Shutra Magic Academy (2-6)
Louis could not bring himself to leave the spot Sung Suho had vacated, swallowing his rage in silence.
The moment he walked away, he would be left looking like nothing more than a defeated man.
That piece of garbage… why the hell did I have to lose to a guy like him…
Louis admitted it to himself—he had taken the bait.
He had tried to trip Sung Suho up over Luna, only to get snared himself and end up rolling in the mud.
But the thought of backing down here did not exist in him, not even one percent.
If I force material that won't even stick in his head, he'll drop out on his own soon enough.
Louis wanted to see it with his own two eyes.
The sight of Sung Suho putting on airs out of pure, pointless pride…
He wanted to watch that face nod off, drool trailing from his mouth.
Stupid bastard… you think pulling all-nighters like me is going to put so much as a dent in me?
The thought of watching Suho desperately cling on began to lift Louis's mood.
And while he was smiling so pleasantly to himself, Sung Suho appeared and fixed him with a piercing stare.
The drowsiness piled in Suho's pupils looked as thick as snow heaped across a winter plain.
Won't be long before he faceplants on the desk.
As Louis looked at him and smiled in quiet triumph, Suho asked with a blank expression,
"You're really not leaving?"
"Since I'm already here, I might as well study. I didn't come to this place with a trivial mindset like yours."
"Sure."
Suho kept that blank look, sat down at a desk, stretched hard, and began to study.
…Am I imagining things?
When he first saw Suho, he had thought the man was fighting off sleep.
But the Suho in front of him now looked like someone who had just woken up refreshed and was starting his studies all over again.
Louis immediately shook his head at the sight.
He was only gone for less than ten minutes. How much sleep could he possibly have gotten in that time?
Louis let the tension drain out of him and started thinking.
Then… since I'm studying anyway, maybe I should try another attribute? …No. No need to force useless knowledge into my head.
Muttering to himself, Louis opened a book on the fire attribute and began to read.
A woman stepped into the library that had seen no one pass through, and her face filled with surprise at the sight of Sung Suho and Louis.
"…Why are you two together?"
"Huh? What?"
"Luna…?"
Suho snapped to at Luna's words and hurriedly looked around.
Louis clutched his throbbing forehead and massaged his temples hard.
The reason for the headache was simple.
Suho glanced about, took in the morning birdsong and the sunlight pouring through the windows, and his face went blank with shock.
"It's already morning?"
"Don't tell me you studied here all night?"
"Uh… seems like it? I didn't even realize it was morning."
"Good heavens…."
Luna came over to Suho and began checking on him.
But the one who truly needed looking after was Louis.
All night long, with his pupils screaming under the weight of fatigue, Louis had held on as hard as he could, waiting for Suho to throw in the towel.
His wish never came true. Suho only sank deeper into his studies, completely unaware of the passing hours.
Classes aren't hard, so it doesn't really matter, but…
Right now Louis wanted nothing more than to collapse and sleep.
He could hardly do that in front of Luna, though, and morning classes were about to begin.
Luna gently smoothed Suho's hair and spoke.
"You two, hurry and go eat breakfast. I was waiting, wondering why you weren't coming today."
"Ah, suddenly I'm starving. Louis, you're really something. Studying hard all the way to this hour."
"Hmph… You think I'm studying so a guy like you can praise me?"
Feeling insulted in front of Luna, Louis was about to snap half-asleep—
when Suho turned the provocation right back on him.
"I'm planning to pull another all-nighter studying today. You're doing it too, right?"
"Why would I with you…!"
"Or is your patience so thin you can't even handle being sleepy?"
"…Don't make me laugh. You think I'm as weak as you?"
"Alright. See you later, then."
Suho cleaned up his desk, left the library with a smile, and Luna watched him go before whispering quietly to Louis.
"Louis, don't push yourself too hard. Even if you two are making a bet, I'm only mediating because I don't want either of you to get seriously hurt."
"Luna…."
"See you in class later."
Luna offered him a gentle smile of comfort and left.
Having taken that brief solace from her, Louis muttered Suho's name and trembled.
"Sung Suho…. You think I'll lose to a guy like you?"
He ground his teeth and staggered out of the library on unsteady feet.
I hummed over the comms while tasting the morning sunlight with Luna.
Man… this is nice.
Louis Brandlup has such a strong sense of pride that it seems to have worked quite well on him.
Whether yesterday's provocation had landed cleanly or not, Louis had set up near me and started pulling an all-nighter.
And I, likewise, had not slept a single wink after coming back from the bathroom.
After coming back from the bathroom, that is….
As expected, sleeping on the ship is the best.
Under the pretext of using the bathroom, I had briefly left my seat, moved to the ship in that window, and while Shutra's time crawled along at its sluggish pace, I had enjoyed a thoroughly comfortable rest.
My dorm room in Shutra had poor facilities thanks to my low ranking at admission.
The bedding matched that standard—miserable.
Compared to that, the bed in my office offered the comfort of being cradled in an angel's arms.
That office bed is something else.
…I'm glad you're satisfied.
Did you make that with Enel too?
…No. That bed was made long ago by someone with gifted hands.
Oh… who?
…A former employee.
…The way she had been hedging from the start made it clear she wasn't going to answer even if I pressed further.
I had always thought it, but Armonia was a woman with a great many secrets.
If I gathered every last bit of Enel, would I finally learn them all?
While I was turning those questions about Armonia over in my mind, Luna walking beside me began to look worried.
"Why did you push yourself like that?"
"Hm? Ah… I was just studying for a bit, and before I knew it, it was morning."
"…Really."
