"Papa…? Where are you…?"
The voice was soft the first time—uncertain, searching.
Then it came again, louder.
"Papa!"
The word rang across the classroom with startling clarity.
Silence followed.
Not the casual silence of students pausing mid-conversation—but a heavy, suspended stillness, as though the entire room had forgotten how to breathe. Chairs creaked faintly. Someone's pen rolled off a desk and hit the floor with a hollow tap that sounded far too loud.
Yuuta's blood ran cold.
The students glanced at one another in confusion, expressions shifting from irritation to curiosity to disbelief.
"Papa?" someone whispered.
"In college?"
"Who's calling their dad here?"
But Yuuta already knew.
His mind went blank—utterly, terrifyingly blank—like a screen flickering to black.
That voice.
There was no mistaking it.
He rose from his seat slowly, almost mechanically, as if his body had moved before his thoughts could catch up.
Why is my daughter here?
The question echoed violently inside his skull.
It wasn't possible. Elena had been at home. She was supposed to stay there. She wouldn't just wander into a college campus alone.
Unless—
His breath hitched.
Unless she hadn't come alone.
Yuuta's jaw tightened as realization dawned with dreadful clarity.
It wasn't that Elena missed him and came searching.
It was that she brought her.
"That lizard…" he muttered under his breath, dread curling in his stomach. "But why?"
The answer came before he could finish the thought.
A presence entered the hallway.
At first, it was subtle—an unnatural stillness in the air. Then came the drop in temperature, sharp and immediate. Students nearest the door shivered instinctively.
She Walked in Hallway.
Erza.
Tall. Strong. Elegant.
She wore an emperor-white dress that flowed around her like moving silk, every step measured and deliberate. The fabric caught the light, shimmering faintly as though woven from frost itself. Her pale skin seemed almost luminescent beneath the fluorescent lights, and her violet eyes scanned the room with calm, sovereign authority.
As she walked forward, the air around her crystallized into tiny droplets of ice, forming and dissolving in slow, glittering spirals before falling like fragments of starlight. The illusion was breathtaking—like a goddess descending quietly into a mortal world that did not deserve her presence.
No one spoke.
No one dared.
Even those who didn't understand what they were seeing felt it—the weight of her existence pressing down on them. Instinctively, students straightened in their seats. Some shrank back. Others stared, entranced.
Yuuta stood frozen.
His worst speculation had become reality.
And just behind her—
Small footsteps echoed softly in the hallway.
Yuuta's body moved before his thoughts did He somehow sense Erza and Elena where other just wondering, Why they felt pressure.
The moment Yuuta felt that suffocating cold seep deeper into the classroom, he dropped back into his seat and then slid down further—until he was crouched beneath his desk like a criminal hiding from a searchlight.
He pressed himself against the metal frame, heart hammering violently against his ribs.
He was afraid.
Not of embarrassment.
Not of rumors.
But of her.
"Why did she come here…?" he muttered under his breath, barely daring to breathe. "Didn't she agree to give me one year? What's the point of coming here now?"
His mind raced wildly, each possibility more absurd than the last.
Does she want to kill me in front of everyone?
Make an example out of me?
Prove some kind of royal point?
It sounded ridiculous even to him. Erza had no reason to slaughter a classroom full of harmless students.
And yet—
She had crossed galaxies to find him.
Appearing in his college without warning was nothing compared to that.
The hallway outside grew quieter.
Then came the unmistakable sound of small footsteps.
Light. Eager. Unafraid.
Elena.
She reached Class D and, without hesitation, grabbed the sliding door handle.
The door burst open with a loud metallic sound that echoed through the room.
"Papa! Elena is here to meet you!" she announced brightly, her voice ringing with cheerful excitement as she stepped inside.
She giggled as if this were the most normal thing in the world.
The classroom fell into stunned silence.
Dozens of eyes turned toward the doorway.
A small girl stood there—white hair shimmering under the fluorescent lights, crimson eyes wide with innocence. She looked impossibly delicate and strangely out of place in a room full of college students.
Whispers erupted almost instantly.
"Who is that child?"
"Why is there a kid here?"
"Is this someone's little sister?"
"Look at her eyes…"
"They're red."
"And her hair—why is it white?"
At the front of the classroom, Professor Melory cleared his throat and adjusted his glasses, trying to regain control of the situation.
"Now, now," he said carefully, stepping forward with a polite smile. "This isn't really a place for children. How did you get here, little one?"
Elena tilted her head slightly, as though confused by the question itself.
"Elena is here to see Papa," she answered sweetly.
The word Papa seemed to bounce off the walls.
A ripple of reactions spread instantly.
"Papa?"
"Did she just say Papa?"
Professor Melory blinked twice.
"I believe there may be a
misunderstanding," he said gently. "Everyone here is still very young. I assure you, none of these students are fathers."
A few boys let out nervous laughter.
Elena's small brows knit together.
"But Mama said Papa is here."
The room shifted.
"Mama?" the professor repeated, visibly more unsettled now.
Elena nodded confidently, her small hands clasped behind her back as she rocked slightly on her heels.
"Yes," she said with absolute certainty.
"Mama said Papa is in this room She smelled Papa scent."
The whispers grew louder.
"Wait… she has a mom too?"
"So someone here is married?"
"No way…"
Under the desk, Yuuta pressed his forehead against his knees.
This was worse than death.
This was public execution by social disaster.
He knew what came next.
Because if Elena was here—
Then she wasn't alone.
And the air was still getting colder.
The whispers in the classroom had barely begun to settle when the temperature shifted again. It wasn't dramatic—no sudden gust of wind, no visible frost—but a subtle, creeping chill that made the students nearest the windows rub their arms. A few glanced up at the ceiling as if expecting the air conditioner to hum to life.
