Foggy noise surrounded me, soft and distant, like sound heard through water.
I woke with my cheek pressed against someone's shoulder.
My vision swam before settling, lashes blinking open to a bright color of violet.
Long eyelashes curved downward, impossibly soft, catching the light in pale strands.
Below them are eyes the color of polished jade.
Her hair fell loose around her face.
A few strands of sweat clung to her cheek, framing skin that still carried the faint flush of exertion.
My gaze drifted lower before I caught myself.
Her blazer and tie were gone, folded somewhere out of sight, probably tossed aside to cool off. Underneath, layers of white bandages wrapped tightly across her chest.
I straightened too quickly and hit my forehead against her collarbone.
"Ak! That hurt," she groaned while rubbing her chin.
Oh, Matt, you're awake."
She laughed softly, one hand coming up to steady me.
"Professor Heather was just about to announce the score."
Professor Heather's voice echoed across the field.
"First place. Technically, first place is the wrong phrasing since we have a tie."
The crowd quieted.
"Team leader Nagi Satou and Team leader Azalea. Both teams successfully defended their original home base worth three points and captured another base worth one point. A total of four points each."
I glanced sideways at Nagi.
"No complaints, right? After all, I'm the only one who managed to make her bleed. Paralysis included."
Nagi answered with an innocent smirk and raised two fingers in a peace sign.
"Hah. Fair enough. I'm more worried about what my teammates think. Speaking of which, where are they?"
Heather continued.
"Another tie for the second place. Team leader Matthew Salinin and Team leader Gorlock Antitorpiliko. Both teams defended their designated home base, earning three points."
I scanned the field.
Solaris stood surrounded by members of the Gorlock team and the elven bow girl, their voices overlapping.
Kenth lingered nearby, a good two meters away.
The elf noticed me looking.
I gave a small nod to avoid awkwardness.
She returned it with a sharp squint, ears snapping upright in alert attention.
Nagi followed my line of sight and waved casually.
The elf froze.
Pink bloomed across her cheeks almost instantly, startlingly vivid against her pale skin. Her ears lowered, tipping inward, the edges flushing the same color.
She lifted her hand and returned the wave, slow and sheepish.
I stared.
"When did you rizz her up?" I whispered.
"Huh? Rizz what?"
"…Never mind."
I sighed. "I really should read more literature in this world. Keep up with trends."
Heather cleared her throat again.
"Third place goes to Team Finster Blume, who managed to capture one enemy base."
My attention drifted toward the track field.
A massive translucent structure of ice enclosed the elven team's original base, towering and flawless, light refracting through it in cold prisms.
Inside, Finster lay unconscious, his back badly burned, head resting in Tasora's lap.
She sat perfectly still.
Maku approached from behind us.
"After Finster got hit, Tasora rushed to him and created that ice," Maku said quietly.
"We tried breaking it. Nothing even scratched it. Even her highness over there couldn't identify it either, even with Ao's blessing. Paramedics are still trying to talk her into releasing him. She probably won't until he wakes up."
Something in my chest loosened.
I thought back to how I first met Tasora.
My existence intrigued her only because I alone moved while her world stood still.
In that frozen silence, my motion was the sole reason she deigned to call me friend.
But no...that was never how it was meant to be.
Finster woke up, and I could see Tasora's lip trying to say something.
"Will you be my friend?"
This was how it should have gone.
Tasora should have met Finster first.
Tasora should have been interested in Finster.
Tasora should have offered friendship to Finster.
I leaned back against Nagi's shoulder, letting the thought settle.
!!?
"Is something wrong, Matt?" she asked, slightly flustered.
"Still tired?"
I closed my eyes.
"No. Nothing's wrong."
..
...
....
"In fact, everything is finally starting to go right."
The field buzzed with voices.
Everything else felt like a noise now, and I felt utterly dizzy.
Still, something hollow echoed inside me.
Everything was in its proper place.
So why did I feel so empty?
...
My limp body fell to the ground.
I fainted again.
_________________________________
The next week came quietly.
Sunlight filtered through tall arched windows, casting pale gold rectangles across the lecture hall floor.
