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Sensei.
This is Himari.
Eimi came back from a forward recon a while ago and asked to leave early.
She complained about how she's not cooling down despite having gone through multiple methods.
We tried fever cooling patches, ice baths, and an industrial-grade fan blasting at her face.
Not to mention, the AC in our club room was running at 16 degrees for hours, and I was practically a popsicle.
An alabaster-white, ever-blooming, fragile flower of a popsicle, you can say.
Regardless.
Can you please go check on Eimi?
Any expenses go under the Super Phenomenon Task Force. And do call me if you need any help.
This delicately chic and beautiful super genius hacker of ethereal beauty is more than happy to assist.
Thank you.
em
heard from ur prez
coming to see u
where live
Eimidayo sent you a coordinate.
This is more difficult than he expected, for several reasons.
To begin with, the interior of Millennium buildings looks pretty much all the same; modern, sleek, sometimes minimalistic.
Student dorms, of course, are no exception; floors, corridors, and doors are all uniform in design, both exterior and interior.
The only distinctive signs that offer a sliver of information are the floor and dorm number plates, and barely anything else.
Now, while that's fine and all... until problem number two: Eimi didn't give him her dorm number, just the coordinate.
And the coordinate service from Momotalk is far from precise.
Thankfully, she didn't send her the location instead, or it'll generalize to just Millennium Junior Dorm #2 and he'll search until the end of days.
Still, with not much else other than a red marker pointing at a certain part of a building is a handful.
Especially without the Z-axis coordinate to work with, the Z-axis coordinate that may point him towards which floor of the building Eimi is in.
And this dorm has 16 floors, minus the ground floor. "......" So far, Sensei has cleared 13 of them from the ground up.
The X and Y coordinates indicate a specific dorm room in the building, so all he needs to check is that room, and he can move on.
Whether it is to the next floor or the next step of his mission, luck will tell.
Just a few more to go. He says to himself, entering the same elevator once again.
Maybe it's because single dorms are on the upper floors? Eimi doesn't strike him as someone who'd live with roommates.
Switching the small care package to the other hand, Sensei regurgitates the prepared and now overused line.
Hey I'm looking for this loner girl called Eimi with pink hair and purple eyes that walks around in a bikini ever seen her around-
The majority of the reply is, or a variant of No and Who? But occasionally, some said oh I've seen her but I don't know who she is.
He doesn't pay them much mind, however, whenever Eimi isn't in class, she's either in the club room, or running errands for her prez.
The elevator door opens with a ding before his mind can wander off to anywhere else. The destination is just a floor above, after all.
"......" And immediately, he has a hunch that this one may be it.
Because from the ground level, a brisk, ice-cold breeze is seeping up from his ankles and up his shins.
Millennium dorms have excellent ventilation, yes, but this is far below room temperature to be blamed on that.
The only reasonable explanation is that someone cranked the AC all the way down, and it escaped through the crack at the bottom of the door.
And it's been like that for so long that the cold air has spread through the entire floor, even right at the elevator's exit.
Considering the time passed and the required level of output from the AC, there's only one person who would do this.
Or withstand this, rather.
Sensei makes a beeline for the supposed dorm. Should've brought an extra layer. He sighs, a windstopper wouldn't help with the cold.
Still, he finds the door, takes a minute to put his Alpha LT jacket on, readies his greeting lines and presents, and presses the doorbell.
"......"
The reply comes in a buzz on his phone and a red [1] icon on his and Eimi's text chat.
opened
Now, he certainly didn't hear the noise of the door unlocking.
Taking a closer look, the electronic lock has been disabled, and there's a thin, foggy layer of water on the metal door handle.
Which is usually only seen on a water cooler that has dispensed cold water for an extended period of time.
It's not snowing inside, is it? He lets out a helpless chuckle.
Nevertheless, Sensei takes a deep breath of preparation, reaches for the icy door handle, and pushes through the hefty door.
"!..." The temperature dips the moment he steps in, and a rush of goosebumps runs down from his spine.
The good news is, it's not snowing inside.
The bad news is, it sure feels like it.
Ugh. Sensei sniffs as his nose protests against the cold. The control panel by the door says 6℃.
It's possible to go that low? Maybe it's a Millennium thing. That, or Himari somehow smuggled in a specially-made one here.
"Ueeee..." A groggy mumble coming from the extra-large single bed brings his attention back forward.
Or rather, the bed that's getting hurricaned by an air cooler at max power.
