Chapter 44: ~Chapter 14~ Part 1

"Good morning, Chief, " Judy greeted me at our usual meeting spot.

"Morning," I answered off-handedly before leaning closer to her face. She didn't flinch, though she seemed a little confused by my behavior. "Just as expected. You have circles under your eyes."

"It's your fault," she replied with the tiniest of pouts as she started walking, urging me to catch up with her. "You talk too much and it gets late by the time we finish."

"Excuse me? Aren't you the one who keeps calling me in the middle of the night even though I keep telling you to make it earlier?"

"I told you I can't make it earlier. My parents would notice."

"And why is that a bad thing?"

For a moment it seemed like she would answer right away, but then she closed her mouth and made me wait for a few seconds. "It would be awkward."

"I don't see what you are getting at," I told her, but before I could ask her to clarify we both noticed Joshua down the street waving at us, and thus the conversation quickly got forgotten.

"Hey guys," he greeted us with a toothy smile before falling in line on my other side. "What were you arguing about?"

"We weren't arguing," Judy answered flatly while retrieving her phone, an action I have long since identified as her way of jumping out of a conversation she didn't want to take part in.

"Really? It looked like one from where I was standing." Josh paused, and when he spoke again, he had a knowing smile on his face. "Oooooh, I get it. It's one of those kinds of quarrels."

"What are you talking about?"

"Oh, you know," he answered, his smile gaining an impish quality that would have been more at home at Angie's face. The girl was a bad influence on him. However, before I could form an eloquent answer that in no way involved embarrassedly punching him in the shoulder, we rounded a corner and the sight in front of us once again derailed the conversation.

It was a rare sight, the princess and Snowy all by themselves. More surprisingly though, the two of them seemed to be staring daggers at each other, and even at a distance, I could tell that Snowy was in her vamp mode. It was all in the body language. Anyways, we looked at each other with Josh and hurried our steps without saying a word, though I admit I was tempted to say, ‘You see, that's a quarrel.'

Once we got close enough, I could finally make out snippets of their conversation, though their growling made it somewhat hard to understand.

"I'm just saying, you have to make up your mind!" Snowy hissed with a glare that looked wholly alien on her face.

"It is none of your business!" the princess answered, her glare obviously being much more natural.

"It is! I care about both of them!"

"Oh really? Then who needs to make up her mind? You or--"

It was at this point that the princess noticed us and she paled as she frantically tried to bite back her words.

"Morning," I greeted both of them with an innocent smile. The princess nodded in response, though her eyes were still wide open and she seemed to be mortified, probably worried about just how much of the conversation we had heard.

Snowy, on the other hand, was flushing red and she cleared her throat and kept sheepishly glancing between us.

"Um... Hi. I didn't notice you coming."

"Right..." Josh muttered before flashing an awkward smile. "I guess we should've called out to you earlier, huh?"

"Hindsight, it's 20/20," I said with a shrug before turning to the still pale princess. "Is everything all right?"

"Yes," she squeaked in an uncharacteristically high voice before she caught herself, and before I could say anything else she turned heel and rushed down the street with what I presumed was one of her muffled cutesy squeals.

"Well, I haven't seen that reaction in a while," I whispered under my breath, then turned to Snowy. "What were you two arguing about?"

"Um... I can't... I mean... It's girl stuff. "

"Oh... I see."

"You can tell me then," Judy suddenly declared while pocketing her phone.

Snowy looked at her and her mouth seemed like it was about to say ‘no', but then she paused, obviously thinking hard for a moment or two, and then she nodded.

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"Good girl," my assistant cooed, which sounded quite weird with her usual flat tone, and patted Snowy on the head. When she noticed my slightly surprised expression she gave me a questioning look and stopped rubbing her head with a final motion that managed to give the white-haired girl the mother of all cowlicks. "Is there a problem?"

"No, I was just surprised how familiar you two were acting, that's all."

"I'm just doting on my cute junior."

"I see."

In the meantime, Snowy straightened her hair and the four of us fell in line and continued our morning commute. For some reason my assistant was really adamant about voicing her opinion on how I couldn't stop her from being friendly with Snowy even if I tried. I had a feeling there might've been some hidden subtext there, but for the love of me I couldn't figure out what it was.

