"What are you doing?"

I turned towards the voice. Yermen Caliser is standing in front of me, frowning. I can almost feel the eyes behind his thick glasses bore into me, wishing to stare a hole out of my head.

Before I could answer though, I quickly place one hand on his mouth, another raising to make the shush gesture. Thankfully he complies, as I listen and waited for any signs of people looking for me. After a few minutes of just random footsteps moving about and not heading towards us, I let out a sigh of relief before lowering my hands.

I looked towards my friend again. Oopsies, he seems mad. He is frowning even deeper now, but instead of my face, he's looking at my hand instead. I follow his gaze towards my bandaged hand. To be absolutely sure that no one would see the Stigma before I had the chance to talk to Yermen, I bandaged it up to hide it.

Uhh. I think I need to clear up the misunderstanding.

"Look, I-"

"Shut up."

Before I had the chance, I was ruthlessly shut down.

"What did you do?"

His voice is dripping with anger. Oh, he's really, really mad now. I need to say something ASAP.

"It's not what it looks like"

"Oh?" came a one-word reply.

I swallowed thickly. "Look, just listen to me for a bit."

"Really. So you can make some stupid excuses on why you're breaking our promise and hurting yourself again."

What did he say? Oh, now I'm mad too. "Am I that untrustworthy to you?" I frown.

"Oh no, what to do, I can't trust my idiotic suicidal friend to not hurt themselves because of some dumb reason again."

I was about to retort when I heard him saying that I was his friend. It makes me feel all butterflies in my stomach again. My friend was just worried. I breathe in a little and say with as much calm as I can.

"Look, I didn't hurt myself. I just need some advice." I said as I carefully unravel the bandage that was covering my right hand.

Yermen's face change from furry to confuse to dumbfounded in a matter of seconds. His change would've been comical if not for the situation that I'm in.

===

Yermen is having a very bad day.

In fact, it couldn't have gone worse in his opinion. And he had only just woken up.

His friend, Alean Steelight, had snuck into his room, and by the sound of what is happening outside, almost got caught as well.

The tall youth had immediately placed his right hand on Yermen's mouth the moment he entered his room, to keep him from asking the thousands of questions he had.

Mostly about how stupid can this guy be.

But then he saw something that spiked his blood pressure through the roof. Bandages on the hand that's holding his mouth.

Yermen is angry. Alean had promised him when they became friends, that he would not hurt himself again. In fact, Yermen had said that if he did it again, Yermen might have to reconsider their friendship. He was just threatening the guy. He didn't mean to actually end their friendship if it happened again. But right now he felt that he was about to.

He is disappointed. The promise Alean made at that time was so full of conviction, that he promised to always come to Yermen if he ever needed help, that he would trust Yermen to help him. Now that he saw those bandages, Yermen felt that Alean might not have meant what he said, and he didn't trust Yermen, even after what they've been through.

But mostly, he is worried. His friend has been having nightmares recently. It was understandable. The Incident had only happened a few months ago, which left Alean at death's door. Hearing the healer's diagnosis at that time was scary, to say the least.

The healer had said that if Professor Gentielle was a little bit late, then Alean would have been dead. So Yermen worried that the nightmare he was having was because he was traumatized. He thought to approach Alean again, but was afraid that pulling up traumatic events would be counterproductive to his mental health.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

He is angry. Angry that the idiot did something dumb again. Angry that he did not reach out to his friend, again.

He is not good at this.

Dealing with people that have mental issues is exhausting. He feels like he's walking on eggshells whenever he had to talk to him. What to say? What to not say? He, himself, is not good at expressing care and emotion, so when those around him got hurt, he got angry instead. That's how he had always been.

So imagine his surprise when the idiot unwraps his hand to reveal not wounds, but a Stigma instead.

"How...?"

"I don't know either."

"When...?

"Just now. It happened when I woke up. I was having a nightmare when this person spoke to me. They pulled me out of the darkness and when I woke up, I suddenly gain a Stigma."

Yermen stared incredulously at the slightly glowing symbol. This could be really bad. He quickly grabbed Alean's hand and bring it closer.

"This shape...I've never seen it before."

"Me too..."

Yermen stared at his friend's face. Alean still has that dumb, pleading look in his eyes when he is in over his head and had to ask for Yermen's opinion. It has the impression of a dog that knows it did something wrong and is atoning by acting cute.

Yermen shook his head internally.

At least the big guy didn't suddenly go crazy because of the Stigma. Honestly, dealing with one type of crazy is hard enough.

