Zoey was completely baffled.
Lumindra was crying? This thousand-year-old oldie!?
'Lumi, are you okay?" Zoey's voice rang out amidst the sniffles.
'It's just *sob* I'm so proud of my little girl!'
Lumindra sobbed even louder as she said this, her sobs resounding in Zoey's head.
Zoey couldn't help but roll her eyes with a small sigh. This spirit of hers was just so dramatic.
She tuned out the sounds of Lumindra's sobbing and focused on walking through the garden.
And as soon as she did, she noticed that the cold aura surrounding Atticus had already disappeared.
Zoey didn't comment on anything, and despite the mutters and stares of the students, Atticus and Zoey made their way through the garden to the first-year leader's building.
They both entered the elevator and made their way to the top floor, getting to the front of Zoey's teleportation room in just under a minute.
Atticus and Zoey stood facing each other in front of her teleportation room. The rooms were arranged in the order of the students' rank, which was why Zoey's room was the first room while Atticus's was just next to hers.
There was a huge amount of tension in the air, which was incredibly weird because it looked as though both of them were simply looking at each other neutrally.
But in both of their thoughts, it was anything but neutral.
Atticus's mind was currently working on overload trying to think of his next course of action.
'Should I kiss her? Is it not too soon? What if she refuses?'
These exact same questions kept ringing in his head. Atticus was utterly lost on what he should do.
In every romance movie he had watched back on earth, on every first date after escorting the lady back to her front door, the man was supposed to make a move.
But…
'This isn't earth, and she's not a normal lady,'
Atticus didn't want to stupidly ruin what he would like to believe was going incredibly well by doing something that could wait too early.
But as his gaze locked onto Zoey's juicy, plump lips, Atticus couldn't help but suck in a cold breath.
He really, really wanted to kiss those lips.
Meanwhile, Zoey too was going through her own dilemma as her petite spirit just wouldn't shut up.
'Kiss! Kiss! Kiss! Kiss! It's the perfect place and time, you have to do it here!'
Lumindra kept on repeating the same words over and over again in Zoey's head, each time making the poor girl turn more and more crimson in embarrassment.
'Lumi, k-kiss?,' Zoey stammered.
'Yes, yes! You know, two lips coming together and then lots of…' Zoey instantly tuned out Lumindra before she could destroy her innocence.
'Would he even want to kiss me? Isn't it too early for that?' Zoey asked skeptically.
Lumindra's voice sounded once again as she loudly declared, 'If he doesn't do it now, then he's the biggest fool that I'd ever met! And I've met lots of idiots!'
Just as Zoey was about to offer a response, she suddenly saw Atticus taking a step towards her.
Zoey froze.
'Fuck it, I'm going for it. The worst that could happen is that I get rejected,' Atticus reassured himself and took a step towards her while flashing his most charming smile.
Just as he raised his hand intending to hold her chin, Zoey's frozen form suddenly moved as she grabbed the outstretched hand as though in a handshake, breaking Atticus's flow.
"Thank you! I had a great time today!" Zoey screamed in a high-pitched voice, and before Atticus could even formulate any response, Zoey quickly let go of his hand and abruptly approached and entered her teleportation room, the door closing silently behind her.
The hallway immediately descended into a palpable silence as the door closed.
Atticus stood there, his hand still stretched out from the handshake, completely baffled about what had just occurred.
'Shit, shit, shit!' He frantically thought, raising his hands to touch his forehead. Atticus closed his eyes as he deeply pondered,
'Did I just ruin everything?'
Just as he was about to start panicking, Atticus replayed their entire date in his head, and each time he saw the crimson color on Zoey's face, it seemed to calm him down.
A voice of reason came through,
'No. The signs were there, she's clearly into me, so why?' Atticus couldn't help but wonder.
But then in the next instance, it hit him. Atticus might currently look 15, but mentally, he wasn't even close.
On the other hand, Zoey was a 15-year-old teen who, judging by how easily flustered she gets, hadn't experienced something like this before.
She was basically a teen who was just figuring out many things.
What might seem like a normal gesture to him was probably a very big step for her.
'I hope she'd still be able to talk to me after this,' he thought as he turned and started walking to his teleportation room.
Atticus sighed. 'Why the hell did today have to be a Friday!'
According to his schedule, Atticus had no lectures on weekends, and he was pretty sure it was the same for her.
'Two days, forty-eight hours, two thousand eight hundred and eighty minutes, one hundred and seventy-two thousand eight hundred seconds.'
Atticus released another deep sigh as he reached the door to his teleportation room, the door parting open silently.
'That's fucking long,'
...
Atticus's routine remained unchanged. As soon as he got to the camp, after a brief check on Aurora, he went to train at the caves.
The next day, after his morning training, Atticus also found out about some of his division members who had classes on weekends.
He had tried to enter the golden glow, hoping he would get teleported to the academy campus and use the elemental rooms, but it was to no avail.
Asking the Oracle, he was able to find out that only students who had lectures would be teleported.
Atticus reluctantly let it go and continued his routine like a robot.
And just like that, the two days passed, and Atticus stood in front of the large terminal, eagerly waiting to get transported to the academy campus.