Scarlett POV
Jealousy.
Hot, sudden, and ugly enough that for half a second Scarlett almost mistook it for anger.
She froze in the doorway.
Only for a moment. Just long enough for the laughter on her lips to die before it fully formed.
Xavier stood beside Angelina's desk.
Angelina sat by the window, morning light spilling around her like she had stolen something soft and golden from the sun and made it hers. Xavier faced her with that careful ease of his, and for one sharp instant the rest of the classroom seemed to fall away around them.
Scarlett's fingers tightened at her side.
Jealousy did not care for reason. It saw a beautiful girl, a beautiful boy, a quiet moment, and built a blade from almost nothing.
And Scarlett, to her immediate disgust, felt it sink in anyway.
'Oh.'
Not because she had only just realised.
Because she had realised too quickly.
Ruth was beside her. Luke and Catheryn had entered just behind. Seth too.
Any of them could look at her face and know.
So Scarlett smiled.
That part was easy. She had always been good at easy things.
By the time Xavier glanced over and noticed them, her expression was already light, casual, entirely unbothered.
Then he smiled.
Not at Angelina.
At all of them.
At the group. At the room. At nothing that justified how violently relieved that made her feel.
Scarlett hated that too.
'Get a grip.'
It was one conversation. One quiet morning. One moment by a desk.
And yet her pulse had already betrayed her, quick and hot beneath her skin, while her mind offered questions she had not asked for.
How long had he been standing there?
Had he gone over first?
Had Angelina called him over?
Scarlett despised every one of those thoughts on sight.
Especially because she knew better.
Knew this was probably nothing.
Felt it anyway.
Beside her, Ruth shifted slightly, and Scarlett realised she had been standing still for too long.
She stepped into the room.
The moment broke.
Luke said something. Catheryn answered quietly. Seth moved toward his seat with polished calm. Ruth lingered near Scarlett for half a second longer than usual, which meant he had noticed something, though whether he understood what remained mercifully unclear.
By the time Scarlett reached her desk, her face was perfect again.
Almost.
Xavier glanced back toward Angelina, as though remembering the question he had meant to ask.
"What was his name?" he asked.
Scarlett heard the words, but in that moment the answer barely mattered.
Some boy. Some low-ranked, forgettable boy Angelina had been thinking about.
Angelina only gave the smallest shake of her head, calm as ever.
Xavier let out the faintest breath through his nose, almost amused.
"Right," he said. Then, softer, "See you."
Angelina dipped her chin once in return.
Barely anything at all.
Yet Scarlett still noticed his eyes remain on her a second longer than necessary before he turned away.
She liked him.
Fine.
There was no point pretending otherwise now.
She liked Xavier.
And Xavier, inconveniently, was not hers.
Yet.
The word came so naturally that Scarlett almost hated herself for it.
Her jaw tightened, then relaxed.
Because she was not stupid.
Xavier had done nothing wrong. He had spoken to a classmate.
Angelina had done nothing wrong either, which somehow made it worse.
There was no betrayal here. No crossed line. No clean target for anger.
Just a quiet morning, a boy she liked, and a beautiful girl by the window.
And Scarlett hated how much that had mattered.
By the time Xavier approached the group, she had herself under control again.
Mostly.
"Morning," he said.
"Morning," Scarlett replied smoothly, then tilted her head. "You're awfully social this early."
Luke turned at once. "Oh? What'd I miss?"
Scarlett ignored him.
Her eyes stayed on Xavier.
"You looked deep in conversation," she said lightly. "Should we be offended we missed something interesting?"
Xavier blinked once, then glanced back toward the window. Angelina had already returned her attention outside, as though the exchange had stopped mattering the moment it stopped being useful.
"Not really," he said. "I was just asking about someone."
Scarlett smiled, easy and careless.
"Someone?" she repeated. "That sounds far more interesting than not really."
"Wait," Luke said, straightening. "Are we gossiping?"
"We are not gossiping," Seth said.
Luke looked at him. "You say that like you're better than gossip."
"I am better than your version of gossip," Seth replied.
"That is still gossip," Ruth muttered.
Catheryn said nothing, but Scarlett caught the faint shift of her gaze toward Xavier.
Interested.
Good.
Xavier exhaled through his nose.
"Angelina said she was thinking about a boy in class," he said.
Luke's brows shot up.
Scarlett's smile held perfectly.
