Chapter 17: ~Chapter 6~ Part 2

"Wish me luck," Josh implored a touch wearily as we stood in front of the classroom.

"An arm and a leg, man."

"... What?"

"It's a variation on 'break a leg'."

"I thought it was about something costing a lot..."

"No, I am pretty sure I meant the former."

My friend shrugged with a face that said 'Fine, I'll take whatever I can get' and we entered the classroom. Following a diminutive nod, he headed for Angie's desk. I honestly wished the guy some luck, in my heart at the very least, and walked over to my own spot.

It was actually a little early, so there were still a lot of placeholders idling around the desks in small groups, repeating stock phrases to each other like broken machines. Sometimes I wondered why Josh and the others wouldn't notice this, but I didn't dare to point it out to them in fear of breaking the spell and irrevocably contaminating my future observations.

I practically fell into my chair and stretched my arms and back like a cat. I already did that a few times this morning, but my limbs still felt wooden. It was probably because I spent the entire night sitting in front of my computer, organizing my notes. Maybe I should start exercising in the morning?

Being reminded, I reached into my bag and retrieved my new and improved notebook. ... Well, okay, maybe it was only new, but I liked to pretend that starting anew without all the messed up, cramped, and stricken out text was an improvement in and of itself.

While I entered all of my previous ideas and observations into a handy text file that I could freely edit in the future through the magic of the backspace key, I still needed a physical notebook, as carrying a PC on my back around school didn't exactly fit my definition of fun. Should I get a smart-phone with a keyboard? I did some research the previous night, and it was apparent that while I and my immediate social circle might've used outdated bricks for telecommunication, the technology actually existed. I should really buy one this afternoon, I decided. Or better yet, maybe try one of those tablet machines. Preferably a tough one with a long battery life.

I was still considering my options when my ears caught a small creak coming from the desk in front of mine. I glanced up and, sure enough, I just caught the princess hastily sitting down while overtly ignoring me. That reminded me: I still had her shoe in my bag, didn't I?

I grimaced as I recalled the previous day's events and began staring at the girl's back with a slowly swelling urge of mischief. At last, I quietly leaned forward, making sure I made no noise. Slowly, very slowly, I got close enough that my face was almost in line with her shoulders, and then I whispered right next to her ear.

"Good morning, princess."

"Gyaaaaa!"

As predictable as ever, the princess jumped in her seat with a strange noise. In fact, for a moment she was teetering on the edge of falling over, with only two legs of her chair touching the ground. Without a word I grabbed the backrest of her chair and set it upright with a solid yank.

"Careful there," I tried to sound as friendly as possible. "You might hurt yourself if you fall over. Again."

"Youuuuuu!" She glared at me with the kind of fiery disapproval usually reserved to door-to-door salesmen.

"Me?" I asked back innocently, and for a moment I felt a distinct sense of déjà vu.

She kept up her glare for a few seconds before averting her face with a harrumph.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm ignoring you," she answered with a pout, completely unaware of the irony of her words.

"Why?"

"For what you did yesterday."

"... Saving you from breaking your neck?"

Her eyes snapped back to me.

"No, what you did after that!"

"... Saving you from breaking your neck... again?" Seeing that her face was getting crimson with what I presumed to be blood-curdling rage, I wisely decided to change the subject. "Speaking of which, how's your ankle?"

"Oh, it's fine, I can barely feel it anym-HEY! Don't change the subject!"

I clicked my tongue. She was onto me.

"Fine, we apparently remember the events of yesterday differently. Would you enlighten me which part are you angry about?"

She looked at me blankly for a moment before she turned around again.

"I can't."

"Why?"

"Because it's..."

Her voice trailed off, and while I could swear I saw her jaw moving, I couldn't hear the end of it,

"Because of what?" I pressed on for clarification, but instead she just turned back to me and yelled at me again.

"Shut up, shut up, shut up!"

"Whoa!" I raised my hands, palms out, in a sign of surrender. "Easy there, we are in public."

As if the information just dawned on her, the princess looked around and turned pale at the sight of the placeholders looking at her. After a brief pause she jumped to her feet, ready to bolt out of the room... at which point I promptly grabbed her again and pulled her back onto her seat. She landed with a soft puff and looked at me like she didn't understand what just happened.

"Don't make a scene," I scolded her gently, as you would do to a misbehaving puppy. "Classes are about to start."

"Sorry."

