"You'd better maintain your grades if you don't want me to scold you again."
I rolled my eyes. After a few seconds, I turned to a woman in front of the steps with a sharp gaze. The memory of when she sneezed because of pillow feathers scattering in the air replayed in my brain.
"Just see."
"I'm being serious, Brissia!"
As I sat in the back seat of a motorcycle, I patted the rider on the shoulder and said, "Sir, can we depart now? There will be a vase flying at our heads if we spend any second longer."
The driver in the yellow blazer nodded quickly and immediately accelerated his motorcycle. A familiar grumble slowly faded as we got further away. The next thing I heard was the sound of vehicles replacing the woman's voice in my eardrums.
The busy road with vehicles reminded me of the pedestrians who filled the Archtier sidewalk. At least that's what I remembered before I've mysteriously returned to the modern era.
It's hard for me to tell when would I 'return' to the old town where the river was crystal clear and the air was as clean as filtered air. Just seeing the orange-brown river running along the side of the road already disturbed me. The worst thing I didn't want to see was someone falling into that water.
Blue had never stopped painting the sky since the morning. It looked like a good sign, though it wasn't. I should have known that the moment I bumped into the back of the teaching assistant in front of the faculty upon my arrival.
There was a loud crashing sound before the classroom ceiling right above me collapsed. I, who slumped onto the floor, froze at the sight of my chair and table covered in debris and dust. If I hadn't noticed the pieces that fell onto my quiz answer sheet at the beginning, I would never have witnessed it.
"H-hey... are you okay?"
My seatmate next to me got up from her seat, trembling. I quickly stood as I realized whose steps were approaching. While brushing the fragments on my white shirt, I caught the looks of my classmates filled with terror, even Ji and Nicho.
"I'm fine," I lied to everyone as I passed the teaching assistant who stopped near me.
The reason I chose not to look at him was simple: I didn't want to think of Harris for a while.
Out of the corner of my eye, I could see him calling someone via mobile phone and beckoning my classmates to leave the room one by one. Seeing that everyone was busy, I quietly went to the sickroom.
However, when I returned to the corridor in front of my class, several adults were standing in the doorway and having a serious conversation. I ended up leaning against the wall with my arms crossed, simply hid the scratches I got on my arms. I only dared to enter the empty classroom when they walked in the other direction.
My jaw almost dropped when I saw the hole above my seat showed not part of the building, but a purplish light. At first, I thought the incident was merely a bad luck. But seeing the ruins on my seat and floor had a deeper color than the ceiling above convinced me of one thing.
"What are you doing?"
His voice froze me.
"Are you happy the quiz was cancelled?"
With bulging eyes, I turned to face him. His tone was as cold as his gaze. There were two things going through my head: first, if he was really asking it because I disgusted him so much, and second, if he saw a purple light behind the hole in the ceiling.
Snorting softly, I answered, "I wish I could say yes."
My steps toward him were as firm as my grip on the remaining part of my answer sheet. "There wasn't even a minute to answer the last question when it happened. You think I'm a psychic who can prevent that?"
I threw my answer sheet in any direction.
"If you do, then you should go to the lecturer room and meet the real one."
After that, I walked out of the classroom and headed to the ground floor. He was a real headache. As if my score wasn't already enough, he boiled my blood with a nonsense. And thanks to that, I forgot to check whether he saw the purple light.
"Bris!"
Ji hugged me, taking me by surprise. "Are you really okay?" she asked as soon as she released me, checking my body like an airport security officer.
I nodded. Compared to a small scratch that didn't leave any pain, there was something that bothered me more.
"Why aren't you with Nicho?"
Ji blinked her eyes, "You mean... you want me to go out with Nicho?"
I looked back at her in confusion, but not completely. My intention was to ask why Nicho didn't come with her and was not sitting next to her in the class.
"I mean..."
"Aren't you and Nicho dating?"
"What?" I giggled. "No, Ji. We never dated each other."
Ji was flabbergasted. While grinning and holding back laughter, I followed her to the cafeteria. She was at a complete loss for words, even until we were already sat on one of the benches.
When I came back from the drinks booth, I saw Nicho sitting beside Ji. Seeing them conversing and Ji looking more shocked than before, I sat in the chair opposite them and asked, "It's clear, isn't it, that Nicho and I aren't dating?"
Nicho glanced at me, amused. "It reminds me when the three of us got vaccines together. I shouldn't have let her think you're asking for my company when you were actually preventing me from running away."
I burst out laughing, while Ji blushed like a tomato. "Shh, lower your voice! Don't you think you're laughing too loud that Mrs. Olivia is looking at us?!"
My laughter instantly vanished seeing Ji pointing behind me with a movement of her head. I turned to see the black-haired woman leaning in the aisle, smiling briefly before walking off in another direction.
"Ow! What's so sudden? Huh? Wait, Brissia! Where are you going?"
I gave them signal to stay seated. "It's nothing, just something I forgot to ask her!"
I ran down the corridor, occasionally looking at the intersection. The absence of anyone in the corridor caused an echo in my steps that were as fast as my heartbeat. Until I reached the door to the lecturer room, the only thing I heard was my heartbeat.
When I went inside, my eyes were immediately widened by the presence of a man kneeling in front of a woman. The man was none other than the teaching assistant and the woman was Mrs. Olivia.
"Kegh... run...!"
I flinched when the teaching assistant begged me in the midst of trying to endure the pain. But when I was about to turn around, Mrs. Olivia's gaze at me froze my body. As the purple light in her eyes flared, the lecturers in the room vanished and left a hologram trail.
My tongue went numb when Mrs. Olivia's palm aimed at the teaching assistant's forehead. And as she realized I was about to stop her, she threw a small roll of paper onto the floor in front of me.
There was someone's name there—Siger—next to the words "tool factory", above the words "Flower Bridge", hemmed in by a dark red square line. The three inscriptions were in a circle named Archtier.
"Find Harris Reister if you want this kid's memory intact."
The floor I was standing on suddenly collapsed. My surroundings were blurry, but the strong tug from below convinced me I really was falling into the unfathomable depths.
To be honest, I didn't want to obey that woman after knowing her true identity. However, if the teaching assistant's memory was half gone, didn't that mean he would possibly forgot that he owed me a remedial assignment?
Besides, when she mentioned Harris's name, it reminded me of his somber expression as he read the letter in the dark blue stamped envelope.
Sigh. Both were equally unsettling.
My surroundings turned into the editorial office and I fell right in the middle of it. I winced, imagining how I could stand up after falling under such a strong gravitational pull. Then I heard the sound of a door opening behind me and someone's footsteps.
"My Goodness... Brissia! How could you just show up?!"