Beast Gacha System: All Mine-Chapter 136: Situationship

The shockwave from the hallway confrontation didn’t end with the final bell of course.

It reverberated through the very gossip-sphere of Scholomance Athenaeum, mutating and amplifying with each retelling. The story of the "Elemental Prodigy and the Top-Tier Nerd" had become the only story circulating around.

By the next few days, it was inescapable. Whispers trailed them like perfume.

In the Alchemical Labs, two students hunched over a simmering cauldron. "—saw them by the west staircase," one hissed, stirring counter-clockwise with excessive vigor. "He was carrying her books. Carrying them. Not like, taking them to be mean. He had this... this look on his face."

"Was it the murder-look?" her partner asked, wide-eyed.

"No! That’s the thing! It was the opposite of the murder-look! It was like... a ’I-will-murder-anyone-who-touches-these-books’ look. It’s different!"

In the Grand Refectory during lunch, the usual clatter of cutlery was underscored by a persistent hum. A group from the Noble Alliance table leaned in, their voices low.

"My cousin’s friend is in Advanced Elementals with Edengold. She said he spent the entire period yesterday just... staring at Araceli. Not glaring. Staring. With sparkly eyes."

"Did she notice?"

"Apparently she dropped her pen, and he caught it before it hit the floor and gave it right back into her hand. Didn’t even break his stare. It was the smoothest thing anyone’s ever seen him do that didn’t involve lightning."

Between classes in the Crystalline Corridor, a cluster of first-years gaped as the couple passed. Eastiel had one hand resting lightly on the small of Cecilia’s back, guiding her through the crowd.

"Ohmygods," one first-year squeaked into her friend’s ear. "He’s not even pretending to bully her anymore. He’s just... with her."

"They were in the library annex last night," another added, voice trembling with the gravity of the intel. "In the restricted mythology section. Together. They weren’t even studying! They were just sitting on the floor by the ’Great Beasts’ aisle, and she was leaning on his shoulder, pointing at pictures in a bestiary, and he was... smiling. Not smirking. Smiling."

The most damning evidence came from the courtyard after Practical Magical Theory. A dozen reliable witnesses swore they saw it.

Cecilia, laughing at something, reached up and casually brushed a stray leaf from Eastiel’s uniform jacket collar. He didn’t swat her hand away. He caught her wrist to hold her hand there for a moment against his chest, his thumb stroking over her knuckles, before letting go.

The old narrative of stalker-ish bullying was dead and buried. The new narrative was that they were together. For real. And had been for a while longer than everyone thought. Also, they were disgustingly cute about it.

But today, a full week after the hallway incident that had shattered and remade the school’s gossip hierarchy, something new happened.

Something that pushed the gossip from fascinated whispers into the realm of legendary, jaw-dropping spectacle.

"AH WHY?!"

The whine cut through the pre-class murmur of the locker hallway. It was sharp and melodious, naggy and adorable. All heads swiveled.

Cecilia was looking up at Eastiel, her fingers clutching the hem of his untucked uniform shirt in a white-knuckled grip with a huge pout on her face. "WHY WON’T YOU FUCK ME ALREA—MMMPH!"

The scandalous words were abruptly smothered as Eastiel’s large, calloused hand clamped over the lower half of her face. The look on his own face was one of pure, unadulterated mortal terror.

He felt ten years of his life evaporate in that instant. But a dying sort of laugh burst from him anyway, strangled and panicked. "I—just because this place isn’t real, please don’t yell liKE THAT OR I’LL FUCKING DIE OF EMBARRASSMENT BEFORE I CAN EVEN—!"

The hallway... was speechless again.

Dozens of students froze mid-step, their expressions cycling through shock and disbelief.

"Bwt uu sayd uu wamma yeaph..." came the muffled, furious retort from behind his palm, Cecilia’s glare promising vengeance.

"What did you say?" Eastiel hissed, finally yanking his hand away as if burned, realizing it had covered not just her mouth but most of her nose and one furious eye.

"You said you wanna leave," Cecilia repeated, her voice now clear and accusing, though her cheeks were flushed a brilliant pink.

Eastiel blinked twice, his golden eyes wide with helpless exasperation. "Yes, but... but doing that... in our age right now, in this place..."

"WE’RE THE SAME AGE INSIDE AND OUTSI—MMDSFAHASD—!"

