Finals week started the way all weeks started now: with Jordan Hale attempting to kill him before sunrise.
Apparently, they were adding sparring to the bodyweight and track training now. Jordan had announced it last Saturday after Magnus watched her and Alex spar the previous day.
"Would be pretty embarrassing to get beaten up by your girlfriend, wouldn't it?" she'd said.
Personally, Magnus didn't really see how that was embarrassing, but he'd learned not to bother arguing with Tony or Jordan about things like this.
Somehow, though, Jordan seemed to be in a better mood than usual. She wasn't nice, exactly. Magnus was pretty sure Jordan Hale physically lacked the biological mechanisms required to become nice before six in the morning. But she was… less homicidal about correcting his form during training. Which was suspicious. Then again, Magnus was probably imagining things.
Yeah, definitely imagining things. Nobody felt good during finals week!
"Your reaction time's still bad," Jordan noted as he barely blocked a strike aimed at his shoulder.
"I slept four hours," Magnus complained.
"You slept four hours voluntarily," Jordan corrected immediately. "That's different."
Which, unfortunately, was fair.
By the time training ended, Magnus's muscles hurt, his brain hurt, and he was reasonably confident his soul hurt a little too.
Breakfast with Alex afterward felt familiar, peaceful, and still slightly surreal after the past week. With their first real fight as a couple finally behind them, they'd somehow reverted right back into being what Sofia — and probably the rest of campus — called insufferably in love. And apparently, people were already aware. On his way to breakfast alone, three different guys Magnus had never talked to before approached him separately. One shook his hand and congratulated him on making up with Alex. One hugged him and thanked him for "the winnings." And the third guy glared bullets at him and asked why he couldn't fight with his girlfriend for one more day.
"Jordan wasn't kidding about the whole betting-on-our-relationship thing," Magnus told Alex over breakfast.
"Yeah, I know," she replied. "Apparently Sofia made quite a sum from both the betting pool and selling insider information… I'd murder her, but we have finals, so she gets to live until Spring Break."
Of course, the two of them didn't know the full extent of the forum chaos. Their reconciliation had effectively divided the campus into roughly three factions:
First: the fans. Which included people who genuinely liked them together and people who had won betting pools predicting their reconciliation. Those people were currently celebrating like they'd personally orchestrated the reunion.
Second: the anti-fans. Mostly people who found their relationship obnoxious and people who had lost money betting on the fight lasting past the weekend. Those people were reacting with the kind of bitterness usually reserved for sports rivalries and failed investments.
And third: the bystanders, who were treating the entire thing like an extremely high-budget K-drama they'd somehow gained free access to.
The couple was just finishing breakfast and about to head to their first exam when a familiar face entered the cafeteria with a group of friends: Mia Chen, Alex's number one fan and president of her unofficial fan club. Hard not to remember her, considering the circumstances under which they'd met her and the way she'd simultaneously helped and complicated their love life.
Then the System's familiar TTS sounded in Magnus's head, announcing the new quest. He'd thought it had made a mistake, until the target was named. It wasn't Mia, but it was one of her friends.
"Quest?" Alex asked immediately, reading his expression shift.
"Yeah," he tilted his head towards Mia's group. "One of Mia's friends. Naomi Homura."
Alex glanced at the girl, then back at him.
"Info?" Then, as if remembering the whole thing with Mia, she added: "And check if she's one of my fans too, if her Interest in you is high enough."
He nodded and brought up the basic menu.
[Name: Naomi Homura | Level: 2
Interest: 80% | Popularity: 30% | Sexual History: 4 times (1 known partners)]
He stared at the Interest stat for a long moment. Eighty percent was alarmingly high. Especially considering this was before he'd ever even spoken to her. At least, he had no recollection of ever doing so.
He focused on opening Detailed Stats next, hoping it'd shed some light on the high Interest number. And immediately regretted it.
The first thing that hit him was: Relationship: Crush/Conquest Target (Conquering).
Magnus read that line twice. Then a third time, in case the words rearranged themselves into something that made more sense. Because this didn't make any sense! Not in any universe Magnus believed he existed in.
