I’m Not Doing This With A Friend

✿

"Potato girl."

"…"

She stared at the floor with a face stricken with evil. Tears flowed down again along the spot where the tear marks were on her cheeks.

Leen carefully approached her.

"I know you don't like me. Of course, I don't like you that much either. But I'm not bad enough to laugh at you for being like this." (Leen)

As I held out a small potion bottle in her trembling hand. It was a glass bottle of liquid medicine.

"It's a cure. I told you before that applying Barmon Knirina would melt your skin, right? Facial paralysis was an early symptom of its side effects." (Leen)

She stared at the glass bottle I handed her without saying a word. Her pupils were shaking.

"It's not serious yet, so if you apply it hard for a few days, you'd get better quickly." (Leen)

"…How could I trust you? Neither the doctor, nor the priest, nor the wizard could fix it?" (Amila)

In a rather genuine tone, I stood up with a light shrug.

"It happened because you didn't believe me." (Leen)

"That's…!" (Amila)

"Well, it's okay. It's none of my business if you don't trust me. It's up to you to apply treatment." (Leen)

I clearly warned the potato girl not to apply Barmon Knirina, and eventually made a cure for her who did not listen to me.

‘If that's the case, I'm sure I've done enough.' (Leen)

Persuading her to apply the treatment was beyond the limits of the favor I could give her.

I don't think the potato girl would just watch if the side effects got worse because she didn't apply the treatment I made.

Before I left the nurse's office, I looked back at her as if I had something in mind.

"Oh, potato girl. When you get better after applying that, buy me a meal or so."

✿

My steps towards the club room after class were light. It feels like throwing loads of burden on my mind after delivering the medicine to the potato girl in the morning.

The light steps would have continued. If it weren't for Kun who I ran into on my way to the club room.

Well, I didn't want to start a war of nerves with him again, so I passed by him casually. However, there was something strange about Kun's movement.

He, who always walked with a straight stride as if manners were inept in his body, somehow felt like limping.

Feeling strange, I just tried to pass him by. It was because I thought he would go to the nurse's office if he's sick.

At that moment, I found a mosquito sitting on Kun's shoulder.

Instinctively, my hand reached towards his shoulder.

Slapㅡ

Oh. Mosquito Phobia, I reflexively…!

Without a moment of embarrassment that I had unintentionally picked a fight, Kun glanced at me with hazy eyes.

"…You're really"

Thudㅡ

Kun suddenly collapses on the spot.

‘Crazy!' Did I kill someone with just one touch?

Leen was so flustered that she froze for a few seconds before squatting down hastily and placing her hand under his nose.

Fortunately, he was breathing.

"Yeah. There's no way a person could die just by being hit once with the palm of the hand."

When I calmed down and checked him, I saw symptoms of heatstroke.

Good. We found out the cause and confirmed that he's not dead, so what's left was…

‘Was it to run away?'

Thinking about it, I looked up and saw Carson, who was looking at me with a shocked face.

For a moment, the thought that the perfect crime has crossed my mind passed by.

‘No. Leen, you didn't do anything wrong, what crime are you thinking?' (Leen)

And no matter how much I hate him, I couldn't believe I'm just leaving the person who collapsed. What's wrong with myself?

Slapping my cheek to calm myself. Then I hurriedly spoke to Carson to tell him an excuse-like truth.

"Don't get me wrong, Caon, listen. This…"

No, from the beginning of my words, it's obvious, whoever sees it's an excuse, right?

While I was embarrassed by my stutter, Carson approached me and freaked out.

His face was stained with shock and confusion.

"Leen."

"Yes."

"If you didn't like Kun so much, you should have told me first. Your hands got dirty."

It was Kun who fell down, but I didn't…?

Leen shook her head and denied the charges.

"I didn't do that. After checking on him for a while, I think he collapsed from heat stroke. Caon, could you do some recovery magic?"

Then, Carson hurriedly asked.

"Leen. Where are you hurt?"

‘Why was it me?' (Leen)

Leen's head was aching, not knowing where to start to correct his misunderstanding. Anyone could tell it was Kun, who fell down, not on her.

"No, we should take him to the nurse's office first."

At that time, Kun, who I thought had lost consciousness, gasped and spoke in a precarious voice that seemed about to die out.

"…No, not in the nurse's office, no…"

Leen sighed deeply.

He was a patient who was very picky even though he collapsed.

We didn't take him to the nurse's office at the request of a demanding patient.

So what did we do with Kun who fell down?

Of course, we brought him to the club room. I persuaded Carson with pouting lips, and we took first aid measures with recovery magic and cooling magic, but…

Now what should I do with him?

I stared at Kun, who was lying on my private sofa, with a frown.

However, there was a person with a worse expression than me, and it was Carson.

He glanced at me like he didn't like everything from the way I brought Kun to the club room, and laid him down on the sofa, to giving him recovery magic.

