Classroom of the Elite:SS Collection

A Fairy Tale(Sakayanagi Arisu)

Note: This might be a bit longer than usual but please read it till the end. Thank you!

*****

"Hey, Mama! Tell me a bedtime story!"

"Yeah, yeah. A long time ago, in a kingdom, there lived a princ-"

"No! I have heard about them a lot! I wanna listen to something more interesting!"

I heaved a sigh. She had started throwing a tantrum with her short lilac hair swaying left to right and her eyes, a mixture of dark brown and violet, looked at me, full of expectation.

So, what should I tell to my lovely daughter?

She will be turning 5 this January. Kids of her age all liked to hear stories of fantasy, basically fairy tales. When I had first told her these sorts of stories, of course, that fascinated her. But after hearing the same sort of story, again and again, she started getting bored.

What a weird child. No, she was definitely showing our traits. The endless curiosity from her father and brain of a genius from me.

"Alice. I will tell you a really good fairy tale." 

"Another fairy tale?"

"No, no. It is a different sort of fairy tale and one that has no fairies in them."

When I hinted that the story was different, she immediately sat on my lap and quieted down. 

Stroking her hair, I started.

"It can be said to be a fairy tale yet can't be called that at the same time. It all started when a young girl went to a certain place. It was a world of white. From a very young age, she was a genius and there was not a single thing in the whole world that had the ability to amuse her. But that day, when she set foot in that world of white for the first time, everything took a massive turn."

I paused to look at her and it seemed that she was listening attentively.

"In the white world, she saw a certain boy. Despite being of such a young age, he showed extraordinary calmness, completely befitting his age. And he was brilliant, extraordinarily so. While all other children around him seemed to struggle, he defeated his opponents one after the other without breaking a sweat. The sight of that boy made the girl's heart beat faster. From that day, she wanted to meet him, to be in a space together with him. It was the first time that the girl had wanted something so badly."

"So, it was love at first sight?!"

"Yeah. It was love at first sight."

She said some interesting stuff for a girl of her age but what she said wasn't wrong. At some point, I had already started reliving those moments and trying to recall how it felt.

"Fufu."

Recalling those memories filled my heart with warmth.

"What's wrong, mama?"

"Nothing. Let's continue, shall we?"

"Mh-hmm."

She nodded her head vigorously.

"Every day and every night the girl would dream of that boy and hoped that there will come a day where she would be able to meet the boy. And finally, after eight years and two hundred and forty-three days, she was finally able to see the boy of her dreams."

"Hey, mama. Why didn't she get to meet him for so long?"

"Good question, Alice. It was because his father was a very very evil man. He wanted his son to be the best, and he actually was the best, and he wanted his son to take him over as the King and lead the others. So for that, he didn't let his son go outside and was confined in that small white world."