"𝖨𝗍'𝖽 𝗍𝖺𝗄𝖾 𝗁𝗈𝗎𝗋𝗌 𝗍𝗈 𝖾𝗑𝗉𝗅𝖺𝗂𝗇," 𝖨 𝗌𝖺𝗂𝖽.
"𝖨'𝖽 𝗅𝗂𝗌𝗍𝖾𝗇 𝗍𝗈 𝗒𝗈𝗎 𝖿𝗈𝗋 𝗁𝗈𝗎𝗋𝗌," 𝗁𝖾 𝗌𝖺𝗂𝖽.

𝗧𝗬𝗣𝗜𝗖𝗔𝗟 𝗗𝗔𝗬𝗦 𝗢𝗙 𝗖𝗛𝗜𝗟𝗗𝗜𝗦𝗛 𝗕𝗜𝗖𝗞𝗘𝗥𝗜𝗡𝗚
𝗔𝗡𝗗 𝗦𝗧𝗨𝗣𝗜𝗗 𝗦𝗠𝗜𝗥𝗞𝗦
─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ──

"...Did you just," Maribel paused midway as her eyes scrunched in disbelief, "call me a rat..?" her brow raised in confusion, mirroring the uncertainty in her tone.

"What?" Kaiser blinked in puzzlement.

"You just called me rat, didn't you?" This time with much more certainty, she accused him once again with a frown.

"I didn't..?" he answered with a tilt in his head.

"No, you just did."

"No, I didn—"

"Yes, you did. Just now you did."

"I actually, didn't."

"You did. Don't even try to lie."

"Alright, fine. since you're so adamant on wanting to be called a rat, I did." He leaned down with a suggestive smirk, "does that please you?"

"Knew it." Maribel couldn't bite back the grin forming on her face, he had fallen right into her trap, "well if I'm a rat, then you're the vellakaren from ratatouille who doesn't know how to season food."

"What?"

"How does it feel to be bested in cooking by some sewer rat? Hmm?"

"Maribel! I already told you to be quiet!" The shrill of her teacher was quick to shut her up.

"Eugh— sorry..." A quiet apology left her mouth as she winced in embarrassment. How many time had that been now? Twice or thrice even? With a slouched posture, she leaned down on the table, avoiding all eye contact with Kaiser with hopes to restrain herself from spewing out the colourful words running through her mind. It's all his damn fault!

"...You crying there?" He peeked down towards her to get a close up on her face, and probably tease her about her tears. Weirdo.

"Huh?" Rather than answering his question (because she hadn't even heard what he said in the first place, hence why she questioned him back), she turned to give him an unpleasant glare. Something told her whatever he said was nothing close to an apology, he's probably mocking me.

"Woah! What's with the sudden hostility, raconteuse?" He reeled back, raising his hands in mock surrender.

"..." Giving him an unimpressed look, she carried on with her work, ignoring him. Completely dismissing his words, his existence with intentions to avoid being told off for the nth time, for something she didn't even do.

And her attempts of ignoring him didn't sit right with Kaiser, the menacing smile on his face would be enough of a laxative for someone struggling with severe constipation. How dare some measly commoner ignore him?

The emperor, fucking-Kaiser.

"..." The silence that followed after was deafening. surely he hadn't just given up like that, right? There was no way, it was all most too good to be true. Well still, that works for me. Maribel was quick to put her doubts aside and appreciate the peace, that'd soon be short-lived of course. The task was to write a small paragraph relating to the themes of a literature piece they were studying. Fairly easy, she thought to herself before meticulously writing a bunch of scribbles she called writing.

But, oh so suddenly, that peace had been shortly interrupted. Her right arm that had been laid on the table pacifistically was forcefully nudged with no remorse, by another arm. And it's not that it was particularly painful or anything, Kaiser made sure it wasn't, but Maribel had just realised the extent to her current predicament. Averting the thought of making a fuss, it might've been an accident on Kaiser's part, most likely not though, she placed her arm back and carried on writing, this time much slower.

Her eyes frequently glanced back towards Kaiser's left arm remaining conscious of the possibility he may accidentally nudge her again. This time though, she'd surely avoid it. But when it never came, she shrugged and dropped her guard, solely focusing on her work whilst thinking back on the tattoo that peaked through his hand. A tiara no less, this guy literally loves the idea of royalty that much, huh? It was a mistake on her behalf to loose her train of thought, because Kaiser was awaiting for this specific moment. So when he nudged her agin, this time with much more force, her wrist lost footing and on accident, the pen ran a line through her page.

"..." Maribel stared lifelessly at her book that had a huge line crossing it, her pen screamed for help from how her fingers unconsciously gripped with vigour at the newly added setback. Oh, and he didn't just stop right there, there was this constant nudge that'd snap her out of her haze anytime she'd disassociate to remain calm, to stop her mouth from running and painting his prosaically greyish brown canvas with lots of colour.

Control thy anger, her inner voice preached; she really couldn't anymore. "What's your damn problem man?" She questioned through clenched teeth.

"Nothing~ why?" He drawled playfully with a boyish grin.

