15 Recovered?

I heavily panted to catch my breath with my flushed cheeks and sore throat. Unfortunately, my bad cold suddenly turned into a fever as I struggled to digest any food that wasn't congee. The only benefit from getting sick was that I didn't have to attend class. I couldn't even say which one was the better of the two evils as I was had a bad headache from some side effects from the medicine I took.

When I was finally able to regain some sense of my surroundings, I wondered how Alex was doing when I saw him near my bed in the infirmary.

'Were we not in the same situation? I couldn't eat anymore because my fever while he couldn't eat because of our -110 000 points.' I thought while I observed his face with a noticeable amount of guilt.

'Maybe it was my imagination,' I told myself when Alex disappeared from my vision a minute later.

I took out my marble and called Shelly in the café when I got bored of staying in the infirmary for a change in pace. "Are you free?"

I was a biology major in high school where I had studied that one would recover faster if they went out for a brief walk to increase the amount of circulation in their bodies.

"Yea, why?" Michelle initially appeared worried for me.

"Can you give me your notes so I can catch up on what I missed?" I pretended I was almost recovered.

"Sure, I'll transfer the files over right now." Michelle tried to cheer me up.

A message appeared on my static screen projected from my translucent marble.

[Would you like to accept the files?]

[Yes] I pressed as the files were instantly transferred into my marble.

I flipped through the files to find that there were over 1000 pages of notes.

"Thanks Shelly!" I grinned when Shelly smiled back before I ended the call.

Another useful function of the marble was that we could instantly transfer files while we were in a conversation.

I learned this in elementary when I got sick for an entire week as Luke would frequently call me to check up on how I was doing in the infirmary while sending me his notes.

"Why are you here?" Alex appeared to be angry with me as he occupied the seat across from me.

"I needed a change in scenery," I looked out the window.

I noticed Alex's flushed cheeks as he silently urged me to go back to the infirmary while he held my hand to help guide me the way back.

"You're not recovered yet," Alex explained when I clumsily studied him.

I felt like an older sister watching her younger brother trying to grow up while I was touched by his awkward actions.

I thought of myself as about twenty-three years old. I spent 17 years in my past life and six years in this life. Even though my academic skills were a bit lacking compared to these bright ten and eleven year olds, I considered myself to be mentally ten years older than them.

I gave Alex a warm smile to thank him for guiding the way. However, he quickly looked away to the other direction while avoiding my face when our eyes met as we silently walked to the infirmary.

'How cute,' I chuckled.

Luke wasn't as cute as Alex. Luke faced me directly with his beautiful ocean blue eyes as I would pretend to listen to him as he would nag me to not slack off.

"I think we need to have a talk." Alex said in a serious tone when we arrived in front of the infirmary.

"What do you want to say?" I tilted my head in confusion.

"I'm not as good as Luke when it comes to looking over your health, but I think you shouldn't overexert yourself right after you got out of the infirmary room. I apologize for my behaviour a week ago when I pushed you to study after you asked for a break. However-"

"It's not your fault!" I interrupted him as I was embarrassed to not notice that Alex was looking for the right timing to apologize.

'No wonder the atmosphere was so awkward!' I scolded myself.

"I should have been able to look after my own health and I didn't. I didn't want to burden you with more minus points," I waved my hands in denial.

"Well, you don't have to worry about that. Just work on getting better!" Alex tucked me into an empty bed.

I nodded and slipped deeper into the bed as I rested on my pillow. I drifted into sleep as I decided to take it easy for the rest of the week after looking at Alex's sincerely guilty appearance.

The week quickly passed as I swore to myself that I would take better care of my body after I had finally recovered.

I happily skipped to the cafeteria as I was free from being stuck with congee.

"What happened while I was away?" I tapped on Alex's shoulders while he sat with Allan and Luke.

"I managed to get rid of our minus points about three days ago and now I accumulated about 9000 points." Alex politely put his utensils down.

'He managed to get rid of -110 000! He managed to do something that even Luke couldn't do!' I tried to hide my shock.

"Since you're here, why don't you eat too Rika?" Alex added as he pulled out the tablet that was in the middle of the table.

I shook my head to refuse as my appetite went away after struggling to digest even porridge for the last few days. Even yesterday, I got most of my nutrition though swallowing some pills with water.

"No. I'll start eating tomorrow." I couldn't tell him I visited the cafeteria to check up on him.

"Are you sure?" Alex showed hints of guilt present on his face.

"Yea. My stomach is still feeling unwell so I'll just take my nutritional pills again." I gave him a decent excuse.

I left Alex so that he could resume eating in the cafeteria. I was surprised to see two fluffy pillows and blankets instead of the expected straw beds.

Pillows and blankets were something like a luxury to me lately. I walked to the faculty office instead of grabbing another light novel as usual from my cardboard box full of clothes, junk food and books. After seeing how hard Alex worked, I didn't want to burden him with tutoring me since I was one week behind others in my studies. I decided to ask my teachers instead for help as I was determined not to bring him down.

However, the sign on the faculty office indicated that it was [closed].

Right. I forgot that it was the weekend since I wasn't used to concept of weekends or holidays.

'Maybe tomorrow,' I thought as I walked towards the library to start studying alone.

I opened the notes I received from Shelly.

'1000 pages, not bad! Let's start from calculus!' I optimistically started to study.

However, 500 pages later, I was already exhausted.

'Maybe I overdid it?' I started to limp towards the door.

I turned the door knob to open the door. But, when I was about to open the door, someone from the other side of the same door tried to open door at the same time. I expected to slump onto the floor from the unexpected force from the other side of the door, but found myself landing in Alex's chest as his warm hand pulled me up.

"Are you here to study as well?" I looked up to face his disapproving purple amethyst eyes.

"No, I'm here to ask you when you're planning to return to our room," He gently supported me back into a chair.

"Why?" I wondered the reason why Alex cared so much.

"Shelly was worried you may be over exerting yourself to catch up." Alex admitted.

"Well, you finally got us out of minus points and I don't to burden you with more minus points again." I sulked.

"I was going to return to our room right now anyways, so you can use this room afterwards if you want." I tried to resolve the awkward atmosphere in the room.

I was a little uncomfortable with Alex since I wasn't that close to him. He seemed like he was in his own unapproachable little world alongside Luke and Allan.

Even Shelly didn't talk to Alex that often even though they were partners. I guessed different pairs had different relationships since I spent most of my time with Luke.

I backed away from his chest and started to lean back into my chair. Alex almost panicked when I dropped onto the floor as I suddenly felt dizzy with my vision wavering a bit.

This was a bad habit that came from my past life. I would overdo it with my studying when it came to desperate situations like upcoming exams that would determine my future.

In my past life, after the SATs, the next important factor was your marks in exams that determined your standing in going to a good university. Sadly, I was almost always in the middle of my class after developing a bad cold after my exams.

'Maybe I overdid it again in order to not burden Alex?' Alex grabbed my hand before I lost my consciousness.

"Rika!" Alex yelled in terror as he tried to wake me back up.