"𝗆𝗂𝗁𝗒𝖺?"
"𝗒𝖾𝗌, 𝗆𝗒 𝗋𝖺𝖼𝗈𝗇𝗍𝖾𝗎𝗌𝖾?"

𝗔𝗡 𝗘𝗡𝗗𝗘𝗔𝗥𝗜𝗡𝗚 𝗣𝗘𝗧 𝗡𝗔𝗠𝗘
─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ──

Perhaps Maribel was celebrating too early, but who could blame her? She had just escaped Kaiser's wrath by a hair's breadth and so the plethora of relief that encompassed her was blinding to her senses.

Whilst Maribel was scared shitless of the possible consequences she'd face in their german lesson, her countenance remained firm. Not divulging any signs of worry when in reality, she was sweating buckets. She hadn't spoke a word during that lesson and before any of those around her could question her behaviour, she was quick to say something about how tired she was or how the lesson was putting her to sleep. It seemed to work, for they had not bothered her after.

Aside from her not moving an inch and staying frigidly frozen, she occasionally felt an intense stare burning holes through her head which led to an excess amount of figurative tears flooding the caviller girl's mind. Her first thought was, 'when the hell was Kaiser fucking cross-eyed?!', but she soon dismissed the stupid idea. Maybe her mind was playing with her, she was probably just imaging it now that she was absolutely conscious of her surroundings, though that in itself didn't make much sense. If she was aware of her surroundings then surely she could notice the little things like someone staring, no? Hah.

Apart from the nerves she felt at the potential (negative) reaction from Kaiser and Lionie, there was also their german mock result that lurked behind the corner. Maribel inwardly grimaced at the thought, she couldn't choose between being excited or disquiet. Perhaps the former, being excited would make up for all the unease of today. Or actually, you know what sounded more plausible, maybe save all this emotion for another day because no way in hell was she going to stay behind to get her result back and increase the currently lowered chances of Kaiser approaching her and somehow fucking her life up.

Yeah, I'll just find out some other day, it's really not that deep. Maribel was quick to skedaddle her way out of that dreaded classroom as soon as the permission to leave was granted by their teacher, leading to her current state where she was exploding with joy.

Quest no.1: escape Kaiser's wrath. status: ✓

Now onto quest no.2: somehow deal with Lionie. status: ?????

Safe to say her nerves were rekindling once again. shit— I feel my stomach twisting and churning a lil too much. What should my excuse be this time? In deep concentration, Maribel seemed to have slightly slowed down, her mind questioning how one would deal with a prissy bitch who was going to rub it in her face and bark like a parrot 'I told you! I told you! I was right!' The displeasure on her face could no longer be contained at the stupidly squeaky voice of lionie. Tch, she pisses me off.

Should she be straight up and say that it went horribly wrong? That Kaiser still has the drawing and that the misunderstanding still remains uncleared? Or should she just lie her way out? What lie would you even make up for this? Ah, I wish I had the drawing back, it was so pretty as well. Her shoulders slagged as she reached the design tech block, lips pursing with despair as she lethargically pulled the heavy door to the building open. Her movement became all the more slower, each step small and calculated to be about her shoe's length.

The students in the corridor became sparse, a telltale sign she was most likely going to be late to lesson which incited her to speed up a little. And when the classroom entered her vision, she proposed the idea of going to the receptionist to ask to go home because she felt sick but promptly decided against it. The gossiping ladies there were a bunch of exasperating, saggy bitches who had nothing to do but slander both students and parents. Shittier assholes than Kaiser him-fucking-self. A wild claim, but it was most likely the truth.

No in fact, it was the truth.

Maribel could only hope they'd get sacked and turn homeless, perhaps getting hit by a bus would be the cherry on top. That'd surely be the highlight of her day. She quickly shook off her hostile thoughts, how gruesome.

Her hand reached for the handle, resting atop for a moment before she collected herself and smoothly entered. Unbeknownst to her, she had applied more force than usual, causing the door to fly open and smack against the side of the wall, the echo of that vociferous sound shutting up the chatter of her classmates.

"...My bad," she apologised with her hands up in surrender after a moment's awkward silence.

"..."

"Pfft—!" Slight laughter filled the absence of noise between the students as the chatter shortly followed again. She could only be thankful that her teacher wasn't here, and perhaps the fact that she somewhat had close relations with her classmates, otherwise it would've been another embarrassing feat she'd think about before sleeping.

"Oh—! Right, Maribel," Lionie called out, getting up from her seat. Shit, I only just came in and the slag's already at it.

"Hmm?"

"Is it true?" She suddenly went all up in Maribel's face. her breath, which was not the most pleasant, fanned itself on Maribel like some persistent fucking bug. She internally gagged, I don't know what's worse, her breath or how i predicted she'd get up all in my face.

