The Academy's Terminally Ill Side Character-Chapter 57: Vegetable Vigilante

[Leona’s POV]

Leona smiled, doing her best to hide the laugh threatening to spill out of her mouth.

Why?

Because right now, across the lunch table, her roommate Rin Evans was glaring down at the cherry tomatoes she’d casually dropped onto his plate like they had personally offended him.

He wasn’t saying anything—of course not. That would be too easy. But the way he grimaced at them, shoulders stiff, eyes narrowed in quiet outrage... it was like watching a man come to terms with a great betrayal.

And she was the betrayer.

Leona had to bite the inside of her cheek to stop herself from laughing.

Honestly, she didn’t expect such a strong reaction. She thought he’d just push them to the side or maybe pawn them off to Ryen. But no—Rin was apparently too dignified for that. Or too dramatic.

Either way, it was hilarious.

She leaned her chin on her palm, still watching him with a light smirk.

He finally looked up, their eyes met, and she gave him a sweet, innocent smile.

He stared back at her like she’d just stabbed him with a salad fork.

Too late now, Rin, she thought, trying not to laugh. You accepted the tomatoes. That makes them yours now.

Despite her amusement, Leona genuinely liked Rin.

Not in the romantic sense—though she wouldn’t deny he was handsome in his own sharp, serious way—but as a person.

He was grounded. Aware of his surroundings. Dedicated to his training. Respectful without being stiff. And he had this unspoken sense of when to give people space.

He was also surprisingly quick-witted and observant.

Like earlier, when Ryen had reached out to swipe one of the cherry tomatoes off her plate with his spoon.

If he’d actually done it, Leona wouldn’t have said anything—she wasn’t a child, after all—but the mood would’ve definitely turned sour.

Ryen didn’t notice. But Rin did.

With perfect timing, he redirected the conversation just enough to make Ryen pause and forget about the tomato.

And in that split second, Leona understood exactly what he was doing.

So she made a choice.

She dumped all her cherry tomatoes onto Rin’s plate.

She’d felt a flicker of guilt as she did it—but the sheer look of betrayal Rin gave her was so priceless, so dramatic in its silent outrage, that the guilt quickly turned into delight.

He hates cherry tomatoes, she realized, hiding her grin. Just like me.

The more she saw him, the more little things they seemed to have in common.

Rin slowly picked up a tomato with his fork, his expression darker than a thundercloud, and popped it into his mouth like he was accepting death with dignity.

Leona watched, her smile softening just a little.

She hadn’t had many friends before—not with her upbringing, not with the walls she’d built around herself.

But this? This quiet back-and-forth? This mutual understanding?

Maybe this was what having a friend felt like.

"You seem to like cherry tomatoes," she said lightly, sipping her drink.

"You’re blind," Rin muttered, still chewing.

"I’ll leave mine to you from now on."

"Wouldn’t it be easier if you just didn’t pick them up in the first place?"

"They’re good for you."

"If they’re so good for you, you eat them."

She gave him a look of mock horror. "That’s crossing the line."

Rin let out a heavy sigh and glared down at the last tomato on his plate like it had personally wronged him.

Leona stifled a laugh, watching his inner war with a tiny, squishy vegetable.

Yep. Definitely a friend.

A moment later, Rin picked up the tomato, popped it into his mouth with an exaggerated sigh of defeat, and turned to her.

"You know," he began, deadly serious, "you really shouldn’t throw away tomatoes so easily or any vegetables as matter of fact. There’s a villain—or maybe an anti-hero—out there who punishes people for wasting vegetables."

He said it so seriously, without even blinking, that for a moment she just stared.

Then she burst out laughing.

"Haha! Rin, you sure know how to tell a joke."

Even Ryen chuckled beside them, trying not to spit out his drink.

"That was good," he grinned, shaking his head. "You almost had me worried for a second."

Even Nora, ever the reserved one, let out a soft giggle as she dabbed her lips with a napkin.

"That’s such a weirdly specific villain," she said with a small almost not noticeable smile that made Rin shudder.

They all laughed together, and the moment felt light, like a rare pocket of ease in a world that usually demanded too much from people like them.

But none of them realized...

Rin wasn’t joking.

Not even a little.

Somewhere out there, a caped lunatic with a vegetable obsession was probably scribbling Leona’s name into a notebook labeled "The Wasteful Ones."

And Rin?

He’d just saved her from being tomato-shamed on a national broadcast.

As the laughter died down and they returned to their food, Leona caught Rin’s eyes again.

There was a flicker there—something unreadable beneath the calm surface.

She couldn’t quite tell if he was still annoyed about the tomatoes or just pretending to be. With Rin, it was always hard to tell. His default setting was deadpan, and the rare moments he cracked even half a smile were the kind you remembered.

But then again... there had been something a little too specific in that "vegetable vigilante" speech. Like it wasn’t just a joke pulled out of thin air, but a memory. A real one.

Leona narrowed her eyes slightly.

Nah.

No way.

He was probably just that good at selling his jokes. Right?

Still... she made a mental note not to waste food around him again. Just in case.

But still she doesn’t like Tomato’s and she’s not going to eat one.

No matter what, Unless that eating tomato will save the life or someone or save the world she wasn’t eating onf for sure.

"Well now that we have eaten, how about the light exercise that we talked about Rin?" ƒree𝑤ebnσvel.com

At those words of Rin face couldn’t help but grimace.

He turned towards him and let out small forced smile and said, "Sure."

...As for Leona? Well she really likes here, away from her cold home where she couldn’t make any friends.

’At least here I would make some friends.’