As he entered the classroom, Lohan began to look around discreetly for Isabella.
Even though he suspected she might be Lisa, the mere fact that she had defended him like that was already reason enough for people to pay more attention to him; if he showed interest in her, or worse, acted familiar with her, the attention he’d receive would skyrocket.
If he were an ordinary student, all that attention would be irrelevant, but Julian Neal had already shown him what excessive attention could do.
Today he had Isabella Vance to protect him without him having to demonstrate any abilities beyond the ordinary, but there were still other students from the Upper Zone looking at him with suspicion.
Especially those students with Rare Bases; they looked at him with deep suspicion, as if they were still trying to figure out whether what they had perceived with their superhuman senses was real or not.
Unlike the boy from the Lower Zone who saw it happen much more up close, the boys from the Upper Zone were too far away from Lohan to be sure of what they had seen.
Looking around, the bright red hair was hard to miss.
The classroom entrance was next to the teacher’s desk, giving him a perfect view of Isabella’s face at that moment.
He thought that maybe she was looking at him, that through their exchange of glances they could "talk" without using words, but Isabella was typing something on her holographic screen and didn’t even look at him.
Lohan was a little disappointed by this, but he didn’t let it bother him.
Moving to the opposite side of the Upper Zone students, Lohan sat in a spot where he could look at Isabella without having to strain, and during the next few classes, he watched that girl.
Unlike the image he had imagined Lisa might have, Isabella was like a living sculpture, perfectly sculpted in every detail, possibly the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.
Her beauty was completely natural, showing no signs of having undergone cosmetic procedures; she didn’t wear heavy makeup, which only further enhanced the beauty she already possessed.
The more he looked, the more Lohan was surprised by the girl’s appearance.
He had never focused his gaze on her so intently, and even now he was content to look for just a few seconds before looking away and pretending not to notice, but even though he was trying his hardest to hide it, the attention he was giving her was driving the girl crazy.
Behind the golden, blurry screen of her hologram, Isabella Vance’s heart was racing at a frantic pace, and she was drawing on every bit of training she’d undergone to try to hide it.
She kept her eyes fixed on random pages just to pretend she was doing something important, but her mind was completely focused on the other side of the room, where Lohan Hayes was sitting.
She could feel the weight of his gaze every few minutes, and that sensation was like electricity coursing through her body, almost physical. She sensed he was trying to hide his gaze by not focusing on her for too long, but every time he looked, something froze in her chest and she felt nervous all over again, turning everything around her into mere blurs.
’He’s looking at me again...’ she thought, feeling a heat rise up her neck, forcing her to breathe heavily so that color wouldn’t rush to her face.
That sensation was driving her crazy!
The more he looked at her, the more Isabella worried about what he was thinking.
’He definitely realized that I’m Lisa... damn, what is he going to do? Will this affect how he acts toward me? Shouldn’t I have avoided his gaze when he walked in?! Gosh, I was so nervous I just wanted to hide...’
When Lohan walked into the room, Isabella deliberately avoided his gaze, too embarrassed to face him and afraid of the look he would give her.
She didn’t want to see on his face the same distant expression he saw in everyone else, or the blind adoration people had for her last name...
’I want my friend to stay the way he was... I want the annoying Slime who wasn’t afraid to tease me as if I were an ordinary girl...’ She was thinking this when her chest tightened again and the blush rose once more because she felt his gaze on her yet again.
Isabella felt the tips of her fingers tremble slightly over the holographic interface.
She wanted to turn around, she wanted to meet his gaze and let him see, just for a second, that she knew exactly who he was. She longed to break through that barrier of silence and social distance that his real-world identities imposed, but she knew that was impossible.
Knowing Halon as she did, she knew that at that moment his mind was working at full speed, possibly even using parallel processing to consider what to do.
He was avoiding contact, both to protect her from the negative attention she would receive for befriending someone from the Lower Zone, and to protect himself from the attention he would receive through her.
’Stop it, Halon...’ She murmured mentally, an almost imperceptible smile appearing at the corner of her mouth as she bit her lower lip. ’Stop looking at me like that, I can’t concentrate!’
The emotion she was feeling at that moment in class was greater than all the emotional fluctuations she had ever felt while attending classes combined.
Those four hours of class felt like forty to Lisa, who had to deal with Lohan’s gaze appearing and disappearing every few minutes.
When class finally ended, the girl’s mind, which was on the verge of a short circuit, didn’t think twice; she grabbed her things and, with long strides, quickly left the classroom and headed straight for the college garage.
Sitting in the driver’s seat of the Ferrari, Isabella finally managed to take a deep breath, and activating the car’s privacy soundproofing, she let out a scream, releasing everything she’d had to keep bottled up inside for so long.
"Damn it, Halon, be more subtle next time!" she shouted, feeling much more relieved now.
While Isabella drove the Ferrari back home, Lohan was in a secluded corner of the college, walking alongside a boy he had never spoken to before, curious to know why that boy was trying to get his attention.