Her blanket has been rolled up into a messy burrito and shoved into the narrow cubby between herself and the wall.
A blue cooling gel pillow has replaced the regular one, which has been tossed away on the floor.
And oh, on that bed lies what appears to be a very sick and overheating Eimi.
Completely and utterly naked, by the way. "...'ey, Sensei." She musters a greeting.
Auburn Sensei is too (physically) cold to give a shit, though. "Oh, you poor thing." He takes a knee next to her.
Before moving the roaring air cooler out of the way and at an angle so it only blasts at her, not him.
Pretty much all of her exposed skin is coated in a faint gloss, an indication of sweat, despite the room temperature.
The area around her collar bone, neck, and cheeks is rendered in a visible layer of red. Way too hot, they say.
Long, pink locks splayed across the mattress, matted, bedhead-y, and are desperate for a combing.
And messy hair only complements her curvaceous yet athletic figure better.
The clean yet lean flow of her shoulder, bicep, and forearm, the faint yet discernible side lines around her belly...
Right, and those. Those. The pair that demands attention, defying all rules of physics and biology.
Still magnificent and immaculate, they gently bob along with the owner's motion while remaining pristine and... peaky. With peaky tips.
Oh, and she's cuddling another cooling gel pillow in her arms, tucked under the space of her... masses, over her diaphragm.
He makes a quick squint, trying to take the term "breath-takingly hot" in a literal sense.
Because she is. Is that fucking vapor coming from you? He fans at the space before his face just to make sure.
He's a devoted man, he reminds himself.
And if he falls for the pink-haired woman before him, the other pink-haired woman would strangle him alive, and that's if he's lucky.
That's one thing; another is that Eimi's expression is far from in the mood for any sexy time.
Not that she's into that kind of stuff, based on his observation as a Sensei...
But people can change, especially when they have a taste of the unknown, the forbidden.
"How you holdin' up?" Still, he greets, clearing a small area beside the bed, and puts the care package on the ground.
For empty water bottles, her uniform (though calling it that is kind of a stretch), and her hand-held fan are lying idly around.
Eimi ardously turns to her side, facing him. "Icky." Her bangs go insane at the gust from the air cooler.
A fever cooling patch is still on her forehead, making feeble attempts at bringing down the meltdown level of heat underneath.
And it begins to peel off the instant her face sinks into the cooling pillow.
"Yucky." Eimi croaks like a wounded animal as she rubs her dreary violet eyes. "Too hot...."
"I can see that." Sensei unpacks a new cooling patch. "And a bit more."
With trained and smooth movements, he clears her disheveled bangs and replaces the used cooling patch with a new one.
"Mhm," Eimi closes her eyes, enjoying his caring service and the fresh rush of cooling sensation. "For efficiency."
"Thought so." Sensei chides her by giving her red (and sticky) face a rub with the back of his hand. "What got you like this anyway?"
Eimi goes mrrrrrrrrrrr as she melts into his touch before anything coherent comes out of her mouth.
"Therewasa..." She recollects, and a frown surfaces on her forehead, wrinkling the cooling patch. "...A hot spring villa."
"I'm sorry?"
"A hot spring villa. It just... appeared overnight."
"......"
"Prez wanted me to go have a look becaus- Sensei?"
"It's nothing," Breaking out of his own pause, Sensei urges with a massage to her cheek. "Go on."
"I fell into the source of the hot spring." Eimi exhales; even her breath is abnormally hot.
"It was hot, the floor was slippery, and there were people lobbing RPGs at me-"
"-Do you remember any of their features? Did you see anyone with a flamethrower? Or anyone in an oversized labcoat?"
Sensei intercepts her with an oddly specific question, followed by a firm cupping of his touching hand to her face.
"Mmmmmadojfhvurtrfghot..." Eimi makes a weird noise and closes her eyes.
"...Not that I can remember on the spot. Sorry Sensei, things got blurry after I swam my way back up and brute-forced a way out..."
"Daw, don't be." He resumes the gentle combing with his knuckles. "Then I suppose you don't know what happened to those people?"
"Nnnnno..." Eimi shuffles a little and adjusts the pillow above her belly. "Do you know 'em, Sensei...?"
"Well, uhm..." Two Gehenner figures immediately come to mind as he says. "...That's besides the point for now."
"So it's a yes." Eimi's amethyst eyes open back up and narrow in mild amusement with a smile. "Am getting better at this."
"Congratulations." Sensei rewards her valiant effort by carding his fingers through her hair and massaging her dome.
