'I-It's you!'
Asahi noticed that she was in front of Nagisa and she started hissing at Regulus.
'I thought I told you to stay away from my senpai!'
«I can't if she's living with me...»
Regulus thought. Ekaterina Numa, known in school as Kei Asahi. She's an exorcist and she's the one who shot down the Keu just earlier. From what Regulus has seen and has been told, she's obsessed with her senpai, who coincidentally has to be his new roommate.
Asahi gets off of Nagisa and approaches Regulus.
'I told you to stay away from Nagisa-senpai! I'll kill you!'
'Don't, Numa!'
Asahi stopped suddenly. She turned around–tears flooded from her eye sockets.
'S-s-s-s-s-senpai... Why aren't you calling me by my first name?'
Her whole being turned to Regulus once more. This time, she directed the intent to kill at him. He shook. Marching toward him, Asahi took up his t-shirt and started shouting at him, with tears of anger in her eyes.
'It's because of you! I'll kill you and everything will be solved! Plus, I told you to stay away from senpai!'
Regulus panicked. He somehow thought that she wasn't joking.
'How am I supposed to stay away from her if she decides to live with me?!'
'Eh.'
A slight noise escaped the mouth of Asahi. Her expression of anger and hatred turned into one of disbelief and despair. She loosened the grip on his t-shirt and grabbed his shoulders. Her tears started to disappear too.
'You. What did you just say?'
'Uh... How am I supposed to stay away from her if she decides to live with me?'
The boy said in an unsure tone. The girl in front of him looked more dejected than before.
'Are you living with Nagisa-senpai?'
'Y-yes...'
Asahi turned to her senpai. Nagisa nodded at her nervously. The spirit in Asahi disappeared. Laying her hand out, her white sniper rifle, Schwerer Gustav, appeared. With one hand, she aimed it at Regulus' head.
'I should just kill you now. I'll kill myself next.'
'Don't, Numa!'
'Why not?!'
She turned around to her senpai, who was begging her to stop. Tears flooded out of her eyes once more.
'You want to live with him, right?! You care about him, right?! Don't worry, I'll follow after him!'
The kouhai said, dramatically.
'You're misunderstanding this, Numa. More importantly, if you kill him, it'll be bad.'
'Why? He's a Demon Summoner.'
'His desire is death.'
Hearing that, she turned to Regulus for confirmation. He nodded his head repeatedly. Asahi let go of him and Schwerer Gustav disappeared once more. Her depressed attitude didn't disappear, however. Nagisa sauntered over to her and hugged her from the back.
'Don't worry. I'm only doing this for work reasons.'
Asahi's attitude lightened up. She wiped any remaining tears and gave the largest smile ever. Regulus found it creepy that she was so adamant about dying seconds ago and now she's the happiest he's ever seen her. (Not that he's known her for long.)
Nagisa let go of Asahi.
'I'm Kei Asahi. Well, that's my fake name... I'm Ekaterina Numa, what's your name?'
Regulus was reluctant on telling her his name, but he thought it'd be safer for him if he did.
'R-Regulus Ark.'
She grasped her other fist. There seemed to be a fire set inside her.
'Now, tell me why you're living with Nagisa-senpai.'
'What?'
'Tell me!'
'WAAH!'
Regulus screamed at the top of his lungs. He hadn't done so for more than three years now. It felt refreshing, but it also had a feeling of fear to it. It felt refreshing, but he didn't like it. And so, another exorcist would be added to his life.
[x]
'Ark...'
Someone called out to Regulus, but he didn't reply. The person tried once more.
'Ark-san!'
Regulus sprung himself out of his chair and stood alert. Once he assessed his surroundings, he noticed that the whole class was laughing at him. He looked at the clock at the front of the class. It was lunchtime.
'Ark-san.'
He looked to the right of him. A boy was there. It was his classmate and probably the most likeable boy in the class. Shiki Kumori. The male class representative of the class and the best grader in the class.
'Um... Y-yeah?'
'If possible, I'd like you to help me with a couple of things.'
'Oh, uh, sure, Kumori-san. But, why me?'
'Well, you seemed to be the only one not doing anything, so...'
'Ah, okay.'
'Since you're okay with it, follow me to the lab downstairs. Fuyumi-sensei wants us to take some test tubes to her in the second building.'
Regulus nodded. Regulus' introverted attitude kicked in and once it does, he can't refuse someone's request. And so, he followed Kumori as he exited the classroom. Astoria slowly came out of her sleep–she stretched herself. Albeit they were walking down a corridor, no one noticed Astoria, because they couldn't see demons.
