Chapter Text
All Sylus wanted was to have a peaceful lunch. A full one hour that allowed him to eat in silence while he graded his students’ papers.
The sky was clear, zero traffic on his way to school, and Zayne brought his monthly fridge-cleaning salad to the teacher’s lounge. With all these good signs, he hoped that today was the day he would have that.
After taking a good amount of greens into his paper plate, Sylus placed the tongs back to the salad bowl and sat next to Rafayel. Humming a monotone tune as he made the perfect bite of lettuce, corn, and a cherry tomato. Everything was perfect.
Or so he thought.
“And for Mr Sylus Qin, please come to my office.”
It was the final thing the principal said before the announcement bell rang off.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“I’ll take that twenty, Mr Rafayel.” Zayne extended a hand to Rafayel, who, only groaned quietly and paid the bet.
“Shame. Only half an hour left and you could’ve broken the curse,” Xavier collected the scattered papers he’d been grading. “What do you think is the problem this time?”
Only hell knew. Last week Principal Xia brought Sylus to his office just to update him on the archery team’s upcoming competition (which Sylus was the coordinator for). Three days ago he used Sylus’s free period to discuss about modifying the 11th year’s summer homework. Then just yesterday, after school hours, the man dragged Sylus to a cafe nearby just to make tons of revisions on Sylus’s robotics program proposal. All could’ve been done by email since none of them were urgent matters. But somehow, whenever it came to Sylus, everything suddenly was. Everything was questioned and needed revisions and had to be solved right then and there.
How Sylus managed to keep his sanity was a mystery of its own.
“Taking a guess will only waste more energy,” with a heavy huff, Sylus got up. He briefly asked Rafayel to watch for his students’ papers before reluctantly leaving his colleagues.
Sylus announced his arrival at the principal’s office with a knock on the opened door.
Caleb lifted his gaze from his laptop. He smiled, faux and bright, before gesturing at him to take a seat before his desk.
“You are well aware I have a free period after lunch break.”
“Exactly,” the principal said. “Means we have plenty of time.”
This was still a professional setting, Sylus held the urge to roll his eyes.
“This better be important, Principal Xia,” He didn’t bother to sugarcoat his words. He’d done being polite. “I’d hate to leave my salad soggy at the teachers lounge.”
“So as an apology for stealing your precious time, I’m giving you this.”
Caleb grabbed his bag, taking out a medium sized takeout box. He pushed it towards Sylus.
“You can have your lunch, we can get our work done. Sounds fair, right?”
Sylus threw a skeptical look, but he opened the box either way, revealing what seemed to be a focaccia bread. Trapped in between were (as far as he inspected) spinach, ham, some type of green sauce, and melty cheese. The tiny growl in his stomach was the biggest act of his body’s betrayal today.
“Cut to the chase.”
“I received your presentation deck for the 11th year’s field trip, I just have a few questions.”
Caleb was damn lucky the sandwich tasted like heaven, or Sylus would’ve been much more pissed off than he was.
“Principal Xia, we have scheduled a meeting for this like, next week. Also, shouldn’t Rafayel be here too?”
“I only brought two sandwiches, so no,” Caleb said, biting into his own bread. “And you’re the leader for this study trip project.”
“Fine.”
“See, I have a little concern about the trip’s destination. More so on the budget—”
“Linkon High is a private international school. I believe budget shouldn’t be an issue.”
“Exactly. I’m surprised this trip is only three quarters of our budget. So, ” Caleb squinted his eyes towards his laptop screen. “Why, Yog— um, Yogyakarta?”
“Any principal would be happy with that. Besides, I believe we’ve put everything in the deck—”
“I understand. Just— why there, out of all places?” Caleb leaned to his chair. “A temple tour in a tropical country isn’t exactly what the parents are familiar with.”
“Maybe it’s time for our students to experience new things. Reading study reports about UK or US are getting boring.”
“Sylus.”
Caleb’s expression told him that he was not messing around this time. Sylus heaved a small sigh, “As we’ve explained in the deck, World History’s current topic is about the spread of Buddhism and Hinduism in Southeast Asia. Rafayel wants the foreign art exhibition to be new and specific. So we decided to collaborate for 11th year’s final.”
“But it’s a bit too niche, isn’t it? what about other countries like, I don’t know, Thailand or Myanmar?”
“Indonesia is the only country both Rafayel and I have visited and are familiar with, specifically this city. We know which places to go, which route should we take, we don’t need to hire a local tour company because we already designed the itinerary down to a tee. It’s simply efficient and effective, both time and cost wise,” Sylus explained. “But if you want to expand the budget so we can visit more countries, we’re more than happy to accommodate.”
Caleb raised his palms, a sign of defeat. “Okay, okay.”
For the next two or three minutes, all Caleb did was typing on his laptop. Sylus took a bigger bite of his sandwich. As much as he wanted to deny, this was far better than Zayne’s salad. He had to know where did Caleb buy it.
“So, just out of curiosity, did you and Rafayel visit the city together, or…”
“No, not exactly. Rafayel was once an exchange student in their university.” Sylus dusted off the crumbs out of his palms. “And for me, some of the temples there happened to be my research topic for my thesis.”
“I see.”
Caleb leaned back to his chair. Eyes closed and brows furrowed. Slowly swinging the chair left and right as he was contemplating.
“Hmmm, as amazing this sounds, I’m still not fully convinced yet. I need to see it for myself. I’ll do a personal survey—”
“By all means.”
“—And you’re coming with me.”
Sylus’s smile instantly vanished.
“Sorry?”
Caleb shrugged. “Summer break is in two weeks. It’s the perfect time, no?”
An ache started pulsing in Sylus’s head. Handling Caleb’s antics was stressful enough, and now he wanted Sylus to waste his sacred, precious break for such unnecessary activity?
“Hold on, why do I have to—”
“You know the city well. I wouldn’t need to hire a local tour company. It’s time and cost effective,” Caleb added. Flashing a shit-eating grin knowing he just paraphrasing the words Sylus said. Sylus had never wanted to pinch someone’s mouth this bad. “Don’t worry, it’s all on me. Hotel, car rent, I’ll set everything exactly like how you designed this study trip. I just need you to walk me through the itinerary one by one.”
Well, it wasn’t like Sylus didn’t money to spend. But at least there was only some minimal effort on his part. He pinched the bridge of his nose.
“Do we really have to do this?”
“Well, if you want to convince the parents, you need to convince me first,” said Caleb. “Come on, Sylus. This isn’t the school’s usual destination, so I need you to really pitch it to me. Consider it as a trial trip.”
One thing the school knew about their principal was despite his unique perspective, Caleb was greatly attentive to details. He made sure nothing was amiss no matter how small it was. Some of the teachers (Including Sylus himself, partly), may find his decisions bothersome. But at the same time, they always produced the best outcomes. As annoying as he was, that trait of him was what made Caleb a great principal.
“Fine.”
“Great. I’ll have further discussions with you later.”
Brows raised, Sylus shot Caleb another skeptical look. “That’s it?”
“Yeah?” Caleb fixed his glasses’ position before propping his face with his palm. “Well, unless you want to spend your free period here, I’m more than happy to—”
That was all Sylus needed to pass the door frame. Though he turned back for a moment to ask the most crucial question. “Where did you get this sandwich, by the way?”
“Oh, I made it myself.”
Sylus left the principal’s office with an uneasy sensation in the pit of stomach. He couldn’t decide if it was because he just agreed to spend a few days of his summer break with Caleb, the man who seemed to hate him so, or it was the fact the very same man put the effort to make him food.