"Don't be blinded by your ideals, you'll only lose sight of them if you do"
*Adela*
I glanced back at An's clothes and backed away from them as An opened the door.
His violet eyes darted over to his clothes, confused. The rustling of his feet filled the otherwise silent room as Xue remained as silent as a tree.
An turned over to look at us. "My clothes, why are they here?" He furrowed his brow. "Also, why do they look smaller?"
"I'm so sorry," Xue said, bowing her head. "I...I tried to be helpful by washing them, but I did so with hot water, and I left them in for too long that they shrunk. I got Adela to help me out but she has nothing to do with what happened."
An's face turned bright red. "I see. Well that was awfully kind of you... but... I barely know you."
"Huh?" Xue, Ms. Key, and I said at once.
The Aiefan boy fidgeted. "You washed my clothes so that means that... Well, we aren't in Aief, and you aren't a member of my clan so..." He crossed his hands together and laughed. "Never mind."
I recalled a bedtime story my father used to tell me of an Aiefian girl who had washed the clothes of the boy she loved to show him her love for him.
"Did you think that Xue was hitting on you?" I asked, smiling slightly.
An's fidgeting returned. "No..." He blushed. "Well, maybe, a bit. You see a girl washing a boy's clothes means that she has feelings for him and desires to be more than friends with him."
"Well, I wish I knew that," Xue said. "I wouldn't have washed them if I knew that."
An blushed some more and went around us to open the washing machine's door. "Ms. Key, how do you turn this on?"
"I'll show you," Xue said, walking over to him. She instructed him carefully on which buttons he must press and where the nobs needed to be turned, as well as which temperature and how much time was adequate for washing cotton clothes like our uniforms.
"I think everything is fine now," I said, grinning. "I'll be in my room if anyone needs me."
"Thanks for helping me," Xue said, looking over her shoulder. She gave a friendly smile.
I shook my head and snickered. "It's nothing, now don't ever go hitting on any more guys with a method like this again."
Xue blushed. "I was not hitting on him!"
'Wow, I sounded like Iah, Hal, and Nuk when I said that. They are starting to rub off on me.'
An's face became red again. "Sorry for thinking that."
Xue spun around. "No, it was my fault for not telling you that I was going to wash your clothes first."
With a grin, I closed the door behind me. Besides us, nearly everyone else was asleep.
"Nice to see someone else already awake. Think you can help me make breakfast," Hikaru said as I walked out of the laundry room. He wore an apron over his school uniform.
I walked over to him and grabbed a knife. "Alright. I'll make omelets for everyone."
"I will be making chicken with curry spices," Hikaru said as he opened the freezer.
Lei whimpered as he opened his eyes. "What's going on?" As soon as he could clearly see us, he ran over and got flour, butter, and milk.
"Can you put strawberries in mine?" I asked. Lei was making his signature pancakes. He loved to cook food that went well with honey... Now that I thought about it, the broth was clearly Yen's idea.
He took out a bowl of already cut strawberries from the freezer. "One step ahead of you."
Yen ran down stairs. "What's that smell? Oh, you're making curry?" She walked over to the cupboards and took out some coffee beans we had gotten the other day. Placing them on a hand grinder, she smirked. "How about we have a contest?"
"You plan to win with coffee?" I said.
Hikaru and Lei laughed.
"You haven't tasted my sister's coffee, have you?" Lei asked.
I pulled my hair back and tied it into a bun. "In that case, let's start the contest."
We finished making breakfast by the time everyone woke up. Nyima ended up being the judge of our little cook off. "I like the chicken, but it's a little dry. As for the omelet, it's very sweet and juicy. The pancakes complement the coffee well as if their makers were used to cooking together."
"You have an expert tongue," Yen said, smirking. "Lei and I made those last two."
She smiled. "No wonder."
"I assume I lost?" Hikaru said, frowning.
"Why do you think that?"
"You said my chicken was dry, that's not usually a good thing."
"That's true, it could've been better. Perhaps, you could've tenderized it. Adela's omelet was good, but it lacked something. I would say the winners are the twins, if they weren't going up against each other. Individually, the winner is Adela."
I jumped with glee and hugged Lei. "I did it, I defeated you!"
Lei laughed alongside me. "You did, but this isn't my best dish. I still have my honey chicken."
"Time to go to class," Ms. Key said as she came out of the laundry room. "An, your uniform is clean now."
An went to the laundry room to grab his school uniform while we cleaned up. Once he finished putting on his uniform, we all got on the bus and left for school, barely arriving ten minutes before the start of the class.
***
"We made it," Lei said, running into homeroom. It was still as stuffy as it was the previous day. This time, I took the liberty of opening the window instead of allowing Iah to break something again.
