SRS 28

“Hmm…”

After a short struggle, Suhyeok and Seiga finally convinced Yohan to show them the egg hidden inside his coat. Their expressions turned complicated the moment they saw it.

“Uh… Yohan, I know you’ve a soft spot for pitiful things, but isn’t this a bit much?”

Suhyeok looked at him like he was a fool. His expression said, You went into the headmaster’s vault and came out with that? Yohan opened his mouth in protest, but when he saw what his friends had brought back, his voice caught in his throat, and he couldn’t even defend himself.

“…I’ll respect your choice, Yohan. If you brought it out yourself, it must be the egg of something powerful, right?”

Seiga tried to sound cheerful, but that only made it sting more. Yohan pursed his lips and lowered his head.

He shouldn’t have compared himself to the two who came out with a space pouch and an artifact.

Without realizing that the heart of a once-devout priest was slowly darkening, Suhyeok and Seiga curiously scrutinized him. When Yohan remained silent, they turned to the headmaster instead. Their eyes asked what the egg really was, but the headmaster only chuckled in response.

Just then, the bell rang to signal the end of the break. Yohan immediately headed for the door as if he had been waiting for the chance.

“…Let’s go. We need to get ready for the next class.”

Hearing his weak voice, the other two hesitated, then bowed to the headmaster and followed him out of the office. Yohan was about to step through the door when the headmaster called to him.

“Yohan, if you ever get curious while raising that, feel free to visit the office anytime.”

The unusually gentle tone made Yohan’s skin crawl. He frowned in discomfort.

“Ahaha!”

The headmaster, amused by that expression, laughed brightly and shone even more than usual as he saw them off. Click. When the door closed behind them, Yohan’s shoulders drooped as he headed up to the roof where their griffins were waiting.

Seeing his genuinely disheartened face, Suhyeok and Seiga couldn’t bring themselves to ask anything more. They quietly tucked their own rewards away.

˚ʚ♡ɞ˚

“What? Fantasiademia’s divine beast?”

Yohan only felt like talking about what he’d brought back after they returned to the dorm.

He had locked the mysterious egg in the bottom drawer like sealing away a curse, then sighed as he explained everything that had happened inside the vault. Suhyeok stared at the drawer with wide eyes.

“No way… you really brought something like that out of the vault…?”

“I told you, I didn’t choose it. It was the only thing there.”

“Yes, I understand that, but…”

Suhyeok ruffled his hair in frustration.

“…That’s rough.”

Feeling sorry that his friend had wasted such an opportunity on something so ridiculous, Suhyeok patted Yohan’s shoulder.

“Don’t be too upset. We still don’t know if it’s really Fantasiademia’s divine beast, or just one that happens to live here. If it’s the former, it’d be priceless, but do you honestly think the headmaster would give away something that valuable?”

“Do you even know what the headmaster is like?”

“……”

Room 304 fell silent. Suhyeok frowned as he remembered the headmaster laughing heartily to the very end. He couldn’t argue. Yohan had a point.

“…Cheer up. And, uh, you might want to avoid opening that drawer.”

He ended up failing to comfort him and settled for a bitter piece of advice. Yohan nodded weakly and flopped onto his bed.

“I don’t know exactly what Fantasiademia’s divine beast is, but since it belongs to the school, it must hold some great authority.”

Muttering to himself, he heard Suhyeok agree.

“Yes, probably.”

“Then if it hatches, won’t all the professors be interested in it?”

“Most likely?”

“Then they’ll all start paying attention to me too.”

“……”

Suhyeok gave him a more sympathetic look than before. Yohan groaned and pulled the blanket over his head.

He knew very well that gaining a professor’s attention at Fantasiademia wasn’t a good thing. Getting noticed only meant turning into a frog, running up the back mountain, or training every dawn with a professor.

All of those things were actually happening to his friends.

Rina, who’d caught the angel professor’s interest because of her unusual divine power control, was training to use divine power while in frog form. Melek, praised for his talent in taming, was forced by Homern’s demands to grow “more beastlike,” and now ran the mountain every day while practicing wolf howls. Meanwhile, Kylus, favored by the Phantom Sword Master, left the dorm before dawn each morning for sparring.