And in the meantime, he picks up a loose strand from one of the bunches. A really long strand, well over a yard in length.
"I'll prep a cold bath for you," He says, tiding up the strand with the over-under method like it's a cable.
Next, he pulls out a small zip-loc bag and slides the strand into it like an officer collecting evidence from a crime scene.
"Try to get up when you feel better, hm?" Sensei scoots the care package to the side of her bed, right within her reach.
"Gonna help me with that?" The sickly (?) patient offers one of her dainty hands.
He puts a towel taken from the package onto it instead. "Later."
"Boooooo..." She retracts the towel back to her body for a wipe. It smells nice.
Reminds her of him being freshly out of the shower when she was on duty before. Pine cone and fresh laundry.
Eimi tucks it to her chest, or rather, in it. "Cough! Cough...! Ueeeeee..." She fakes a sickly tone for extra compassion points.
"Try not to throw up on me." But Sensei just laughs it off as he rummages through his backpack.
From the bottom of the pack's main compartment, he fishes out what looks like a small piece of plasticky paper.
"Ever seen one of these before?" He flashes it at Eimi, who takes a good full second to register the foreign object.
"Sticker?" She murmurs. "Fancy color."
It's a silver, glittery letter of ᛁ; not I or l, ᛁ. It's only barely distinguishable when all three of them are next to one another for comparison.
Eimi doesn't have that, however. "What's that supposed to be? A letter? Number? Or just a stick...?"
"Temporary tattoo," Auburn explains. "I made this one with aerosolized silver."
"Ooooh." She takes the sticker from the adult in curiosity. "I've seen these in a fashion magazine before... But what for?"
Sensei retrieves the sticker and glances at the glittery letter glowing in the same color as his irises.
"I made several of these out of the ice collected from the early days in the Arctic when you were swimming in that glacier."
"In theory, it should cool you down as long as it's on you, and it'll last several days if I do this right."
"Now, I'm still drafting a more... lasting solution; I'm thinking trinkets, but if you're okay with it, real tattoos work better."
"Before that," He places the sticker at the small space between Eimi's face and the edge of the mattress.
"You should take a shower, try these first, and see if any adjustments are needed."
"......" Eimi makes a ᗜ‸ᗜ expression as she contemplates.
And she reaches out both of her hands with a smug smile. "Help a patient out?"
"Oh c'mon," Sensei playfully swats her hands around and clenches his jaw so his composure won't break.
Don't look down her body don't look down her body don't look down her body don't look down her body don't look down her body...
He turns his attention to the air cooler next to them. "I'm freezing over here, no."
"I know just a way to fix that." Eimi insists and does a tickling move with her ten fingers.
And it sure tickles him funny, even though they're not remotely touching him.
"You just wanna fuck around with me, don't you?" He blurts out. That sentence could've been phrased better.
"Why would I." Eimi finally goes back on her... back and puts away the cooling pillow and leaves only the towel on her body.
And she folds her arms behind her head, and arches her waist and knees up a little.
The rectangular piece of fabric suffocated between her... volcanos visibly loses tension and unwrinkles slightly.
"Am a heat stroke patient after all." A sweaty and butt-naked heat stroke patient that's ready for a bridal carry, she omits.
Sensei wipes his face for the sweat that isn't there in the first place. "Forfucksake..."
First, he settles some fierce internal turmoil; then, he puts an imaginative URGENT tag on rectifications of his impressions of Eimi.
Last and certainly not least, he does a vivid, deliberate recollection of a certain pair of heterochromic, orange-and-blue eyes.
Specifically. how horrifyingly empty of emotions and hollowed they may be when their own out what he may or may not do.
Yup. That sets his mind straight. "......" So he approaches Eimi with a head cooler than the ambient air.
"Just so you know," Sensei speaks through clenched teeth. "I'm not going in there with you."
"Heh," Eimi hooks her (still sticky) arms around his neck and nibbles on his chin. "Feelin' any warmer?"
"Stahp." Auburn returns a headbutt; just a brief skinship is enough for him to tell how hot she is under that skin.
With a nudge against the door, Sensei carries Eimi into the bathroom for the incoming battle against the heat.
Hopefully, that'll be alleviated soon. By the cold bath, or the temporary tattoo.
And hopefully, his beloved student won't feel mischievous or adventurous and get too handsy.
"......" "...♪"
As for Eimi asking for a heart with a pair of wings as her tattoo right above her pelvis, it's another story.