"Dibs on the right side." The redhead dropped the line before he turned to the right and deep into the green plants.
"Alright, how about I go left, while Y/n and Grim go straight ahead?" Seeing his roommate walk away, Deuce turned to you and asked.
"Sure." You nodded. You could only sigh for getting into this situation. Normally, you should probably be resting in your dorm room, probably reading some books, or wandering around in Heartslabyul's garden with Cater, Trey, and the boys. But here you were, in the botanical garden far away from the dorm, searching for tools to collect the chestnuts without being pricked by their spines. Had it not been for Ace, the idiot from your class, and also one of the few people you are familiar with in this ridiculous magical world, who had accidentally offended his strict housewarden, you would not have been this helpful.
"Ace I swear, if you dare to do anything stupid again, I will definitely rip your head off your neck." You grumbled to yourself while traveling through the garden filled with weird-shaped plants. Even Grim didn't dare to say anything to trigger his prefect at the moment. The last thing he wants is his tuna cans to be confiscated and hidden.
"Who needs a signature spell to have someone off with their head- Eh?" You stopped muttering when you felt you had stepped on something.
"What happens, Y/n? Why did you stop?" Grim, who was floating in midair, asked.
You looked around the ground and checked your shoe soles, but there was nothing. "I think I stepped on something... Something soft, like a rope. But there is nothing on the ground..."
All of a sudden, the tall bushes next to your feet rustled vigorously, making a huge noise that caught your attention.
"AHHHH! What is that?!" Grim freaked out and hid behind your back with his furry paws on a side of your shoulder.
You immediately took a few steps away from the bushes. Whatever it's happening, it doesn't seem to be good.
Just when you were still in shock, a tall figure popped up from the green bushes, which, again, scared the hell out of the kitten behind your back.
"IT IS A MONSTER, HELP MEEEE!" Grim cried with his face buried in your neck. You couldn't help but gasp when the huge figure came out from the bushes.
It was a young man who walked out. He is tall, probably over 6 feet. You could tell just by looking at his long legs in the black uniform trousers. He has tan skin and brown hair, of which two sections of them are braided. He's in a white shirt with a yellow vest on top of it. You have seen Ace and Deuce wearing theirs, just different in the colour. But the parts that caught most of your attention were the lion ears on the top of his head, paired with the long tail behind his back. That was when you finally figured out what you had stepped on.
"So you are going to walk away after stepping on my tail, huh?" The tall stranger stared at you with his green eyes paired with his knitted brows, crossing his arms in front of his chest. You noticed the thin scar covering his left eye. It goes from his brown eyebrows to his cheek. He doesn't seem happy about it at all.
"And now that floating seal is shouting and screaming in mid-air." He gave Grim a deathly stare before doing a facepalm. That was when you realized that that grey tuna lover was still screaming and crying on your shoulder.
"Don't you get anything better to do other than waking up somebody from their nap by stepping on their tail?" He hissed.
You quickly covered Grim's mouth and apologized with a slight bow, "I am terribly sorry, sir. I didn't know you were down there, and I didn't notice your... umm... tail." You tried your best to hide the nervousness you felt and calmed your voice. Seeing you bowing, a smirk appeared on the teen's face.
"Lift your head."
You kept your eyes staring at the floor until you heard the command. You slowly looked up and stood up straight. But the next thing you saw was the face of the stranger right in front of yours.
"Wha-" you gasped at the sudden action of this young man in front of you. The short distance, probably just a few inches, caused your cheeks to become a bit red. "What are you- hey!!" You were trying to step back to widen the distance between the two of you, but the lion boy beat you to it by leaning closer to you and further shortening the distance.
"Sniff, sniff..." Suddenly, he moved his nose closer to your neck. You could feel his warm breath of his on your skin. It made you shiver a bit. "Sniff," the other side, "sniff," and at last your forehead. He then stepped back and left a fine distance between the two of you, followed by a smug sneer.
"What did you just-" you stepped enough steps backward from the stranger with lion ears and questioned in shock.
The boy didn't answer, instead, another smirk appeared on his face while looking at you. That was when you noticed that your face was flushed due to nervousness. You quickly covered them with your palms and stared back at the teaser who was a meter away from you.
"Were you smelling her? I assure you Y/n takes bath every day!" Grim yelled from behind, which made you send him a deathly stare. He immediately covered his mouth with furry palms and shut himself up.
"I know you, the magicless herbivore from the orientation who couldn't use magic." He voiced and broke the silence.
"Well, you do not have to emphasize the fact that I am 'magicless', I suppose." You uttered with rolling eyes.
"You know Y/n?" Grim cut in once again. The little seal can't keep his mouth shut for just a minute. "I don't remember meeting you before."
"It isn't hard to tell when you are the only girl wandering around in this school." He told, "Plus, you don't smell of magic at all."
Who is this guy? Why does he have a pair of ears and a tail? And why does he seems to be dangerous and offensive? Tons of questions popped out in your mind, and you didn't even have enough time to process them. All you can think of at the moment is to leave this ridiculous and seem-to-be-dangerous man with an unexplainable smug smile on his face as soon as possible.
