"Talk about ruining a wonderful day, sigh…" Dew sighed loudly, putting his hands over his head.
"Yeah, at least people will forget now how embarrassing you were there a while ago… Bahahaha." Emma was finding it hard to control her laughs, being reminded by it again and again.
Hazel wanted to join in the teasing, but when she looked at Airi, she noticed a wave of strange anger on her face. "Airi, any problem?"
Airi was in a daze, totally oblivious about someone talking to her.
She was angry, she was furious.
"Maria didn't do the right thing there. How dare she talk to a teacher like that, that arrogant brat…"
She was mumbling to herself, while her anger towards Maria rose higher and higher.
She wanted to talk to Maria and teach her a lesson so bad that she couldn't control her emotion from showing on her face.
And that didn't remain unnoticed by Hazel.
Seeing Airi not responding even after calling multiple times, Hazel nudged her lightly to make her come back from her trance. "Airi, you there?"
This time, Hazel's voice reached Airi's ears, and she immediately reverted to her easy-going appearance. "Yeah, I am... was just thinking, these two sisters… "
"Hum, they seem to be acting that mighty for their father's backing huh…" Hazel stated.
"Hey, Airi, you didn't tell us that, when did you and Miss Clara become that good friend… Huh?" Emma suddenly jumped on her seat, turning around towards Airi. But seeing the rather serious look on her face, she stopped her question in the middle. "What's wrong with you guys?"
Airi quickly went into cheerful mode and told Emma to rest assured. "Nothing, just feeling a bit down by the sudden mood change of the class."
Emma understandingly nodded, "Yeah, that was totally mood killer, I tell you."
Airi bobbed her head lightly in response. "So then, what were you asking a while back?"
"Huh? What I was… oh yeah, about Miss Clara! Since when did you guys become that close? Why don't we know anything about it?" Emma pouted her mouth like an elementary school kid who found out about the ice cream her friends had without letting her know.
And that look on her was so adorable yet funny that Airi couldn't help laughing.
"Ahahah, what are you… haha… making that face for? Am I picking on you or what? Ahahah!"
Hazel noticed how much Airi's mood lifted thanks to Emma. At least she was looking a lot better than she was a while ago. But still, she couldn't shake off the cold feeling she got by looking at her angry and gloomy face from her mind.
"Enough already, tell me the thing I asked." Emma ignored the fact that Airi was laughing at her pouty face and pushed her to reveal the friendship she saw between their homeroom teacher and their friend.
Airi calmed herself down and told them about the entire conversation she had with Miss Celestine on that day. And all three of them listened attentively while Airi kept talking.
In the meantime, the bell rang and a young, handsome-looking man entered the classroom. The man was so handsome that the girls in the class couldn't help gasping, and the boys in return, of course, were already getting jealous of the man.
He was carrying some papers with him. Putting those on top of the table, he stood in the middle of the dais. Then he started talking after he gave a thorough look towards the entire class, dumbfoundedly and a bit mesmerized, before him.
"Well, then, I guess I am late for introductions. Actually, too late." His voice was deep and mellow, like a melody, and that was enough to capture everyone's attention towards him.
He gave a throaty chuckle with his deep voice as he continued, "So, I hope you people noticed how you weren't getting any literature classes, although it has been already a month since you came here. And I am extremely apologetic for that. I hope you will forgive my careless action." He gave a bow to everyone.
'Woah! What a refined persona.' Airi thought to herself.
Not only his voice and appearance were handsome, his demeanor and overly courteous manner surely captured everyone's hearts in a minute. For a while, Airi thought if students actually would be able to study at all, by the chiseled view of the person wearing a warm-colored shirt, and tall and fit figure the man had on him.
"Well, at least with that, he captured the hearts of the girls here," Airi muttered to herself. She could practically see the flowers and hearts around the girls, by the effect the man in front of them was having on them. "As for boys," she looked around again to focus on the expressions the boys were having on them, "they are about to shred him into pieces, of course." Airi laughed inwardly seeing how sullen and gloomy the boys were becoming.
Airi got interrupted in her thoughts by the mellow voice again. "I guess it would be okay to assume that the young people in front of me have already excused me for my misconduct. Well then, time to introduce myself. I am Samuel Brown, in charge of your course English literature. I was on leave for a month, that's why I was late to make your acquaintance."
"Sure enough he is our literature teacher, just look how beautiful his words are, right?" Emma was so charmed by the man that she forgot to tone down her voice before saying it.
And of course, the entire class could hear the already loud Emma.
Samuel laughed out loud at the sudden compliment he got. "Oh, I appreciate how you are honest with your feelings, my lady. I am glad that I gathered more and more words to please the people before me."
And just like that, instead of being embarrassed by the sudden outburst, she was glad that she spoke up loudly.
"Allow me to begin with the lessons now. I heard Miss Celestine made my work easier by giving you assignments on literature. So may I have the authority to have your copies submitted right here?" He lightly tapped on the table, and soon, all of the students came forward one by one to put their copies on it.
After they were done submitting their assignments, Samuel tidied those papers and put them aside. "Thank you for your hard work, ladies, and gentlemen. Now if I may ask you a question…"
"Sure, Sir, anything!" A girl responded to him excitedly even before he finished his words.
"Oh, Lord, such enthusiasm. Then, I would like to ask you, all the authors you worked on, or today you listened to, did you find any similarities between them?"
The entire class was silent as they couldn't figure out what similarities they might have between them. All of them worked on a wide range of literature, some worked on detective novels, some on fiction, some on horrors. So what similarities did he mean?
Getting no response from the students, he seemed rather pleased. "You know, I am quite happy to know that you don't have an answer to my question. Because if you had, then I would have been deprived of giving you one thing among all the information I have in me for you. I humbly thank you for that."
He took a pause before starting again, "It's survival. Survival against the world. Survival to make them exist, even if they die. Survival to make themselves successful."
Hazel raised her hands to ask him, "How can a mere book, or a story, make them survive? I mean, we know many authors got famous after they died, so, there aren't any books that make them stay alive, right?"
Mr. Samuel turned his eyes towards Hazel as he replied, "Does survival only means staying alive, blood and flesh? Or it got some other meaning, like, something deeper or psychological? Spiritual?"
"Then we would like to know more about it, Sir."
Samuel was pleased to hear her response. "Well then, let's talk more about it."
Samuel got down from the dais and started walking across the room, in between the path the benches created. "You see, people have a certain behavior in their instincts. That is survival. Although, by saying people, I am neglecting the other living beings, and narrowing the criterion. So, correcting myself, all living beings tend to have a survival instinct in their conscience. In every work they conduct, they perform, even a little one, involves survival. Even right now, you people are sitting there listening to me, and me giving a lecture on survivals, are also act of survival."
Dew asked suddenly in the middle of it, "How so? Isn't that just our duty or something we have to do?"
Samuel nodded understandingly, "I can see where you are coming from. Well, I can't blame you for it. If anyone is to put blame on it, then probably it would be our society, and the system it has made itself, imposing on us."