Aria was waiting in the hallway connecting every dorm suite, including her own team's dorm. Nic and Yuuki had headed inside to put the two swords away. Aria wasn’t upset about Yuuki sidetracking their plans for the day, especially after seeing what it was for.

But the pain in her chest was eating away at her.

Seeing Nic try so hard the past seven months, all to cultivate in him coming out of a test period majorly passing had made her want to spoil him, even if just a bit.

But more than that, she wanted to be by his side. That was the true pain she felt. Even if it was selfish of her, she wanted a day with just the two of them. She wanted to feel the heat of his body next to hers. To feel the roughness of his hands that calmed her every time.

How many times had she told him how she felt? Too many times for him to not know.

She had even kissed him, albeit under extreme circumstances that caused Nic not to remember it.

“So, what’s the problem you’re having, oh mighty wind princess?”

A highly energetic, sarcasm-filled voice cut through Aria’s thoughts, snapping her back to reality. In front of her, a face cupped by short, light blonde hair and green eyes was staring up at her expectantly, with a bit of a quizzical look in their eyes.

“Uwah!? Ouch.”

Caught by surprise, Aria took a step back only to bang her head against the wall she had been standing next to. She rubbed the back of her head before looking at the woman in front of her. Standing a bit away was a Racoon clan Demi-human woman with long dark hair and purple eyes that glimmered like gemstones.

Both of them were wearing dresses that matched their eyes. Each dress matched the personality of the one wearing it. Sarah’s looked far easier to move around in while Kiara’s went for a more prim and proper elegant look.

“Sarah. Kiara. What are you doing here?”

“Well, we were on our way to a dinner reservation when we saw Nic being chased by Sarman. You didn’t seem to notice something as big as that so we came to make sure that everything was fine.”

Aria quickly looked around as she heard that Nic was being chased but didn’t see any sign of them.

“They went that way a minute or so ago.”

Kiara pointed to Aria’s right. Right on cue, a loud scream could be heard echoing down the hall before Nic appeared running past the intersection of hallways at the end. Following close behind him was Sarman who had already gotten out a flaming weapon and was trying to hit Nic for some reason.

Aria was about to start running down the hallway herself when Sarah jumped in front of her.

“Woah Woah Woah. Hold your horses and let the boys wear themselves out. Unless you two had somewhere you were going to be yourselves?”

“We were going to have dinner at a restaurant ourselves.”

When Aria told the two of them the name of the restaurant, a gleeful smile appeared on Sarah’s face. She bounded into the dorm room next to them, searching for Yuuki.

Sarah and Kiara just so happened to be going to the same restaurant. When Sarah reappeared, the two dragged Aria along with them.

“I told Yuuki to let Nic know to just come to the restaurant if he comes back here.”

“But why do I have to go with you two?”

Aria wanted to walk to dinner with Nic, not Sarah and Kiara. She didn’t hold anything against them, she just wanted to be with Nic that much.

“Oh, come’on. You had a scary face back there when you were thinking. I just wanna know what that was about.”

Aria averted her head. Why did she have to go through this conversation? Why did everyone have to get in the way of her spending time with Nic?

“Ah, it’s back! What’re you thinking right now?”

“Why… Why do I need to talk to you about this?”

At this point, the three of them had exited the building they were in and were now walking down the path to the university grounds entrance. The setting sun bathed them in its warm orange glow. Aria felt out of place standing next to the two dressed up women.

While she had tidied herself up and put a bit more effort into her look, it was nowhere near the same amount as those two.

“You know… I feel like Kiara and I know the rest of your team pretty well.”

“Huh? What’s that-”

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Aria began to talk but was cut off by Sarah, who ignored her and continued to talk.

“Sarman and Master, we’ve known them for a few years now. Both of us know pretty much everything there is to know about them. What they like. What they dislike. Their dreams and aspirations, or lack thereof when it comes to a certain Spirit King. While we’ve known Nic for less time, we’ve spent a lot of time talking. He and I duel quite often as Master’s two pupils. And Nic and Kiara always meet me after the class that they share. We get to talk then as well. I think we both know him pretty well by now.”

You know nothing. That’s what Aria wanted to say. She knew Nic had kept his true name secret from everyone. Without knowing that, all they could know was the facade he put up on a daily basis.

