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As the morning sun bathed the Elemental University in a warm glow, the campus buzzed with an unusual energy. Students hurried to their classes, but their eyes were not on their books. Instead, they were fixed on a group of six friends who were now the talk of the university.
Aurelia was used to it. She had grown up to be quite famous within the four walls of the campus, and the spotlight was nothing new to her. In fact, most days, she was the spotlight, thanks to her gold powers. But today was different. The spotlight wasn’t just on Aurelia, but also on her friends. Each of them had their own unique elemental power, and together, they were an extraordinary force.
“What?! No,” Selena answered someone, an aghast look in her eyes as she listened to a confession from one of her classmates. “I’m sorry, but I’m already taken,” she said, trying to sound nicer. How was the young man supposed to know that she was already with another?
“Selena, all okay?” Thalia asked, as she watched the scene.
“Yeah… this feels weird,” Selena answered her, blinking off the awkwardness of rejecting someone. “I feel popular, bro.”
Thalia gave Selena a sympathetic pat on the back. “You’ll get used to it,” she said, her voice filled with understanding. “We all will.”
Meanwhile, Aurelia was engaged in a lively discussion with Nickolas. Their conversation was a mix of academic debates, playful banter and the words ‘Nicky’ and ‘Goldie’. Every now and then, they would burst into laughter, drawing curious glances from the students around them.
“By the way, did you notice what Selena just did? She straight-up rejected that guy,” Nick said, stifling a laugh while pointing to Selena, who seemed a bit shocked by the experience.
“Yeah,” Aurelia replied. “Though if I was her I’d have slapped the guy across the face.”
“Oh, really? What if I said I liked you?” he asked, a smirk on his face.
“I’d have levitated you off the face of the earth. Or puked out my breakfast on-spot. Today’s food was mid anyway,”
Nickolas chuckled at Aurelia’s response, his eyes twinkling with amusement. “Well, I guess I’ll have to be careful then. Wouldn’t want to be levitated off the earth or be the cause of your breakfast reappearing. Besides, it’s not like I’ll ever do it.” he replied, lying through his teeth. Both of them knew it, yet it was how they rolled. Nickolas was tired of the lies, the teasing, and the denial. But he was too shy to let her know, so he went on with it anyway.
As the bell rang, signaling the start of their first class, the group of friends made their way to the classroom. The room was filled with an air of anticipation as students whispered and stole glances at them. Aurelia, Selena, Thalia, and Nickolas, along with Gallus and Lead, who were talking with each other alone, walked in and took their seats.
Dr. Aurelius, relieved by the end of the storm, began the lecture. But the friends were too engrossed in their own world to pay much attention. They exchanged notes, shared jokes, and occasionally used their elemental powers to play harmless pranks on each other, much to the amusement of their classmates.
In the midst of this, Nickolas and Aurelia shared a glance. Their eyes met, and for a moment, everything else faded into the background. It was as if they were the only two people in the room. Their unspoken feelings for each other were evident in their smiles and the way they looked at each other. It was a silent confession of their affection, a secret they both knew but never openly acknowledged.
Meanwhile, Lead sat behind them, taking down lecture notes. He tried his level best to focus on the class, but his thoughts were hovering elsewhere, far, far above the numerators and denominators.
As the lecture droned on, he found himself doodling using a yellow colored pencil in the margins of his notebook. His pencil traced the outline of a face, a face that was becoming all too familiar to him. He couldn’t quite place it, but his caricature became more and more familiar as he drew the girl’s golden hair, and doodled the eyes on with a blue pen. ‘Oh, no…’ he thought, glancing in front. He quickly shook his head, erasing the sketch with a swift movement of his hand and turning the eyes into the zeroes of an equation.. He couldn’t afford to get distracted, especially not by doodling.
But as much as he tried to focus on the lecture, his mind kept wandering back to her. The way her eyes sparkled when she laughed, the way her golden hair shone under the sunlight, the way she spoke with such passion and conviction. He admired her, respected her, and somewhere along the way, he realized he had developed feelings for her.
Wait - that didn’t sound right.
But it was.
And he hated it. He really, really hated it.
"Eww," the seven-year-old in him said. So did every other age. So did he. But... what was going on in all this?
As the day wore on, Lead found himself grappling with his newfound feelings. He was a man of logic, of numbers and equations, and this sudden emotional turmoil was something he was not equipped to handle. He decided to bury himself in his studies, hoping that the trials of university would distract him from his thoughts.
His friends, too, were engrossed in their own worlds. Nickolas and Thalia were engaged in a heated debate about the merits of elemental powers in modern warfare. Selena was busy fending off more admirers, her popularity having skyrocketed overnight. Gallus, the quietest of them all, was lost in a book, oblivious to the world around him. Aurelia, for once, wasn’t annoying the others or giving them helium voices. Instead, she was lost in a library book of her own.
The day passed in a blur of lectures, assignments, and elemental practice sessions. The friends were the center of attention wherever they went, their rescue and stopping of the storm making them the talk of the university. But amidst all the chaos and excitement, Lead felt a strange sense of isolation. His mind was a whirlwind of thoughts, his annoyingly weird feelings at the center of it all.
As the sun began to set, the sky was filled with hues of orange and pink, Lead found himself alone in the library. The silence was a welcome respite from the noise of the day. He pulled out his notebook, ready to catch up on the day’s lectures. But as he flipped through the pages, his eyes fell on the doodle he had hastily erased earlier in the day. The faint outline of the golden girl’s face was still visible, a stark reminder of the feelings he was trying to suppress.
With a sigh, Lead closed his notebook and leaned back in his chair. He knew he couldn’t ignore his feelings forever. But for now, he decided to keep them to himself. After all, he was Lead, the dependable friend and leader, the one who always had his feet firmly planted on the ground like carbon. Not floating high in the sky like a helium or hydrogen wielder.
[This one was hand-drawn over.]
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