Chapter 76 76: Rowan: Don’t You Know Whether You Packed Oolong Tea?!

"You really do have a talent for finding the perfect spot to slack off. Every time I see you, you're in some kind of languid state."

After the meeting with Chancellor Sheppard to finalize the scheduled duel against Jaden, Rowan had slipped away from the main building and made his way up to the wide rooftop terrace at the top of the Academy. He'd settled into a reclining chair with the round Kuriboh nestled beside him, letting the afternoon sun soak into him while working through the extravagant bento box he'd pre-ordered from Ms. Dorothy at the school canteen.

He hadn't been there long when that familiar teasing voice reached him.

Rowan tilted his head lazily from where he lay, a fried shrimp tempura still hanging from his mouth.

Alexis Rhodes was walking toward him across the rooftop, flanked by her two usual companions. All three of them were carrying bento boxes.

They had apparently come up here for lunch as well.

"Looks like we came a step too late. Alexis, Rowan's already claimed the best spot."

Mindy, with her short red hair, said this with undisguised disappointment.

"Alexis rarely suggests coming up to the roof for lunch, and now there's already someone here. What a shame."

Jasmine echoed the sentiment with a similar expression.

"It's fine. Jasmine, Mindy, we can eat here together." Alexis cut them both off with a wave of her hand and walked toward an open space not far from Rowan's chair.

"Huh?"

The two of them exchanged a glance. Then another. Their expressions shifted into something peculiar.

Could it be...

Was this exactly what they'd been speculating about recently?

Could Alexis actually be interested in that infuriating guy named Rowan?

Now that they thought about it, hadn't Alexis been the one to suggest coming up to the rooftop in the first place? That was rare enough on its own...

The two girls gave each other a slow, knowing nod, silently agreeing to pay very close attention going forward.

Sure, that Rowan guy was insufferable. Watching his duels had given them near heart palpitations on more than one occasion. But he had also just helped Alexis defeat the Paradox Brothers yesterday, personally ensuring she wouldn't get expelled.

That counted for something.

They hurried to catch up with Alexis.

"Didn't expect to run into you all up here." Rowan scratched his cheek, looking mildly surprised as he glanced over at Alexis. "What a coincidence."

The three of them had already prepared with impressive efficiency, spreading out a picnic cloth near his chair and unpacking their bento boxes to reveal an assortment of rice balls, sandwiches, tamagoyaki, tonkatsu, and miniature octopus sausages. They settled down and each reached for something to eat.

Rowan was genuinely a little puzzled. He'd only just discovered this spot himself. How did so many people already know about it?

As far as he could tell, virtually everyone at Duel Academy was a card game fanatic. They were either holed up in the Obelisk Blue or Ra Yellow dorms theorycrafting their decks, or they were down on the dueling fields. The rooftop was the kind of place that could go months without a single visitor.

Even if someone wanted sunshine, the dorm terraces weren't exactly worse. And they were a lot less of a walk.

"It just occurred to me that the view up here is slightly better than at the dorms." Alexis held her seaweed rice ball and explained without quite meeting his eyes. "So I suggested we come here. That's all."

"Right, exactly, don't go reading anything weird into it!"

Jasmine and Mindy both nodded with suspicious enthusiasm, speaking in unison through mouthfuls of their own food.

Rowan stared at them with a flat expression.

Why did this feel so strangely familiar.

There was something deeply odd about Alexis's two friends today. He couldn't put his finger on it, but they were giving off a peculiar energy.

"Jasmine. Mindy."

Alexis had apparently sensed it too. She turned to them with a faintly embarrassed look and hissed their names as a warning.

Their little interjection had made it feel like they were deliberately baiting Rowan into thinking something he absolutely shouldn't be thinking. Alexis reached over and gave each of them a firm knock on the head.

Then she turned away, closed her eyes, and ate her rice ball in pointed silence.

She wasn't going to acknowledge those two ridiculous girls.

She was simply here because being around a certain someone felt... easy. Relaxing, in a way she hadn't felt in a long time. Like that afternoon a few days ago.

It had been the most at peace she'd felt since her brother disappeared. All this time, something had been pressing down on her chest, heavy and constant. But somehow, around him, it was as if someone had reached in and lifted that weight off her. Not removed it entirely. The stone was still there. But it no longer crushed her the way it had before.

And then there was what he'd given her: hope. Something she hadn't had a name for in a very long time.

It had started earlier than that, she supposed. She'd first taken notice of him because he was interesting. Watching him had, in some inexplicable way, eased the pressure she'd been carrying.

She just hadn't expected to find something like relief from someone like him.

So when she'd come out of Chancellor Sheppard's office earlier and spotted Rowan splitting off from Jaden and the others, bento in hand, heading toward the rooftop, something had stirred in her chest before she could examine it. She'd turned to Jasmine and Mindy and made the suggestion before she'd even thought it through.

She hadn't understood the impulse at the time.

But now, with those two saying the things they'd said...

Alexis felt a sudden, startling clarity. Her face went warm before she could stop it.

She quickly reached for a drink and took a sip to push the thought firmly down.

What she failed to notice, lost entirely in her own flustered thoughts, was that both Jasmine and Mindy were staring at her with wide eyes.

Even Rowan was looking at her with a bewildered expression.

There was really only one thing he wanted to ask her right now.

Alexis, had you seriously not noticed that what you just drank was my oolong tea?