Even though he reluctantly accepted my request.

"Caon. Relax your eyes. I didn't really want to help him either."

But, he's a patient-prince…

(❥ 황자-prince 환자라-patient. The Korean pronunciation was similar: Hwangja & Hwanja so Leen says it rhymes)

The rhyme was amazing.

It was a time when I was blankly thinking.

Kun, who had lost consciousness, spoke again. It was a dry voice.

"…Water." (Kun)

"Yes, yes."

He was arrogant, but he was half out of his mind, so I decided to let it go this time. You deserve to be thirsty because you collapsed from heatstroke.

As I tried to get up to get water, Carson stopped me from doing so.

"Leen. You don't have to get up. I know how to use water magic."

"Oh really?"

As expected, he was a magic genius. He was an all-around man who could do anything.

Leen wanted to compliment him by raising her thumb and appease him for being upset.

Swooshㅡ

At that moment, Carson presented a water bomb to Kun who's lying down.

"Poosh!"

Baptized with water in the dry sky, Kun rose from the sofa like a floundering fish, wiping the water off his face with his hands.

So much water was sprayed on Kun's clothes that in an instant, it all got wet, and the sofa as well as the club room turned into a sea of ​​water.

Leen squinted at Carson.

"Caon. What are you doing…?"

Carson gently avoids her gaze.

"It's been a long time since I’ve used magic, so I made a mistake.”

What do you mean by mistake?

He, who uses teleport as if breathing, in which big accidents may happen even if the coordinates are slightly shifted, could hardly have made a mistake in adjusting this magic.

No matter how jealous you are, there's a degree of decency 

"Caon. I've only thought of you as a cranky cat until now, but what should I think of what you showed today…" (Leen)

Okay.

"It's a little strange."

Leen spit the words out and didn't look at Carson. Because she knew what kind of face he was going to make.

When Leen turned his gaze to Kun, he came to his senses because of the water baptism and unexpectedly came forward to defend Carson.

"No, I'm fine. I'm fine. I was surprised when I suddenly got soaked with water, but it's cool, so I think I'll rather live." (Kun)

"But…"

Scanning through Kun's wet school uniform and the club room that had become a sea of water.

How could you do all of that?

As if he had read my thoughts, Kun grinned and muttered, "Sylph." Then, a little green spirit appeared shortly thereafter.

It was an intermediate wind spirit, Sylph.

“Kun, are you majoring in the Spirits?”

"Yes. It's a wind element."

With Sylph's help, he dried his clothes and answered sarcastically. Then he smiles awkwardly and glances at me.

"Thank you for your help in the first place. To be honest, I thought you would go your own way pretending that nothing happened."

"…"

Leen looked elsewhere for a moment avoiding his eyes.

It was true that she tried to run away, so her conscience was stabbed. As she kept her mouth shut, Kun continued with a bitter look.

"I'm sorry for hitting your hand hard a few days ago. As you know from holding my hand, I didn't do it on purpose either."

"You have excessive sweating, don't you? That thing." (Leen)

Kun nodded his head slightly as he pointed to Leen's hand with his chin.

"I don't sweat much anywhere else except my hands. That's why in summer, I often faint from heatstroke because my body temperature isn't controlled."

Anhidrosis. It was a disease opposite to hyperhidrosis, and it's symptom was not sweating.

So to sum up, Kun was a patient with both anhidrosis and partial hyperhidrosis.

"Then you shouldn't have experienced heatstroke once or twice, but you should have gone to the nurse's office when you felt the symptoms appeared." (Leen)

"If my family finds out that I've already collapsed even though I haven't been here long, they'll be very worried. If I go to the nurse's office, I'd have medical records."

When a student goes to the nurse's office, the records of Arena Academy are delivered to the student's family.

I know what you were thinking, but it's so stupid.

"Then did rumors spread that you were weak because you often collapsed from heatstroke?" (Leen)

"What? I don't know that rumor…"

Kun asked with a puzzled expression.

How do you not know that?

"You're famous. The second prince of the Abascanthus Empire who's weak." (Leen)

A look of surprise crossed Kun's face.

"Did you know my identity?"

"Was there anyone in the academy who didn't know you?"

Of course, I wouldn't have known if Jane hadn't told me, but now I do.

Even if I didn't know it, it would have been only a matter of time before I'd noticed the Abascanthus imperial manners on his gestures.

There were many subtle differences from our Lagras Empire.

Kun laughed in vain as if frustrated.

"I thought I blended in perfectly. I purposely practiced speaking formally."

Was that why you're being polite?

Contrary to his terrifying appearance, he seemed to be a weaker person than expected.

Somehow, I stared at Kun as if I were looking at my immature youngest brother.

"I never thought that it would look more suspicious if I used respectful words among my classmates, it wasn't normal…?"

"Not at all."

His determined expression made me speechless.