Chapter 3: Seat-Mate Soul-Mate

As their lips were about to meet, the doors abruptly slid open and a very confused and wide-eyed Azami gawked at the sight in front of her, two mages in a very awkward situation. Namely Lei, who had caused her so much trouble and to her surprise Yukino, her roommate.

"This is unforgivable!" Azami exclaimed.

"Yukino-chan are you alright?" she asked the girl while helping her up.

The girl nodded weakly. Azami smiled softly and suddenly took a fist-full of Lei's hair.

"Yo-You're mistaken, it isn't as it seems!" Lei argued with a trembling voice.

Azami lifted the boy by his hair and pinned him to the wall, she hated these sort of men.

"I can't believe you call yourself a mage when you only think with the head below your waist." she berated.

The brown-haired girl stood up and tapped Azami's shoulder's lightly.

"It really wasn't his fault." she said.

At that, the raven-haired girl released Lei and blushed furiously. She avoided Lei's eyes and relinquished her grip.

The alchemist-in-training took a step backwards and with her head bowed down, after a few moments of silence she finally said. "Explain."

Lei took in ragged breaths as he sprinted through the hallway at break-neck speed, he woke up late and was a good fifteen minutes behind schedule. In Geffen's famed Arcane Tower, that meant trouble, even more so in his case since this was the start of the second semester! What made him even more nervous was that he had no idea where room 16-H was!

The young mage stopped to take in huge gulps of air, he rubbed his eyes wearily and found himself face to face with a raven-haired girl who's emerald eyes seemed to seep with unsuppressed rage.

"You!" they shouted in unison, both students waving their fingers at each other.

Lei felt his blood boil, she was the reason he was late! She had to keep him busy, he would have hit her last night, if only she weren't a girl… She was staring at him like her were just some object that had caught her attention, and it irritated him to no end. He eyed her, how could she keep such an expressionless mask on after treating him so roughly.

Azami, tried to maintain a calm façade, he was probably but one of the challenges the fates had given her. Perhaps it was training to control her emotions, yes! That was probably it! 'Perhaps he was sent by brother.' She thought, she played with the idea, but sending such a spineless, not to mention weak person wasn't exactly—but maybe he was. She wondered how he had elicited such emotion in her before, emotions that no one had ever stirred before—perhaps him being one of their family's spies was a possibility she had to look into.

"I-I have to go." he said.

"So do I." came her stern reply.

The two hastily made their way through the corridor, and it just occurred to the both of them, they were headed the same direction. Azami couldn't help but stare at the boy, perhaps he was trying to irritate her by following her around. If that was his plan, she was going to make sure that he'd miserably fail.

"What are you looking at?" the mage asked.

"If your implying I'm interested, your gravely mistaken." she retorted.

"No, I wasn't."

"Stop following me."

"You stop following me!"

Azami cursed herself, yet again he managed to get her all flustered.

"This is getting" she got cut-off mid-sentence when she slipped, and to her surprise squealed. Lei, with an outstretched hand caught her by the waist. The mage blinked stupidly as did she. Azami felt the blood rush up to her cheeks, her heart beated faster and faster that it threatened to burst out of her chest. She was sure something was terribly wrong here, but whatever it was, it was beyond her.

"Are you alright?" Lei asked in a gentle soothing voice,

His breath tickled her senses and she just had to admit, she loved how he looked at her, she could drown in those concerned brown eyes. Despite herself she couldn't help but smile, and then frown.

"I-I'm…"

"You're?"

'Snap out of it!' she scolded herself. The raven-haired girl shook her head and pulled away, somewhat reluctantly.

"W-Who gave you permission to touch me!" Azami spat bitterly.

"I saved you! What kind of a response it that!"

Azami paused fumbling with her words "I..that was…Err…"

The mage looked at her quizzically.

"Whatever." the alchemist-in-training pretended to brush dust on her skirt to avoid his gaze.

Azami crossed her arms and cocked her head towards the mage, she shot him a flustered glance and walked past him, roughly shoving him aside with an elbow.

"Hey! What's wrong with you!" the mage half-roared.

"Nothing, just quit following me."

"I'm not following you."

"Sure you aren't, and it's a coincidence you're walking beside me." she said sarcastically, rolling her eyes as they walked past room 10-H.

"Yes." he sighed.

"Where are you going anyway?"

"Room 16-H."

"Y-You're kidding!" she blurted out loudly.

Her eyes narrowed into two small slits, of all the days she could have been late it just had to be this one. Aside from giving the new professor, who turned out to be a one of those terror prof's a bad first impression, she was forced to take the only available seat at the far end of the room.

"What's written on the board?" she asked weakly.

"God's in Asgard! What did I do…" Lei mumbled in a defeated tone.

She squinted and rubbed her eyes but to no avail, she couldn't read the damned lesson and was forced to rely on Lei's notes.

"What's with your hand writing, It looks like a ten year olds!"

"Then don't read it."

Lei slumped his shoulders and finished scribbling the last sentence of their lesson, his fingers ached and so did his wrists. Azami tore his notes from his grip and started copying everything word by word, that was, until the pen slipped out of her grip.

Azami raised a hand and pointed underneath the desk.

"No, I'm not getting it." he bluntly said.

"Start acting like a man."

"You start acting like a woman!"

"What are you insinuating?" came her agitated reply.

"Alright already, just wait a sec will you."

Lei dove underneath the desk and squinted through the darkness, he found the eraser underneath Azami's table, he picked it up and as he raised his head he caught sight of Panties. Pink panties! With an embroidered image in perfect likeness of a poring, another thing caught his gaze too, the very solid heel of one Miss Koizumi, Azami.

"What do you think you're doing?" she hissed through gritted teeth.

"Looking for your damned pen!" he snarled back.

"You saw it!"

Lei rubbed his now very red nose and handed Azami her fountain pen. He glared at the alchemist-in-training but before he was about to say something she placed two fingers on his lips and shot a finger towards the professor.

"Announcement."

"Eh?" he mumbled.

"Listen!"

The professor cleared her throat and slammed her staff on the board. The chatter quickly died down and all eyes were on her.

"That works every time." she said under her breath.

"Alright, as you children know chemistry is three units, give or take, and if any of you children fail it, I will ensure that whoever fails my subject will never put a foot into the Arcane Tower again." she smiled seeing the animated reactions of her students "So ill make thing easier for you maggots."

The professor paused, she picked up a tome from her desk and skimmed through the pages.

"Anodyne, it's applications are simple, but it's difficult to make." she slammed the book shut and raised her brow "my challenge for you all is to make one by the end of this semester." a lot of her students slumped their shoulders and frowned, the professor smiled, it was the response she had expected.

"Not to worry, I know none of you can manage to do this task alone. So I have devised a simple solution."

Azami listened intently ready to take down notes, Lei on the other hand sighed.

"Shake the hand of the person next to you and say Hello."

Lei offered his hand and a weak smile, Azami took it and squeezed hard hoping to break at least one of his bones.

"Let go!" he spat.

"I still haven't forgiven you for putting your nose where it didn't belong."

"It's the last place id wanna be in, I assure you."

"I'd had enough of your insolent, childishne—" before she could finish the professor cleared her throat and finally said "Congratulations, you've just said hello to your permanent lab partner."

Azami and Lei's eyes snapped open, they both stood up in up, knocking the desk aside.

"NO!" they shouted in perfect unpracticed unison.