Mason tramples his way down the hall, forcefully splitting the sea of students walking against him.
Sam follows behind, a respectable and scared distance. The day is at its end, and the students of Masquerade begin to gather their books, bags, and friends to head out. The announcement that blared to the second-year students about the Welcome event made its way to Mason's class too, and that's where a lot of students find themselves going.
Mason walks along, against the current of flowing students. Eventually, he makes it to his destination.
TIP TIP TIP
"Haaaagh."
Mason heaves his hot breath, quickly sucking in air to stand tall as he lowers his hand off to his side.
"Enter."
A silky voice calls from behind the wooden door, resigned and distant.
CREEEEE
Opening the door, Mason holds the handle and shrugs his shoulders.
"I wanted… to apologize."
Robotically, Mason frees the words from his bitten-down lips. Letting go of the door handle, Mason tightens his katana to his shoulder and uses the other hand to keep tightly at his side.
"Oh?"
Mr. Gentus looks up from a set of papers under his pen.
"On with it then?"
Mr. Gentus drops his pom-pom pen. Letting it fall to his sheets of work.
"Th-that was it?"
Mason declares, confused at why he's asking for more. Mason's best mustered-up apology was that and nothing more.
Sam's eyes prop open, shocked at the admission of that.
"Mas, you-?"
Sam nearly laughs aloud, thankfully not.
"Ah, well then. Apology accepted, Mr. Mason."
Mr. Gentus speaks robotically now too, picking his pen back up and continuing on with his work. He lowers his head and resumes marking up some sheets.
"Wha- that's it?"
"That's it."
Mr. Gentus cooly replies, still peering into his worksheets, grading away.
Mason seems disappointed and confused.
"Do I still owe you the two thousand words?"
He asks, his anger beginning to rise.
"Why wouldn't you?"
Mr. Gentus doesn't look up from his work, unsurprised.
Sam pulls at Mason's arm, knowing his friend is about to explode again.
"Thank you, sir!"
Sam yanks at Mason now, ripping him from the room.
Taking Mason from the door lets it close, and just before it completely does,
"Bastard! Dammit, Gentus!"
Mason shouts in the hall, quickly dragged away by his friend.
The day comes to an end. A look at Masquerade shows the amassing crowd flowing down into the back courtyard of the campus. The flow of people leads around the right-backside of the main campus building. Here, Mason and Sam are meant to be walking past the grounds, but just as they try to get by,
"Guys!"
Melody's voice reaches from the ocean of students. Her hand waves from deep within the crowd.
Mason continues on, while Sam stops and waits to see Melody break through the people.
"Bwah!"
Melody's elbows edge her through a group of girls who look less than pleased. One quickly tries to swipe at her, just missing behind her.
"Mel!"
Sam shouts out, his hand raised and waving her over. Sam's eyes look to quickly glint in red as he does.
"Oh… it's Sam."
Melody's excited face warms into a regular kind smile, tilting her head to greet her friend.
"How was your day?"
Melody asks, half-earnestly while looking down their path to Mason.
"What's up with him?"
She cuts off her own question as she meets up with Sam, nodding her chin towards the sulking boy ahead of them.
"Oh, he fought our new teacher, and now he has to do double the workload."
Sam nonchalantly explains, realizing he's not as surprised as he was before with giving it thought.
"Haha, you did?!"
Melody shouts, trying to get his attention. She hops once and then speeds up to his side, leaving Sam in her dust. Sam struggles to keep pace with her running, thought slowing for a beat to watch her ahead of him, his nose streams a single line of blood to his lip. He quickly cleans it up with a napkin snapping himself out of it.
"Did you at least win?"
Melody catches up and shoves into Mason's side with her elbow, Mason is moved over an inch, clearly drowning in thought.
"Ugh, Damn it, Melody. What do you think?"
Mason is dragged out of concentration and immediately talks as if he won, puffing his chest out and his chin up.
"He got beaten into a burn-out and then was made fun of for his mustache."
Sam quietly admits, holding his index finger over his lip.
"And who's fault was that!"
Mason strikes at Sam's midsection with the end of his sword. Quickly shooting back at his friend.
FOOMF
Continued in PART TWENTY-SEVEN…