Chapter 23: ~Chapter 8~ Part 2

The rest of my morning commute was fairly uneventful. Once we reached the classroom Angie, after a cursory greeting that didn't even take note of Judy, grabbed hold of Josh and dragged him away before either of us could say a thing. It was probably related to yesterday's events, I surmised, so it had little to do with me. As such, I headed for my desk, sat down, prepared my books... and finally turned to the motionless girl imitating a somewhat boringly positioned wax statue by my desk.

"Say, shouldn't you go to your seat?"

My assistant looked at me as dispassionately as ever and stated, "I'm supposed to observe you."

"Yes, but you can do that from over there too, can't you?"

"... Yes."

Contrary to her words she stayed still and kept watching me. I tried my best to hold back the urge, but I soon let out a long sigh anyway.

"So?"

Prompted by my question, she microscopically furrowed her brows and told me, "I'm still thinking."

"About what?"

"A good excuse to stay around."

"Don't just admit you are looking for excuses! Not to mention, you are bothering the others."

She looked around with an expression obviously asking ‘What others?'. She had a point, as much as I didn't want to admit it. We were fairly early as is, which meant only a few placeholders were idling around the classroom. Josh and Angie were missing due to already explained reasons, the class rep wasn't at her desk either (though I could see her bag on it, so maybe she was just on an errand), and as for the princess, she was fashionably late, as usual.

Just as I was thinking about her, I noticed a tuft of golden hair fluttering by the entrance. I focused my attention over there and, after a couple of seconds, the rest of the princess's head also came into view as she peeked in. I pointed at her as I turned to my assistant.

"For example, her."

Judy's gaze followed my finger to the confused blonde (in fact she might as well have had a giant red question mark over her head at this point) and then immediately looked back to me.

"She isn't here, I cannot bother her."

"She is over there because of you. She is shy and doesn't know what to make of you."

"Is that so?"

We looked over again, and by this point the princess had about three question marks, so I decided to end her self-imposed exile and waved for her to come over. She was hesitant at first, but then she glared at me (or maybe it was Judy?), straightened herself, and strut into the classroom with the dignity of royalty. A peevish, sulky, and slightly awkward one, but royalty all the same.

"Good morning, princess!" I greeted her with an extra fifty percent of cheeriness to try and ease her up a little, but it didn't quite work.

"Who is that?" she inquired as she pointed at my assistant, and this time it was my turn to frown.

"Don't be rude," I scolded her, and to my sincerest surprise, she immediately toned down the passive-aggressive scowling. It still wasn't perfect though, so I proceeded to introduce them to each other to ease the situation a little. "She is my assistant, Judy-bot. She is the cutting edge in artificial note-taking technology. Isn't that right?"

A long beat of silence hung in the air for a few seconds, so I hastily sent a meaningful glance at Judy, and she finally responded to my prompt with a flat yet somehow at the same time uncertain, "Beep-beep?"

"Wait, no, that's wrong, "I interjected right away. "That's something a forties robot would say! You are cutting edge! You're supposed to have a better voice modulator!"

She looked at me blankly for a few seconds, but then she puckered her lips and let out a series of dull, hissing sounds before she turned her disappointed eyes down.

"I can't whistle."

"Ah, my deepest condolences," I said in a low voice. "I'm sure it will get implemented in the next patch."

She didn't respond, so I peeked at the other girl, and she was befuddled to the point of hilarity. Once she noticed that I was looking at her, she let out a small, confused noise and then uttered, "Are you serious?"

"No," we answered in unison and the princess's face immediately flushed crimson.

"Then what was that all about?!"

"You seemed down, so I thought I try to cheer you up with some levity?" I ventured a half-truth, and my words instantly stole some of the wind from the princess's sails and her outrage deflated like a faulty balloon. It was at this moment that Judy took the opportunity to close the gap.

"I am Judy Sennoma. We already met."

"We have?"

"On the day you transferred."

The princess pondered for a moment, but ultimately shook her head with a complicated expression.

"Sorry, I cannot remember. So many people said hi, it all blends together." That comment actually raise my interest? Mayne she can't tell placeholders apart? Both Judy and I had the same idea, as we reached for our respective notes, then we both froze mid-motion as we noticed what the other was doing. The princess on the other hand didn't notice any of this. "At any rate, you still didn't answer my question!"

"Which one?

"About what she's doing here!"

