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A few days ago, it had started snowing for the first time of the school year at Night Raven College. Naturally, most of the students had been excited, and planned their weekends to allow them to join the freshly fallen snow coating the campus.
Naturally, Idia hadn’t.
If he thought about it well enough, Idia could sort most of the things in his life into two categories: the things that affected him, and the things that didn’t. Just as simple as that. School, Ortho, his family, anime, and video games were the things that affected him, a list that wasn’t often updated at all. The other category was composed of just about everything else. Snow days were easy enough to categorize. Idia didn’t like to leave his room when it wasn’t snowing, and now that it was, more people than ever dotted the school campus. So the snow didn’t affect Idia.
The walk into school from the hall of mirrors was quick enough, and Idia didn’t have to be worried about the cold with the school’s coat on top of his usual hoodie. If anything, the snow was slightly annoying to walk through, but they usually cleared the paths before school started. And of course, that all depended on if Idia was even attending class in person that day.
It was true for clubs too. While many had to change, modify, or just cancel their meetings altogether, the Board Game Club was fine to continue with their plans as normal.
Which was the explanation for why Idia was currently sitting opposite of Azul an hour or so after class had ended, a newly opened board game on the table between them, the only sign of the rest of the schools condition being the snow that gathered on the windowsill outside.
Unfortunately for Idia, clubs were one of the things that affected him. While Idia would really prefer not to meet with a group of strangers every week, his graduation requirements had different ideas. So, he did the only thing he could think of, starting his own club instead. He enjoyed board games enough to play against himself or potentially Ortho, depending on the day, for a little while each week. Of course, others did join. But Idia had his own defenses in place.
Idia considered himself to be incredibly good at board games. Good enough to win just about every game he played against his clubmates until they eventually stopped showing up. And at that point, Idia had been ready to recategorize clubs as something that didn’t affect him.
But then his second year started, and a new group of people attempted to join the board game club. With his tactics in mind, they fit very well in the category of things that didn’t affect him. Just as before, a few members dropped off within a week or so. That was when Idia was faced with a problem.
Azul Ashengrotto.
No matter how many times he’d beaten him, the freshman hadn’t left. Every week he’d be waiting in the same spot, pointedly arriving before Idia, (he was sure it was to spite him), with a smile on his face. Quickly enough, Azul entered the list of things that affected him. And then Idia made a horrible mistake, not even a month after school had started.
He’d lost a game to Azul.
It was right at that moment, watching Azul’s triumphant expression, that he knew that trying to get Azul to leave would be hopeless. Of course he’d tried other solutions, like sending in his tablet instead like he did for class. But he also quickly learned that Azul would take certain…liberties with his instructions for moving Idia’s pieces on the board in return for Idia “not even having the respect to show up”. Begrudgingly, after that day, Idia had been present to every club meeting.
However, as annoying as it was, even Idia could not deny that Azul joining had its benefits. For one, while Idia couldn’t get Azul to leave, most of the other remaining members tended to be intimidated by their matches, resulting in many of them leaving early. Even in the year after Azul had joined it was a common practice for the two housewardens to be the only people in the club room for the majority of the meeting.
And as much as Idia would never admit it to Azul’s smug-ass face, him joining had made the meetings fun. While Idia was content to play casual matches with Ortho or try to beat himself, Azul was a challenging opponent, and after getting over the initial irritation he had for the mer, Idia found it enjoyable. That was when it came to strategy games, of course. Another large part of the fun came from watching Azul struggle with games he wasn’t familiar with and ones that relied on chance.
Much to Idia’s relief, he’d also learned over the years that Azul was more similar to him than he originally thought. Meaning to say that while Azul’s demeanor was calm and charismatic, he was also a giant loser. Who else would spend days trying to figure out how to roll a dice with complete precision just to win one game?
Azul, just about the only student in school he consistently interacted with, was the most recent addition to the things that’d affected Idia.
“I believe that means I get to take another one of your cards, correct, Idia?”
And Sevens was he irritating.
Idia begrudgingly handed over the card, maybe jabbing it into Azul’s hand with a little more force than necessary. Azul, however, was still very pleased with the himself, making it a point to slowly place the card in his row, officially out passing Idia’s in its count. It was a simple, generic board game, barely worth three hundred madol, and he was sure he’d get as many rematches as he wanted.
But Idia didn’t want to lose.
Passive aggressively, Idia flicked the spinner, moving his piece on the board five spaces accordingly. A drawing square. Flipping over the first card of the deck to read it, a grin spread across his face. Quickly, he snatched another one of his cards, facing them towards Azul and turning them over.
“A card that lets me take two of yours and a doubler. Looks like I got a critical hit in, Azul-shi.”
Idia chuckled as Azul’s smile dropped immediately. A distasteful expression crossed the mer’s face as he grabbed the cards Idia was gesturing to, handing them over. Before Azul could reach for the spinner, his phone buzzed in his pocket, prompting the mer to pull it out and open it.