Luna shook her head, stepped in front of me, and blocked my path.
Wondering what she was up to, I looked down at her—and she suddenly spread wide the cloak she had been holding in her arms.
She carefully draped the unfolded cloak over my shoulders, then fastened the buttons while murmuring,
"Even so, please don't push yourself too hard."
"Haha… I may not look it, but I don't need much sleep. I'm fine."
"…Just as I heard. Men really don't listen."
Luna gave a small laugh, checked that the buttons were properly done, then said,
"The cloak… I used it really well."
If a wife tied your necktie for you in the morning, would it feel something like this?
I caught the faint scent of Luna still clinging to the cloak and took a quiet breath of it.
"Don't tell me you went back to the dorm and slept under this?"
"W-what do you take me for, saying something like that!?"
Luna flushed red in flustered panic, and I patted her shoulder with a smile.
"What's wrong with sleeping under it?"
"Huh?"
Luna looked completely lost. I kept her at my side and spoke while facing forward.
"I don't care how you use my cloak. I handed it over so it would help you in any way it could."
"…."
"Come on—we'll be late for class at this rate. Let's go eat."
"…Okay."
Luna wore a faint smile and matched her light steps to mine as we headed for the cafeteria.
This morning's class was Special Magic Studies, and Louis attended it diligently.
He rubbed his eyes now and then or stretched, but he never dozed off or did anything that would earn him penalty points during the lecture.
But when a person suddenly pulls an all-nighter, their whole rhythm starts to unravel.
Around evening I stopped by the library with Luna as usual, and found Louis there waiting.
Well, one night of staying up won't wreck his condition overnight.
Louis sat in the exact same seat as yesterday, glaring at me with heavy, sleepy eyes.
Luna looked ready to head for another table, but I ignored her cues at once, sat down near Louis, and opened a book.
Luna clutched her forehead looking at the two of us.
"So stupid…."
Calling a fight over a man's pride stupid….
Fortunately Louis heard it too. He frowned and glared at me, and I frowned right back at him.
And so round two of the all-nighter game began.
Tap… tap… tap….
Long silence filled the lecture hall, broken only by the sound of the professor tapping the toe of his dress shoe against the marble floor.
"…."
Plenty of students sat in the room, yet every one of them stayed deathly quiet, eyes fixed on the professor.
He said nothing. He simply lifted the front of his shoe and brought it down again and again, letting the impact ring through the hall.
After dozens of those sounds, the professor looked over the students and gave a hollow little laugh.
"Seeing people sleep through my class, my lecture must have been quite boring."
"…."
The students immediately found other places to look, desperate to avoid his eyes.
The professor smiled bitterly at their evasion, then lowered his gaze again and carefully studied the crown of the sleeping student's head.
I laughed to myself looking at Louis, who was sleeping the sleep of the dead even in a situation like this.
Man… if he'd just held on a little longer, he could have gone back to the dorm and slept all he wanted.
Friday morning class—the last of the week—and with only an hour left until the end, Louis had finally failed to hold the line and gone down hard.
Not the usual nodding-off mid-lecture. He was face-down on the desk, completely out cold.
Luna muttered under her breath, looking at him as if he were hopeless.
"Idiot…."
And I saw it too.
Surely that "idiot" didn't include me as well… right?
While the professor still had his attention locked on Louis, Luna slowly turned her head toward me and whispered,
"…Are you okay?"
"Ah, I'm fine."
"…."
Luna looked at me with an expression that mixed worry and genuine puzzlement.
It was only natural.
She knew that every single day Louis and I had been studying through the night without sleep until dawn.
No matter how often I claimed I didn't need much rest, my sleep pattern had to look bizarrely impossible to understand.
From Luna's point of view, she had only ever seen me studying for four straight days without a single wink of sleep.
Meeting her puzzled gaze, I put on my thickest face and spoke.
"I guess I really don't want to get the parts you taught me wrong. The sleepiness just vanished."
"…Really."
Luna shook her head, but she never lost her smile.
"Still, please don't push yourself. Honestly… watching you made me so nervous."
"Got it."
And so the two of us finished the class smiling.
As for Louis….
"Heh heh… the exam must look easy to you. Sleeping right up to the final moment…. Ten-point deduction. Please do not wake this student."
He took a ten-point hit and, in exchange, was guaranteed sleep until the very end of class.
"We could at least have eaten lunch together…."
Luna grumbled as she walked slowly toward the club room.
After Friday morning class ended, she had been about to head for the cafeteria with Sung Suho when—
"Let's eat with friends today."
"…Why?"
"I'm not hungry right now. See you at the club room after you eat."
Suho had said that and left the lecture hall, so Luna ended up having lunch with her friends instead.
After the meal she made her way to the club room.
And as she walked, something suddenly surfaced in her mind.
Ah! Louis!
She had been a little sulky over Suho's behavior, and in that mood she had completely forgotten that Louis was still lying asleep in the lecture hall.
The kids nearby must have woken him, right?
He was famous enough that even without her, someone around him would surely have shaken him awake.
With that lingering unease still sitting in her chest, Luna carefully took hold of the club room door and opened it.
Just in case, maybe I should go check even now? …Hm?
When she opened the door, what met her eyes was Sung Suho sitting in a chair with his arms crossed, nodding off.
Luna closed the door with care and moved with soft, cat-like steps. She approached him, then quietly took the seat beside his.
"…You must have been really tired."
Studying for days without a single wink of sleep had never made sense to begin with.
But Suho had steadily done that impossible thing.
"Seems stupid… but somehow I like this side of him."
With those words, Luna closed her eyes and carefully began to lean against Suho's shoulder.