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An awkward silence passes between the three. Suletta doesn't know what should be awkward, but it is, with all of them staring at each other with no words.
It was dinnertime; all the students have either headed to the cafeteria or their respective dorms. She had just been walking through the hangars to go back to the Earth dorms; that’s when she ran into Miorine. Her direction seemed to be heading towards the chairman’s office— oddly enough since she no longer stays there.
A beige tote-bag Suletta had never seen with Miorine was slung on her shoulder. She was just about to ask, but it was cut short when Shaddiq appeared from a corner.
There’s really nothing to act strange about. Still, a weird air hangs between them, not of cold discomfort, but as if all of their minds short-circuited at the same time.
Her brain flies into autopilot. Everyone is being awkward. Suletta usually makes awkward situations. Therefore Suletta may have caused this. "S-sorry!" Suletta blurts out instinctively.
Her sudden babble snaps everyone out of the tension. "Suletta, why are you apologizing?" Miorine sighs.
"I-I don't know! I just felt like apologizing."
Shaddiq laughs. "Mercury Girl, you sure are something else."
"Sorry..." Suletta sheepishly apologizes again, not sure if that was a compliment or an insult.
"So, did you need something?" Miorine cuts to the point.
Shaddiq smoothly responds to her inquiry, pretending like the previous stillness hasn’t existed, "Lately the dueling council got some complaints of cheat sheets being passed around. I was wondering if you've seen anything suspicious."
Suletta turns her gaze to the other girl. "Ms. Miorine, have you?"
"Nothing comes to mind."
Shaddiq continues, "According to some witnesses, there's been someone who passes around cheat sheets from a..." His eyes falls onto the bag hanging from Miorine's shoulder. "... beige tote bag..."
Now all of their eyes are on the bag. Trying to dispatch the strained atmosphere like before, Suletta nervously laughs, "That’s a funny coincidence!”
She would continue laughing if not for Miorine's already pale face paling even further, making her look like a snowman. Her eyes dilate and she suddenly finds her high-heeled boots so interesting. The grip on the bag tightens as Miorine pulls it close to her.
Suletta balks. "Y- you don't have to be so anxious Ms. Miorine! You're obviously not—"
Miorine attempts to run straight past Shaddiq, but he catches her shoulder before she could succeed in her escape.
"Hey...” Shaddiq has a look of unease flash in his eyes. “It can't be... right?"
"Of course not!” Suletta rushes to defend her. She crosses her arms into a giant x to make her assertion more convincing. “She just doesn't feel well today so she wants to go to her room. Right, Mi-Miomio…?"
Miorine does not respond or even object to the nickname. Warning bells ring through Suletta’s mind.
Shaddiq is smiling but his voice is firm when he says, "Just to be sure, let me check the bag.”
"Ms. Miorine!" Suletta begs. Miorine is innocent! Even through the objects in her bag make the rustling noises of paper and she seems very resolute not to reveal the contents, she's innocent!
Miorine does not make eye contact with any of the two. "Shaddiq. I’m begging you. Turn a blind eye, just this once."
Suletta turns nearly as sheet-white as Miorine. It’s just a flat-out admittance at this point.
A moment of hesitation flickers until he says, "Just let me see." Shaddiq’s grip on Miorine’s shoulder switches onto the straps of her bag. He tugs it but Miorine resists, pulling it towards herself. His smile finally drops. "How come you are resisting?"
"Because it's my father's bag,” Miorine pleads.
Shaddiq tries to yank the bag, but Miorine grinds her heels into the ground. As the struggle continues, the light tows escalate into a frantic game of tug-and-war.
“It's my father's!" Miorine screams with desperation.
“You don’t even like him, it’s better to just give it away to me!” Shaddiq grunts as he tries to wrench it from her grasp. The battle ends with Shaddiq’s victory, stealthily slinking his hand into the bag while Miorine keeps pulling at her end of the strap. Miorine shrieks as Shaddiq pulls out the papers.
Suletta whimpers and turns her focus to the whole picture instead of the details of the contents. She doesn’t want the sting of betrayal to hit her if she sees the paper slips of answers Miorine sneaked away.
She would have no idea her choice of blissful ignorance made her unprepared for the turn of events.
Miorine has a look of pure grief. Her face goes slack as she trembles. All the strength in her arms fizz out as the now empty tote-bag falls to the ground.
Meanwhile, Shaddiq has an expression of utter confusion. Not even confusion as in ‘how could you do such a thing’ or 'I thought of you better' but ‘I just saw a lizard breakdance on concrete’.
Before Suletta could even blink, Miorine sharply hooks a fist into Shaddiq’s gut. The papers in his hand scatter onto the floor as he crumples by Miorine’s feet.
One of the papers flies ahead and lands on Suletta’s face. She is fully greeted by an illustration of a grown man kissing another male. A blonde man with sunglasses is gently cupping the face of a ginger, locked into a passionate embrace. And to her surprise, she recognizes the two; they’re the two player-characters from the turn-based strategy game she and Miorine had played last night.
She’s already too befuddled by the image to register Miorine’s screech and a harsh jab into the back of her neck.
Miorine does not have the time to look over the carnage she has caused. She brokenly kneels down and methodically grabs each paper strewn around her. Once all around her have been gathered, she counts the number of pages, “… Twenty… Twenty-one…”
Where’s twenty-two?
She looks out ahead to see Elan in a distance, unbothered by the two unconscious people and a panicking Miorine. He is inspecting the page of the two men sharing a drink in the starlight.
Miorine drops all of the pages to dive straight at him.
“The line art is very ni—” Before he could even finish his compliment, he gets tackled. His head gets knocked onto the ground and he falls completely silent.
Miorine retrieves the paper from his gloved hands (thank god he wears gloves, she couldn't have stood it if another person grabs them with potentially grubby, oily hands) and goes back, only to find herself face-to-face with a goat.
A goat.
A goat that has her final and most prized page in its mouth, of her beloved OTP finally shoving away their childish pride, admitting that they're sick of fighting over past scars, and desiring, demanding, to each other, that they want more.
The goat swallows all it up just as she dismantles it the way she had done to all the others. She gasps out loud, pries its mouth open to pull it out, but there's nothing in there but small strips stuck between its teeth.
Humiliated, mortified, and dishonored, Miorine walks away a broken woman, with only twenty-one pages.
Two minutes later, Guel, who had just finished his workout routine, steps on Elan’s head. He scrambles away from the unconscious body once he realizes what he had just stepped on.
Horrified, his gaze follows the line of victims spread on the hallway— Elan, who still lies unresponsive; Shaddiq, whose fingers are twitching; a goat, for some reason; Suletta— Oh dear god, Suletta Mercury is hurt.
When Suletta wakes up, she recognizes the ceiling of the infirmary. She already had been here, when she got an uppercut from the Spacian girls Chuchu sent along with her.
Next to her is Aliya, who is not tending to Suletta, but to the goat on the bed next to her. Suletta rolls her head to her right to see the other beds being occupied by Shaddiq and Elan.
“Oh, you’re finally awake,” Aliya chirps. “The Jeturk House leader carried all four of you here! Just what happened to all of you?”
“I… There was…” A tote-bag. The video game she played last night. The goat in a hospital bed.
None of the dots connect.
Her head hurts from all the thinking, so Suletta gives up. Her brain goes back to blank as she shuts her eyes. “Nothing happened,” she mumbles.
Miorine lies on the floor of her greenhouse, traumatized. Her work goes forgotten in the bag as she looks at her calendar app. The doujinshi submittance time is only fifteen minutes away.
There’s no hope for rescuing her work. Miorine curls into a ball.