"What rank is it? What does it do."

"It's... Uhh... How about I write it down"

And write it down he did, in very bad handwriting, mind you. It looks like a dread leech was dunked in ink and left to crawl all over the page, and Yermen had only ever read about the creature. Still, it is somehow miraculously legible.

"A rank? This seems weird."

"Right? I thought it was weird too. It seems so tame for A rank."

Yermen eyed the boy suspiciously "You didn't think that lying about its rank will make it look cooler or anything, did you?"

"What! Me, wanting to look cool? I'd never!" Alean answered in mock offense. "Still. I'm serious. That's what it said."

"Hmm."

Yermen is at a loss. An A-rank blessing that is this tamed? He had never heard about it before. A rank blessing tends to give a person so much strength that they could punch through a small hill with one hit. Or extreme magical limit and affinity that makes them pillars of magical warfare.

Sometimes one can gain extra affinities if the God is generous. Of course, there's also active-Skill-like blessing like what Alean has, but they tend to be powerful and flashy. Not some musical instrument and wine.

"Wait...You said someone spoke to you in your dreams?"

"Yeah. I'm not sure how I know this, but I think that person gave me the blessing."

There's some hope at least. "Do you remember what they look like?" If they could know about the God that has granted the blessing, they could plan better what to do next.

"I can't remember. Or rather, their feature was obscure. Somehow, I can only remember their smile. It was full of mirth and joy. It contrasted so harshly against the dark background of my nightmare that it stood out."

"That's not a lot to go off of."

"I also remember music. The music was festive, fun. Like during the Autumn Harvest Festival that we went on."

"That's also vague."

Yermen frowns in thought.

He's not well versed in the study of the divine. He knows that Gods are as numerous as the stars in the sky. Each God embodies an aspect of something that has ever existed. It could be something tangible, physical like Sea or Mountains; or something conceptual, spiritual like Love or War.

Since the blessing is tied to music, the God in question could be a Musical god of some kind. But there is also the aspect of Wine? Celebration? There is no such god being worshiped in the Kingdom. There needs to be more research involved.

"Yermen? What should I do?"

Yermen looks towards Alean. He was making the puppy dog eyes again. It was super effective. If Yermen didn't answer, he feels like he had kicked a puppy somehow.

"Hmm. Well, from what I know, we can either tell it to the school or don't"

Yermen continued to think out loud, listing all things good and bad.

"If we tell them, you could be enrolled into the Blessed class if the blessing is deemed safe."

Blessed class is a special elective for Blessed students to learn how to control their blessings.

Blessings are dangerous if they went berserk, so the Royal Academy has that special class in order to help the students understand their blessing better. The class is more like a research/ self-help group more than a traditional class.

Since blessings are so personalized, any standard education wouldn't mean anything. It's just better for the students themselves to learn how to utilize their blessings in a safe, controlled environment.

"That class would be the best place for you to learn how to use the blessing."

"I thought about it too."

"But still, what if they deem the God that gave you the blessing an Evil God? Then they won't hesitate to kill you."

Without knowing what the God is like, you can't know if their Blessed will suddenly go on a rampage later. Since the ranking is high, the weight of this Stigma is also high. There's already a chance that the God had already influenced Alean's mind. But Yermen feels that he hadn't been influenced in any way, which is also odd. There's no free lunch in the world. If you want Blessings, you better be ready to do what the Gods demand you.

"I don't think they're an Evil god," Alean said with conviction.

"How would you know? You've only met them once. And besides, appearance can be deceptive." A God's avatar is malleable after all.

"No. I remember what they said. They said to enjoy."

"Enjoy? What kind of half-assed order is that."

"Gasp. Yermen, you swore." Alean is astonished.

"I'm stressed too you know. What if you turn into some mad murderer and make those around you drink themselves to death or something." Yermen spat back. "Besides, it's not like I don't swear. I just don't say it out loud as you do."

Alean laughs at that. "Haha. You're right. I also thought about the drinking thing."

"You're not actually doing it, right." Yermen cautiously added, his hand moving closer to his wand.

"Nah. That'll take too long."

The two boys look at each other, face completely serious. Until both of them burst out laughing.

"Hahaha. Gosh, I needed that." Alean said

"Well, you seemed a little tense." Yermen casually replied.

"But seriously though. I don't think they're bad. No. I know they're not bad."

"How do you know?"

"I think, what they said to enjoy, is life."