Already seated in the room were Haroun, Vita, Yuzuki, Tahoma, Ayawamat, Orion, and three others.
"My lady," one of them said. It was a boy wearing the same uniform as me and the other girls. If it weren't for the fact that he was a member of my own clan, then I wouldn't have guessed that it was a boy, considering his use of makeup and his super girly hairstyle.
He stood up to hug me, but I blocked him. "No hugs," I said, raising a hand to his face.
"Renshu, that's no way to act around our master," another boy from my clan said. It was Ona. Ona, like Renshu, was dressed in the female uniform. He had short cyan hair and black eyes. Unlike Renshu, he looked more masculine. Though when the two dressed in male clothes, and without makeup, it was Ona who had a more feminine face.
"She doesn't mind, or do you?" Renshu said, giving me a hopeful look.
I smiled. "I do mind."
Renshu put his head down on his desk. "So merciless..."
Hikaru snickered. "She really is..."
"Master," a girl said. It was white-haired girl with clear blue eyes and extremely pale skin. Drawn on each of her cheeks were a pair of black stripes, making her look like a tiger.
Iah glanced up at her and smiled. "Ah, Orichalcum. Nice to see you. I told you that I would be fine on my own."
She crossed her arms. "I can see that, but I can't help but worry about you."
"I almost forgot that you two were royalty," Ulissis said. He turned to look at Sarah and Wanikiya. "We sure have several royals. Then there's Xue and Vermeil who are nobles."
Sarah nodded. "Though, unlike the other royals and nobles, I'm not the heir."
"Sarah?" Renshu said with shock. He looked down. "Listen, even if your country is the ally of Kyuu Seishin, you should be careful around them."
She raised an eyebrow at him.
"What do you mean?" I said.
"You'll see soon enough," Orichalcum said as her blue eyes darted toward her fractured desk. The thing looked like it had clearly seen better days. "When you meet them, don't confront them. Try to get help instead."
"Who are you talking about?" Iah said as he leaned back against his seat. "Which Kyuu Seishinians must we beware of?"
"I would say all," Ona said, crossing his arms. "However, the ones we're thinking of are a group of eight. They're a group wearing masks."
I recalled Renshu and Ona speaking about them to me over winter vacation. The masked ones were responsible for kicking a lot of last year's first-years out of the academy, including one of my friends. Only a couple of the original sixteen stayed to become second-years.
I gazed around the tiny room. To my knowledge, there was meant to be another second-year, but she or he was nowhere to be seen.
"If we see them, then we'll show them that we aren't to be picked on," I said.
Ayawamat smiled. "I'll personally bash their face in if they try to mess with me. The rest of you can fend for yourselves, though."
"No one asked for your help," Nyima said, narrowing her eyes at him.
"Quiet down, everyone," Ms. Key said. She looked at the second-years. "Renshu, Ona, Orichalcum. Can I still count on you to escort the first-years around to their classes?"
"Of course," Renshu said. "Leave it to us." He smiled at me. "Come, Lady Adela. I'll guide you around the school."
I stood up and followed Renshu out of the class. We split up into three groups and visited the classrooms we were going to later in the day. The last place that Team Arima and mine saw was in the gym by the entrance of the school.
Sitting in the front row of the class, made up of students from multiple grades, was Eien.
"Did you sleep well?" Eien asked as he played around with some string.
"Yeah," I said. "The floor was a bit hard, but we could manage."
A familiar person walked into the room. "Welcome to your first real day of class. For those who haven't had the chance to meet me, my name is Koukyuu Kasai no Ki."
She snapped her fingers and the gym floor transformed into a sort of giant jungle gym. Our clothes also changed with the gym, turning the class into a sea of people wearing white t-shirts, and black track shorts.
Ms. Kasai no Ki smiled and said, "Your assignment of the day is to try to make it through this course as quickly as possible. You are to work together in your teams, so please play nice."
Iah and I snuck glances at one another. Lei did the same with Nyima for some reason.
"Let's work hard and make it out first!" Lei said, taking a step toward it.
Iah snickered and followed after him. "Right. We will be number one!"
As if from a ghost, an eerie wind blew past me. Yet, there was no one using their magic at the moment. At least, no one in sight.
"Is something the matter?" Nyima asked, stopping. She gazed at the closed gym door. "Feeling ill?"
I shook my head. "No, I felt something." I sighed and rubbed my head. "It might have been my imagination."
'Perhaps it's paranoia induced by what Renshu and the others had said... or could they actually be here? Those eight?'
**Solar Note: XD Just read an old note from one of my old revisions. To think that the first version of Novus Magus was only 72 episodes long. In said note, I said that I planned to make this first book 103 chapters. Of course, it turned out to be 20 more chapters long. There shouldn't be new chapters in this latest revision, though.**