"We already answered that," Judy informed her, and I confirmed her words with a nod.

"Yeah, I told you she is my assistant."

"But what does that even mean?!"

"She is helping me with research," I answered calmly. "It's an extracurricular paper."

"Oh? The one you asked the nurse about?"

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"The one and the same," I replied with a reassuring smile, and all of a sudden her cloudy expression completely cleared up.

"Why didn't you just say that in the first place? Idiot." With that, the princess sat down and entered pouting mode. As she did so, I couldn't help but notice that she was still favoring one of her legs.

"How's your ankle?"

She looked back at me with a startle and hurriedly declared, "It's perfectly fine!"

"Are you sure? I've heard it from Josh that yesterday you hurt it again."

The girl blushed, this time obviously not from anger. It was a welcome sign; I was just about to get bored with her being angry at me all the time.

"I thought it healed, but I guess it will need a few more days..."

"You should really take better care of yourself," I gently warned her, then for good measure I also added, "You shouldn't tackle people on the street, especially when you are injured."

"W-Why do you even care?!"

I sighed. Fury-free princess was nice while it lasted...

"Because you are clumsy and I'm worried that you hurt yourself again," I explained in my most harmlessly amiable voice, yet it only made her even more furious.

"Stop doing that!"

"Stop doing what?"

"Saying things like that!"

"Listen, princess, I told you this already, but you can't just tell your friends not to worry about you. That's not how friends work."

Her eyes opened wide and she let out one of her cutesy squeaks before she turned around and hid her head under her arms. Great. Now we were back to this again. Two steps forwards, one step back.

"Chief, are you done flirting?" Judy demonstrated her horrible sense of timing at my side, earning her a barbed glance in the process.

"I told you I am not flirting," I stated empathically.

"It sure looked like that from where I was standing."

"Then you were standing at the wrong place. Why not try another vantage point, like that one?"

Judy looked over to the place I was pointing and answered, "That's my desk. I cannot hear what you are saying from that far."

"Precisely."

She remained silent for a short while before stating, "Very well, I will come up with my own dialog then."

"No, wait! That sounds even worse!" It was at this point that I realized that our ribbing could be easily misunderstood, so I quickly leaned forward and poked the princess in the back to get her attention. "Listen, don't take what she says too seriously, she is just fixated on this for some reason. I really wasn't even trying to flirt."

Suddenly the princess snapped up and pointed a silent but incredibly cutting glare at me. For the next couple of seconds I tried to meet her gaze, and just when I was about to give up she abruptly yelled out, "Shut up, shut up, shut up!!! I hate you, I hate you, I hate you!!!", and with that, she fell over her desk again and covered her head with her hands.

I blinked once, twice, and then gave a withering glance to my assistant.

"You see what you've done?" I grumbled and pointed at the still slightly trembling princess. She looked over, ever-so-slightly shrugged her shoulders, and promptly turned on her heel. "Hey, don't just walk away at your own leisure!"

She didn't listen to me, but instead she wordlessly took a seat. I was still groaning in defeat and massaging my forehead when I heard the creaking of a chair beside me. I looked over and nearly fell out of mine when I saw Josh. The guy was not only disheveled, but he also had the print of a slender hand clearly outlined on his cheek in red. I almost had to get a double-take before I managed to speak.

"And just what happened to you?"

He looked at me with tired eyes and exhaled in a pained groan.

"Angie asked me for help. She and Ammy had to carry some handouts to the teacher's office and they wanted a boy to do the heavy lifting."

"What does that have to do with the handprint?"

"I'm getting there. So, we were carrying these giant stacks of photo-copying paper down the stairs when there was a breeze. It sent a few papers from the top flying, so Ammy tried to catch them, but she slipped and fell on me..."

"Ooooh..." I nodded to myself sagely. "I can see where this is going..."

"So," Josh continued wearily. "I tried to break her fall and I might have... accidentally..."

"You cupped a feel?"

"No! I mean, maybe I touched it a little, but it was a total accident!"

"I hear you. So, what happened next? Did the class rep slap you?"

"That's the weirdest part!" Josh exclaimed with an ocean of indignation. "In was Angie! And then she ran away and I had to gather all the fallen papers!"

"That's cold."

"Yeah... Girls are weird, man."

I glanced over at the princess on the front and my assistant at the rear, and for the first time, I was inclined to wholeheartedly agree with my friend.

"They are Josh. They sure are."

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