Staring up at the two girls who arrived at my desk, I didn’t know whether to stand up or remain seated. Their entrance had been so bold, brazen, and unexpected that it rattled my composure and left me at a loss over how to respond. I opened my mouth but failed to find words for an appropriate greeting, and when I made an uncertain attempt to stand up, my legs betrayed me and I dropped back down to my chair. However, before I could try again both girls shocked me when they suddenly dropped to their knees and bowed to me while on the floor beside my desk.
“We’re so sorry,” the President exclaimed with her face to the floor in a tearful voice. “I swear we didn’t tell her.”
Huh? Tell who? Does she mean Valjean? I wondered anxiously.
The President shook her head, her long hair swishing madly about. “I asked the girls, but they assured me they hadn’t broken our promise to you.” Then she looked up at me with plaintive teary eyes that stole my breath and made my heart stumble. “We of the Cosplay Club did not betray you.”
I abandoned another attempt to stand and remained seated, unable to handle the sight of a girl like her bordering on tears because of me.
The Treasurer, a brunette with short, yet very wavy hair, nodded frantically and sounded flustered. “She already knew. She had photos and everything to prove it was you.”
“Photos?” I was surprised to hear myself.
“Yes. She showed us the conclusive results of her research. Then she said that if we granted her an exclusive interview, and secured an interview with you, she would put in a good word and see to it that our club budget received a bonus this year.”
My mouth had fallen open, so I closed it with a soft clack, and regarded the girls with a furrowed frown as something felt amiss. In the corner of my eyes, I could see that some of my classmates had stood up to peer down at the two girls. Felicia and Angela were also on their feet, exchanging glances and unsure of how to intervene, and when I glanced at Tobias, I saw him staring at the girls with a frown of his own.
“Who is she?” he asked them.
The President straightened while sitting on her knees and replied, “The President of the Newspaper Club.”
“Irene Casquada,” the Treasurer added.
I leaned forward where I sat on the chair. “Wait—it’s not the Witch? It wasn’t the Witch who approached you?”
The two girls looked puzzled. “The Witch?” Then the President’s eyes widened. “Oh, you mean the Witch Valjean. That witch?”
At his desk, Tobias gasped and stared at them aghast. “What the Hell? You call her that too?”
The President shook her head. “Not just us. Everyone knows about The Witch Valjean. I mean, that’s what her classmates call her behind her back. They say that strange things happen around her. People who talk bad about her are struck with bad luck.”
The Treasurer was nodding in agreement. “For example, one girl was struck with severe diarrhea for three days.”
“Another girl lost a prized charm she’d received from her boyfriend. But then someone saw another girl wearing it, and she realized her boyfriend was cheating on her.”
The Treasure chipped in, “And then there was the girl that missed her period, and when she told her friends, the rumor went around that she was pregnant.”
Tobias’ face contorted into abject confusion. “What does that have to do with Monique?”
The President shrugged her shoulders while kneeling. “I’m just telling you what I’ve heard. The girls blame her for every bad thing that happens to her classmates. Honestly, I think they’re just jealous of her because a lot of guys drool over her.”
I saw concern spread across Tobias’ face. “They do?” he questioned hesitantly.
The President nodded. “Oh yeah. Of course they do. I mean, she’s had a guy confess to her almost every day since she arrived late last year. But she turns them all down, so there’s talk that she prefers girls over guys.” The President shrugged again and continued. “We were considering asking her to cosplay for us during Club Week next week. We have a witch outfit prepared for her from the Chronicles of Silver Blue as the Princess’s nemesis, The Witch of the Silver Tower, Astarte.” The President snuck a peek at me. “I don’t suppose you’d consider reprising your role as the Silver Blue Princess.”
I cringed back from the girls so dramatically they both bowed their heads in apology within a heartbeat.
“We’re sorry. We’re sorry.” The President bowed repeatedly. “Forget we ever mentioned it.”
“So why are you here?” Tobias asked, taking some of the heat off me. “Is it to get Cass to agree to an interview so you can get that club bonus?”
The President jerked her head up and replied, “We came here to apologize.”
“To apologize for what?” I asked her. “If you didn’t tell her it was me, then why are you apologizing?”
“To apologize for not telling you about her earlier,” the girl replied.
The Treasure chimed in. “She came to us last week. She said she would give us a week to think it over before she spilled the beans.”
“But then the Witch revealed it was you—that you were Silver Blue—on social media.”
“And we were afraid that you would blame us for telling the Witch,” the President concluded.
The proverbial jigsaw was coming together and I was beginning to understand what was going on. “So this really is about the interview. You wanted to talk me into agreeing to it before the Newspaper Club approached me.”
“No, we wanted to talk to you about it later,” the President admitted before smiling sheepishly. “With Club Week coming up…we could…really use…that bonus….”
I sighed slowly and felt a little of my soul escape into the air.
Why am I not surprised? Why am I not more disappointed in them? They’re just being honest. Greedy. Self-centered. But honest.
From the open doorway, a woman’s voice filled the classroom like breaking thunder. “Who the Hell broke my door?”
