Engagement (1)

The magic circle disappeared as I felt a searing pain on the back of my neck.

When the stabbing pain stopped, nothing had changed.

I didn't feel anything different as I leaped out of Luke's bed to check my body in the mirror.

"What the heck was that?" I asked Luke as I spun around to look for any differences.

"The third stage of our engagement," Luke shrugged his shoulders.

What? I never heard that there were stages to the engagement. I just thought you got engaged then got married until you died or divorced.

"What are you talking about?" I shook Luke by grabbing his shoulders.

Luke gestured me to sit down on his bed as he calmly started to explain the entire process that I slept through in class.

"There are four stages of our engagement. As you already know the first stage is where your middle name is changed or added to match the house that you're marrying into." Luke's clear voice rang in the room.

I nodded my head as I did know that part ever since people referred to me as Rika Roselia Shanes in the first district.

"The second stage is when your name completely changes into the last name of the house you're marrying into as your middle name disappears."

I recalled Lucius's name being 'Lucius de Suilett' when I was introduced to him during social week at Ben's mansion.

At least I knew the reason why engagements almost never fell apart in the first district when almost your entire identity was reliant on it.

The only reason why I thought I would not marry Luke in the future was because my last name still belonged to my family in the third district.

I couldn't imagine everyone calling me Rika de Roselia in the first district. It was basically shouting at everyone that I was already a part of the Roselia family.

The worse of all, it would add to more pressure to act according to the family name since I was really a representative of the family now.

"The third stage is where you are magically permanently restricted to the person you're engaged with unless your partner dies. This ceremony happens when both parties willingly kiss their partner subsequently after each other," Luke continued.

Wait. So that was what the third stage was? Were we even allowed to skip stages like that?

"Can we even skip stages like that?" I curiously asked Luke as I hoped what I was thinking wouldn't be true.

"I have never heard of a couple that skipped stages before," Luke agreed.

"Even us?" I desperately hoped that it wasn't the case.

"But we just did the two stages together?" Luke questioned me back as he appeared awfully confused.

"What's my full name then?" I attempted to ask Luke more directly.

"Rika de Roselia," Luke plainly answered as if it was common sense.

"Isn't it supposed to be Rika Roselia Shanes?" I tried to deny what just happened.

"It's Rika de Roselia now," Luke picked up his book that was thrown on the floor.

I knew I would regret kissing Luke, but I didn't think I receive huge consequence of changing my last name due to this.

I would still call myself Rika Roselia Shanes for now.

Nobody knew what happened in this room anyways. Hence, no one would figure out these changes unless I made a blunder or Luke chose to reveal it himself.

* * *

I tried to hide behind my tall textbook to secretly sleep in the front row during class. Ever since kindergarten, my teachers always arranged my seat to be in the front row beside Luke.

Maybe it was easier to send me threatening glares for me to pay attention during class that way. I was always only half-awake during the mornings and they knew when I was about to fall asleep as they started to talk louder towards my direction.

None of my usual classmates even payed attention to the subtle differences from the teachers as they were used to them focusing most of their attention on me.

"Rika de Roselia, you will sit properly right now!" The calculus teacher demanded as I loosened my elegant posture to get into a better position to sleep on my desk.

"It's Rika Roselia Shanes," I tried to correct the teacher.

"It used to be Rika Roselia Shanes," The teacher attempted to correct my 'mistake'.

"No, it's still Rika Roselia Shanes or Rika Shanes," I disagreed while crossing my arms.

"We all see your engagement mark," The teacher sighed as she continued her lesson.

Oh, so that searing pain on the back of my neck was actually an engagement mark being created!

It would've been nice if Luke let me know about this yesterday when I asked him about it.

No wonder I couldn't find anything different, there was no way to notice an engagement mark in the mirror by myself!

This meant that everyone in this room knew what happened yesterday!

It was strange how calm they were as everyone acted like nothing had changed even though Luke and I skipped a stage in our engagement process.