Returning to No Applause, Only More of the Same

“I don’t know him,” Gerald said evasively. “He’s not a man I have ever met before.”

“Come on, we both know that isn’t true. You barely talk to the other teachers, not to speak of the students. Why would you start a conversation with him if you didn’t already know him? He looked terrifying, to boot! Why, I’d bet most youths wouldn’t approach a criminal like that for any reason.” Her reasoning was solid and yet Gerald wouldn’t humour her in the least. As a matter of fact, he would barely even meet her gaze.

“Scared like you were?” Gerald asked carefully.

Jay sputtered. “I-, I wasn’t scared or anything! Just because he was huge and big and large doesn’t mean I’d just get all scared of him or anything! It’s just a matter of-,”

“Of trying to hide from people bigger than you? It’s very alike you.”

A fierce flush of shame overtook Jay’s face. “It-, that’s not…” But before she could drag herself into a tirade about how she wasn’t a scaredy-cat or how it was more so that she feared bold people who withheld no secrets, she realized his ploy. He was just trying to get her to talk, even at the cost of his own standing in her mind. A mild insult to get her blabbering trying to protect herself. “Th-, though, isn’t it weird how he let you skip almost the entire warm-up exercise just to talk to you? If he didn’t know you, why would he show you any favouritism?”

“I… How should I know what a teacher is thinking?” Gerald said, crossing his arms. “I barely know anything about this world, least of all the emotions and thoughts of its inhabitants. As a matter of fact, I didn’t even know it was unusual to speak to your P.E teacher before now. In the other world, I had no teachers…” At this point, Gerald began explaining his conditions of life in the other world, about how he’d only ever been raised by his siblings and all these sorts of things. Jay would’ve been interested if she hadn’t already dragged this out of him by force. So, she promptly zoned out while Gerald described, in minute detail, how his every day went.

He got up when the sun got up, helped his father on the fields, played with his only friend… While Gerald made a point of deeply explaining every single detail, Jay lost track of her arguments fully. Once Gerald got to the point in his life’s story where he was drafted to fight enemies, Jay had already let her eyes wander as well. Any attempt she made to stop Gerald from talking was feeble and quickly defeated by his sheer intent. So, she looked around his room. Wooden walls with a wallpaper of ducks and little helping elves sleeping beneath a lilypad. Old wooden desk that was smoothly carved in some places. Wooden cupboard. There was a lamp on his desk.

She turned to look out the only window, which showed the park outside. The curtains weren’t drawn, but if Gerald needed them, he could draw them, she supposed. Gerald’s words were beginning to meld together. She just wanted to sleep.

Finally, she turned her bleary gaze to the single point of interest in Gerald’s room: the painting. It seemed to mostly be a landscape piece, with much of the painting being taken up by swirling waves and a luscious sky. The rest was taken up by a person. No, wait, two people, the second was just-,

Jay squinted, furrowing her brows. Was that her fucking P.E teacher?

Why the hell did Gerald have a picture of Wiedermann in his room? No, wait, on closer inspection, the other person in the painting was… Well, assuming she hadn’t gone blind or something (a quick rub of the eyes proved that), it was Gerald himself. Being held by Wiedermann. It was a very tender picture. Quaint. Strange in every way possible.

For one thing, they were both dressed like prisoners. Wiedermann had an orange jumpsuit, complete with some weird neck-brace (collar? really weird) and Gerald had a red one. The difference in colour was really slight but Jay was assured they were different. Then, one might ask, why the hell were Gerald and Wiedermann in prisoner jumpsuits? And why were they hugging?...

“...And then I got to my second battle, where I was stabbed in the leg and almost died…” Gerald was still going on and on about his life.

Jay inched closer to the painting, ignoring how Gerald’s voice raised a pitch. Yup, it was definitely Wiedermann and Gerald. The likeness was staggeringly well-done. Who painted this? She knew for a fact that Gerald was trash at all artistic things, so there wasn’t a chance in hell that he painted it. Hm. Either way, the painting was clearly based on a real event. Nobody but Wiedermann and Gerald are visible in the picture. Did… Did Wiedermann paint it himself?

It was an unlikely situation, but one that made sense, all things considered. Right.

To summarize, they knew each other before, namely when they were in prison. Huh? Wait… Hm. Well, Gerald had said that he’d been in a prison for otherworlders before this. So, while in prison, he knew Wiedermann. Right. In other words, Wiedermann is an otherworlder.

Jay drew a sharp breath. “Why was Wiedermann released from the otherworlder’s prison?”

Gerald choked on his words. “I… I’m sorry?”

“You knew Wiedermann while you were both in prison. In fact, you were rather close. Lov-,”

“H-, hold your tongue!” Gerald stammered, face red as a tomato.

Jay grinned slyly, knowing she got him off-balance now. “I’m just joking, Gerald. I know you don’t swing that way. Ah, but you still didn’t answer my question. Why did they release him?”

Gerald grit his teeth tightly, face dark. “He… He deserved it. He deserved to be a normal person.”

A smile easily found its way onto Jay’s face. After all, she’s finally got her leeway. A confession of everything. “Was he not a normal person before arriving in this world?” Privately, Jay wondered how the arrival of such a high-levelled person could have evaded the public eye.

Gerald clenched his fists tightly. “The kind of person he was could never be normal.” In his voice, Jay could hear the faintest tremble of a deep-seated fear. The kind that could never wash out. “But… But that doesn’t mean he can’t be normal. Really, that’s what he needs. So… Please. I beg of you, Jay, don’t pursue this further. What he was before this doesn’t matter. What he is now is what he will remain.”

Calmly, Jay set her face into a mask of neutrality. Pretending as though his words had no effect on her. “The world deserves to know, Gerald. A man like that can’t just be a footnote in the history of the world.”

With eyes as hard and sharp as the edge of a sword, Gerald stared at her. “I know that. But you… You don’t know anything. Not about him, not about the world.” Between the two youngsters, tension flared through the air. “You… You won’t let this go, will you?”

Jay averted her gaze. “I can’t.” As though it was possible for her to stop at this point. “Could you?”

“I already have.”