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Chapter 46
On the way back to his seat, Adrian started sneering at Lionel.
“You were the guy who got first place in the last exam, and you couldn’t even find a team to work with? What a useless bastard.”
At Adrian’s irritation, Lionel smiled faintly and replied.
“Someone spread a rumor, you know. They said there were so many teams wanting to join us that if they didn’t hurry and decide, they’d be left out.”
“What?”
“They must’ve threatened them, saying that since it would be hard to end up with us anyway, if they didn’t decide right away, they’d get stuck with whoever was left at the end.”
“Crazy.”
“Strange, isn’t it? Not a single team came to us wanting to work together. And we were the first-place team in the midterms, too.”
That’s when Adrian realized what he had done.
“Well, nothing we can do now. I’ll be counting on you from here on.”
Lionel held out his hand, but Adrian smacked it away as he passed.
“Damn. Arghhh.”
Back at his desk, Adrian grabbed his hair and slammed his forehead against the desk. It was a disaster of his own making. There was no one else to blame but himself.
“Ugh. It’s hot.”
Once midterms ended, the weather grew steadily warmer. Even though summer hadn’t started yet, Adrian was so overcome by the heat that he could barely think straight.
He paced around the clubroom, gulping down cold water, but nothing helped.
He had been whining about the heat for days, but today it was worse than ever. The day was mild, yes, but certainly not hot.
Stefan nagged at him as he fussed.
“It’s hot because you’re moving around so much. Just sit still. Then you won’t feel hot at all.”
“Ah! I said it’s hot even if I sit still!”
Adrian snapped irritably. His jacket had long since disappeared, and his shirt was unbuttoned all the way down to his chest.
That wasn’t enough for him, so he lifted the hem of his shirt, fanning himself.
Each time the fabric fluttered, his abs were revealed and then hidden again.
Catching a glimpse of Adrian’s bare skin by accident, Jaelin quickly turned her head, her ears burning red.
“It… it’s not that hot.”
“It’s because he’s got fire-attribute mana. Every summer he goes nuts like this. In midsummer, his temper gets even worse. Best to stay out of his way,” Stefan explained on Adrian’s behalf.
“Argh, why is it so hot? I couldn’t sleep a wink last night. Damn it.”
“Tch. Still, it’s worse than usual this year. Last year he only started complaining once midsummer came. If he’s already like this now, what’s he gonna do when it really gets hot?”
“For it to be just heat, it’s a bit extreme. Maybe his mana levels suddenly spiked. Or maybe his attribute’s getting stronger. Once he adjusts, it’ll settle down. It’s just like when Lionel went through it.”
Sasha, who had come to visit the clubroom, spoke casually as if it were nothing.
“L-Lionel did?”
“Yeah. He said his whole body tingled. He never showed it outright, but he was edgy for a while. Even a brush of contact made him stiffen up. Still, once that phase passed, his mana capacity increased quite a bit. So just bear with it.”
I see. Jaelin nodded, storing away this new information about Lionel.
Exhausted from complaining, Adrian slumped into his usual spot.
“How long does it last?”
“Hmm… I don’t remember clearly. I think Lionel was like that for about two weeks? Not sure, though.”
“Ha… two weeks… How the hell am I supposed to last two weeks like this.”
At Sasha’s answer, Adrian flopped against the sofa. Then, raising an arm, he undid the few buttons still fastened, practically on the verge of stripping.
Startled, Stefan shouted.
“Hey! What are you doing? Are you crazy?”
“What? What’s the problem?”
“Sasha’s here, and Jaelin too. How can you just strip like that in front of them?”
“What’s the big deal? Sasha’s in swordsmanship, she sees shirtless guys every day. And Peanut over there…”
Adrian glanced at Jaelin.
Her face had gone bright red; she couldn’t even lift her head from her desk.
Then Sasha butted in.
“Oh! So I don’t count because I see it every day? Go on, then! Take it off! Why not just strip completely?”
Sasha’s sharp eyes swept him up and down, evaluating him like a specimen.
“Ugh.”
Adrian hastily buttoned his shirt back up.