“Gah!” Still on her knees, the President froze then bowed her body low over the floor in an attempt to hide. Then she went further and began crawling down the aisle between desks, fleeing toward the back of the classroom. After a moment, the Treasurer followed her lead, and I watched the two crawl away like Special Forces soldiers fleeing enemy territory while spotlights searched for them. Inexorably, my gaze gravitated down to the President’s butt.
It was fair to say the President had an amazing rump, and the Treasurer came a close second, so I wasn’t the only guy in class intent on the girls’ derrieres. The boys seated behind me looked down at them as they crawled past, undoubtedly wondering what kind of underwear they were wearing under their dress skirts. I certainly was too, and I would have enjoyed watching the President’s posterior sway seductively for a while longer, however my continued staring would draw attention to the two girls. With some effort, I succeeded tearing my gaze away from the vision of loveliness, and sat properly at my desk. Seated ahead of me, Tobias did the same for he too was guilty of ogling the two girls, and I sensed the guys behind me also right themselves in their chairs.
At the doorway, our homeroom teacher, Serene Marisol, questioned us all with a stony expression.
“I will ask one more time. Who broke the door?”
It wasn’t just her expression that was hard but her voice too. She’d only been our homeroom teacher for a week, but in that time she’d demonstrated a kind and caring personality, and a warm fondness for her students. Yet it was foolish of us to think she couldn’t be firm and resolute when she needed to be
“Very well,” she said, her voice icy. “Detention for all—”
“It was me.” Shirohime abruptly pushed her chair back and rose to her feet. “I entered the room last. I was hurrying to avoid being late. The door felt like it was stuck so I shoved it aside.”
I stared at her in disbelief, along with everyone else in my class, but irrespective of our collective reaction, Shir
ohime bowed politely to Miss Marisol.
“I will pay for the cost of repairs.”
In the corner of my eye, I saw Tobias regard her with interest, and bitterness pricked at my heart. Because everyone else was fixated on Shirohime, they failed to notice Tobias rise to his feet until he spoke up.
“It’s not her fault. It’s my fault. I closed it hard when I stepped inside, but I think I took it off the rails so it got stuck.”
It was hard not to gape at him, and while I succeeded by the skin of my teeth, a number of my classmates didn’t. Amongst them was Shirohime who looked at Tobias with surprise and gratitude that made her sparkle like a love struck girl. If this scene was recreated as an animated cartoon there would be a dazzling rainbow shining behind her and Handel’s Messiah playing in the background, until an unexpected occurrence brought the scene and music to a screeching halt.
The male student who sat a couple of intelli-desks behind Shirohime, a boy with sandy hair and envious good looks that rivaled those of Tobias, stood up with his hands blatantly shoved into his trouser pockets.
“It was stuck when I entered the room before them,” proclaimed Calix Saint-Pierre. “I had to push it back and that’s when it came off the rails. I managed to get it shut, but it was already broken before they came in. They didn’t have anything to do with it. If you want to blame anyone, blame the people doing crappy maintenance in this school.”
I have to admit the sight of him brimming with confidence when the spotlight was on him made me feel like punching him. I fully expected him to toss his hair and strike a pose like a famous idol getting his photo snapped. Clearly I wasn’t alone in this thinking because I heard the soft click-click from a few phones snapping away in the hands of his female admirers. However, Miss Marisol wasn’t one of them and the cold, flat silent gaze she leveled on him gave him pause and dulled some of his radiance.
Sitting at my intelli-desk, I alternated looks between the three standing students while struggling to remain abreast of the situation.
First Shirohime, then Tobias, and now Calix had stood up to take the blame for the door that was undoubtedly broken by the Cosplay Club President when she barged in.
Why?
In my short years of being alive, I’d come to understand that people didn’t act without motivation. Regardless of the choices they make, they are motivated to do so consciously or subconsciously, between altruism and selfishness. In the case of my classmates, I believed it to be the latter, and concluded Shirohime’s cynical motive was to earn points with Tobias by having him see her in a new light. A week ago, I’d have considered the possibility she was assuming the mantle of blame because she was Class Rep, but now knowing her better it seemed too selfless for her. Either way, Tobias’ decision to support her implied he had an interest in her beyond those of a regular classmate, conceivably inspired when I revealed she had a crush on him.
Faintly regretting my decision to tell him, I peered over my right shoulder at Calix and happened to catch the glance he threw at Tobias, and I suspected this was the beginnings of a love triangle. Before I could mull it further, Miss Marisol interrupted my thoughts when she coldly asked Calix. “Is that true?”
“It’s true,” he affirmed. “You can give me detention if you want, but I’ll lodge a complaint with the school for not fixing things properly. What if there was a fire and we all needed to get out but the doors were jammed? Are we expected to jump out the windows? This is the first floor so it’s a long way down.”
“I see. You’re alleging irresponsible upkeep of the facilities.”
“I’m saying the door was already faulty. I didn’t break it because I wanted to, and neither did they. I don’t think it’s fair to blame us.” He dropped his weight onto a hip. “If this is a problem, I’ll take my case to the Student Council. My older sister is the President. I’m sure I can get my point across to her.”
For a long while, Miss Marisol said nothing. She simply regarded Calix with a hard yet unreadable look. Then she stepped into the classroom.