"A boy," Luke repeated.
"Yes," Xavier said.
"Angelina?"
"Yes, Luke."
Luke looked delighted. "This morning just got significantly better."
"It really didn't," Seth said.
Scarlett folded one arm loosely beneath the other. "And?"
Xavier frowned faintly, still piecing it together.
"She said he was average-looking. Brown hair. Black eyes. Low rank."
A pause followed.
Luke looked offended. "That is not a description. That is every third boy in the academy."
"Maybe every second," Ruth said.
"Thank you," Luke said.
"You weren't included in that estimate," Ruth replied.
Catheryn's eyes narrowed slightly. "Did she say anything else?"
Xavier nodded. "She said he looked forgettable. Until he wasn't."
That changed the pause.
Seth spoke first. "That sounds annoyingly deliberate."
"No one describes a person like that unless the point is that they should not have mattered and did," Scarlett said.
Luke folded his arms. "So we're looking for some secret average legend hiding in class."
"That sounds ridiculous when you say it," Xavier said.
"That is because I made it sound ridiculous."
Ruth's gaze lowered, thoughtful now.
"Brown hair. Black eyes. Low rank," he said quietly. "That should be easy."
And yet no one answered.
Scarlett felt the problem a second later.
Because he was right.
It should have been easy.
So why did the image refuse to settle?
Luke clicked his tongue. "No, wait. I hate this."
Catheryn glanced at him. "Why?"
"Because now I feel like I know who she means," Luke said, frowning, "but I also absolutely do not."
Scarlett stilled.
There it was.
Not uncertainty. Not simple forgetfulness.
Something stranger.
As though the answer sat just behind fogged glass—close enough to almost make out, impossible to hold.
Xavier's eyes narrowed. "That's exactly what it felt like."
"Well," Seth said, "that's irritating."
Then the door opened.
A boy stepped inside.
Average height. Brown hair. Black eyes. Plain in the sort of way the eye should have slipped past without resistance.
And yet the room's attention caught on him all at once.
He slowed, gaze flicking across them with visible uncertainty.
Scarlett felt the answer arrive at the same instant Luke did.
"Oh," Luke said softly.
The boy blinked.
"...What?"
No one answered.
Aeron frowned, then looked over his shoulder toward the doorway as though checking whether someone else had entered behind him.
The doorway remained empty.
He looked back at them. Then down at himself. Then back up again.
"...Me?" he asked, with the fragile disbelief of someone who had not prepared for this possibility in any capacity.
Scarlett noticed Xavier's attention split then. A small part of it still lingered where he had left Angelina by the window, but most of it had shifted now.
To Aeron.
And that, more than it should have, soothed something hot and stupid in Scarlett's chest.
Only for a moment.
Because then she saw Angelina.
A sidelong glance. A small, amused smile. Gone quickly enough to be denied if mentioned.
Scarlett noticed it anyway.
As though Angelina was not looking at some awkward low-ranked boy.
As though she were looking at the answer to a question no one else had asked properly.
Aeron pointed lightly at himself.
"...Me?"
Xavier, of course, took that as invitation rather than warning.
He stepped forward with that familiar ease of his.
"Yes, you. I think—"
The door opened again.
Every eye shifted.
A blanket walked in.
Or rather, a boy wrapped almost entirely in one, with only hazy eyes and a mess of light green hair visible above the folds. A half-bitten croissant rested between his teeth as he stood in the doorway, staring straight at Xavier.
'Why does this feel like déjà vu...'
And the room changed.
Scarlett felt it at once.
A strange pressure settled over the classroom. Not crushing. Not violent. Just wrong enough to make her spine straighten on instinct.
The blanketed figure kept staring.
Then, around the croissant in his mouth, came a muffled:
"You're in the way."
Silence.
Scarlett coughed, her cheeks inflating.
Luke made a strangled sound that came dangerously close to laughter.
Xavier blinked once, then stepped aside almost automatically.
"Good morning to you too," he said.
No answer.
The boy simply shuffled forward, blanket trailing behind him, croissant still caught between his teeth as though speaking properly had demanded more effort than he was willing to spend.
And just like that, the room's attention tilted with him.
In that shift, Aeron slipped again.
Not physically. He was still there—still awkward, still near the doorway, still wearing the expression of someone who had somehow become involved in something unfortunate without agreeing to it.
