Chapter Text
It was just a normal day of conversing with Kromer, him mentioning the details of the prosthetic surgery his parents were preparing for him before she passionately launched on her own speech about how awful and cruel they were. Of course, he agreed because the latest thing his parents told him was that if he were to graduate with straight A’s they would go out of their way to get him interchangeable legs.
“I can’t believe them! Using your own studious and good nature against you!” Kromer was doing her best to keep her voice down but was struggling through her anger, “Sinclair! How will you respond?”
“I-I don’t know! What do I do? I don’t want the procedure at all but that still sounds terrifying right? That sounds worse than having normal prosthetic legs…” He could almost feel it now. A sudden numbness consuming his entire lower body and stripping his ability to move at all until it just as suddenly returns to him. Thank goodness he was sitting down in his seat like he always did.
Sensing his discomfort she was quick to reassure him, “Well, it can’t be too hard to fail a test or two."
“B-But if I know the right answers, not picking them is wrong. Right?”
“Exactly! That’s the point! You have to live a little Sinclair it’s not too hard! That family of yours can be disabled by a faulty line of code, but us humans can adapt and use mistakes to our own advantage. So why act like your mind has already been imprisoned in a little box?”
She carried on like that for quite some time but he still couldn’t reason with the idea of doing something so foolish like that. Because if Kromer does help him get out of the procedure he’ll still be stuck with poor academics. For someone like him to have a good life after cutting off his parents, a good college would be his only choice. Kromer just assured him that college isn’t that important and that she has something better in mind but it just didn’t click.
After thinking through the options Sinclair surprisingly thought of something that appealed to both of them, “So, what if I were try to ditch some classes? I can keep good grades but if teachers report my bad behavior they’ll probably get mad at me.”
“Haha! I knew you had it in you to be bad Sinclair!” She suddenly put her arm around his shoulder and kept him in place as he tried to squirm away, “Fufufu… think of all the trouble the two of us could get into if we stop going to class. Just you and me."
“You don’t have to if you don’t want to! I-It’s fine really I’m sure you probably have your own classes you need to worry about andthatsreallyimportantsoIreallyshouldn’tkeepyou-”
“Hold on, you might be right. When I ditch I normally go off and handle my own affairs.”
“You ditch?!”
“Of course I do! Why would I let some moron who has oil clogging up his brain or a fool who thinks four arms could compensate for her stupidity teach me!”
Goodness, Kromer really is something. Sinclair feels he should stop being surprised but every time he learns something new about her it leaves him dazed. From there she continued, “I would love to smother you with my presence but I just want to know what Emil Sinclair considers bad. You did come up with that scheme all on your own ya’ know. Your mind is starting to open pathways this society has tried to block off from you. Fight through them I say! And let your own human instincts run rampant!”
She almost scarred him off from the idea completely with what she was saying, but he just couldn’t help being tempted! What bad things could he do? If the point was to upset his mom and dad he could probably do all kinds of things they would frown upon, or he could get them real worked up with anger. Sinclair had no exact or clear idea of how he could even start on that, “I’ll see what I come up with.” Was the best he had.
“Wonderful!” She squealed, “Skip any of the class periods you want tomorrow and report to me the day after how it went. That’s not to hard, is it?”
“Yeah, of course it isn’t.” Even though it was so difficult the thought made his head start to ache.
“Glad we’re on the same page, because if we weren’t…” Her eyes locked on to his, “I may just have to report you immediately if it’s too lame.”
There was no reason for that to be effective as it was on Sinclair, getting in trouble was the point! Regardless he was compelled to spend the next class period planning everything out before executing it later.
About half an hour before lunch that Sinclair would just skip class under the pretense of going to the restroom. He presumed that by leaving partway through and never coming back that the teacher would find it even more suspicious. So when a lull in the lesson presented itself he wordlessly excused and instead of going right, he took the left towards the exit.
An intense thumping in his chest clouded all of his senses; and before he realized it, Sinclair’s body had moved itself to the front entrance and through the glass door. When the wind finally hit his face relief finally came over him. Great, he did it. Emil Sinclair had skipped class for the first time just like he discussed with Kromer. Though her threat still loomed above his head he just wanted to believe it was a quick joke at his expense and that going out to begin with was the real test.