"You're thinking to run, aren't you?"
You stopped your leaving feet and once again tried to put yourself together, and acted like you were calm, "Yes I am, if you may excuse."
But the next second, your wrist was grabbed by a big and strong hand, which belongs to Mr. Stranger, obviously.
"What are you doing? Let go of me!" You yelled a bit, but all he did was pulling you closer to him and uttering with a mischievous smirk, "Well, can't say it'd be much fun to hunt someone so helpless." He then widened his smile,
"Still gonna do that, though."
You blinked twice when you heard what he said. Your free hand reflexively grabbed the stranger's hand so as to make him let go of yours.
"You... you can't do this to her! She is the prefect of Ramshackle Dorm!" Grim exclaimed, but he was soon shut up by the man with a lion roar.
"ROOAAAARRR!"
"Kowaidesu! Don't kill me!!" Grim screamed as he slipped back behind my shoulder.
You stared straight into the green eyes. "What do you want?"
He tightened the grab of his hand and bellowed with his deep voice right in front of your face, "No one gets to stomp on my tail and just walk away without paying the price."
"I'm in a bad mood on account of being woken up from my nap, too. That's gonna cost you a tooth."
He is really gonna eat you up like a lion or whatever. Was the first thing that came to your mind, but you have got nowhere to go at the moment. You took a deep breath to calm yourself down.
"Look, I am sorry for stepping on your tail and waking you up from your nap," you voiced and grabbed his gloved hand harder, "but please take your hand away from mine, or I am sure the headmaster will know about that."
Although you didn't notice, your hand is actually trembling, and the stranger could clearly feel that.
"Brave of you, prey." He mocked with a mischievous smile, showing his sharp canines. It is unusual for him, Leona Kingscholar, not only the housewarden of Savanaclaw, but also the prince of Sunset Savana, who is feared by the others. Not many of them even dare to talk back to him, but this magicless human in front of him, literally talks straight back to him in face. That isn't something that happens every day, in his life full of boredom.
"Interesting," Leona mumbled to himself with an intrigued smirk. This isn't the day for you to be hunted, herbivore. Leona thought in his mind.
"Leona-san!" A shout from the back door broke the silence between the two of you. Both of you turned to the direction where the voice came from, and that was when you saw a boy with short blonde hair entering the greenhouse. Same as the stranger next to you, he has a pair of furry ears on the top of his head and a tail swinging behind him. His vest's also yellow, but it is paired with the black uniform jacket.
"There you are Leona-san!" The boy stopped next to Leona with a few textbooks in his arm. "I know I'd find you here. We got after-school lessons today, remember?" He informed while waving a dark purple textbook with his free hand.
"Ughhh..." Leona sighed helplessly. The last thing he wants was to be grabbed to Crewel's lab by his own vice housewarden. This was actually his original reason to take a nap in the botanical garden instead of his room, to escape from the supplementary alchemy lesson.
"And now I got this guy on my tail..." Leona shook his head in annoyance. He didn't aware that he's still having your wrist grabbed in his hand.
Ruggie moved his head and peeped when he found that Leona wasn't the only person in the garden. "Eh? And who are you? Why are you and Leona-san grabbing each other's arms?"
"SMACK!" Just when Leona moved his attention from you to the class issue, you freed one of your hands from Leona's hand and slapped his face without being noticed.
"Wha- Did you just-" the blonde boy gasped in shock while pointing at you with a shaking finger. You took a look at Mr. Stranger in front of you. He's, too, looking at you with widened eyes and a slightly dropped jaw. There was an obvious hand-shaped redness on his left cheek.
You didn't wait for him to come back to sense. "Let's go, Grim!" Was all you said before you ran straight to the entrance, leaving the shocked lion in the greenhouse.
Rugged didn't dare to say a word. He knew well that there is no good in talking to Leona when he is in a bad mood, but they're running out of time. Crewel's lesson would start in 10 minutes.
"Ano, Leona-san..." Ruggie approached closer to the housewarden. He wasn't moving a bit, just staring at the direction where you had gone with a half-opened mouth. He literally jumped out of his skin when the motionless Leona all of a sudden lifted his arm and touched the reddened left cheek caused by the slap.
"Leona-san... we need to-"
"Did she just slap me?" Leona cut off Ruggie with a question, and his eyes stayed still in the same direction.
"Eh... yes, Leona-san, but we really have to go, or Crewel will-" Ruggie tried his best to calm both himself and his housewarden, but he was soon, once again, cut off by Leona.
"SCREW CREWEL THAT MAGICLESS HERBIVORE JUST SLAPPED ME ON MY FACE
LITERALLY. I AM HEADING BACK TO MY DORM AND SLEEPING!"
was all Leona roared before he slapped the back door and left the garden without waiting for his right-hand man.
"Wait! Leona-san! Crewel will torture both of us if you are absent from his class! Leona-san! Hey!" Poor Ruggie quickly followed Leona and tried to convince him, but it probably wouldn't work.