"Bro, move." She defended against another incoming nudge.

"I'm left-handed," he feigned, nudging her back as if it were some new communication system, "it can't be helped."

"Tch, you'd think someone who's repulsed by my germs would know shit about personal space." If nudging him back wasn't going to stop him, she'd try a new tactic.

"I'll move only if you tell me another story, raconteuse."

"Bro what— the hell you want a bedtime story for?" After his book was within her hand's reach, her wrist furtively moved towards it. Kaiser stared down at his book when he noticed how her eyes would occasionally glance down at it. And to no surprise, she was mindlessly scribbling in it. Once she had realised he had noticed, her movement slowed down before coming to an awkward stop.

"..." The two silently stared at the scribble and before she could react, Kaiser had grabbed her pencil case out of sight and placed it above her head. Tauntingly dangling it out of reach as the contents threatened to spill out and cause a ruckus.

"Ah—! give it back!" She whisper-yelled, praying nothing would fall out and disrupt the noiseless classroom.

"Nope." He replied popping the 'p' and shaking his head.

"Ugh— fine! Dammit... what'd you wanna hear about anyway?" She gave in when realising she had a choice of either swallowing her pride or jumping up and reaching for it herself. Embarrassing, blurgh. She'd much rather, eat shit.

"Good choice," he praised before bringing the case down and pushing it in her direction, though his palm remained on it as a form of extra measure in case she didn't stick to her word.

Maribel noticing this, scowled at the distrust. "I'm not someone who goes back on my word y'know." She looked around to make sure their teacher wasn't looking in her direction, completely unaware of the rapt look passing his eyes.

"..."

"...well?" She urged him to continue with a raise of a perfect brow when she was met with silence.

"Uh, the guy dressed in the fish costume... what was that about?" He mumbled, shoving the thought of him acting foolishly when he accepted the 'truth' without real evidence to the back of his mind.

"..." the question had went over maribel's head, for she was too busy internally debating whether to tell him the truth or not. Deciding against the latter, the words were hushed with bashfulness. "A virgin guy that time travels."

"...what?" He finally spoke after an awkward pause.

"Yeah, I know."

"Oh..." Kaiser hadn't expected that, was she being dishonest? No, her tone seemed truthful, "is that— um... it?"

"Basically yeah."

Wanting to continue at this poor attempt of a conversation, he further inquired, "...is the fish guy, the time traveler?"

"Well not really, virgin guy and fish guy are 2 different guys."

"What d'you mean?"

Maribel pondered on how to explain the complicated story line, "fish guy does become a time traveler towards the end of the manga, so I guess you're right?"

"Manga?"

"Comics."

"Oh." He mulled over her words before a feign glint of repulse flashed his eyes, "you read cartoon."

"Hah?"

"You're one of those- what do they call 'em? weebs was it?" Her face dropped at the emphasise he put on what she was.

"No! I'm not," she repeatedly shook her head and motioned her hands to an 'X' in disagreement with a disgusted expression. I'd rather eat shit than be referred to that again.

"Yes, you are raconteuse."

"No I'm not."

"Yes you are."

"I'm not"

"Yes."

"No, no, no, no." She shook her head.

"Yes, yes, yes, yes." He nodded.

"What the hell do you watch then? Riverdwle?"

"Touché. And no, I don't watch cringe-worthy shows. I have something called a life." He flicked his hair like in them movies.

"Sure~ you have a life yet you choose to act out the life of others."

"Hmm?"

"You're in the school production— theatre club, right? That's what I mea—"

"Oh, my~ are you that obsessed with me that you know my business around school?"

"Bro I- literally saw you there yesterday."

"The day before yesterday, you mean."

"Yeah, yeah. It's not that deep, stop tryna act so smart."

"As much as I perform and act, being intelligent comes naturally for a prodigy like me." He flicked the fine strands of gold from his eyes again, a boastful aura secreting out of him.

"Alright then, what d'you get in german?"

"..."

"Yeah, that's what I thought pro-di-gy."

"And what d'you get in maths?"

"A single mark off the highest grade, you?"

"I got full marks, better luck next time, ra-con-teuse~."

"Eugh..." Maribel looked anywhere but his direction, voice lowering in octaves as she quickly muttered sarcastically, "gOoD jOb... i GuEsS."

"Exactly so— huh?" he paused when he had processed a snippet of her words, did she really... praise me?

"..."

"By the way, is it true you got ruskey fired for not giving you full marks?" She asked out of the blue, hoping to dispel the air of awkwardness.

"Eh? Rumours spread fast here, don't they?" His voice was somewhat lighter in tone, much more relaxed than usual.

"Mhm, yep."

"Well, he was threatening to participate in a coup, had to put the rebel back in its place, no?" And a pedo, he internally added with a raise of a hand.

"Oh, I also heard he really likes young girls. Kinda disappointing, huh?" She shook her head in disappointment, this school really is fucked up.

"You need not to worry," he soothed her worries with a reassuring smile and a thumbs up. "I'm sure he wouldn't like you."

"..."

"..." He waited with anticipation as she processed his words.