Probably the former, she innerly responded not skipping a beat. "What?" Maribel asked back. Play dumb for now, pretend that everything went well or this rat will then start spitting her skanky saliva on your face saying 'I told you!'

"That you insulted Kaiser! Is it true?!" Maribel furtively stepped back as Lionie's voice increased in volume.

"Oh my God, yeah! I heard about that too, what did you say to him?"

"Did you actually say he stank?!"

"-ehem, I guess?" What the hell was with this reaction? She was expecting to get told off for displeasing their emperor or something like that. Not that she was complaining with this though, this was kind of feeding into her delusions and boosting her ego. Her nose imaginarily got pointier at the thought, "just insinuated that he's inbred, a product of incest or whatever." She shrugged nonchalantly, as if it weren't a big achievement.

"Damn..."

"Oh my God.."

"Woah..."

"...I can't believe it."

"Well, he deserves it to be honest. S'bout time someone humbled his arrogant ass." Someone muttered out their frustration, "he thinks he can order us around."

"Like the dictator in North Korea, huh?" Maribel questioned with a finger on her chin.

Whilst some raved on about her bravery, others—

others seemed just a tad bit concerned.

"Uhh... isn't he going to like— fuck your life up somehow?"

"What." Her statement was more demanding than questioning, encouraging them to expand on their point.

"..."

"I mean it's been rumoured that he placed a restraining order on someone who touched his hanky. All that just for his hanky for God's sake!"

"...Huh?"

"Or have you heard of how he sued his maths teacher for demoting his grade on the recent mock? Apparition Kaiser got all the answers right on the paper but the teacher wouldn't give it to him because he didn't show his working."

"..."

"Mr Ruskey, wasn't it? I heard he was charged with allegations of being a pedophile. Kinda serves the creepy guy right I can't lie."

"No wonder, someone told me he'd drop his pencil whenever a girl was nearby, and then apparently he'd ask them to pick it for him so he could see their ass when they bent down."

"What the fuck?! Eww!"

"He invited girls to his house as well."

"I had a discord mod for a teacher?" Maribel questioned with incredulous eyes at the pure horror of these sudden claims. No wonder I had a bad feeling about him, he smiled like he had plans up his sleeves! With each rumour of their previous maths teacher, goosebumps rose up her neck sharply. What the fuck is this school doing?!

"Well yeah, there's that, but I swear Kaiser's got his underlings to make Jürgen's life hell."

"Who?"

"Jürgen? What for? I thought he was a teacher's pet?" Well that made sense, typical nerd that asked to be bullied. (this is a joke)

"Hmm I think one day Jürgen was handing out marked test papers, like he always does, and he accidentally gave the wrong test back to Kaiser."

"I knew it, the guy gets pissed for absolutely no reason—"

"Thing was, the paper that Jürgen had mis-given to Kaiser had some really shitty score and Kaiser assumed that Jürgen was insulting his intelligence or something like that."

Oh, well there goes the idea of clearing the misunderstanding. The guy was ignorant, narrow-minded, and just full off narcissism. Maybe she should've actually listened to Lionie for once. neverrrr.

"Peak day for Jürgen, I heard it was him that somehow received a detention even though the evidence clearly pointed towards the scheming Kaiser.

"Never really liked Jürgen anyway, he's so uptight it's actually so unbearable and piss-taking."

"Oh."

"—oh, well crap." Maribel uttered after having her mouth sealed shut during most of this gossip session. Her sudden words had them all looking at her and immediately they could see the approach of a disastrous catastrophe.

"Ah...Maribel, Kaiser's gonna—"

"Shut up you idiot, you're making her feel worse!" Another whisper-yelled, though Maribel wouldn't even consider it a whisper because of their voice's large volume.

"...I think I messed up." She pursed her lips mimicking her jocular science teacher, deriving laughter from some of her friends who understood the reference. Even at a time like this, Maribel still had the spirit to joke around, huh? Can't let Lionie get the best of me, ain't no way I'm letting her call me out. Otherwise Lionie would just preach on about how she was right from the beginning. It was a pride thing.

"..ahah..." Maribel chuckled to herself, "what's he gonna do anyway? call me stinky? I'll just say he's racially profiling me, already done it once anyway. Plus, if things go bad, I'll just tell him to step in the rain for a moment and it'll be over for pennyboy." She put her hands on her waist and nodded to herself. This modern school was still filled with racists. If she were to bring this claim up to teachers, she'd be the one somehow receiving the consequences.

"Maribel..." Alejandra muttered (idk who this is) with a frown, "you really have no sense of caution do you?"

"I actually do." Maribel retorted with a shrug, the adrenaline rush from her nerves were finally wearing off and showing its unwanted side effects. Bleh, tired. She swallowed back a yawn and wiped the tears that swelled in the corner of her eye. Once I finish school today, I'll go home and sleep early.