Naomi Homura had a crush on him. A crush. On him specifically. How was that even possible?!
Then his eyes moved downward, and something even more ridiculous hit him:
[Core Detailed Stats:
Trust: 70% | Arousal: 5% | Submission: 48%]
His brain stalled harder.
Her Trust stat was almost as high as Alex's had been the night they first got together. And that was after he scrambled around her for a whole week. Worse, her Submission stat was only two percent lower than Alex's current one. Which was deeply concerning for reasons Magnus didn't even have the emotional energy to unpack before finals.
Unfortunately, somehow that was still not the worst of it. Because what came next was:
[Personal Insights:
– Hobbies: Fan-editing videos, language exchange groups, campus event volunteering, romance webnovels, moderating Alex Reyes's fan club
– Guilty Pleasures: Shipping real people, overanalyzing relationship dynamics, reading trashy forum gossip while pretending not to, collecting candid Alex Reyes & Magnus Chane interactions for her personal "shrine/murder board"
– Type: Kind and gentle guys
– Kinks: Authority figures, being pinned/cornered, eye contact, being verbally reassured while physically overwhelmed]
Magnus stared at the screen for several long seconds, then buried his face in his hands.
"Alex," he said weakly, "we have a huge problem on our hands."
"How bad is it?"
"I don't even know where to begin."
Somehow, he still managed to explain it anyway — the alarming Interest, Trust, Submission stats; the nearly nonexistent Sexual History; the fact that she apparently had a crush on him, which was somehow still the most unbelievable thing to him about all this; the other fact about her definitely being one of Alex's fans, too, given her hobbies; and then finally:
"And apparently, she has a — and I quote — shrine slash murder board, in quotation marks, dedicated to the two of us collectively, or maybe it's our relationship. I don't know! I don't even understand what shrine slash murder board is supposed to mean!"
By the end of the explanation, Alex was staring at him in disbelief.
"Every time I think your System can't possibly get worse," she said slowly, "it somehow proves me wrong."
"Thank you, that's very comforting."
"I blame you for this."
Magnus blinked. "Wha—?"
"Don't what me. People don't develop crushes out of nowhere. What did you do?"
"Nothing!" he said, then quieter: "At least, nothing I remember."
She stared at him with exasperated fondness. Then stood up and grabbed her bag:
"Come on," she said. "We have a Literature final in ten minutes. We'll deal with this later. If she knows Mia and is a fan, I can probably reach out."
***
The Intro to Lit Exam was a short one, with a take-home portion due by midnight.
"You'll find the essay topic online. Be sure to turn it in by midnight tonight." Professor Schwartz adjusted his glasses. "And before anyone gets clever: yes, I know generative software exists. I also know how each of you thinks and writes from all the exercises I had you do in class, so please do your own work."
He let that sink in before adding:
"That would be all. Good luck on the rest of your finals!"
They filed out into the hallway. Alex checked her phone as they walked. "Mia's about to start an exam soon, and this whole Naomi situation is gonna take a while to explain. So we probably won't be able to reach her for another two hours." She slipped her phone back into her pocket. "No cheer practice this week for me either. Wanna come back to my room and get started on our take-home essays?"
At Magnus's hesitation, she rolled her eyes and added: "Separately, of course. Geez, you're such a stickler for rules sometimes, babe."
And so, they went back to Alex's room and started working on their essays — separately, exactly as Alex had promised. Or at least, they tried to.
They sat down on opposite sides of Alex's desk with their respective laptops and their respective essay prompts and made a genuine attempt at academic productivity. But, being themselves — and a newly reconciled couple on top of that — left a lot of room for distractions. Like stolen kisses between paragraphs outlining, blatant flirting over and under the desk, and Alex periodically abandoning her chair entirely to drape herself over Magnus under the excuse of "improving morale." So, somehow, twenty minutes later, they'd made no essay progress, and instead, Alex was on his lap and they were making out. Magnus strongly suspected, though, that if Alex weren't on her period, things probably would have escalated even further. Whether that counted as worse or better depended entirely on perspective.