This time, his hand returned with the speed of a striking serpent, cutting off her logical protest. He leaned down, bringing his face close to hers, his glare a mixture of utter panic and fierce warning. "Shut up," he hissed, the words a low, desperate growl meant only for her, though the entire corridor heard. "Shut up, you little slut."

The only response was a series of furious, indignant, and muffled sounds from behind his palm.

"MMMPHMMMMMHHH!"

The standoff was absolute. The Elemental Prodigy, red to the tips of his human ears, physically gagging the Top-Tier Nerd to prevent her from publicly dissecting the logistics of their sex life as a solution to interdimensional travel.

Eastiel couldn’t help it.

He knew they were the same age. In their real lives, they were adults. Here, the math was the same. Eighteen and eighteen. But the older consciousness inside him was looking out through younger eyes at Cecilia who looked very young in her school uniform.

And his own cock... it wasn’t the one he knew. The very feel of his own cock was off. It was a human-Eastiel johnny. It felt like his, and yet it absolutely was not. It was weird. Existentially weird.

Even if he tried to frame it as some kind of elaborate, role-play kink, a fantasy of a normal school life they’d never had, this went beyond that. This was ontological kink. And he was not prepared.

Maybe... in a year or two, if they were stuck here, he could wrap his head around the metaphysics of it all. Maybe then—

"PWHAH!" Cecilia finally wrestled her face free from his smothering hand, gasping for air. Her eyes were blazing. "Fine! Then... at least tell everyone we’re toge—"

"But what about when it’s Brother Oathran’s turn? Or Brother Arkai’s?" Eastiel leaned in, his voice a harsh whisper meant only for her, though his body language screamed ’intimate argument’ to every onlooker.

"How are you going to explain it to this shitty world if you’re already ’together’ with me? You want to be labeled the school slut in this setting that badly?"

"We can think about that later..." Cecilia muttered, her pout returning.

"Let’s find another way to handle that part. Hmm?" he pressed, his tone softening into a plea wrapped in a warning.

"Buuuuut..."

"Cecilia," he sighed, exasperated. "Be a good girl for once."

Her eyes narrowed. "Ugh... you’re enjoying this, right? Playing this ’teenage situationship’ with me in front of everyone. That’s it, isn’t it?"

"..."

"Hmmmm???" she pressed, poking his chest.

He looked away, a muscle ticking in his jaw, before his gaze reluctantly swung back to hers. The fight drained out of him, replaced by a gruff, embarrassed admission. "...fine. Yes. That too."

A small smile touched her lips. She reached down, her fingers idly toying with the loose, hanging end of his uniform belt. Up and down. Like... like...

And in that moment, as her hand fiddled with the leather, Eastiel felt a different kind of stroke. A pure, hot stroke to his ego. He was acutely aware of the dozens of eyes locked on them, the frozen students pretending not to watch, the absolute fascination they commanded...

They were the epicenter of this fabricated universe, and she was here, with him, arguing about their relationship status and playing with his... belt.

The primal, teenage part of this merged consciousness preened. The kingly part acknowledged the power of the spectacle. And the man who loved her simply held her closer, shielding her from the stares even as he basked, secretly and guiltily, in their intensity.

Yes.

If only... If only this ridiculous, overwrought, painfully public teenage dance had been their reality.

If this—the hallway arguments, the smothered shouts, the desperate, flustered possessiveness—was what their youth had been. A normal, stupid, glorious pain.

Them. Actually younger. In the real past. Before bonds and thrones and death omens. When a look could make his lion ears burn and a whispered playful insult was the height of his emotional vocabulary.

"Ahem."

The sound was a bucket of ice water. A dry, deliberate clearing of a throat that didn’t belong in his fantasy.

Eastiel knew that voice. It was the absolute last voice he wanted to hear, in this world or any other.

Every muscle in his body went wire-tight. Slowly, he turned his head.

There, standing a careful, confrontational distance away, was Arzhen. The other boy. The tiger, though in this place he wore the same human mask as the rest of them, stood with his hands in his pockets, his expression a carefully schooled blank.

But his eyes weren’t blank.

They were fixed, intense, and unreadable.

His gaze wasn’t on Eastiel. It slid past him, as if the golden lion was merely an inconvenient piece of scenery.

"Cecilia."

He said her name like a summons.

"We need to talk."