“Very well,” she stated.
Calix started sitting back down like a cocky lawyer who’d just argued successfully with the courtroom judge, but she wasn’t done with him yet.
“Calix Saint-Pierre, I’d like to see you in the teachers’ faculty room at lunch time.”
He accepted her request with aplomb and no indication he was troubled as he offered her a respectful bow in contrast to the impertinence he’d demonstrated earlier. “As you wish, ma’am.”
“I’m not old enough to be called ma’am, Mister Saint-Pierre.”
“As you wish…Miss Marisol.”
Now he sounded like a sweet talking host smoothly laying on the charm.
“Mister Saint-Pierre.”
“Yes, Miss Marisol?”
Serene Marisol sighed as she walked across the front of the room. “Never mind….”
Had Calix successfully cracked her hard shell?
Peeking at him, I glimpsed a faint grin on his lips as he sat down.
Marisol assumed her post at the lectern that was another version of the intelli-desk but meant for a teacher to use. She placed the large magazine sized tablet she carried under her arm onto the flat retractable board that extended out of the lectern. “Shirohime, Praetor. I want to speak to you two as well. Come see me after morning homeroom.”
Their replies sounded surprised. They probably believed that Calix’s actions had taken them off the hook, but Miss Marisol thought otherwise. However, when all was said and done, there was still the problem of the two guests hiding at the back of the room until our homeroom teacher dropped a bombshell that rocked the classroom.
“Would the young ladies hiding at the back of my classroom please stand up?”
Stunned silence added to the sudden tension that spread quickly from student to student, and it persisted for a long while until the Cosplay Club President and Treasurer finally rose to their feet. Having revealed themselves, they stood contritely at the back of the room in front of the rows of lockers stacked against the rear wall, while Marisol busied herself at her teaching lectern, deliberately making the two girls wait nervously for her to address them.
Eventually she gave them a piece of her mind. “Ladies. I believe you owe me an explanation as to why you’re interloping in my class, so I’ll be seeing you at lunchtime in the teachers’ faculty room along with Mister Saint-Pierre. Is that clear?”
Glancing at them over my right shoulder, I saw the girls nod with bowed heads, and reply in unison, “Yes, ma’am.”
Serene Marisol cleared her throat loudly.
“Yes, Miss Marisol,” the girls amended in perfect harmony.
“Very good. Now please leave. I have a homeroom to conduct.”
The classrooms of Telos Academy had two sliding doors, one at the front and one at the back. It was toward the latter that the two girls walked until the Cosplay Club President stopped and asked, “Um, Miss Marisol, how did you know—?”
Without looking up from the display on her teaching lectern, Serene Marisol pointed to the back of the room.
“You can thank the boys sitting in the last row who kept glancing down at you.” She briefly did look up to add, “And Mister Wallace, I do recommend you delete those photos you took of their behinds before I report you to the Vice-Principal.”
“…yes ma’am….”
“Ah hem.”
“…yes, Miss Marisol….”
“Very good, Mister Wallace. Now ladies, get out of my classroom before I hand you a week’s detention.”
“Y—Yes, ma’am!”
They fled from the killing intent Serene Marisol flashed at them.
- III -
Homeroom was a fifteen-minute affair, during which our teacher briefed us on school notices, most of which were emailed to our school accounts so there was no need for her to go over them. Nonetheless, homeroom was a traditional affair originating centuries ago and nothing much had changed since then.
I gave the impression of listening attentively, while pondering worst case scenarios for my impending lunchtime rooftop encounter. However, I had no intention of going back on my decision. I would go to the rooftop dressed as a female student, learn who had revealed my secret to Monique Valjean, but more importantly have my questions regarding The Game answered. Afterward, depending on the outcome of the encounter, I would decide whether or not to have my revenge on the Witch.
I was yanked out of my dark reverie and back to the present when almost a third of my classroom broke out into joyous applause. Shortly thereafter I realized it was because Miss Marisol had announced that swimming classes would start early this year, as soon as next week, much to the delight of my male classmates. Of the thirty-six students in class One-Cee, two thirds were girls, again to the delight of my male compatriots, who were not-so-quietly rubbing their proverbial hands in glee at the prospect of seeing the girls in their swimsuits, to which a number of the girls looked decidedly troubled while others smirked confidently that they were ready to impress.
Miss Marisol reminded all of us to make sure we purchased our swimsuits from the school clothing shop, as personal suits were not allowed. I heard a collective groan of disappointment from almost every male member of my class, and a few girls slouched in their chairs wearing expressions of veiled discontent while others looked noticeably relieved. Glancing at Class Rep, I saw her wearing a blank expression, but something in her posture told me she wasn’t looking forward to the coming week’s sporting activities. Then I noticed her glance furtively at Tobias with mixed emotions.
Oh boy…she really does have it bad.
With Shirohime to my right and Tobias sitting in front of me, I felt boxed in so I turned to look out the window as a last resort.
Must be nice…to have a girl yearn for you like that.
Bitterness stirred the emotions residing in the pit of my stomach, turning them black.
Gun Princess Royale: Awakening the Princess, Book One Page 19