Chapter Text
The day before the Thors Academy Festival, the whole campus was abuzz. All of Trista, actually. Rean ran around doing tasks for Towa, getting things in order, and generally trying to be of help. Eventually Towa said to him, "Rean, thank you for all your help. You should go enjoy the festival now." Rean looked at her, slightly panicked to be set loose, but forced himself to take a deep breath. Towa laughed quietly at him. "Come on, Rean, you've got to be able to relax, right? Especially because I just know you and the rest of Class VII will really bring the house down with the concert later tonight." Rean smiled, nodded. "Okay, you're right, Towa," he said.
Towa stood up and opened a desk drawer. "Here," she said, handing some tickets to him. "As a way of saying thanks from the Student Council -- free tickets to all the events. They're meant to be shared, so you can take whoever you want to each of them." Rean said, "Thanks, Towa. I hope you'll be able to enjoy the festival, too!" She smiled and laughed again, "Thanks to your help, I will. Thanks, Rean... as always."
He smiled, and turned to go, and stopped just outside the office, struggling to take her words to heart. He supposed that part of the trouble of trying to relax was the fact that he was still trying to recover from the events of their last field study, at Roer and Garrelia Fortress. They'd managed to stop the terrorists from destroying the neighboring city-state of Crossbell and the Zemurian Trade Conference, they had exposed the Noble Alliance for working with them... and then there was the unexpected trip to Ymir. He hadn't been home in months, and it had been so awkward in so many ways. But on the other hand, it was nice to see his parents, and Elise. And though the trip hadn't turned out to be relaxing, revealing his strange and dangerous inner power to his classmates had been really critical for him. He'd learned something Master Ka-Fai had been trying to teach him all along: he couldn't turn away from his power. His friends had shown him that they wouldn't turn away from it, or from him because of it. How could he do any less? It was almost funny, how simple it was, and how different he felt. Everything felt more natural now. But then of course there had been all the preparation for the concert, Class VII's offering for the Festival competition... and then tasks for the Student Council... this was really the first time he was really trying to relax since then. Towa was right, too, that if he wanted to bring his best performance later, he needed to successfully relax now. He took a deep breath and headed out into the Academy festival.
As he walked down the hall of the academic building, he tried to think of who to call to go to the events. He visited all of them, admiring all the hard work all the different classes and clubs had put into their displays and activities. He did a little riding competition with Gaius, won a Mishy plush for Millium. For some of the activities it was easier to think of who to bring, but the garden activities had been harder. As he walked by the Miyabi tea garden the second time, on impulse he pulled out his ARCUS and called Instructor Sara.
Later he wasn't entirely sure what possessed him to do it. But somehow the idea of taking her out for a (non-alcoholic) drink appealed to him. Maybe he thought she might want to join the fun, and wouldn't have done it unless one of them invited her. She sometimes let her ribald act slip, he thought, and then there was an inkling that she was actually pretty lonely. Like that time in the tavern when she'd ordered the drink for her fallen comrade... He'd wanted desperately to ask about it. But he'd meant what he said. Someday he aspired to be worthy of hearing her secrets.
She readily joined him for the tea, at any rate, and seemed to enjoy it well enough, though she immediately resorted to comments about booze. Though he hadn't thought about how alcohol and sweets might go together until she mentioned it...
He picked a fortune about relationships out of the fortune box, and it said something about an older partner. He reddened and glanced over at Sara. She was incredibly attractive, he couldn't deny it... he found it difficult to concentrate sometimes during homeroom or during practical exams, especially when she was fighting the other students in that last test and they'd gotten to watch. She was a force to be reckoned with, beautiful to watch and very... impressive. Purple lightning, indeed. In fact, why *was* she single, anyway? He hadn't thought to wonder about that.
