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Chapter 13
“Doo-doo, doo-doo, doo-doo, doo-doo! Tada~!”
When Stephan opened the clubroom door, a brilliantly decorated interior unfolded before them.
He quickly pushed Jaylin inside and dramatically announced,
“Welcome, welcome to our astronomy observation club, The Orbital Mechanics of Stars! Woohoo! Applause!”
Jaylin felt like she might lose her mind—Stephan’s energy was several levels higher than when they had first met.
As he kept prompting her to clap, Jaylin awkwardly joined in with a few hesitant claps.
“So! Jaylin, how about joining The Orbital Mechanics of Stars, the club where I’m the president? If you join, you’ll have full access to this clubroom and all these supplies!”
“Do I… have to join a club?”
“Of course. At the Academy, all students are required to join at least one club. A little hobby activity is essential to relieve academic stress.”
Jaylin hesitated for a moment before asking,
“Um… Stephan, then… w-what club is Lionel… sunbae in?”
Stephan’s cheerful smile froze dramatically at her question.
“Jaylin. No way… Don’t tell me—no! I’m not telling you! You’re asking because you want to join his club, right? You’ve already fallen for Lionel? Am I not enough? You said I was handsome earlier!”
Stephan clung to Jaylin like a child throwing a tantrum.
“B-but…”
“No way! Please, Jaylin. Do it for me. Join our club, huh?”
Stephan clasped his hands under his chin like a flower and fluttered his eyes.
It was desperate. So desperate it was almost embarrassing to watch.
But Stephan was sincerely desperate, and he had a thick enough skin that none of this fazed him. It was only Jaylin whose heart was feeling heavier.
“If you don’t join, our club will be disbanded. We need at least three members to keep it going. Just one more! Just one! Pleaaaase.”
Before she realized it, Stephan had dropped to his knees in front of her, pressing his hands together with the most pitiful expression he could muster.
If Jaylin refused, he looked ready to throw himself on the floor and make a scene.
I wanted to join Lionel sunbae’s club…
But after all the help he gave her today, Jaylin couldn’t bring herself to coldly reject Stephan’s plea.
When she didn’t give a clear answer and kept hesitating, Stephan suddenly stood up with a determined face and shouted,
“Alright! Then how about this—if you join our club, I’ll find out which professor Lionel is taking for his mock monster combat class and tell you. How about that? Deal?”
“M-mock combat isn’t just one class…?”
“Nope. Lots of majors take that course, so it’s really popular. They divide it into four different sections. Don’t you want to know which one Lionel’s in? If you just pick randomly, there’s only a 1-in-4 chance of ending up with him. But if I tell you—boom! 100%!”
Stephan spread his palms wide and waved them frantically in front of Jaylin.
Jaylin’s eyes wavered badly. Stephan was confident—she was about to give in.
And finally, her answer came.
“Okay. I-I’ll join.”
“Yes!!”
With her answer, Stephan threw his fist into the air, then pulled it down victoriously and spun in place with joy.
It was a victory he had spent the entire day working for.
After spending time at the Academy for the first time in a while, Lionel finally arrived home after sunset.
During the semester, he usually stayed in a residence he’d purchased near the Academy. But since that place had been left empty over the break and wasn’t yet ready, he had to return to his family’s townhouse in the capital.
Letting out a long sigh, Lionel unbuttoned the collar that was choking him.
His head throbbed like it was going to split.
Whenever Lionel dealt with people, he would mentally prepare several response options and pick the best one. That kind of constant calculation was exhausting, and after days with a lot of social interaction, the stress would hit him hard.
Stress always made itself known through pain.
At some point, migraines had become a chronic condition that constantly followed Lionel around.
The pain was so intense it felt like his eyes might fall out of his skull. Unable to endure it any longer, Lionel opened his desk drawer. He pulled out a bottle of pills and chewed on a few headache tablets without even counting them.
He just grabbed whatever his fingers touched and shoved it into his mouth.
The dosage far exceeded what his healer had recommended, but it didn’t matter.
Lying on the bed, Lionel waited for the medicine to kick in.
Time passed, but the pain didn’t ease. It seemed even the medicine no longer worked.
With the semester starting soon, Lionel grew even more tense just imagining the constant headaches he’d have to endure during his time at the Academy.
He was already exhausted before it even began.
His whole body felt like a soaked cotton rag. Even though he knew exactly what he was working toward, sometimes he was overcome with the urge to just give it all up.
How much longer do I have to endure this…?
The migraine was so terrible he wanted to rip his head off.
As he lay there with his eyes closed, silently willing the pain to pass, a blurry image from earlier in the day came to mind.
Jaylin.
A childhood playmate he had briefly spent one season with at the Edouard estate.
She hadn’t changed. She was like a tiny puppy when they were kids, and she still was.
Her vivid peridot green eyes were the same—Lionel had recognized her instantly.
Suddenly, memories buried deep in his subconscious began to resurface. Pieces of a past he had completely forgotten.
Lionel got up and rummaged through his desk drawers. He was looking for a small box.
He clearly remembered placing a box full of random childhood items in one of the drawers.
After checking several drawers, he finally found it in the back.
Inside were a few crude wooden carvings Lionel had made, a watch gifted by his father for his birthday, and a tattered old book he didn’t remember putting there.
And the thing he had been looking for was there too.
A doll Jaylin had made for him.
It was even cruder than he remembered. It wasn’t really a doll—more like a few wooden chunks awkwardly stuck together.
Will it still move?
Lionel placed the doll on the desk and infused it with a bit of magic.
The doll creaked to life, raised its little stick arm, and waved it a few times. Then a red flame floated above its head and popped with a small burst.
Lionel’s lips curled into a faint smile.
If she’d ever seen real fireworks, she never would’ve made something like this. So much time had passed.
She must’ve seen fireworks by now…
As he reached to put the doll back into the box, a sudden wave of pain made him drop it.
The box hit the floor with a thud, scattering its contents. Only after gasping through several painful breaths did the headache finally begin to subside.
Lionel bent down and began gathering the scattered items. But his hand froze in place.
What caught his eye was a very luxurious, ornate fountain pen with a green gem sparkling at the end.
Lionel had meant to give this pen to Jaylin.
But why didn’t I?
It was such a long time ago that he couldn’t remember. The reason hovered just out of reach.
But what did it matter? In the end, he hadn’t given it to her. It was all in the past.
Lionel shook the thoughts from his head and stuffed the items back into the box.
Just as he was about to return the box to the drawer, he changed his mind and shoved it to the side with the belongings he planned to take back to the Academy residence.
The items in that box no longer held any real value to him—they were leftovers from the past. He planned to tell his servant to throw them out tomorrow.
Returning to bed, Lionel closed his eyes.
It was going to be another long night.
A week later, the semester began at the Academy. Jaylin’s first class was “Practical Application and Comprehension of Magic Formulas.”
It was a course designed to test whether formulas that had only been studied in theory could actually work in practice—and how they could be adapted to real-world situations.
The first class wasn’t very long. The professor just gave a brief overview of what they’d learn during the semester and listed the required textbooks and some recommended materials for further study.
After class, Stephan came bounding over like he was about to take flight.
“Jaylin, Jaylin!”
“H-hi, Stephan.”
“Hey, hey! Which section did you sign up for the mock combat class? Did you get Professor Wallace’s? There were so many rumors about Lionel taking that one—it was super hard to get into. Lucky for me, I made it in!”
Stephan’s words came flying so fast, Jaylin felt momentarily dazed.
