speaking up.

"I am sure the girl you said those things to is incredibly hurt. She only hurt you because it was a match, so I think you should apologise to her." 

Leige looked at him silently, digesting his words. 

Hurt?

Ah. Could it be that she didn't know Leige didn't mean those things?

The more he thought about it, the more blindingly obvious it became. 

Before he was Leige, Leige was like that all the time. Just because it was a few days and he had become more quiet didn't mean that Angelica knew he was a completely different person who had only insulted her for the sake of his experiments.

Now enlightened, Leige nodded his head.

"Okay, I will." 

George nodded at him before briskly walking outside to a place Leige couldn't see him, holding his chest.

'Optimum solution'? Not to mention, how he had helped with his maths homework? And even more so how he had completely and utterly changed?

...How had he not seen it before?

This guy, whoever he was, was not Leige.