She looked over at him and immediately began cracking wise about the fortune, and his heart sank. Yep, that was why. She was never serious, always teasing... you couldn't even get a buzz properly worked up about her before she started making jokes and teasing you. Or, well, teasing him in particular. Here she was going on about distinguished middle-aged gentlemen, but saying she might go for a younger man...
Unless... unless she did it because she really did like him? She did it to some degree to the others too, but she seemed to do it more to him... but she had to be just teasing, right? He was only a student, after all. He wasn't even remotely in her league. Though his fortune did say something about becoming worthy of an older partner...
In any case, he left the tea house more confused than before. She said it had been fun, even admitted to enjoying a non-alcoholic beverage with him. He nodded and smiled awkwardly as she turned to go... and he found himself more fixated than usual on watching her long blue coat swish against her legs as she strode away. He shook his head and forced himself to look away and back down at the remaining three tickets in his hands. Mishy panic again, maybe, then? He thought Laura liked the oversize cat character just as much as Millium, and it seemed amusing to win a plush Mishy for a formidable swordsman.
~*~
Later in the day, though, standing in front of the Stella garden, he thought of Sara again. And again on impulse, he called her up and invited her to go with him. Maybe he was testing out his theory that she had some interest? Maybe he was testing out how he felt about her? Nominally it was the same reason as before -- she probably wouldn't go by herself (and its creators had intended it for couples). She came, though, and they went inside.
She was uncharacteristically quiet for the first few minutes, walking through the room. It was an impressive setup -- it had taken a lot of work. Rean found himself at a loss for words, too... just taking it all in. They went to the center of the garden and sat, each letting slip a little "oh!" of amazement when the star projector came on. Rean looked over at Sara out of the corner of his eye, and for just a moment, sitting there at the center of the garden, he thought about how beautiful she looked, with the light from the projector sparkling in her eyes... which usually sparkled with mischief themselves anyway...
Then she looked over and made some joke about beer again. "You're really spoiling the ambiance," he said, frustrated. "Oh? Was there ambiance...? What were you thinking was going to happen here?" she started the usual round of teasing. "Nothing can happen here with so many people around," he backpedaled, suddenly not sure what he'd been thinking by asking her to join him. Of course she wasn't interested, she was just teasing him. Some fantasy, right? It wasn't like he could ask her out to the school dance or something.
"Oh? should we go somewhere more private?" Sara rejoined. Even if she was just teasing, when she turned on the charm, Sara was pretty intimidating. Frustrated and a little panicked, he thought, fine, two can play at this game. Instead of retreating in confusion, he drove right back at her with comments about how lazy she was, how reckless, how she made him and Towa do all her work. She started looking genuinely alarmed (maybe slightly hurt?), and he relented, told the truth that they knew she always had their back when it really mattered. He saw the realization dawn on her that he'd been teasing her back, she'd been given a dose of her own medicine, and what he thought was a sort of new respect crept into her face. He chuckled. Success. Plus, she had stopped making frankly inappropriate comments about them getting a room. He didn't need that image on top of everything else to distract him.
Though, he had to admit, this time, when they parted at the door of the classroom, he purposely watched her walk away, contemplating. It was all idle thinking, of course. Nothing could really come of it. She was a teacher, he was a student. He wondered if her teasing, her drinking and talk about booze, her slacking off on office work, was some kind of front. He found himself intensely curious... wondering what really made her tick... and wondering what other kinds of more personal preferences she had. Really had, not things she just teased about. He became a little distracted thinking about it and forced himself to think about something else. He knew he couldn't pursue anything romantic with anyone. He still didn't know what would happen, if he could keep himself under control and his partner safe, if he really let his guard down. He might have made progress with it in Ymir, but... when Elise was threatened, that always triggered his episodes... who knew what else might trigger it. Though... if anyone could handle it, it would be the Purple Lightning...
Maybe one last game of Blade with Crow before the evening events? Surely Rean could beat him at least once. He had a good feeling about it this time. He strode off down the hall in search of the second-year.