Study Session

The next morning, the group came by like originally planned at 2:00 P.M with their study materials in their school bags. The group gathered about the dining table with everything needed laid out on the dark wood table and then the entire session began. Like how I've anticipated it to be, the entirety of the session revolved around teaching Noah and Zaksus the materials that they're still confused on. From what I could see, it would appear that they had plenty of things mixed up and fixing all these misconceptions will take a long time.

"How the hell do I know who it was that discovered the mechanical use of Mana Gems?" Noah complained as he threw his pen down on the review packet. "This is stupid."

"I think the stupid one is just you," Muria sighed and shook her head in order to express her frustration. She was assigned to teach Noah due to her good grades, but it would appear that there's things that even she cannot accomplish with ease.

"It's not my fault that their names are so weird," Noah sighed and leaned back and slid down his chair. "Why do final exams exist? Who gave them the right to exist?"

"The Department of Education," Muria responded. "Come on. Finish the problem."

Noah forced himself up from the chair and picked up the packet. "Name the person who discovered the mechanical use of Mana Gems and its significance to the time period in general."

"Any luck?" Loyd asked with a smile on his face as he loosened his grip on his annotated textbook and laid it on the table.

"Still no clue," Noah sighed.

On the other end of the table, Luna was tutoring Zaksus on the topics that he had missed due to basketball. It would appear that unlike Noah who struggled with history, Zaksus's problems were on physics.

"So how do I solve this problem?" he asked Luna.

"Let me see," Luna leaned closer to him and peered at the review packet. "So it tells you how many M's the Mana Gem provides. Just use the formula to find the total work output."

"H-how?" Zaksus asked.

"Use the formula," Luna responded and stared blankly into Zaksus's eyes as if he was asking the obvious.

"So which one?" Zaksus asked, grabbing the formula sheet off the table with its many formulas all listed on it. "Which one?"

I let out a sigh and flipped my notebook shut. The chaotic noises that both sides were making were making it quite difficult for me to focus on what little notes that I had written down. Besides, I really don't care about studying at all since I am quite confident that I'll be able to pass the exams.

Nearby to my right, I saw that Irina also had a look of frustration on her face as she rested her face in her left hand while gazing at the notes that she had took. I took a quick peek at her notebook and saw that her notes were extremely neat and color coded with highlighters to emphasize main concepts of the lecture. In addition, she also utilized diagrams to better utilize the problem. Overall, just looking at her notes led to me believe that she must also have put in plenty of hours to learn the content that she had missed while she was away for her job.

Irina noticed me staring and smiled in a fatigued manner as she realized that I was suffering from the same issue as her. On her face was a countenance of joy as if she was happy that she wasn't alone in the faction of being unable to study when there's so much commotion occurring on both ends of the table since she looked at me as if she had found someone similar and that she's not alone.

"It's kinda hard to study like this," she whispered as she leaned closer to me.

"Y-yeah," I responded, blushing slightly as I looked away so as to avoid looking at her face which was now closer to mine.

"Alevian."

I heard her call my name and looked over subconsciously. What immediately came into view was the side view of her pretty face which made me blush due to how close it was from mine. Then, my eyes were caught by the lines of her facial features and the beautiful proportions of them. I've always thought that Irina was pretty. She is a celebrity after all, so her appearance is guaranteed to be top notch. However, looking at it from this close really feels different from looking at it from a distance.

"W-what is it?" I stuttered as I forced myself to look away once again.

"Your notes," she said. "You barely have any."

"Oh that?"

I shifted my gaze down at my empty notebook. When compared to her notebook, I guess she has a point. Unlike her notes, mine lacked plenty of content taught during the lesson. However, I did write down some important stuff. To be honest, when I'm jotting down these simple notes, I never had the intent of going back and looking over them. Whatever was taught that day I've either learned it already or was able to store it all into memory if needed. Therefore, there was no real need for me to take notes other than to avoid being picked on by the teacher. If I at least act like I'm taking some notes and have some things to show for it, the teachers can't do anything about it.

"I ran out of lead for my pencil," I lied so as to come up with an excuse to escape from the potential interrogation that she might direct towards me.

"Well," she smiled and sat back down on her seat. "We can look at mine together."

"S-sure." I reluctantly accepted since that was my only choice at the moment if I want to avoid an interrogation as to why I didn't want to do so.

Therefore, the situation ended up with her pulling her chair closer to mine as we sat elbow to elbow with her notebook placed between us on the table. It was quite awkward to be honest and extremely difficult to focus on whatever content she had so gracefully written down. My elbows keep rubbing against hers throw the fabric of our sleeves and the aroma of her body just keep floating over in my direction and into my nostrils. It was rather distracting.

"Is it still hard to focus?" Irina frowned as she looked into my eyes.

"S-somewhat," I responded.

"Then," she paused as her face turned the color of scarlet. "We can go to your room."

"Huh?"

I was initially confused as to what she had meant. However, after a second of comprehension, I realized how awful that had sounded. My heart began beating fast as my face also turned red as it warmed up due to the flow of blood towards my cheeks. I stared at Irina in shock, and it would appear that she, too, had realized what she had just said sounded incorrect as her face turned an even more red, transitioning from a scarlet to crimson. She also rapidly shook her head and arms before her in denial.

"I-I-I-I didn't mean it like that," she explained in panic. "I know it sounded wrong and everything but I didn't mean it like that."

"Irina?" Muria looked over at us, pausing her tutoring which led to the others to also look over in our direction. "Your face is oddly red," she said, frowning. "Did Alevian sexually harass you?"

"I didn't," I quickly explained as I felt the gazes of the others piercing me.

"Alevian didn't do anything," Irina quickly explained for me. "It's just that we were thinking that it's a bit hard to concentrate here and wanted to go somewhere quiet like his room."

"Somewhere quiet," Noah nodded with an amused smile on his face. "I get it. I get it. There's nothing to hide. None of us are virgins after all."

"That's rather rude," Irina barked back.

"Why would you assume that we girls would give our bodies so easily?" Muria sighed and shook her head.

"So both of you still have your hymen intact?" Noah asked and was met with a silent death stare in response. "Forget I said anything."

Witnessing the whole situation play out, Luna simply smiled and giggled at her end of the table. My interest was aroused by this giggle of hers and I looked over at her. She was smiling in a pretty mature manner, handling it like how an adult would.

Only she didn't say anything, I noticed. Out of all three girls present, she didn't defend herself...

"Y-you're saying as if you're not a virgin," Irina responded.

"We're not," Noah answered. "In fact, none of us guys are. I don't know about Alevian though." Noah looked over at me with a calculating smile, almost as if he knows about my secret. This smile of his sent shivers down my spine as it would appear as if he knew about what I had done with Loriana but not at the same time. To be honest, I really couldn't tell.

"F-fine," Irina sighed as she slumped down on her seat as if she was defeated.

"If you need somewhere quiet," Loyd then said with a smile. "You don't have to mind us."

"Really?" Irina asked.

"We can take care of teaching them," Loyd continued to say using that charismatic leadership quality of his. "The two of you should focus on studying."

I guess Loyd's concealed message is that they're capable of not studying and still achieve a high mark on the final exam and that the two of us should do whatever we can to better our chances. I mean he's not technically wrong about that and he might not even mean what I had just imagined. However, it is what it is.

That morning, I would've never thought that I would be alone in my room with another girl. It's quite awkward now that I've closed the door behind us with Irina simply standing in the center of my room with her back turned towards me.