There wasn’t much he wanted to do with this new found freedom except nothing, so that’s exactly what he did. Sticking close to the walls Sinclair attempted to reach that courtyard in the back where he could potentially lie down on the ground and just relax for a moment. Fall was quickly approaching but the trees should still have enough leaves to provide some shade for the still warm weather.
Suddenly that clear air that filled his mind with peace was cut short as he turned the corner: Smoke pushed itself at the edge of his mouth and in confusion caused him to inhale a whole cloud of it.
Just as the wheezing began the hand of a stranger covered and shushed him, “Oi, S.T.F.U.”
As Sinclair tried to grasp for breath he finally opened his eyes to see the perpetrator behind his plight: She looked to be a fellow student about his age, which made the cigarette in her mouth even more alarming to him. Sinclair remembered that his father would smoke a cigar or two a long time ago when he would invite contract partners over, but when he finally decided to get his prosthetics he smoked without abandon. Having the option to just replace your lungs or any other organs when they went bad encouraged such behavior, after all.
Though wasn’t just the dangers of smoking that scared him, but the fact that it was very much illegal and could get you suspended from school! No wonder she acted so fast!
Once it was all under control he swiftly apologized for the trouble he must have caused her, “L-Look I’m not familiar with this whole skipping class thing so I uh, don’t really know what to do and I didn’t expect to run into anybody so-”
“Pah, you speak too much.” She barely lifted her gaze off the cigarette she was relighting as she told him, “S.A.N.G.R.I.A., don’t you think?”
It took him a moment to wrap his head around what she was saying, but when he did he admitted, “Well, I guess so. Putting together an acronym like that so fast sounds pretty impressive.”
This actually caused a small smile to appear on your face, “You yourself are fast B.B., what’s your name?”
“Emil Sinclair?” Why did he say that so fast?! Why did he just give his name out to this random girl smoking behind the school?!
“Ryoshu.”
“Well it’s uh, sure is nice to meet you Ryoshu!” He wanted to do a polite handshake but his palms were already so sweaty from the scare that he just decided against it.
Ryoshu carried on with what she was doing with just a slight chuckle over all of it, probably expecting him to leave now that their awkward encounter was over, but Sinclair was still hung up on what Kromer said. So without thinking too much about it he just asked, “Hey, could I try it?”
“W.N.?” And so Ryoshu just handed him a cigarette and lit it up for him. As he watched her for guidance of how somebody actually smokes something, he couldn’t help but me memorized by those odd red eyes of hers. Obviously he had seen eye augmentations before, but never had they achieved such a vibrant and intense color like what he was looking at. Oddly enough it brought him some comfort as he placed the cigarette in his mouth and began to breathe the smoke in and out like she was.
Instantly his mind felt even more relaxed than how it was earlier, Sinclair didn’t even mind the tingling and even though a small part of him wanted to aggressively hack it out, he kept it to a small cough for the time being. When Ryoshu took her cigarette out and extinguished it under her shoe Sinclair took that as him time to stop too.
For the first time in a long time it was as if none of the things bothering him existed. Not his parents or even Kromer. Grateful for this peace he did his best to keep his thanks short, “You’re a very nice person Ryoshu. Thank you.”
“You too Sinclair.” When the bell rang she instantly grabbed her school bag-a long duffel styled bag that was all black-and headed off towards the cafeteria. Part of him was desperate enough to want to follow after her and try to talk a bit more but he just knew it wouldn’t work out. Going the other way he wanted to just sit down and pull his lunch out of his bag in that shady spot he was looking for.
Sitting down at the base of the tree, looking up at all the branches, pondering how such a reckless choice led to this, and brushing aside all the leaves leaves actively falling on to him; Sinclair realized something important.
His bag was still left behind in class where the teacher would no doubt be waiting for him.
Just as he was about to mentally curse himself out for his foolish mistake his prayers were answered by a gentle “There you are Sinclair. I figured you could use my assistance.”
Demian, with that same knowing look he always had, placed Sinclair’s bag down before he continued, “You look like you’re in a good mood. What brings a smile to your face today?”
“Oh! Nothing! Nothing at all! I just, uh, made a friend!”
“Really?”
“Yeah! I like, talked to a friend, and just like, forgot my bag, you know?” Sinclair laughed like an idiot, “But haha! Yeah! How’d you know I like, needed it?”
Without hesitation Demian just smiled and explained, “I could see you and my classmate Yoshishide from my seat out the window.”