That's what she said, but if her expression was any indication, she wanted to murder me and my unborn children with a teaspoon. In retrospect, it was probably just a mixture of anger, surprise, and embarrassment. Angprizerassment?

... That was horrible. I apologize.

"Is there a problem?"

I turned and smiled at the new voice entering the conversation.

"Good morning class rep."

She gave me a long, level look in return.

"You still haven't told me what that means."

"I'm pretty sure I did."

"It's beside the point," She said curtly and turned to the princess. "Why were you shouting?"

"I... er..."

"We are terribly sorry for causing a ruckus," I came to the rescue. "We were just acting out a scene from an old show and it got out of hand. It won't happen again."

The class rep looked at me dubiously for a moment before she turned to the princess.

"Is that so?"

"Err... I mean... Yeah, I suppose?"

Amelia still looked unconvinced, but in the end, she relented and turned back to me.

"Please be more careful in the future." With that said, her expression abruptly became less formal and she even smiled a little. "Oh, before I forget it. I found what you were asking for."

It took me an embarrassingly long moment to realize what she was talking about, but then I smiled back in kind.

"Ah, you mean the notes!" She nodded. "Thanks, I thought it would take longer."

"You are welcome," she said before she stepped back to her desk and handed me a huge stack of notebooks. And then went back to deliver an identical pile. I had no choice but to whistle in amazement.

"How did you even bring these to school?"

"I asked some... friends for help."

"Either way, thanks a lot. You are a lifesaver."

She smiled demurely at my repeated thanks and moved back to her seat. I took another look at the stacks and gulped. It's a good thing I don't need to sleep, I supposed.

I wanted to open one of them and take a peek, but something else drew my attention. The blonde girl in front of me was once again glaring at me (we were getting to the point where I should only note when she wasn't doing so, I guess) and she was also slightly shaking, her face a shade of crimson I thought belonged only to humanoid aliens in low-budget afternoon sci-fi series.

She reminded me of a boiling kettle on the brink of exploding. In fact, I felt tempted to poke her cheeks just to see if steam would come out of her ears in a whistle. However, before my mischievous impulses could take control again, a different person appeared at our side.

"Morning!" She beamed an infectious smile at me and I immediately returned it.

"Hi, Angie."

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The princess only nodded at her before she resumed her attempts to burn my face off with the fierceness of her eyes.

"You didn't greet me when you came in," Angie stated with an exaggerated pout.

"Sorry, I didn't want to be a third wheel."

"A-ha!" She struck a triumphant finger in my direction and exclaimed, "I knew it was you! You sent Joshua over to make up!"

"Guilty as charged," I answered modestly.

"Too bad though. For a moment I actually thought he might have gotten over his stubborn streak."

"Hey, I am right here, you know?" Josh protested, and true to his word, he was standing right behind Angie.

"I know," The girl grinned and stuck out her tongue, which elicited a weird grimace from my friend. They were both smiling though, so I figured they buried the hatchet without any problem. "So, what was that all about?"

Angie's question shook me out of my momentary daze and I responded with a vague, "What was what about?"

"The shouting."

"Oh, that... We were just talking about what happened yesterday."

Josh and Angie looked at each other questioningly.

"You mean, between you two?"

"No!" the princess protested right away. "There is absolutely nothing between the two of us."

"Except the desk and her chair, of course," I helpfully added before I remembered something. This might not have been the most appropriate moment, but I decided I might as well give her shoe right then and there. It was only so that I wouldn't forget and avoid further complications down the line and in no way because I found her flustered reactions infinitely amusing. Not even the slightest. With that rationale in mind, I reached into my bag and presented the aforementioned footwear.

"Here, you forgot this yes..." It was at this point when she started making funny noises and tried to rise to her feet to run away, so I once again tugged on the back of her jacket and pulled her back onto her chair before she could cause any more of a ruckus. "... terday. Also, I would really appreciate it if you stopped that."

She once more looked at me like she had no idea what just happened or how I managed to restrain her. I sighed and forcefully handed the shoe over to her. She looked at it blankly for a moment, then at me.

"What are you supposed to say when someone returns your property?"

"Thank you?"

"Exactly. Good girl." I gave her a thumb up and she once again reddened in embarrassment. Well, at least she was still too dazed to glare at me, so that was a relief.

"Excuse me?" Angie interjected with a hand on my table. "Why exactly do you have Elly's shoe?"

"Elly?" I asked back in reflex until I remembered that the princess actually had a name. "Oh, you mean her?"