“What happened to no phones at meetings?” Idia leaned his head onto his palm.
“I’m not playing a mobile game.” Azul gave him a pointed look. “If you must know, I left my notifications on to check for messages from Jade and Floyd. We’re adding a warm, more winter suited section to the menu, so the lounge is opening early to celebrate. Since it’s getting colder, it’ll be profitable to launch the new menu now while everyone is still excited about the cold.”
“Of course Azul-shi can’t even experience the weather without capitalizing on it.” Idia rolled his eyes. “When are you opening the lounge then?”
“In about half an hour. So, I’ll be leaving once we finish this up.”
“In half an hour?” Idia’s eyes widened. “Wouldn’t you want to be there earlier? You’re always talking about how important prep time is for the lounge.”
“Hence why I’m having Jade and Floyd take care of things.” Azul waved a hand.
“But isn’t this your limited winter edition menu or something?”
“Yes, well-“ Azul coughed into his hand, eyes dashing away for a moment. “I figured it’d be less convenient to uphold my attendance for the sake of the club.”
Idia gave a very blatant look around the empty room. Azul opened his mouth to say something else, but his attention was drawn back to his phone. He scowled, typing out a response, putting his phone away and shaking his head. Idia gave him a curious look.
“Did something go wrong?”
“No.” Azul sighed. “Just Floyd.”
“A rouge ally unit? What’d he do this time?”
“It’s not necessarily anything specific.” Azul began his turn, flicking the spinner. “He’s just been…energetic since Saturday.”
“Hm? What happened?”
“He got hypothermia and passed out in the snow.” Azul rolled his eyes, moving his piece forward.
“Huh? Why would he be excited about that?” Idia looked at him in disbelief.
“It wasn’t that on its own.” Azul grabbed a card from the drawing deck. “Luckily for him he was ‘nursed back to health by his precious Goldfishie’. Not only that, he has yet to stop going on about his ‘day with Goldfishie’ this coming weekend.”
“…Who’s that again?”
“Riddle.”
“Ah.”
“The Heartslabyul housewarden.”
“I know who Riddle is, Azul-shi.”
“I figured.”
With the rare occasions where he had to interact with them out of the way, it was also easy enough to categorize Jade and Floyd in his mind. But while they didn’t affect Idia, they definitely affected Azul, more so in recent times. Idia had heard enough complaints about Jade and Floyd to fill up an entire textbook.
“What happened, anyways? How’d Floyd get that status condition?” Idia asked, beginning his turn.
“He went outside without a coat on.”
“Eh?” Idia looked at the mer in surprise. “Why?”
“I know it sounds stupid, and yes it was, but there is a reason behind it.” Azul sighed. “You see, the three of us grew up in the North Sea, and it was much colder there. We’re used to temperatures like this. But although we might not feel cold, apparently we can still be greatly affected by colder temperatures due to the potion that allows us to have our human appearance. In short, Floyd had no idea that he’d gotten hypothermia until he passed out.”
“He didn’t know at all…” Idia fumbled the card in his hand, almost dropping it.
“What about you, Idia?” Azul looked at him curiously. “How do you do with the cold?”
Idia took a second to answer, his mind a bit scrambled.
“I’ve got a higher resistance stat. I’m used to it. My room’s usually colder anyways. I have to keep it that way, so my PCs can have the right buffs.”
It was also colder back at the Island of Woe. Very, very cold. But Idia couldn’t tell Azul that.
He couldn’t tell anyone that.
“I see.” Azul sounded mildly surprised.
“What’s that voice supposed to mean?” Idia shot him a half hearted glare.
“I expected you to be the type to keel over and die at any temperature slightly below freezing.” Despite being shorter than him and across the table, Azul managed to look down at him.
“How unfortunate for you then, Azul-shi.” Idia rolled his eyes, watching the mer begin his turn. “I’m not going to just disappear.”
“Well, I can’t complain too much. After all, who would I play against if it wasn’t you?” Azul grinned overly sweetly as he took two of Idia’s cards, much to the latter’s displeasure, before a more serious expression crossed his face again. “It is troubling though, now that we know we can’t tell how much the cold is affecting us. This means we have no idea of our current cold tolerance in human form. Do you have any ideas why, Idia?”
“I work with machines.” The older half shuddered, finishing up his turn. “I don’t know people.”
“Yes, of course.” Azul flicked the spinner again. “We might have to figure out some adjustments to the potion then, if it’s possible. That will take some time, however.”
Idia found himself biting the inside of his cheek. You see, while most things in Idia’s life fit into two categories, there was a subcategory within the things that didn’t affect him.
Little concerns.
