Chapter 15

Arek awoke to-rather, he was notified of being awake due to-his mother knocking on the door to his room. A rare occurrence, considering that he always woke up before her, and was headed off to school before anyone else in the house even begins moving.

So he had been awake this whole time, huh? Had he been daydreaming? In the time that was supposed to be used for actual dreaming?

"'I had a weird dream, and fell off the bed,' was it?" Arek recalled his own words.

As much as he wanted to keep believing that, it was pretty clear what the truth was.

Arek brought his knees up to his chest and squeezed his eyes shut. How the hell was he supposed to take something like that in?

He didn't want to go to school. He didn't want to see her face.

How was he supposed to act around her now? Juni had been over-familiar and borderline annoying from the moment he had met her, and he'd only known her for a single day. He certainly couldn't have called her a "friend," could he?

Then, what was this tightness in his chest, as if he'd lost something?

"C'mon, man." Arek slapped himself. "How sad am I? Getting all worked up over a girl I hardly know..."

Arek slid off his bed, and, albeit reluctantly, changed into a fresh uniform. He was undoubtedly and completely late this time, so there was no point in rushing through everything.

... Or so he thought, but he found himself sprinting as fast as he could down the street just moments after.

Why? Arek asked himself as his legs carried him down the road to school. Was school important to him? Sure it was. Going to a noble school was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, no, more like once-in-several-lifetimes. But even then, it wasn't like getting to school less late would lighten his punishment.

No, it wasn't that. Arek dug through his mind for another reason. Why? Why was he going to such lengths to get to school, to that desk in the back of the room, next to-

Ah, that was why.

Arek couldn't find another reason, not because there wasn't one, but because one was filling up his mind so much that he could no longer look past it.

Her. Juni. He'd known her since yesterday, yet he couldn't take his mind off her. That silky blue hair, those bright, round eyes that seemed to contain the sky itself, and that beautiful pale skin, all adding up to the perfect face... Calling him "Romeo..."

A part of Arek knew that he had dove head-first into a witch's spell, but even if he had, even if he knew he had, he just had to know what it meant.

His fuzzy memories, Alter, and "Romeo."

Just what in the world did all of it mean?

---

As Zeik ran after the cat-eared girl, who was pulling further and further ahead and becoming just a dot on the horizon, He questioned why he was so excited. Sure, it was every man's dream to see a catgirl in the flesh, but this one was just a kid, and chasing after her was definitely not something someone who was nearly an adult would do.

He slowed to a stop and caught his breath, his logic overriding his excitement. If there was one, there's gotta be more. Zeik decided to only start giving chase if he found someone worth chasing after.

Zeik stood back up, straightened his back, and opened his eyes after a couple of nice, deep breaths to get his body out of running mode. However, instead of grass being in every direction he could see, like it was a moment ago, Zeik found himself standing very close to the gates of a large city. The walls on either side of the gate were so high that from his angle, they seemed to reach into the clouds. Before him sat what he assumed to be guards, dressed in light armor with swords sheathed on their waists, playing some sort of board game. The guards were surprised at a sudden teenager appearing in the middle of their drinking game, and drew their swords out of habit.

Zeik nearly started running the other way in fear. Was he not welcome? Were they going to kill him? He tried to think of a way to avoid either, but all his brain could come up with was to get on his knees and beg for his life, or to leg it out of there as hard as humanly possible.

Thankfully, the guards' alarm was short-lived, and they put away their weapons as they approached Zeik.

"We apologize for having startled you. I assume you're here to enter our great Capital?"

Wow... there certainly was no room for modesty, and for a good reason. Just the city's walls were the definition of the word "great," or "grand."

Zeik got over his initial shock at learning that this was the Capital he had been heading towards, and nodded. The guards asked him a few questions, recorded his name, and let him through without so much as a pat-down.

"Man, if this world had terrorists, these people would be in some deep shit." Zeik laughed at his own joke, as nobody else was there to hear it. His laughter was cut short, however, by a dull, throbbing pain in the back of his head that cleared his thoughts out one-by-one.

