Returning to No Applause, Only More of the Same

School again. As usual, the only thing that made school even slightly interesting to Jay was the presence of Wiedermann and his flame. In all other regards, she would much rather have been at home.

Entering English class, she again found her eyes drawn to the woman sitting in the front next to the whiteboard. Erica was wearing a knee-length yellow dress, decorated with pink and orange flowers. Perfectly normal. Among the other teachers, her only real stand-out feature was that she seemed to have an actual passion for teaching.

Jay placed her things on her desk. As with the last lesson, this one would surely also be spent with a short lecture followed by time to work alone. The only way Jay could imagine a better lesson would be if it was spent entirely by working alone. She had quite a bit left to go on her article, after all.

“Hey.” Startled, Jay turned to the left, where she found Annie staring at her oddly. “What’s going on between you and Gerald?”

Jay blinked at her. “Between me and-, no. Nothing is going on.”

Annie frowned deeply and turned away from Jay, looking at the blank whiteboard. “I don’t think I’ve seen you two talk for like… Almost a month now?” She glanced back at Jay, giving her a blank, quizzical stare. “Seriously. What is going-,”

Two claps rang out and the class quieted. “Alright class, good morning again! Before we get back to writing, I would like to discuss a few narrative devices…”

Being an honourable girl, Jay knew Annie wouldn’t talk again as long as Erica continued her lecture. But once that was over, she’d get on her ass again. This would be a problem, since Jay still needed Annie to be on her good side. See, Annie liked Gerald. They were good friends, no question about it. Hence, if Annie found out that Gerald had shoved away Jay, she might make the false conclusion that he had a good reason for doing so. If she followed suit, Jay would have to do an illegal activity or two in order to get a hold of Annie’s letter.

At least she was lucky that Gerald hadn’t gone out of his way to tell Annie what had happened. That would’ve messed up quite a lot for her.

“-Of course, you guys don’t have to use any of these, but if you feel that they might make your story better, by all means!” Erica said, finishing the lecture.

Understanding that the time had come, the other students began bringing up their computers and whatever else they used to write with. In the meanwhile, Erica began walking around, talking with a few students about their stories and what they might do with them. The only surprise was that Erica had somehow been able to remember all of their ideas and concepts.

Jay scoffed at the sight but immediately regretted it when she found Annie giving her the stink-eye. Somehow, it seemed Annie had already picked her side in the matter. And, as always, it sure wasn’t the right side. Did nobody ever think things through?

Silently gnashing her teeth, Jay brought up her article. She hadn’t gotten all too far with it, but the really important thing was that she had more information now than she did before. Not enough to write a truly comprehensive report, but enough to get started.

“How’s it going?”

Jay jumped almost a foot in the air before finally turning her head to find Erica leaning over her shoulder, smiling innocently. Jay suppressed the urge to either slap closed her laptop or to punch Erica. “Yeah, it’s, uh… Going good. Yeah.”

Somehow, Erica smiled in what seemed to be genuine interest. “That’s great! I’m actually really-, well, I mean, you’re writing something totally different, but… Did you know you can use narrative devices and such even while writing an article? Maybe not a scientific one, though...”

“Huh?” Jay could feel herself grimace in confusion. She pointed at the article, still visible on her screen. “How in the-?...”

“Yeah!” Erica smiled brightly, her eyes shining up in excitement as she began to ramble about how journalism also had a purpose to entertain, and that a strong use of language can help bring a story to life. Even though she was speaking fast and strangely, Jay found herself somewhat captivated by it. As ashamed as she was to admit it, she hadn’t really considered trying to make an article feel like a story. Weren’t journalists supposed to report on the truth alone?

Listening intently, Jay actually felt a smidge sad when Erica finished her small lesson by saying, “Well, do you think that might help?”

“Uh?” Jay said stupidly. “Oh, yeah, of course! I’ll…” She turned back to the article, mainly composed of objective statements and blank descriptions. “Yeah. I’ll make good use of it.”

Genuine relief and enthusiasm showed on Erica’s face. “In that case-,”

“No, wait!” Jay said more forcefully than intended. Erica looked at her owlishly. “Just… Could I ask a few questions?”

Erica blinked at her for a few seconds. “Sure! Are you writing an article on teachers? I’d love to feature in it!” Hearing a teacher squeal about something so stupid felt strange, but in the end, Jay could only experience it as somewhat charming.

“Yeah, uh…” She glanced off, suddenly unsure of how to ask. “Do you-, is… What do you know about Kreig Wiedermann?”

Erica’s expression froze. “He-, I-,” Her eyes darted to the left and right frantically. “The PE teacher?” Jay nodded stiffly. “Well…” A faint blush spread across her face. “I think he’s nice!”

Ah. Yeah. She didn’t know. Looking back at her article, Jay suddenly couldn’t bring herself to ask any more questions. “Thanks. That was… That was all I needed to hear, so…” Looking back at Erica, she found the woman staring at her with a strange lustre in her bright eyes. “Wh-, what is it?”

Erica clasped her hands behind her back and smiled. “I think you’ll make for a great journalist.”

Jay’s mouth floundered open and she stared wide-eyed at her teacher. Giving a grin, Erica patted her on the shoulder and left to talk to other students. Leaving Jay to simmer in confusion and uncertainty.

Do you know what it takes to be a journalist?

I’m sorry, Jay, but we can’t afford something like that.

Can’t you think of anything else? Something… Useful?

Jay clenched her hands into fists. She tried to focus her attention on the article, but before her eyes, the purpose of it seemed to shift somewhat. Looking at it, she couldn’t honestly say that she wanted it to hurt Erica. After all, she didn’t want to hurt Erica. Erica… was just a normal girl. She didn’t deserve any of this, and this man, this monster, had just inserted himself into her life without ever letting her know the truth.