"Ex—flippin—cuse me?!" She blinked harshly with each syllable, incredulity visibly evident in her countenance. 

"Pfft—!" He bit back a chuckle at her colourful expression.

The days after this had proceeded. And what Maribel originally thought would be a one day, strange occurrence, was quickly discarded away. This strange, anomalous event soon became the new-normal for her. with this sudden change in her school life, it had a knock on effect: increasing her blood pressure, her stress levels and other factors which led to her being moments away from breaking point. What was the usual, peaceful, serene german lesson that had helped her relax amongst all her stresses was no more. It had become a new added obstacle instead.

Kaiser always, and i mean always, found some new and intricate ways to irritate her. Thing was, it didn't help much that these new and intricate ways actually worked in irritating her. Maribel's patience had truly been tested to the max these past few days.

For example, there was this one day where Maribel had supposedly 'lost' her exercise book, it was nowhere on her table, or in any of the book boxes where it usually would have been in. So Maribel then had to anxiously build up the courage to go up to their teacher, who definitely hated her by now, and say that she had lost her book whilst also asking for a piece of paper. She was extremely proud of herself for achieving such a great feat, though that pride quickly crumbled and shifted to humiliation when Kaiser pointed out that her book was on her table. She didn't believe him at first, thinking it was another one of his unfunny pranks, only thing was it actually wasn't a silly little lie this time.

And as every story goes, her book was actually on her table.

Their teacher proceeded to made it her life goal to then scold Maribel for her incompetence, and how her irresponsible actions were wasting everyone's time. It was a low blow for Maribel's already low confidence. but as much as Maribel felt guilty, there was also this strange sense of determination fuelled by her anger. How? It's not like it was some magic trick. Her rationale side tried arguing that somebody may have had the book whilst handing them out in the first place, hence why she couldn't find it in the box.

But her inner justifier, that blindly justified her actions, refused. A good point was that maribel had waited some time after all the books had been given out before she confirmed it was missing. That time was obviously spent on building up her courage to ask for a piece of paper, and that time was what their teacher was referring to when she was apparently 'wasting everyone's time'. Even if justifier didn't find the culprit for this incident, she surely would find somebody to put the blame on.

And imagine her surprise when she found out it was all Kaiser's scheming.

That was a actually sarcastic remark for those who didn't catch on, she wasn't the least bit surprised. Nope, not at all. how did she find out you ask? It was all visibly painted on his face, specifically his smirk. His stupid, stupid smirk.

Besides that, there were also these times where kaiser was just so damn fucking selfish. Like how anytime they had loose papers from a task, they were given the very limited supply of glues to stick in their work. Thing was, due to the fact that the glues were very limited, they were all quite shit too. some were dried out, some were reduced to the size of Kaiser's dick etc, etc, you get the point. Anyway, because they were so shit, it was always a competition to see who'd get the glue first. If you got it first, then naturally you got to use as much was available to stick in your work.

And Kaiser, oh fucking Kaiser, that piece of diabolical shit, was always so good at this damn, no-named competition. He was a piece of caca that leisurely took his time, glueing in his work, using as much glue was available, and if there was anything left, he'd have generous heart and usually ended up giving it to some other kid. Or if there wasn't anything left, he'd usually dangle it in front of Maribel's eyes, getting her hopes high but then end up snatching it away from her before she could even reach it.

And as she absolutely refused to try and get it off of him, he'd then end up pitying her, giving it to her and watching as her content expression morphed into rage when realising it was empty. It was just so entertaining.

So Maribel eventually got pissed. I mean, she always was to begin with but this time to the point her rage had powered her win the competition for the first time ever. Woohoo!!! she decided to give him a taste of his medicine. Taking an excruciatingly long time to glue it in, using whatever was left over, and giving him the empty container with a smug grin. Kaiser watched apathetically at her attempts before quickly pulling out a brand new glue stick (the expensive kind) from his pocket and glueing his work in.

Maribel remained still, like an idiot, dumbly watching as he dealt with an issue she greatly struggled against with such ease. Once he had finished glueing his work, he turned to her with his smirk. His stupid, stupid smirk and proceeded to tell her that a fly would enter her mouth if she didn't shut it.

Well played, Kaiser.
Well-fucking-played, Michael-fucking-Kaiser.

And on a more serious note, there was this other time where maribel had peacefully been doing her work whilst also doodling a few drawings that were 'S' class, as she liked to classify them. After all her hard-work, it was only necessary that she stretched to soothe her aching joints. Her pen was still in her hand whilst she did so, and on accident, she had drawn on Kaiser's face. Specifically his pale cheek that contrasted greatly against the black ink. Maribel immediately went to apologise, having completely forgotten of who was beside her, a bitch that definitely deserved it.

But when she remembered that it was actually a bitch that sat beside her, her apologies were quick to die down her throat. However, Kaiser seemed to take the vandalism on his face seemingly very— well? Surprisingly. In fact, he forgave her when she hadn't even apologised, that was when Maribel saw him in a new light. Funny thing was, the day after that Maribel was much more civil with him and in the middle of their teacher's lecture, he leaned over to her to tell her something.

And when