We arrived at school with about ten minutes to spare. I nodded at the armband guy by the gate, as usual, l and he returned the gesture even though he seemed to be disapproving of my presence no matter whether I was on time or not. Our group broke apart, switched shoes, and banded together again with the perfect timing of a well-oiled machine. We were already walking up the stairs by the time I noticed something that should have been blindingly obvious already.

"By the way, where's Angie?"

Josh shrugged his shoulders. "Early morning tennis practice. They are going to have a tournament soon."

"Really? She never mentioned it..." I responded, but as far as I knew she might have. She had a bit of a motor-mouth, so keeping track of everything she said could be a little challenging from time to time.

Once we reached our floor we said goodbye to Snowy and the rest of us headed for the classroom. I made a special note of Angie, who was sprawled over her desk and all but snoring. She wasn't a morning person to begin with, so I figured the early practice knocked her out cold. I couldn't see the class rep at her desk, so I scanned the room and found her standing over by the princess. Josh and I made our way over to them and Judy wordlessly followed after us.

"Morning," I greeted the two with a reserved smile.

"Good morning Leo," Ammy answered reflexively, but then she frowned at me, earning a raised eyebrow in turn. "Is this your doing?" she asked while gesturing to the princess.

I followed her motion and took a closer look at the girl in question. She was sitting by her desk as usual, and while she had her head down and buried in her arms, said pose wasn't unusual enough (at least for her, considering her previous outbursts) to justify the class rep's question. I looked over to Josh and he looked just as confused as I felt.

"Hey, Elly? Is everything all right?" he asked tentatively while reaching out a hand. The princess twitched and shook her head while it was still buried in her arms.

"Shut up! I don't want to talk to you!"

"Ouch, princess. That's harsh," I remarked, at which she shook her head even harder.

"Shut up! I don't want to talk to you either! Leave me alone!"

We all looked at each other and the class rep gestured for us to move to her desk. We all did so before she asked, "What happened?"

"We don't really know either," I told her with the utmost sincerity. "She had a fight with Snowy in the morning, but it didn't seem that serious."

"About what?"

"We don't know, they stopped when we got close," Josh supplied the answer this time around.

The class rep didn't say anything and glanced over to the princess, concern clearly showing on her face. After a little consideration, I tapped her shoulder to get her attention and dusted off my best reassuring smile.

"Don't worry about it. I'm sure they will make up in no time."

"I don't know... Telling you off is one thing, but she also chased Joshua away. That's not normal."

For a moment I debated whether I should get offended by her jab, but I decided it wasn't too far off from the truth, so I changed the subject instead.

"Judy said she would get the reason out of Snowy, right?" I nodded towards my assistant and she awkwardly nodded back. "Until then, let's give the princess a little personal space. Don't stress over it."

The class rep didn't seem one hundred percent satisfied with my suggestion, but ultimately she relented and everyone returned to their seats without bothering the princess. Of course, since she was sitting right in front of me it was a little harder for me to ignore her, but somehow I managed to restrain my nosiness.

It was almost time for the lesson to start when my phone vibrated in my breast pocket. I sneakily took it out and took a peak at the sender before I sent an inquisitive glance at my assistant. She shook her phone in her hand, which probably indicated I should read her text message. I rolled my eyes and opened said message, and before I knew it my eyebrows were already climbing my forehead in surprise.

Somehow, my assistant managed to write about 500 words in the span of the few minutes since she sat down. Not only that, it was an extremely dryly written message that sounded more like a formal letter than something a teenage girl would write... except that it was also full of emoji and other emoticons, half of which I have never even seen before. In retrospect, I suppose her writing style reflected her personality surprisingly well, but it was still a little jarring at the time.

Anyways, to sum her message up: it said she exchanged texts with Snowy and she promised she would tell me what the two were arguing about in private. She also warned me not to get too involved in what was happening and to just observe. I sighed and sent her back a quick reply of grudging agreement.

To put it bluntly, I wanted to get involved, even against Judy's wishes. While this fight in the morning did shake up the ennui I was falling into, it also smelled like drama, and I really, really didn't want to have that. Either way, our textual conversation ended when Mrs. Applebottom showed up and we began another perfectly average school day.

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