"Hey!" This time it was the princess' turn to interject, seemingly regaining her lost vigor. "I told you I have no need for nicknames!"

"But everyone has one!" Angie retorted as she began to point at each one of us in turn. "Angie, Josh, Leo, Ammy, and Elly."

One of those names caught my interest. Just when did the class rep come back? Nevertheless, I flashed my most innocent smile at her.

"Let me guess," I said with one hand on my temple. "You came over because we were making a ruckus, but then you didn't find a good opportunity to interrupt so you were just standing there frowning and waiting for us to notice you."

The class rep looked astonished for a moment before she picked a pen from a pocket and began scribbling on her palm, then closed it and turned to me.

"What did I write?"

"Excuse me? I thought we were over this already."

"Come on, guess!" Her eyes were almost sparkling with expectation, so in the end I didn't have the heart to refuse her.

"Circle."

Her eyes opened wide again, but before she could continue her impromptu ESP research, I quickly pulled Josh over.

"Hey, have you talked to the class rep yet?"

"Who...? Oh, you mean Ammy? One of these days you really have to tell me why you call her that."

"Don't mind that. Quick, grab her and talk to her before classes start. Preferably in that corner."

"But why?"

"Just do it, soldier!" I grunted at him and after a moment he gave me a sarcastic little salute accompanied by a wry look.

While Josh was doing his thing I turned back to the other two girls. "So, I believe we were at the shoe, right?"

"Riiiiiight..." Angie glanced suspiciously between me and the retreating Josh and class rep. "What exactly are they supposed to talk about?"

"The weather, studies, your threesome date yesterday... the usual stuff."

"You don't have to put it like that," she mumbled with a cute pout. It was refreshing to see a non-over-the-top embarrassed reaction after dealing with the princess all morning. Speaking of which...

"Hey, Elly?"

"Hawawa?!"

I looked at her flatly and shook my head, "You really have to work on your overreactions. People are going to bully you if you keep making them."

"You do! You already do!" she retorted, and I naturally let her protest slide off me like water off a duck's back.

"My point exactly."

"A-ny-ways," Angie re-entered the conversation with her usual gusto, "What was this shoe business about again?"

"Oh, that? She lost it, I returned it."

Angie looked decidedly skeptical.

"How do you even lose a shoe?"

I was about to answer when I saw that the princess was vigorously shaking her head with an expression that said ‘If you tell her anything about what happened yesterday, I will bury you neck-deep in an anthill and cover your face with rancid mayonnaise'... well, maybe those weren't the exact words, but a close approximation.

"I am curious too," Josh butted in upon his return from the discussion corner. Based on his smile, I supposed his discussion with the class rep was also successful.

"Stuff happened," I told them mysteriously, but it didn't seem to satisfy them, so I decided to make something up. "Remember how I had to stay behind yesterday? Well, on return from my business I found the princess tumbling down some stairs. She injured her leg and couldn't wear her shoe, so I took it for safekeeping. Nothing spectacular."

I was expecting a torrent of questions when I finished my explanation, but instead the group was only looking at me a tad apprehensively.

"The ‘princess'?" Josh asked and it finally dawned on me. Crap, I accidentally called her that. I sighed. Oh well, it was going to happen sooner or later.

"Well, she is kind of a princess, don't you agree?" I said as pointed at the girl who was in the process of burying her face in the desk. Josh in the meantime nodded to himself.

"Now that you mention it... it fits surprisingly well."

"Yeah," Angie agreed tentatively. "She does have a butler after all."

"It's still a better nickname than ‘class rep'," the class rep brandished her occasional sharp tongue at me, but I took it like a good sport.

"Hey, can we call you that?" Angie poked the princess' shoulder, who in turn looked like a dead fish spread out on the desk.

"Do whatever you want..." she answered in utter defeat. I am not going to lie, for a moment I felt a little bad about it, so I leaned forward to place my hand on her shoulder.

"Hey, would you like if only I called you that?"

She immediately perked up and yelled at me.

"Who would want that?! That's even worse!"

I smiled in satisfaction as I leaned back on my chair.

"All right then. You almost had me worried there for a second, but it seems the princess we all know and love is back."

"L-L-L-L..."

Her face suddenly emptied of all emotion and before I knew it she jolted upright... only for me to grab her and sit her down again, for the third time. I sighed as she kept making embarrassingly cutesy noises while burying her face in her arms. The others just smirked around us. I looked up at them and tried to awkwardly return the gesture.

"I guess we still have to work on those reactions..."

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