Yes, those things still fit right into the list of things that didn’t affect him, but briefly, Idia would worry. Not for long, though. Usually, he forgot about whatever concern he had in the first place within a few days. But more recently, there’d been a new subcategory within that one.
Little concerns about Azul.
Idia had a lot of little concerns about Azul. And they didn’t go away that easily. For whatever reason, although they clearly didn’t affect Idia, they tended to stick around in his mind and bug him for days. It was incredibly annoying.
Unfortunately, Azul’s new mystery cold tolerance was immediately a new little concern.
He had no idea at all. Would a coat be enough to keep him warm? Or would Azul just not show up to class one day, presumably frozen in a ditch somewhere? For some reason, that thought in particular was a bit distressing.
Idia found himself watching Azul, his face half smooshed into his hand leaning on the table as he did.
Idia did have a lot of little concerns about Azul. His rampant need to capitalize off of everything. His tendency to obsess over small things just for the tiniest bit of satisfaction and triumph. The way that, as confident as he seemed, he always criticized himself. How greedy Azul was.
No matter what, he always needed more. No matter how much he improved, he always needed to be better.
There was one concern in particular that’d drawn on his mind more than necessary.
Azul’s overblot. It was something that didn’t affect him. He hadn’t even been there, and hardly knew the details. So it shouldn’t affect him.
But that first club meeting after the fact, where Idia had waited just about two hours alone in the club room, there was no explanation for the worry he felt then.
So why was he worried about Azul so much then? Those were things that affected the mer, not him. He shouldn’t care.
“Ah, it looks like I win then, Idia.”
Damn that smug-ass smile.
And for a moment, just a moment, a strange, unfamiliar feeling soared through Idia’s chest. Well, not entirely unfamiliar. Because Idia had felt it recently. A lot. Around Azul.
And he really, really, really, really, really didn’t want to try and name it.
“…A move four and a doubler? That’s a luck boost for sure…” Idia murmured, finally looking down to the board, trying to analyze what happened.
“Perhaps you should’ve been paying better attention. From the two cards I took from you earlier, you could’ve easily passed me yourself three turns ago.”
And Azul must’ve been feeling very fucking brave that day, because Idia was certain that that giant loser could never repeat what he said next normally.
“But judging from where you were looking, I suppose you were distracted by something. How unfortunate for you, Idia.”
Idia wanted to follow Azul’s suggestion from earlier and go drop dead in the cold somewhere immediately. This, this was beyond any little concern Idia had about his clubmate. Somehow, it was something more, when it shouldn’t be, because it shouldn’t affect him.
“…Ggs, Azul-shi.” Idia muttered quickly, beginning to sweep up the board.
But of course Azul wouldn’t let this drop out of nowhere.
“And now you’re avoiding it.” Azul seemed incredibly amused, smug as ever.
“You sure have a lot of faith in yourself.” Idia fixed him with an annoyed look.
At least Idia got some sort of small victory, watching Azul sputter as he continued putting the pieces away. But it was nothing compared to the new, very big problem he had.
Idia’s little concerns about Azul should not affect him.
Azul’s dumb smile shouldn’t affect him.
But, fuck, they did. He’d known for a while, pretending that they didn’t belong in that category was the biggest lie he’d told himself. And now, he couldn’t even use that lie anymore.
In short, he had an issue.
“Anyways- I’ll be going now.” Azul shook his head, before a notification came up on his phone.
As the mer pulled it out, Idia watched as the other’s eyes widened, before he groaned, putting a hand to his forehead before muttering something along the lines of “that idiot”.
“…Is something wrong, Azul-shi?” Idia peered around the board game’s box, which he was halfway through placing back on a shelf.
“Apparently Floyd misplaced his coat.” Azul stuck his phone back in his pocket. “And for some reason, he decided his next best idea would be to steal mine, and not inform me until now.”
As it turned out, Idia’s little concerns about Azul affecting him was completely true almost immediately. Floyd had gotten hypothermia from going out without a coat. How long would Azul have? There was a decent amount of distance between the school and the hall of mirrors. Would that be enough to get Azul frozen?
And maybe, what Idia did next could be considered stupid. Looking back on it, Idia sure did.
But to his very, very weak defense, he was slightly panicked and halfway through a mental crisis.
“Idia, is something-“
He cut Azul off as he quickly and clumsily tugged his hoodie over his head, balling it up, marching over, and sticking it out to Azul.
“Here.”
He could absolutely not look at Azul right now.
“What-“
“Take it.”
“I-“
“Just take it, Azul.”
Idia all but shoved it into Azul’s chest before walking out of the club room as quickly as his legs would carry him, refusing to look back.
Sure, in about an hour he’d fully realize what he’d done and its implications. Sure, he still had to fully process the fact that everything about Azul affected him so much. Sure, he had to think about that weird feeling.
But a small part of Idia was giddy, almost excited about that last interaction.
And just maybe, the rest of Idia was too.