He sat there for a moment, trying to regain his bearings as the pain wore off.

Zeik looked behind him, trying to find anyone to suspect of hitting him in the head with a rubber mallet, before remembering that rubber probably didn't exist yet. That, and nobody was behind him.

"I doubt there'd be doctors capable of treating anything related to the brain in this world." Zeik sighed, praying that what he just felt wasn't the symptoms of some deadly disease. Deciding to just leave it there until something else happened, he continued down the middle of the wide, cobblestone-paved road towards what he hoped to be the center of the town. As he walked, more and more buildings that resembled shops and restaurants lined the sides of the road, tempting him with the delicious smells coming from inside.

As he walked on, Zeik noticed that the groups of people walking up and down the same street as him were avoiding the center of the road, almost as if creating a path for something. Zeik couldn't help but feel uneasy, since he probably stood out walking down the direct middle of said road. In a sense, it was like hearing the sirens of a firetruck, but not knowing where it was. Should he pull to the side, or should he keep going?

A moment after, Zeik was informed of why the middle of the road was cleared out by someone ramming into his right shoulder at full speed, and the both of them were knocked to the ground.

"What the hell?" Zeik sat up and checked his palms, elbows, and knees for any serious scratches. Thankfully, it didn't seem like anything dangerous as long as he disinfected them quickly. While that brought up concerns of its own, Zeik was more interested in who could have been running down the street and not paying attention in broad daylight.

Lying on the ground, just a few feet away from him, was a skinny black-haired boy who was probably a few inches shorter than Zeik. He wore some sort of uniform, with a badge or pin on his sleeve that had a silhouette of a humanoid creature with six wings engraved on it.

Zeik stood up and offered the guy a hand, suddenly feeling self-conscious about the shabby clothes he had on. The black-haired boy, however, ignored him and got up on his own, offering nothing but a quiet "sorry" before dusting himself off and continuing on.

Zeik grabbed the boy's left arm as he began to run, and the latter froze in his track and turned back around, towards Zeik.

"I'm sure you've got something important you're rushing to, but can you point me to the nearest first-aid station or something similar?" Zeik pointed at his palms, which were covered in blood from the fall. A little more serious than Zeik expected. "Preferably something that can clean this up?"

The boy hesitated for a second, but didn't seem unreasonable enough to leave Zeik there and just continue running after that. "I know a few healers who can fix something like that in a flash, but..."

"Healers? Just point me that way, you don't need to show me the way or anything."

"Well, they're at the Academy, which is where I'm headed, but..." The boy continued hesitating.

"Then what're we waiting for? I won't cause any problems, I promise. I just don't want my palms to get infected and cause actual issues."

"Infected? By what?"

"Nevermind. But that's fine, right?"

"A-ah, sure. But..." The boy struggled to search for a way to describe something, and gave up. "I guess you'll see."

"Since you're helping me out, I'll introduce myself." Zeik straightened his back. "I'm Zeik. I'd shake your hand, but well... You can see why that's not a good idea."

This got a small chuckle from the black-haired boy, who was indeed a bit shorter than him despite looking to be around the same age. Those sunken eyes of his really reminded Zeik of the days he spent cramming for finals, except those days weren't that long ago, so he had no clue why he felt so nostalgic just seeing the guy. "I can see very clearly. My name's Arek, and I'm pretty late to school."

"Damn, you're heading to school?" Zeik realized that he probably should've come to this conclusion earlier. "But it's like, noon."

"Yeah. If you want to get patched up, hurry." With that, Arek took off down the path created by the separation of people again.

Zeik felt a bit of irritation at being yanked along, but followed after Arek after a short pause. If that was the only place that had these "healers" that Arek described, then there probably wasn't anything to treat an infected wound anywhere near him. He'd get to see a school of this world in action, too. Zeik decided that these were the wins of the situation, and put all the strength in his legs towards keeping up with Arek.

Maybe, just maybe, this could be where he'd find a few friends, or maybe even more cat-eared girls.

Just thinking about it pumped Zeik up. Once he made it back, he'd have to brag to J about all of this.