26

A mild wind blew inside the room, the thin white curtains on the window dancing in its course. It was a bright summer day, the sun shining brilliantly in the blue sky outside across which white fluffy clouds swam lazily.

A pair of young second year girls sat outside the window on a low wooden bench, leaning towards each other as they read the book that laid open in their laps. They were enjoying the captivating story of a young Earl and his first love.

They squealed joyously and the window over their heads rattled a little. They raised their heads and found their professor of Taming Art standing inside the room, her arms crossed over her black shirt.

"Could you young ladies lower your voice?",she said with a little smile on her tired face,"please realize that you are sitting outside an infirmary."

The girls sprang up from the bench, bowing their heads to their professor and apologizing repeatedly.

"It's alright. Please be careful",the woman said and the girls nodded eagerly before hastily walking away and across the empty compound, their red capes fluttering in the summer wind.

Miya turned away from the window and wrinkles appeared on her forehead as she frowned at the boy laying in one of the beds.

She went around the bed to sit down on a steel stool, the same one she had been sitting on for the last five days as she waited her son to open his eyes.

She leaned forward and pulled the thin white blanket up to Rin's shoulders, covering his pale skin which was as cold as a winter snow despite the warm rays of the mighty sun falling upon him.

Fresh tears began to fill her tired blue eyes and she bent over to place a tender kiss on his forehead. He had been like that since the day he and Thor were found unconscious in a valley miles away from the academy.

Nobody knew what had happened or who was the one responsible for their states until Thor told them the entire story.

All that he could remember.

He had woken up to find himself on an infirmary bed with his wounds almost healed up. Had it not been for the boy laying unconscious in the bed next to him, he would have believed that it was all just a bad dream.

He couldn't remember what happened after he was stabbed with those knives but there was no need of memories for him to realize what had happened.

Alicia was gone.

That man had got what he had come to take. A fairy's core.

Miya heard the door being opened and she looked over her shoulder to find Daichi standing in the doorway, a cup of green tea in each of his hands.

"Hey",he said, forcing a smile on his face for his wife.

"Hey",came the barely audible reply of Miya who was quick to turn her head towards the sleeping boy.

She heard Daichi's footsteps approach her before she felt him place a soft kiss on her head.

"Stay strong", that's all that he said to her and that was enough for her to fight back her tears.

He walked to the other side of the bed, hiding the sunlight behind his back and casting a shadow on Rin. He placed the cups down on the little wooden table, his hands brushing the glass surface of the small vase on it, the single daffodil flower in it swaying happily in the wind.

His white shirt was full of creases and his black trousers had a little oval shaped stain on its left leg which he had got the day before from spilling some green tea on himself.

His eyes were bloodshot and there were little gray hair growing on his chin and the sides of his face, showing that he hadn't gone home for the last 5 days.

Not that he wished to when his precious son and beloved wife were there at the Academy.

He sat down on the stool on Rin's left and leaned forward to brush away the hair which had fallen on the boy's closed eyelids. It had been too long since he had last seen those beautiful blue eyes of his child.

Please wake up, son, he prayed, his gray eyes getting moist with unshed tears.

It was time to change the bandages around Rin's chest and the moment the long arm of the round clock on the wall above Rin's head reached 12, the door opened, revealing a young man in his red uniform cape and in a white shirt and trousers.

His white hair were brushed back and held by a green band that matched his emerald green eyes.

He was an elf, one could tell that by his pointed ears.

He nodded at the couple in the room, greeting them like he had been doing for the last five days. Daichi nodded and the boy quietly shut the door behind him before going to the cabinets at the foot of the bed.

The room was a small one seeing as there was not a great need of medical assistance when one could simply use HEAL UP or HEALER'S CONFINEMENT.

That boy stood on his toes to reach the glass jar on the top shelf. He picked it and put his heals down, the green jelly like substance in the jar bouncing a little with his action.

That elf was Shinju, a third year student at the academy and the apprentice of the old nurse lady. That lad had a very keen eye for herbs and spices and would frequently be found sitting in a secluded corner of the Academy's library with his nose stuck in the bulkiest of the book about medicine.

He was gentle creature with quiet demeanor.

He bent over to take out a clean glass bowl from a cabinet beside his leg and putting it on the small marble counter, he began to mix that jelly with a small amount of some blue liquid, giving it an appearance of a viscous fluid with a pungent smell.

He sniffed and that odor irritated his nose. He scrunched up his nose and placed a hand on it to muffle his sneeze.

Miya lifted her head, realizing the boy's presence in the room for the first time.

"Bless you, dear",she said.