'Where are we going?'
'Lab, then to the other building's lab, then back to class.'
Regulus whispered low to make sure that Kumori wouldn't hear him.
'Okay, I'll just observe you then, since I can't really do anything physical with witnesses.'
Kumori and Regulus reached the staircase and they went down two staircases. Approaching the area for first-year classrooms, they turned to their next right and they found the lab. There was a sign atop which said, LAB.
They opened it up. It looked like a normal laboratory, it even had models of the human body and skeleton around the lab. Regulus spotted racks of test tubes. He sauntered over to them, and Kumori followed him.
Regulus handed one of the racks to Kumori, which he held with slight difficulty and he took the other. There was one problem though. There were three racks and two people.
'Who's going to carry the last one?'
Kumori asked.
'I will. You seem to be having a hard time with one alone.'
Kumori's face flushed red. He panicked and started denying Regulus.
'N-no! I'm not!'
'Shiki-senpai?'
At the door was a girl. In this school, first-years wear white ties with two black stripes. Second-years wear a navy tie with two white stripes and third-years wear navy ties with two black stripes.
This girl wore the former. She had short hair and an innocent aura to herself.
'Ah, Kiriyama, perfect. Can you help us out?'
'S-sure.'
She ran in but stopped not too soon after. Regulus turned his head away, trying to avoid any attention, but it was too late.
'Regulus-senpai...'
Kiriyama said his name in a low tone. Kiriyama and Regulus went to the same middle school. They were good kouhai and senpai until Regulus' parents abandoned him. Kiriyama said something which made Regulus uncomfortable and he chewed her out, ever since then, they haven't spoken a word to each other. Kumori couldn't help but feel tense with this atmosphere.
He approached Kiriyama and gave her his rack.
'K-Kiriyama, why don't you lead the way? Us two will follow you. We're heading to the lab in the other building.'
She happily accepted the rack of test tubes and left for the other lab. Kumori grabbed the other rack and called out to Regulus.
'Ark-san, come let's go behind her.'
'Ah, right!'
They left the lab at the same time and Regulus slid the door closed. Kiriyama walked ahead without lowering her pace while Regulus and Kumori walked side by side. Regulus seemed to be in a deep thought process–it didn't look pleasant.
'Hey, Ark-san.'
'Please just call me Regulus. It feels weird when people call me that.'
'Then you can call me, Shiki, Regulus.'
Shiki smiled at Regulus and a half-hearted smile was returned to him. Shiki couldn't handle the tense mood hanging around Regulus, so he decided to pry.
'What... happened between you and Kiriyama?'
'When my parents left me, I guess Kiriyama wanted to try and cheer me up, but I was mentally unstable and I wasn't able to understand that back then.'
Surprisingly, Regulus opened up.
'Why don't you just apologize?'
'If it was that simple, I would've found her long ago, but I'm worried about lots of things that may affect both me and her.'
'Sounds rough.'
Something sprung into the mind of Shiki.
'Then, I have an idea.'
Shiki stopped. Regulus walked ahead a little before stopping and turning back to him.
'Regulus. Let's meet up a couple of times, and we'll come up with a way to make up with Kiriyama.'
'Eh? Uh, you don't need to do that. I can deal with it by myself. You don't need to get involved.'
'Why can't I? We're friends, aren't we?'
One word kept on resonating inside the head of Regulus. "Friends." No one has called him his friend since his second year of middle school. The feeling of friendship faded long ago. But a boy in his class talked to him for the first time and they became friends. Surely it isn't that easy to make friends. Obviously not. Even so, Regulus felt a warm feeling within his heart.
'Yeah. We're friends.'
'The first place we'll meet will be the library. Ah, give me your email address so I can text you.'
'Sure, but I'll have to do it after we get to the lab.'
'Crap! Almost forgot about that! Kiriyama is out of sight too, come on! Let's go!'
The boy started sprinting toward the staircase; he went up to it. As he did, Regulus followed him with a light jog and the biggest smile he's ever pulled off. Astoria appeared.
'What's this? Are you happy?'
She said, teasingly. Regulus ignored her tone and he said his true feelings.
'Why not? Someone just called me their friend.'
This type of innocence was something that she had never seen in Regulus before. It felt refreshing.
«Truly naïve...»
Astoria thought with a smile.
Regulus' new chapter of his life was now truly beginning.