Eventually, they both looked at their blank documents and made a mutual unspoken agreement to actually work. It lasted for almost an hour without much interruption until they decided to take a break. During said break, he decided to look at the new power that came with Naomi's Seduction quest.
[Sympathetic Transference Lv1 (Trial): The bearer may assume the suffering of another into the self, easing wound, ailment, or affliction through sympathetic transfer. Flesh may be restored, poison quieted, and failing breath renewed — yet balance is preserved. That which is taken shall be endured by the bearer. Let none mistake absence of injury for absence of pain.]
Magnus read the description out loud slowly, frowning more the further he got into it.
Alex tilted her head slightly. "So… healing by taking on the pain?"
Magnus stared at her. "How did you even understand that so fast?"
Alex shrugged. "Your System likes sounding dramatic, not complicated."
"That's disturbingly accurate."
She opened her mouth to continue, then winced slightly instead.
Magnus immediately looked up. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing," she said automatically. "Just cramps."
But her expression had gone faintly pale, and before Magnus really thought the decision through, instinct kicked in. He reached out, rested a hand lightly against her stomach, and focused on the new power.
It's just cramps, he thought. How bad could it—
The next thing Magnus knew, he was curled into a ball on the floor wheezing like he'd just been stabbed. Every muscle in his abdomen seized at once like his organs had collectively declared war on him. A horrible twisting ache radiated through his lower stomach and back hard enough that his vision briefly blurred.
Meanwhile, Alex blinked in surprise because her pain had vanished completely. Then she looked down at her boyfriend folded on the carpet like a collapsed lawn chair and had no idea whether she should laugh or feel guilty.
"You," Magnus said from the floor, "call that nothing?!"
"Magnus!" She immediately crouched beside him and helped him sit back up while trying — and failing — not to snort. He got approximately upright, leaned against the side of the desk, and tried to adjust his breathing.
"Also," he added weakly after a moment, "you have to deal with that every month?!"
"Not every month," Alex admitted while carefully avoiding eye contact. "Sometimes I get lucky." A brief pause. "Also, this is already better than yesterday."
Magnus somehow went even paler. Without another word, he yanked his phone out and speed-dialed someone.
The call picked up after three rings. "Magnus, isn't this supposed to be your finals week? Are you calling about coming home for Spring Break again? We talked about this, honey. You're three years into college now, you should make friends and hang out with them! Christmas is one thing, but this is Spring Break. I'm not allowing you into the house this year even if you come back, so find friends—"
"Mom!" Magnus interrupted desperately. "I'm not calling about that!"
"Oh?" his mother sounded genuinely surprised. "What did you call about then?"
Magnus rubbed a hand over his face. "How did you deal with cramps during your period?"
Silence.
"I remember you even helped some of the neighbors with some sort of remedy or something."
Another beat of silence. Then:
"Magnus," his mother said brightly. "Why are you asking?"
Magnus froze. Oh no. What have I done?!
"Did you get a girlfriend?" his mother demanded excitedly.
Magnus immediately hung up.
Alex stared at the unfolding disaster for a long moment and became deeply concerned for herself because she still somehow found this man attractive. Worse, she somehow wanted to jump his bones right then and there if she weren't on her period.
Then, Magnus's phone began buzzing with notifications in rapid succession.
Mom: Magnus Nathan Chane, how DARE you hang up on me like that?!
Mom: This is soooo not over! You're going to have to come clean sooner or later, honey ;)
Then, after a brief pause:
Mom: By the way, the answer to your question is this:
Attached was a document containing herbal tea recipes, heating pad suggestions, pain management advice, dietary recommendations, and what appeared to be several generations' worth of accumulated woman-to-woman survival knowledge.
A final text arrived immediately afterward:
Mom: Say hi to your gf for me!
Magnus slowly put the phone down on Alex's desk, then buried his face in his hands.
"You really didn't think that one through, did you?" Alex asked with barely contained laughter.
"No," he admitted weakly. "No, I did not."
"Thanks, though."
"You're welcome."