But Jay could change that, couldn’t she? She could make Erica understand.

On the thick of it, a single human life didn’t mean much in this world. But maybe it would be enough? If Jay was lucky, if the world was lucky, then maybe Wiedermann would leave once Erica split with him. Or he’d just show his true colours. She couldn’t know and she wasn’t about to pretend she ever would.

Either way, if she couldn’t get information out of Gerald or Erica, then there was only one obvious avenue left to try. It would be dangerous, but she had already prepared herself for this situation.

She was going to meet with Wiedermann personally.

On the other side of the school, Kreig easily moved towards the cafeteria. It was regrettable, but on this day in particular he and Erica could not eat lunch at the same time, leaving him a little lonely. Sure, some of the other teachers had begun speaking with him and letting him into the conversation, but he still missed Erica. He wasn’t sure why the other teachers were teasing him about it. Was there something strange about missing another teacher?

At least he was able to meet her in the hallway on his way back to the gymnasium. She smiled at him and he looked at her and they both gave a nod. He wanted to hug her and to lift her up and twirl her around the hallway, but by now he had come to understand that this was not appropriate behaviour for a school. Still, seeing her certainly made his mood improve, not that it had been low before.

To think that he was finally following in Peter’s footsteps…

He returned to class. As of late, he had started incorporating quite a few games into the classes, which was met with great enthusiasm from the students. Furthermore, he had also added games he could remember seeing his soldiers playing in-between battles. These, too, had been met with excitement. Though, as might be expected, a few elements of these games had to be changed or flat-out removed.

Either way, Kreig enjoyed his role. The students seemed to have grown to like his presence, though most still considered him a true challenge whenever he joined in a game himself. Such situations were exceedingly rare, but whenever they happened, Kreig made sure not to be all-too dominating. But even with his physical abilities suppressed to the brink, his mere presence was enough to make the other teams or players frightened into ineptitude.

Kreig found it fun. It was as simple as that.

But during this lesson, something felt a little strange. It was Gerald’s class that stood before him, which usually meant that it would be very fun. But Gerald wasn’t there. Now that Kreig thought about it, he hadn’t seen Gerald all that often as of lately. It felt strange, but it was probably just a sickness of some sort. Even though Gerald should have been protected from such bugs.

But there was something else as well. Someone was looking at him with malice.

The intensity and the feeling of the gaze actually reminded him of the presence, but somehow, this gaze was even more furious. The presence always seemed somewhat distant and cold, but this was almost burning. Apart from those surface differences, there was the obvious fact that the presence couldn’t possibly be some student. In a class he taught himself, too.

Hoping it was just someone holding a grudge over some small, past infraction, he initiated the games of the day.

Around halfway through the second game, Jay tripped and hurt her elbow. Surprisingly, she actually approached him on her own, which she was usually too shy to do. But in this case, he was happy she had done so since the injury was actually a little more than normal. She had a small scratch, sure, but she had somehow actually succeeded in gaining a hairline fracture as well. Kreig was somewhat surprised that she had gotten such an injury from a seemingly innocuous fall. Of course, it might have been there all along, but for Jay herself to have never noticed it? A bit strange.

Knowing that the injury could easily worsen, Kreig led her over to the bleachers. If he was sneaky enough about it, he could heal her in a matter of seconds without her ever having to go to a doctor.

With his goal set, Kreig brought out a small first-aid kit. Looking back at her, he found her eyes intense and hateful.

Confused, he looked at her for a few seconds, unsure of what could rouse such immense loathing. Pouting, she turned away from him. Well… that was certainly strange. He tried to take an easy hold of her arm to apply a band-aid, but instead, he found that she recoiled from his touch. Now he was just even more confused.

She hissed in pain. Kreig really wasn’t sure what to tell her, but after a few seconds of her looking at her lightly scratched arm, she returned it to him. He took it gratefully. Now, if he could just distract her for a few seconds so he could heal her…

“Hey,” Jay said reproachfully and he glanced up from her arm to look her in the eye. “What’s your relationship with Erica?”

His mouth fell open. “That’s…” He gulped and pulled himself together. Glancing out over the students bustling, he felt his cheeks grow a little hot. “She is… Nice. I like her quite a lot.” Though, by all means, he couldn’t really understand why she might ask such a thing. Was there already a rumour abound?

For a few minutes, Jay continued asking him strange questions. Unsure how to answer most of them, he answered as dismissively as he could. During the whole of it, he slowly came to understand that she had all the makings of a fantastic interrogations officer. Her only downfall was that Kreig had been quite good at it himself once upon a time. The strangest moment would have been when she grew upset over the possibility that Kreig might want to get even closer to Erica. It was all very strange. So, once he saw her clicking her tongue and turning away, he quickly applied a little bandaid to the scratch before silently casting a spell.

White Hand (X)

He felt carefully how her bones easily mended themselves without leaving a single trace of injury behind. However, as it always is with these types of spells, it also served to heal various other bodily damages, such as hormonal imbalances, gut health and serotonin scarcity.

As might be expected, Jay’s head swivelled around to face him, her eyes wide and surprised. But, for a few seconds, she was completely unable to react to what had just happened to her. Taking the opportunity in hand, Kreig told her she’d feel better now and that if she wanted to, she could just remain on the bleachers for the rest of the lesson. In a daze, she did not respond. All the better for Kreig, who was able to leave her.

During the rest of the lesson, her gaze held only a fraction of the overt animosity exuded earlier.

He didn’t mind, but it did make him question why she would seem so hateful to begin with.