That was a lie. Maribel would probably end up sleeping late once again. This time not because of over-thinking, but because she'd end up losing track of time being on her ipad. It was a reoccurring event, but sometimes she just couldn't help herself.

The day carried on as it usually would, contrary of how she thought it would go and she was only eternally grateful. Tomorrow would go back to normal, to how it usually was, to how it always had been. It would be mundane, boring days again. A prosaically peaceful school life absent of all thrill and adrenaline, once again. And the day after would follow just as it previously did, and the days after that would too. Until perhaps the day she finished school, maybe then she could gain a little confidence, a little bit of bravery to explore the real world. Albeit until then, she shall live unproblematically, she should protect her peace and study. Not that she had the motivation to do the latter but whatever.

She'd find it at some point. hopefully.

It was somewhat depressing though. School was supposed to be the highlight of a student's life: where they learn, develop themselves, bloom with character, build relationships that last lifetimes, make fond memories, you get the point. It was supposed to be like that, of course. Though perhaps it just wasn't supposed to be the highlight of every student's life.

Maribel was just tired.

Sure, she hadn't slept enough today so maybe that was a reasonable explanation. But there were days were Maribel slept enough, too much even, if that was possible. And yet, she was still tired.

Sigh.

Maribel wanted to live out her paracosm, she wanted to tell stories to listeners, even one listener was enough. One listener was all she ever needed.

Just one. Anyone.

She chuckled inwardly, her lips quirking upwards with a small smile before she quickly dropped it, somebody was going to think she had gone insane.

What an embarrassingly childish thought.

"..."

Am I...

going to be bullied like in the movies?

The sudden thought popped up in her mind the day after everything had gone— suspiciously well. It was Thursday today, yesterday was Wednesday, and the day before was Tuesday.

Tuesday was the day she had ultimately humbled Kaiser and his conceited ass, but at what cost? Idk, you tell me.

Wednesday was the day she dreaded, fearing Kaiser's wrath would approach her and fuck her life. However, with a sudden stroke of luck, the day had gone perfectly well. In other words, it was a boring day as per usual.

Today was thursday. Thursday would also be a normal day, just like Wednesday and the other typical days of boredom. Aside from Tuesday that was just an anomalous day.

But for some reason, Maribel couldn't help but think. Now that she had gotten more sleep, now that her previously clouded mind had cleared from unease, the thought kept hauntingly cropping up. Why? She herself didn't know. It was eerily similar to the calm before the storm, but Maribel's life had always been sort of calm. So it wasn't exactly useful in helping her deduce the possible storm. Whatever that may be.

"..." She was currently spending time with her friends in recess, german would be the lesson that followed after. Hmm, what am I missing? You know what, forget it. Her brain was hurting from all this unnecessary thinking. She wasn't even putting her full attention into thinking of what was bothering her. Thing was, she couldn't actually focus because of all her other ongoing thoughts. Sigh, whatever. I'll think about it later before sleeping.

Break had shortly come to an end, the resonant ringing of the bell snapping her out from drowning in haze. What lesson do I have now?

"..." Her brows furrowed in concentration, trying desperately to find out which lesson she had third period, there was no way in hell she was going to pull out her time table at her biblical age. Whatever, she couldn't be bothered to ask her friends what she had next. She'd rather just follow them instead, they most likely have the same lesson as her anyway. Hmm, doesn't the new chapter of vadtd come out today? Finally, she'd been waiting two weeks for it since the author had gone on break. Something to look forward, it had completely snatched her attention from the looming storm that would soon destruct her peace...

"I'll see you outside." Maribel's friends had bid her farewell with a wave when she reached the entrance of her class. Her tired gaze shifted from them towards her classmates that lined up in front of her. She observed their whiny expressions as they complained on about something. what's with them?

"Why're we lining up?" She asked the girl in front of her who was quick to turn around and place her face quite close to Maribel. Switch off your nasal detectors!

"Ah! Apparently we're having a new seating plan."

"Oh... really? Why now?" Maribel muttered under her breath, the current seating plan was already fine. Her partner was somewhat funny, not awkward like her previous ones, and her friend was behind her as well. What a waste of a good seating plan. She blinked hard to disperse the newly bubbling irritation that ached her brain.

Surprisingly the line was quick to shorten, and Maribel had reached the front of it with their teacher who stood waiting with her laptop. She looked towards her and silently waited for the lady to inform her of her new seat.
"Uhh Maribel... oh! You sit in your original space."

The exasperated grimace on her face was hard to hide, I stood for nothing. She nodded in acknowledgment before letting out a tired sigh when no longer in the sight of her teacher. Whilst taking her gloves off, she moved slowly towards her seat, to the table on the third row, closest to the window,