But the mind loosened around him.
Scarlett noticed because she was looking for it now.
Her eyes narrowed.
There you are.
Or rather—
there you were.
Because already it was happening again.
Xavier, to his credit, recovered first.
"Aeron, right?" he said, stepping half a pace forward again. "I was just—"
Iori kept walking.
Not quickly. Not slowly either. Just with the quiet inevitability of someone who had no reason to hurry because the world would move around him regardless.
His hazy eyes did not leave Aeron.
Xavier's words died on their own.
Luke noticed next. Catheryn's gaze sharpened. Ruth said nothing, which in itself meant far too much. Even Seth's posture changed by the slightest amount.
Aeron looked at Iori, then at Xavier, then back at Iori as though still trying to determine which one of them had become a problem first.
Scarlett almost respected how unequipped he seemed for all of this.
Almost.
Iori stopped in front of him.
The room went still.
Aeron blinked up at him.
Iori blinked down at Aeron.
The croissant remained where it was.
Scarlett became aware, distantly, of Luke failing heroically not to say anything.
Xavier had gone quiet.
Angelina, by the window, had not moved at all.
Yet Scarlett caught it anyway—
the small sidelong glance she gave Aeron.
The faintest trace of amusement at the corner of her mouth.
Brief. Subtle. Gone.
As though this was somehow the least surprising thing in the room to her.
Aeron swallowed.
Then, with the fragile caution of someone who suspected he had missed a very important step somewhere, he said,
"...What?"
Iori chewed once.
Twice.
Then, around the croissant, came a muffled—
"Found you."
He went still.
Not dramatically. Not enough for anyone careless to call it fear.
But enough.
Enough for Scarlett to see it.
Enough for Xavier too, judging by the way his expression sharpened.
Because Aeron had been slipping from them all morning.
From attention. From memory. From the shape of the moment itself.
But not from Iori.
The blanketed boy had crossed the room without hesitation, hazy eyes fixed on Aeron with the ease of someone who had never once needed to search.
And somehow, that was the part Scarlett disliked most.
Aeron, unfortunately, looked like he would have preferred very much to remain unfound.
"...Found me?" he said.
Iori did not answer.
He gave a lazy shrug from beneath the blanket.
Space split open beside them.
Scarlett's breath caught.
A black rift unfolded into the classroom like the air had been cut and folded back. Smooth. Silent. Wrong.
Aeron took one step back.
"Wait."
Iori moved first.
One second he was standing there with a croissant in his mouth.
The next, his hand had closed around Aeron's sleeve.
Xavier reacted on instinct.
"Hey—"
He reached out just as Iori leaned backward into the rift and pulled Aeron with him.
For one absurd second, the entire thing looked ridiculous.
Aeron half-turned with open disbelief on his face.
Xavier's arm stretched after him.
Then the rift snapped shut.
Silence.
Luke broke first.
A choked sound escaped him, halfway between shock and laughter, and once it started he clearly lost all control of it.
"Oh, that is cruel," he managed. "He looked like he was being kidnapped by a blanket."
Even Scarlett's mouth twitched.
Xavier lowered his still-outstretched arm with what dignity he could recover.
"I was trying to stop him."
Luke pointed at him at once. "No, you looked like you were sending him off."
"That is not what happened."
"It absolutely is," Luke said.
Catheryn lowered her eyes, but not before Scarlett caught the faint trace of amusement at the corner of her mouth.
Ruth exhaled once through his nose.
Seth, somehow, looked entertained and judgmental at the same time.
Scarlett let out the smallest laugh, and Xavier looked at her like that had been a betrayal of the highest order.
She lifted one shoulder lightly.
"You did look rather dramatic."
His expression turned pained.
"That is deeply unhelpful."
"It is also true," Seth said.
That made Luke laugh harder.
Then more students began filing in, and the room started smoothing itself over.
Voices rose. Chairs scraped. Bags dropped against desks. Morning resumed with that irritating ease classrooms always had, as though something strange could happen and still be swallowed whole by routine a minute later.
Scarlett disliked that.
Because it had been strange.
Not just funny.
Aeron had stood in plain sight, and still the mind had struggled to keep hold of him. Iori had crossed the room without hesitation anyway. Angelina had not looked surprised at all.
And now the classroom was pretending none of it mattered.
Scarlett's eyes flicked briefly toward the window.
