The day after Marco almost turned into a lesser demon and killed everyone in the princesses’ room, Melina locked the crate with black pearls behind a magical locker that she made herself.
She was so angry after the three teenagers left with their unconscious friend that she used that rage to focus on creating a new spell. One that could lock any container tightly and that only she would be able to open.
It was an incredibly high-level spell that was never seen before, but Melina felt like she needed it badly, so she managed to develop it in a single day.
Her locker was nothing more than a wooden box, but the spell made it shut so tightly that the only way to open it would be to destroy it.
Once she felt like everything was back in order, she kept working on the black pearls, cleansing them, and sending them to Ichiro to use in the war.
Luca left that day extremely disappointed, not only at his friend’s actions but also at the fact that he wasn’t able to apologize to the princess.
Since the three teenagers didn’t know what had happened or what the black pearls were, Eve went out of her room with them to give them an explanation.
Melina’s roommates had only found out what the black pearls were the day she received a crate filled with them.
The princess didn’t want to go into detail about it so she wouldn’t make her friends worry, but they insisted on wanting to know, so Melina told them about the reality of the war against Kalusia.
Still, Eve didn’t tell the three teenagers the complete truth and simply explained that they were dangerous artifacts that Melina had to cleanse and send to the people who were fighting the war.
Luca and his friends felt even worse after hearing they had been messing with life-threatening artifacts, not toys and trinkets as they initially thought.
Thanks to the information they had found about Ichiro, they knew that he was fighting in the war, but they didn’t realize that Melina had been supporting him all the way from the academy.
Luca felt stupid as he finally understood that Melina only had romantic eyes for Ichiro.
He had been hoping for his demise in the war all that time after hearing that Melina was interested in him, believing him to be nothing more than a talented commoner.
However, the reality of the situation started to set in, as he remembered that all those times he saw Melina acting bored or sad were due to her missing Ichiro and not some feeling that he could simply quell with his presence.
He couldn’t get the furious gaze of Melina out of his mind and how she coldly asked them to leave, making him feel like a true idiot.
Nonetheless, the stubborn prince still thought that he could mend his relationship with the princess and maybe even make her fall in love with him.
With that in mind, he went alone to Melina’s room to apologize one week after the event happened.
Yuki opened the door and sighed as soon as she saw Luca standing outside with a pitiful look, slowly turning her head and calling Melina to the door.
The silver-haired princess came to the door with a bit of enthusiasm, but it all went away as soon as she saw Luca’s face.
"I wanted to apologize... My friend did a very stupid thing, and I didn’t do anything to stop him." Luca said, bowing his head toward Melina.
The princess kept her arms crossed, but seeing the prince in such a pitiful state didn’t allow her to be mean to him, making her let out a tired sigh.
"Alright, then. Forgiven," she said, promptly turning around to return to her desk.
"I brought this, too!" Luca exclaimed before Melina could leave, making her turn back around to notice the small box in his hands.
It was a box with tea that he had brought from Vista, giving the excuse that since he wasn’t able to taste the tea that Yuki had prepared the last time, he thought it would be an ideal apology gift.
Melina couldn’t decline the gift as it felt too mean for her to do, so she accepted it and invited Luca inside, telling him to go to the balcony while she brewed it.
As soon as Luca entered the room, the princess went to her desk, stowed away the black pearls inside her magic locker, and began preparing the tea with Yuki’s machine.
Meanwhile, both of Melina’s roommates were sitting at the table with Luca, waiting for the tea to be done.
"You are really persistent on becoming Melina’s friend, huh?" Yuki commented.
"I just don’t want there to be any bad blood between us," Luca replied, posing a fake solemn smile that didn’t fool Yuki.
"Say whatever you want. I don’t really care about your intentions, just don’t get in her way..." said Yuki, leaving an awkward silence hanging in the air for a few seconds as Luca didn’t have an answer.
When Melina came out to the balcony holding the tray with the teapot and cups, Eve quickly stood up to break the uncomfortable moment and helped the princess set it on the table.
"So, Luca. Why have you been coming here so often?" Melina asked after taking a sip from the tea.
The princess knew that the green-haired prince had been trying to see her for a while ever since they started attending the academy.
Yuki was the one who told her about it, but she hadn’t paid too much attention to it as she had been engrossed in her own problems.
"I just wanted to be friends but realized I was going about it the wrong way..." Luca replied.
Melina let out a sigh. "You could have just said so from the beginning..." she said before giving her tea another sip.
It was hard for the princess to stay mad at someone who wasn’t completely at fault, and even though she could tell that Luca wasn’t a bad person, she could feel like he had some sort of objective.
Nonetheless, she didn’t feel threatened and didn’t think it would be a big deal if Luca became friends with them.