Rose-Red Loverboy

Xiii

They stared at their phone when they got back to their room for who knows how long. Honestly, {y/n} probably would have died of embarrassment if he just didn't give them his number– he didn't even seem like the kind of person to use a phone, so the idea of sending him a casual text message felt wrong in so many ways.

In a way, it was pretty funny to imagine him trying to use texting abbreviations like some grown woman trying to be popular and in-tune with the kids. He probably texted like an old man writing letters, or was at least really dry. Either way, they wouldn't know until they messaged him, and they certainly weren't going to do that right now.

After getting a rare full night's rest but of course still feeling tired, they got ready for the day. Once they had everything for their classes including yesterday's work they had gone through with Riddle and got dressed into their standard NRC uniform, they checked their phone, responded to a few messages from Oly, and then set out for the campus.

Two kids were fighting in the courtyard, but it wasn't anyone {y/n} knew. Really, they were extremely tempted to stand there and watch, but it was just two freshmen pulling at each others' hair and getting pissed off at each other. Some fight over a girl they both liked– from what little they heard at least. Honestly, it was more pathetic than entertaining to watch– you would think that kids at NRC would at least know how to put up a fight, but apparently not. If anything interesting happened, they could probably ask Ruggie if he got the footage– it was a bit awkward to walk into Savanaclaw sometimes, but it wasn't like it was really a bad place to be.

Once they made it to their first class of the day, it was pretty boring. Luckily, there wasn't much work in that class for the day, which meant less that they had to do. Really, it was the class they didn't get much work in at all. After that was practical magic, a pretty easy class as long as you knew what you were doing. Anyone who knew their way around magic could easily pass with an A, especially since quite a few kids who attended NRC were trained since childhood, or at least had an interest in it since they were young.

The rest of the classes were worse though, and the day seemed to drag on, but they eventually made it until lunch. Unlike public schools, the food at NRC was actually edible. It was always made amazingly, the only problem is that it wasn't exactly free. That is what you get when you have high class culinary mages working in a kitchen though.

Once they settled down in their usual area, they looked back at their phone. Ruggie sometimes sat with them– one of the few times they actually sat down and talked to him– but other than that most of the people they knew didn't usually see them at lunch. Trey and Cater usually sat with Riddle and the other heartslabyul students, but usually Riddle ends up ridiculing some poor student over their table manners, and really it's just easier to avoid the whole hassle. As for Azul, he didn't stop working long enough to join them for lunch unless he needed something.

Scrolling through their usual apps, they suddenly got a text. They figured it was just Oly realizing this was a time when they could annoy {y/n}, but to their surprise it was from Riddle. Opening up the notification, they stared down at the message.

'Sorry if I'm bothering you, I wanted to ask about our next study session.'

It was the first time in a while that they saw someone actually using full punctuation in a text, but it was pretty fitting for him. Really, it was hard not to be curious about what he was talking about. He was always pretty punctual, but they thought that maybe something came up and he simply needed to change what time or day they were meeting. After a second of looking at the message, they started to type out a response.

'What is it?'

'Well, I was speaking with Yuuka, and she mentioned she was struggling in her potions class. Would you mind if she joined us next time?'