Angelina was already looking outside again, calm as ever, like the entire scene had barely registered as worth comment.
That annoyed Scarlett too.
'Everything is more annoying today.'
Then the door opened once more.
Conversation thinned.
Eliza Clark stepped into the room, her heels marking each step with effortless authority.
"Good morning," she said.
The class answered in uneven pieces.
Eliza glanced over them once, eyes bright with that familiar edge of amusement.
"I see most of you are alive," she said. "Promising start."
A small ripple of laughter followed.
"Today, we're talking about societies."
That pulled the room together properly.
Of course it did.
Societies mattered.
Influence. Access. Connections.
"You'll receive the formal list later," Eliza continued. "Some societies are useful. Some are decorative. Some are selective. Some exist purely so older students can feel important while younger students pretend not to be impressed."
Luke raised a hand immediately.
Eliza looked at him. "That is rarely a good sign."
"Which ones are actually worth joining?"
"That depends," she said, "on whether you have anything worth offering."
A few people laughed.
Luke put a hand to his chest. "You wound me."
"I refine you."
Another brief ripple of amusement passed through the room.
"And before any of you make bad decisions with confidence," Eliza added, "there will be a society fair tomorrow. Every group will be advertising itself. You'll have the chance to look around before choosing where to attach yourselves."
Scarlett rested one arm on her desk, listening without quite listening.
Then her gaze drifted toward the back row—
and caught.
There.
Aeron sat beside the wall.
Iori sat next to him, wrapped in his blanket, heavy-lidded and entirely unconcerned.
Scarlett stilled.
Because she had not seen them come back.
'What.'
Worse, she was almost certain no one else had either.
Eliza kept speaking at the front.
Scarlett kept her face forward.
Then, lightly, she let her perception brush outward.
Xavier first.
A small tug.
Back.
He felt it immediately. His attention shifted, his eyes moved, and then he froze.
Ruth followed a second later.
Then Seth.
Then Catheryn, quiet and precise as ever, catching the change in the others before she found the cause herself.
Luke was last.
Luke, unfortunately, nearly reacted with his entire face.
Scarlett snapped the sharpest warning she could manage through the edge of her perception.
Do not.
Luke locked up so fast it was almost impressive.
Scarlett nearly scoffed.
At the back, Aeron had clearly noticed them noticing him.
He sat too straight.
Too carefully.
Like someone trying very hard to look natural after being dragged through reality a moment ago.
Beside him, Iori looked exactly as he always did—blanketed, half-awake, and deeply unconcerned with whether the rest of the room could keep up with him.
Aeron, by contrast, looked like he regretted being visible at all.
That was almost funny.
Luke made the tiniest strangled noise in his throat.
Ruth stepped on his shoe without looking.
Luke went rigid.
At the front, Eliza's voice continued smoothly.
"Some of you will choose based on prestige," she said, "which is an excellent way to waste time while convincing yourselves you're being ambitious."
Not one of them answered.
Not one of them, Scarlett suspected, had heard the full sentence.
Because Aeron and Iori were simply there now.
As though they had always been there.
As though space had not split open in front of the class and swallowed them whole.
Scarlett let her gaze drift back at last.
Aeron felt wrong in a way she was beginning to actively dislike. Not frighteningly wrong. Irritatingly wrong. The sort of wrong that slipped from the mind the moment you loosened your grip on it.
Iori was the opposite.
He sat inside attention without effort.
And somehow the two of them together made the back row feel less like part of the classroom and more like something attached to it after the fact.
Aeron shifted again, small and careful, and Scarlett could practically see him attempting to act normal.
It was not working.
Xavier was still staring.
Not openly, not enough for anyone across the room to notice, but enough for Scarlett to read the tension in him.
He had seen them vanish.
He knew what he had seen.
And now Aeron was sitting at the back of the room like a badly explained miracle.
Seth glanced once at Scarlett.
A question.
Scarlett had no answer.
Because Xavier by the window had been one kind of problem.
Jealousy had been simple.
Hot. Ugly. Annoying.
This was something else.
This sat colder.
Deeper.
'Had they even left in the first place?'
At the front, Eliza spoke of choices.
At the back, Aeron sat beside Iori like something the room had only just made space for.
And as Scarlett stared ahead, one cold thought settled quietly into place.
She could not tell whether he had been easy to forget.
Or whether, until now, none of them had truly seen him at all.