Luke's eyes slightly glimmered with hints of tears, gracefully smiling as he passed around half of the pile to Cillian. Stepping backwards from becoming memorised by Luke's heavily dripping beauty, Cillian couldn't stop staring at him. Making everyone's heart pound in the process, watching him appear extremely thankful for the extra help. I could see my friends melting under how pitiful Luke looked, joining Cillian in helping with the fraction work.
"I can help with the work from our fraction," Oili turned to Luke after he was finished with recording his parts.
"If possible, can you help with these doc.u.ments?" Luke's voice wobbled, feeling a bit touched.
Oili nodded his head, taking half of the pile from the rival fraction with him. Not falling under Luke's charm like the rest, I found him to be an extremely good actor as everyone began to equally distribute the fraction work. The way he guilted everyone into helping him, including Sienna who ended up taking more work than usual. When I stepped into his office, following the rest of my friends, he shot me a look to not bother them.
I sighed, watching even Ethan captured under Luke's spell, not able to resist helping him when he almost thanked him in tears. I turned to use the gaming section alone, not wanting to step into his office anyways. No matter how busy Luke was, the study sessions still remained, making it a traumatic space for me. I shuddered when I noticed him watching me in between his doc.u.ments, everyone else too concentrated on finishing the fraction work to know what was going on.
But thankfully, after finishing their parts, my friends joined in the production of the album again, changing how they spent their time in the club room. Time slipped by as this became an everyday scene inside the club room. For the first half of the break, everyone helped Luke with the work. Starting from the second half, I could enjoy some time with my friends. Not complaining since I was the only person not doing any fraction work.
"I'm bored," I faced the ceiling in the club room.
I walked towards the door, wondering if I should explore the club building while everyone was busy with helping Luke. There had to be more exciting things to do. I was starting to run out of things to do in this room, not wanting to repeat the past projects again. Cooking, singing, filming a video, becoming an author, producing an album and creating some unique merchandise. I realized how limited the club room truly was.
"Where are you going Rika?" Luke placed his doc.u.ments down.
"To the other clubs," I opened the door.
"I'll go with you," he cautioned me to wait for him.
But none of the other clubs were any better than my club room. Everyone was wary under Luke as he followed me everywhere. There was absolutely nothing to do, sadly returning back into the original club room. I wanted to watch some anime to pass my time or read some manga, but there was no way I could access them here. Luke thought of the entire otaku fandom being a bad influence, not letting me near them when he could.
He searched for my otaku supply with especially more effort alongside Alex after reading the novels I wrote about them. I rolled back and forth around the floor in boredom while he stared at me in disapproval. Going through all my past projects, I forgot that Luke never knew about the magical girl video. He frowned while watching the replay of the video, recalling how I wore a dress from my closet that day without him forcing me into one.
"I knew something was strange that day," Alex joined us.
"You hate wearing the things inside your closet," he knew how I found them annoying.
"Not always," I accidentally pressed the wrong button on the screen, not knowing it.
"You better make sure the video doesn't get leaked," he wanted to delete the film.
"There's no way it'll get leaked," I laughed, not noticing how Luke's eyes widened.
"Rika!" Luke yelled.
With Luke pointing out the video uploaded onto the school forums, I froze. Slowly scrolling to make sure what I was seeing was real, my jaw almost dropped when I watched the views increasing. In a matter of a few minutes, my head hung down, seeing how it passed a thousand views. I stared at the ground, not wanting to see Luke's face as he considered the Roselia family image to be extremely important to him.
"What happened?" Oili noticed the discord.
"The video got leaked," Alex pointed at my screen.
"Oh, that magical girl video," Ethan didn't notice the cold atmosphere.
"What did I tell you?" Luke tried to hold back from his usual lectures.
"I can delete it from the forum," I got rid of the video on the page.
"Someone posted it on the forum again," Sienna gasped, the video not under our control anymore.
"Not everyone knows it's me yet," I read the comments.