Stefan darted over, fastening the buttons all the way to his collar and scolding him.
“You can’t act like that. Have some decency, man. Honestly.”
Adrian, feeling suffocated by the collar, undid the buttons again. Stefan re-fastened them.
They bickered for a long time over how many buttons to leave undone.
Before long, Adrian went quiet.
He covered his eyes with his forearm, fingers hanging limply, looking completely drained.
‘Is he really that hot?’
Jaelin glanced down at her project. She was working on a design for an ice-element barrier.
‘I think I can tweak this just a little.’
She sketched a design combining an ice-element circle with wind attributes to circulate the air.
But that would make Stefan, Sasha, and herself freeze.
So Jaelin adjusted the coordinates and put a boundary around it, letting the cool air circulate only within it.
After finishing, she stood and approached Adrian.
Sensing her, Adrian didn’t open his eyes, only moved his lips.
“What?”
Up close, Jaelin saw his forehead glistening with sweat.
With his sleeves rolled up and shirt unbuttoned down to his chest, his collarbones were exposed.
When the figure before him didn’t move, Adrian lowered his arm and slowly raised his eyelids. His eyes, flushed with heat, looked unusually hazy.
Lounging against the sofa with half-lidded eyes, he looked languid, like late-afternoon sunlight streaming through a window.
There was no trace of his usual sharp, prickly demeanor. Clearly, he wasn’t in his right mind.
Feverish, Adrian muttered nonsense he normally wouldn’t.
“Why are you just standing there? Did you fall for me?”
“N-no! Absolutely not.”
Jaelin jumped back, denying it vehemently with no room for doubt.
“What the hell.”
Adrian frowned. He looked displeased.
“Can’t you take a joke? Saying that to my face feels pretty lousy.”
“Guess you’re just not that appealing.”
Sasha chuckled.
“N-no, that’s not it… I’m sorry. Really, I’m sorry.”
When Jaelin apologized, Adrian’s expression grew stranger.
But there was no helping it. Her heart belonged to only one person.
Even as a joke, she couldn’t claim to like someone else. That was truly, absolutely impossible.
“Apologizing makes it worse. Forget it, just go.”
Adrian waved weakly, then shoved his sweaty hair back.
“W-wait. Just a second.”
Jaelin crouched under the sofa, channeled mana into her design, and activated it.
She felt the strange sensation of mana flowing out as the formation came alive.
Adrian, slumped into the cushions, raised his head.
He immediately noticed the change. Cool air brushed his overheated skin.
“What did you do?”
“M-my assignment was to make an ice barrier, so I adjusted it a bit.”
“Ah, finally, I can breathe. Stefan, seriously? You’ve been with me for three years and never did this for me?”
Stefan leaned over Jaelin’s design, lips pursed. He tried to follow the dense lines and runes, but gave up.
It was too complex to parse.
“I can only manage double-layer formations. If I tried this, the cold would spread everywhere and freeze us all. What about me, huh? I’d freeze to death. You think it’s easy just because Jaelin pulled it off?”
He grumbled, scolding Adrian.
Next to him, Sasha studied the magic circle and piped up.
“Why can’t you do it? Just do it!”
“Then you do it!”
“I’m not in the design department, how could I?”
“And I’m not Jaelin, so how could I?”
“Ohhh, fair enough!”
Sasha nodded at his retort, which only irritated Stefan more.
Frustrated, Stefan picked another fight.
“Argh! Why are you even here? Don’t you have your own clubroom?”
“Mine’s too noisy because of Lionel.”
Hearing that Sasha and Lionel were in the same club, Jaelin asked timidly.
“S-Sasha, what club are you in?”
“Student council.”
“Then… Lionel-sunbae is in the student council too, right?”
Sasha nodded at her muttered guess.
“Yep. But it’s a mess in there. Too many people joined just to get close to Lionel. It’s so crowded we can’t do anything. That’s why I like it here—it’s noisy, but not overwhelming.”
As Sasha hummed and headed back to her seat, she suddenly spun on Jaelin.
“But you know what’s funny?”
“W-what?”