"Is it just me, or did it just get colder?"
"I thought the AC was turned off."
Professor Melory frowned slightly and glanced toward the wall unit. It was, in fact, off.
Before anyone could question it further, a faint sound drifted in from the hallway. It wasn't the sharp rhythm of hurried footsteps. It was softer than that—measured. Controlled. The quiet brush of fabric gliding across polished tile.
Elena turned toward the doorway instantly, her red eyes lighting up.
"Mama!"
The single word echoed in the silent classroom.
Under his desk, Yuuta felt his stomach drop. His fingers tightened around the edge of the wood as if the furniture alone could shield him from what was coming.
The lights flickered once.
Only once.
Then steadied.
The air sharpened further, crisp and clean, like the first breath of winter. A faint fragrance drifted inside—soft lilies blooming in cold air, fresh and impossibly pure.
A long shadow stretched across the classroom floor from the hallway. Elegant. Unhurried.
Then a heel touched the threshold.
Soft.
Controlled.
Another followed.
She stepped inside as though the room had always belonged to her.
Her white dress flowed behind her in quiet authority, the fabric catching the fluorescent light with a faint shimmer, like frost kissed by dawn. Her skin appeared almost luminous beneath the dull classroom lighting—not pale in weakness, but radiant in presence. Every movement she made was deliberate, composed, untouched by hesitation.
Her violet eyes lifted.
The classroom fell into absolute silence.
Not the awkward silence of confusion.
The instinctive silence of prey sensing something far beyond them.
Students who had been whispering forgot what they were saying. Someone who had been raising a phone slowly lowered it. Even Professor Melory seemed to lose her train of thought mid-breath.
Tiny crystalline specks shimmered faintly in the air around her shoulders—so subtle most dismissed them as tricks of the eye. For a fleeting second, it looked as though microscopic stars were forming and dissolving around her.
Elena ran forward without fear and wrapped her small hand around the woman's fingers.
"Mama, Papa is hiding."
A few nervous chuckles rippled through the class.
"Hiding?"
"Who's hiding?"
Erza's gaze moved slowly across the room. She did not rush. She did not blink unnecessarily. She simply observed.
Every student she looked at felt it—not anger, not hostility, but evaluation. As though they were lines of text being read and dismissed.
When her eyes reached the back rows, they stopped.
Under the desk, Yuuta felt it.
Even without looking.
A presence like cold steel resting against his spine.
She had found him.
The temperature dipped one final degree—not enough for frost to form, but enough for fear to settle into every corner of the room.
Erza paused just inside the classroom and inhaled slowly.
There.
Beneath the scent of chalk dust, cheap cologne, and old wooden desks—she found it.
Him.
Warm. Familiar. Unmistakably human.
Her lips curved upward.
It was not a gentle smile.
It was the smile of a predator who had already located its prey.
In the back row, Fiona happened to glance up at the wrong moment. The instant her eyes met Erza's violet gaze, her stomach twisted violently. A cold wave washed over her body, and she gripped the edge of her desk to steady herself. She didn't know why she felt so afraid—only that every instinct in her body told her not to breathe too loudly.
Erza walked past her without a word.
Her steps were slow.
Measured.
Unhurried.
She did not need to search.
She already knew where he was.
Under the last desk near the wall, Yuuta tried to make himself smaller than humanly possible. His heartbeat pounded against his ribs like it was begging to escape.
She found me.
Of course she found me.
Before Erza could reach him, Elena slipped ahead, her small shoes tapping loudly against the floor. She stopped at the desk and bent down cheerfully, peeking underneath.
"Papa! Why are you hiding?"
The classroom erupted in gasps.
Yuuta slowly lifted his head from beneath the desk, forcing a strained smile onto his face.
"I'm not hiding," he said quickly. "I just dropped my pen, my child."
Elena blinked, her expression shifting into concern.
"Oh… Elena thought Papa didn't want to see Elena and Mama. That's why Papa was hiding."
The whispers in the room grew louder.
Erza stopped directly in front of the desk. Her shadow swallowed him completely.
Her voice came out calm.
Too calm.
"So you were not hiding… mortal?"
Yuuta swallowed hard and crawled out from beneath the desk, brushing off his uniform awkwardly.
"How could I hide from you, my Queen?" he said nervously. "You're capable of finding me light-years away. I truly only lost my pen."
Her violet eyes studied him without blinking.
"If you do not stand before me properly," she said evenly, "I will ensure you remain six feet beneath the earth for the rest of your life."
The threat was delivered in the same tone someone might use to comment on the weather.
Yuuta didn't hesitate.
He rose fully to his feet and stood in front of her.
The reaction from the class was instant and explosive.
Gasps.
Murmurs.
Someone dropped a pen.
The class clown—the unserious, always-joking Yuuta—was standing face-to-face with a woman who looked like she had stepped out of legend. And a child had just called him Papa.
"No way…"
"He's actually married?"
"She's… unreal."
"And that kid…"
Shock quickly shifted into fascination.
Several girls stared openly now, reevaluating everything they thought they knew about him. The boys, meanwhile, looked as though their pride had been personally attacked.
Yuuta stood awkwardly in front of Erza, feeling the weight of every eye in the room.
Beside him, Elena happily grabbed his sleeve.
Erza remained still, poised, her presence dominating the space without effort.
The classroom buzzed with disbelief, awe spreading like wildfire.
In a single moment, Yuuta had gone from background noise to the center of attention.
And judging by the way Erza's eyes gleamed faintly—
This scene was far from over.