SOBANIIRUYO [✓]

chapter 39

sobaniiruyo, thirty nine.

❛  have you, dear muse? ❜

"I'll faint. This is it. This is it."

Cyno paced around the campus grounds, aggressively fanning his face with a random pamphlet he snatched from a passerby. May was not the kindest season in Sumeru. He had spent the majority of his life under the lethal heat of the deserts, yet he somehow saw the doors of death while dealing with a much tamer temperature in the nexus of the nation. Perhaps he had gotten weak.

Or worse──a carbon copy of Tighnari because of all the time they had spent together.

"Are you good?" Y/N raised a questioning brow, putting a pause on his frantic breathing. "Remove the gown if it's getting too sweaty."

"No."

"...Why?"

"No."

She stared blankly at him. "Okay. So you're definitely wearing some freaky shit under it."

"It's normal."

"Is it the Chikorita T-shirt you won from a Pokémon giveaway last week?"

"...So what if it is?"

His defensive stance soon faltered when he felt the pace of his pulse quickening by a mile. He could sense the perspiration growing, and the rivulets that cascaded down his back underneath the polyester, and the matted tresses around his neck, and──

"You do you." Y/N shrugged. "Anyway. Where's Al-haitham? I thought the lunch with his class ended at 4?"

"He must be on his way." Cyno managed to say, despite the merciless collapse of his lungs. "Dehya too. The photos must have been clicked by now."

She squinted suspiciously at the weirdness of his behaviour, inching closer to touch his forehead. "Dude. Are you seriously alright? You're burning."

"I..."

That 'I' alone took all the strength he was preserving. He felt his limbs loosen, as well as his grasp on the shiny pamphlet that had been keeping him alive for the last twenty minutes. Initially, his vision blurred a little, so negligible that he chose to disregard it. Then it became worse. Worse. Worse.

Until it was gone entirely.

Y/N couldn't even register when he crashed against the floor, his graduation cap fluttering a few centimetres away from his unconscious body. She gawked dubiously as she familiarised herself with the situation in front of her. And just when the realisation settled itself, her jaw dropped with disbelief.