“But you, Aria… We barely talk to you. Even if we’re in the same place, you only focus on Nic. You barely talk to others.”

Aria stopped in the middle of the street. Sarah and Kiara stopped as well and looked at each other, wondering why Aria had stopped.

“And…? If you’re so buddy-buddy with everyone else, why don’t you just ask them about me?”

Kiara sighed and rubbed her temples with her fingers before speaking up.

“We don’t want to ask the others. We want to hear it from your own mouth.”

“Why!? I don’t know anything about you! So why do you want to know about me?” Aria shouted at the two without meaning to. When she realized what she had done, she tried to instantly backtrack her words, only to find the two of them grinning as they stared at her. Kiara was the one that spoke up again.

“In that case, why don’t we let you know who we are!” She moved over and grabbed Sarah’s wrist and pulled her in close. “This is my amazing human fiance, Sarah.” She emphasized the fact that Sarah was a human.

“And this,” Sarah reached down and started petting the raccoon tail that wrapped around her waist. “Is my demi-human fiance, Kiara. The love of my life.”

“We were both born twenty-two years ago.”

Aria tried to speak up. A human and a demi-human had vastly different lifespans. For them to already be calling themselves engaged at this young age for Kiara would only spell pain in her future.

“You’re probably already thinking that something like this is bad for me right? After all, if we were lucky and stayed in Sanum, Sarah would maybe manage to live till one hundred. Meanwhile, I’ll easily live past two, no, three hundred years.”

It was exactly what Aria thought. Even if it was hypocritical of her to think that, seeing as how Nic would most likely die sooner from the natural Irradiation absorption he had.

“Don’t worry about that, Aria!” Sarah walked up to Aria and grabbed her hands, covering them with her own. “Once we leave the university, we plan on finding a way to extend a human’s life. Kiara will research it and I will be her beautiful bodyguard!”

“Your… dream…? That’s… is that even possible without turning you into a demi-human as well?”

Aria finally got a chance to say something. She was trying to comprehend everything she had just heard. It sounded silly, that dream. But somehow, hearing it made Aria feel like she knew everything she needed to about the two of them.

“Maybe. Maybe not. We won’t know until we try.”

“That’s who we are, Aria. That’s our dream. So? What’s yours? What is it that keeps you getting up every day?”

Her dream?

She had completed the only dream she knew of; coming back to Sanum. But was that really it? Did she have nothing else that she wanted to do? Was there no one else that she wanted to live for?

Her heart was shot with pain.

The answer really was simple. At least for her.

He was the answer. Her heart’s answer would always be him.

Of course, how many times had she told him how she felt?

She had even kissed him. Albeit under extreme circumstances. But it had been her first thought at that moment.

Ever since that day nearly three years ago when he had first come up to her, his role in her life had only grown. It filled up her life. It captured her heart.

But there were things that they had to do before she could simply let those feelings overtake her entirety.

“I… I simply want to be able to live in peace with Nic…”

It was really simple, her wish. So much so that she chuckled lightly to herself after voicing it.

Kiara and Sarah smiled at her as she told them the truth.

“In that case, aren’t you already there?”

Sarah was the one who asked the question. Aria wasn’t surprised that she thought that. After all, she only knew the facade that Nic put up.

Aria shook her head.

“It’s not as simple as that. Nic’s family… It comes with a lot of baggage. Until we deal with that baggage, we… well Nic can never truly live in peace.”

“His family? I see. He never talks about his family. I guess that’s the reason.” Sarah looked at Aria and gave her a smile. Aria could see a hint of sadness behind it but decided to not say anything.

As the two were standing there, Kiara patted Aria on the shoulder to get her attention. When Aria looked at her, she was directed to the building in front of them. Without her realizing it, the three of them had arrived at the restaurant already and had been doing all of this in front of it.

“With all of this out of the way, why don’t we go grab our tables?”

Kiara led the way inside with her offer. Sarah followed behind her while Aria brought up the rear. Kiara tried to get a table for four, but Aria stopped her pretty quickly.

She was closer to them for sure, but she still wanted to spend the rest of the night with Nic, alone.

He did appear only a few minutes later. Ragged and out of breath from being chased by Sarman across the dorm building.