Watching his friends grow thinner by the day, Yohan had sworn he’d never stand out to any professor. But now, because of this divine beast, that plan fell in shambles.

While Yohan trembled under his blanket, picturing his bleak future, Suhyeok, who was trying to comfort him, took out his subspace pouch.

“Yohan, you can use my pouch too if you want. If you’ve anything to store, just tell me. I only managed to get this because of you.”

“Suhyeok…”

Moved by his friend’s loyalty, which felt far more reliable than the headmaster’s words, Yohan lowered the blanket and looked at him, then shook his head.

He was grateful, but that reward belonged to Suhyeok alone, earned through his own effort.

“Thank you. But I’ll just take the thought. It’s your reward, so you should be the one to use it fully.”

“It’s fine.”

“I’m fine too.”

“…You really are a proper priest, so stubborn. I won’t take the offer back, so tell me if you ever need it later.”

“Alright.”

Yohan thanked him again and checked his schedule. They had talked so long that the break was already over, and it was time for the next class.

“You’re going to second period, right? See you in common studies.”

Reading Yohan’s thoughts just from his expression, Suhyeok sent him off first.

“See you then.”

After parting with Suhyeok, Yohan hurried off to his Spirit Studies class. There was a quiz on the previous lesson today, so he needed to review quickly to do well.

He quickened his pace and reached the classroom 20 minutes before class began. As usual, he headed to his seat but stopped when he noticed a student sitting next to it.

“Mikael.”

Yohan called the person he hadn’t seen for nearly a day, he saw Mikael lift his gaze from his book. When he recognized Yohan, Mikael smiled, as always, and pulled out the chair for him.

“Hey, Yohan.”

Yohan nodded at the gentle greeting and sat down…

“……!”

…only for Mikael to frown. As Yohan was focused on opening his textbook, Mikael silently watched him. His eyes moved slowly, scanning Yohan’s whole body. His gaze lingered longer than necessary on Yohan’s neck, shoulders, and thighs before he looked away.

“…Yohan.”

“Yes?”

“Who did you meet?”

“Hm?”

Yohan, busy flipping through his Spirit Studies book and memorizing the quiz material, looked up at the sudden question.

“Why?”

“……”

Instead of answering, Mikael’s expression turned strange. He leaned in close to Yohan. Sniff, sniff. His nose sniffed the ends of Yohan’s hair, then moved lower, past his ear, down his neck, until his face hovered near Yohan’s collarbone.

Yohan blinked, startled by how close he was.

“What are you doing?”

Even when asked in confusion, Mikael ignored him and continued sniffing around his clothes and the back of his neck like a hunting dog tracking its prey.

“……”

After a moment, Mikael lifted his head with an unreadable look and stared at Yohan. Still not understanding what was going on, Yohan frowned and was about to ask again.

However, Mikael suddenly pressed his face into Yohan’s neck and rubbed his head side to side, like a dog shaking off water. The friction of his nose and cheeks against Yohan’s skin made him flinch in shock. Yohan quickly pressed a hand to Mikael’s forehead and pushed him back. His skin burned from the contact.

“Mikael? What are you doing?”

Yohan asked in disbelief. Mikael replied.

“There’s a bad smell.”

“What?”

“Did you, by any chance…”

“Ahhh! The quiz! I’m insane, totally insane! I slept through the whole break! Nora, why didn’t you wake me up!?”

The door opened, and their classmates for Spirit Studies came in. The atmosphere of the room changed completely as students filled the seats. Whatever Mikael had been about to say vanished as he closed his mouth and buried his face in his book, as if the earlier moment had never happened.

“Mikael.”

Even when Yohan called him again, he didn’t respond. It seemed he had no intention of continuing the topic now that others were around. Yohan sighed and awkwardly touched his neck and forced himself to focus on his textbook again. The inside of his collar, rumpled from Mikael’s touch, had cooled where the friction’s warmth had faded.