While that young elf changed Rin's dressing, it was lunch time in the Academy.

Students flooded the dining halls, excited about the main dish on the menu; fried fish.

While turning away from the counter with his food tray in his hands, Thor caught the glimpse of the small glass jars lined up neatly on the marble counter.

They were Beanos; the small, colorful jelly balls that came in a variety of flavors; mint, lemon, pepper, salt.

All of them were delicious but the coconut one was a rarity and some dedicated young students would spend up all their lunch money on buying dozens of those glass jars just to get that exquisite flavor.

Foolish, right? But that was exactly the reason that they had caught Thor's eyes.

Rin too loved collecting those jelly beans.

Thor put the tray down on the marble slab and searched his pockets for a silver coin. He found one and bought the snack, smiling softly as he held the red painted glass jar in both of his hands.

Rin will be happy to see it, he thought.

A shadow appeared on his hands and he looked up to find two boys standing in front of him. They were his class fellows and very ill mannered ones.

"Buying a Beanos? What a childish thing to do!",the bald one said as he stepped to Thor's side to put an arm around his shoulder.

They laughed and Thor rolled his eyes.

"Let me have it!",the other boy with short brown hair and mischievous black eyes said, snatching the jar from Thor's hands.

"Hey! Give that back!",Thor cried reaching for the jar.

The boy stepped back and tripped on his own foot.

Thor watched with wide eyes as the jar fell down on the stone floor, breaking into small pieces and the little round jellies scattering all over the floor.

"Oh!",a pair of girls cried with their hands on their mouth.

That boy looked up from the mess he had made on the floor.

"Look what you di-",his words got stuck in his mouth when he saw the deadly glare Thor was giving him.

Thor clenched his fists, the veins on the back of his hands visibly pulsating. The bald boy stepped away from Thor and he was right to do so for that boy was moments away from snapping. There were tiny golden sparks surrounding his knuckles.

"You bloody bast-"

He was stopped by a hand on his mouth and he turned his head to find Tadashi standing beside him.

"No fighting in the Academy! Buzz off if you don't me to report this!",he said that calmly with a smile on his face but the lethality behind that smile was enough to make those boys turn on their heals and escape the approaching danger.

Tadashi brought his hand down from Thor's mouth and shook his head.

"I could never imagine you to get into a fight at school, Thor. What happened?",he said and Thor simply turned around and walked away.

Tadashi sighed.

Thor had become difficult to get along with.

Though hard to notice but there had been a change in him. Though he was still that quiet and lazy boy whose biggest concern was what was on the lunch menu but now he would lose his temper at the littlest of things.

The other day, Tadashi had seen him coming out of professor Drakes office with a bruise on his cheek and split knuckles.

They had met in the corridor and he had asked Thor what he was doing there but he was ignored by the younger boy who had silently stared at him with those empty eyes of his.

Tadashi had a guess about what was the problem there but it only made him feel more uneasy and he prayed for his guess to be wrong.

Thor was lost without Rin and Alicia.

Unfortunately, Tadashi was right on spot. Thor really was a mess, not knowing what to do with the sadness and guilt that was eating him up inside.

That white haired boy who loved to be alone was now lonely.

It was three in the afternoon and the day had eventually come to an end for the students who were more than glad to return to their dormitories to take a nap or play board games while enjoying their ice popsicles.

Unlike others, Thor turned right at the end of the hallway to reach the infirmary. Placing his hand on its cold doorknob, he took a deep breath but it wasn't enough to steady his nerves.

He opened the door and stepped inside the room. His eyes immediately fell on the sleeping boy and he felt his heart squeeze painfully inside his chest.

Even though he had been visiting him every single day for the last 5 days but still he had not got used to seeing him like that.

Maybe the next time he opened that door, Rin would be sitting up in his bed. Maybe he would turn his head and greet him with his smirk.

He walked up to the bed in the corner of that small room and sat down on the stool.The room was empty except for those two boys. Maybe Daichi had finally convinced Rin's mother to take a nap in the staff room.

Thor leaned forward and rested his folded arms on the bed beside Rin's asleep body. He could smell the pungent odor of the medicinal paste that had been applied on Rin's wound and he rubbed his nose before laying his head down on his folded arms.

He peeked at his sleeping friend. His eyes were stinging and it could be because of the tears which weren't allowed to fall or because of the fact that he hadn't slept since he had gain consciousness.

That was three days ago but what could he possibly do.

His dreams were more terrifying than his miserable reality.

His tired eyelids began to droop and the next moment, he was asleep as the warm afternoon breeze silently blew in through the open window.