I sat as usual in the back row, notebook open, pen gliding steadily across the page.
Nagi sat beside me, spine straight, hands folded neatly atop her desk.
She was not writing, but strangely enough, she would still somehow ace tests.
"Geniuses have it easy, huh?"
Her gaze never wavered from Professor Medley.
"Precisely because of the existence of the Thrum, we know there must also exist its counterforce. A principle cannot sustain itself without tension," Medley said, tapping the chalk once against the board.
On the board, the word THRUM was written in careful strokes.
He turned, coat swaying lightly. "Thrum represents the structural rhythm of our reality. Think of it not as energy in the common sense, nor as magic, as you casually misuse the term. It is closer to a lattice. A pattern beneath patterns."
Chalk moved again.
"Every stone. Every flame. Every living body. All of it follows a measurable wave. That wave is Thrum. If one possessed sufficient material and mastery, one could replicate an object entirely by reconstructing its Thrum signature."
He paused, allowing the students to take notes.
"It is the DNA of existence."
"With enough resources and precision, the Thrum of a living creature could be traced. That is why our ancestors feared it. To manipulate Thrum is to adjust the scaffolding of the world."
I spun my pen between my fingers.
Wrong.
Thrum is not the foundation.
It is a residue.
A byproduct of fiction crystallized into a rule because of a selfish wish made by the First Witch.
Medley continued, unaware of the correction forming quietly in my head.
"This brings us to the anomaly we classify as Deviant Weavers."
He wrote the term beneath Thrum.
"Individuals who appear capable of... for a lack of a better word.... influencing fragments of world structure without using thrum."
There is currently no comprehensive study, nor an agreed theoretical framework, to properly categorize their limitations or origin."
He adjusted his spectacles.
"We call them Devian because their influence deviates from the known laws of structured invocation. It is a placeholder term. One might call it an academic convenience."
I exhaled slowly.
Wrong again.
What allows us, as Conceptual Weavers, to control a fragment of the world is our personal concepts.
And the one who will officially name them Conceptual Weavers in the future is sitting in the front row.
Finster leaned forward in his seat, listening with an intensity that bordered on reverence.
Most likely because he spent nearly half his life as a beggar in the slums. Lessons about the structure of reality do not mean much when you are busy figuring out how to eat.
Tasora sat directly behind him now and not beside me.
Since that incident, she had shifted her orbit entirely. She talked to him more.
But Tasora was being too conscious of how to act as a friend.
She thought she was being careful.
Little did she know, the more conscious she became about trying to be his friend, the stranger she acted.
Finster, of course, did not notice.
"Classic Protagonist," I scoffed.
"RING!"
The bell echoed through the chamber.
Professor Medley cleared his throat and began gathering his books, sliding them carefully into a small spatial storage.
"Before we end today's session," he said, voice lifting slightly above the scraping of chairs,
"I must first congratulate all of you for passing the preliminary stage."
A few cheers erupted, especially from the front row.
Finster's group was already halfway out of their seats.
Medley allowed himself a small smile.
"As tradition dictates, the academy will host the upcoming Astraea Remembrance Ball next week."
"It commemorates the successful banishment and sealing of the Abbarents at Horizon's Edge by the ancestors of Excellia."
The room grew excited.
He rested his hand on the desk.
"Our ancestors defeated them and sealed them there, allowing us a 400-year-long peace. They carved a seal and anchored it with Atlas's body into the horizon edge."
His gaze softened slightly.
"The ball is not merely a celebration. It is remembrance. A recognition that our world persists because someone chose to hold the line."
Excited whispers filled the room now.
I closed my notebook.
Nagi remained seated, thoughtful, eyes lowered slightly as if she were replaying the lecture and silently muttered.
"Someone left behind, huh..."
In the front row, Tasora leaned forward and tapped Finster lightly on the shoulder, saying something that made him tilt his head in confusion.
I watched them for a moment longer than I meant to.
This upcoming ball would be the first introduction for the main cast towards the Abbarents.
And its first victim would be Finster himself.
.