Riel went back to his club only to be welcomed by a frowning, pouting Runa.

“W-what?”

Riel questioned Runa

“You never visited me even though they said that you were going to check on me!”

Riel scratched his head on instinct as he reasoned out.

“Ahahaha… Unexpected stuff happens. But I really wanted to check on you.”

Runa’s pout became even worse

“So that unexpected something is more important than me?!”

[Well, of course. She’s my editor. She’s definitely more important if we’re talking about priority here.]

Was what Riel had in mind, but he wasn’t necessarily ranking anyone by usefulness and importance. It was just that Riel developed the tendency to talk back.

“Anyways, time’s up. I’m gonna check on them one by one, so just leave your notebooks to me. In the meantime, you guys can just do whatever.”

“YES! FREE TIME!”

Arjay and Elrick gave each other a five. They began arm-wrestling after that. Meanwhile, Anna and Leila went for a campus walk claiming that their legs were killing them for sitting too long. The twin sisters were quiet. Riel could imagine Runa bugging him for a little longer, so it was a nice surprise that she was being serious and focused on whatever it was that she was doing.

[Runa seems to be checking up on Luna’s work. I wonder if they are doing a collaborative story?]

Riel didn’t know whether his hunch was right, but he could think of several advantages that a collaborative story could produce. One of which was the potential reduction in page count which would also mean potential reduction in printing price.

[Well, I should just focus on checking their work so that we can all go home already.]

Riel skimmed through the contents of each notebook quickly. Shutting down the ideas that screamed *too difficult* to execute as well as those ideas that were too cliche and dumb. The moment he was done reading, he’d mark the top two ideas that he thought would work best for what they want and need.

“I’ve marked the ideas that I think you should work on for the school festival. Just pick your best bet and try to write something.”

“Sir, do we have a deadline?”

Leila felt the need to ask. She had always been a cautious one.

“Hmm… You can submit them to me by Monday. So you’ve got almost a week. Remember the things that you’ve learned especially the editing part. DON’T touch your work after you’re done writing them for about two to three days. That means you have three days to write the story. For a short story, that should be enough time. Don’t force yourselves too much, though. We will improve as time goes by. Just ride the flow. We don’t want to feel burnt out and get sick either. Also, remember not to write any more than 4k words. You can write less, though.”

Arjay and Elrick were both excited. Leila was determined without being overly showy about it. Anna was quite difficult to read as she had always appeared to be a very content person to Riel.

A short while after, a rigorous thunder could be heard. The blinding light was accompanied by an ear-piercing roar quickly followed by sounds that resembled bass drums strong enough that everyone would feel the vibrations on their surroundings and even through their own bodies. Half of the club were shocked and had the look of fear painted on their faces while the remaining half had composed expressions as if they were already used to it. The part of the class that was rather fearful consisted of Arjay, Elrick, and Luna.

[Uhh, The girls of this class sure are tough being unbudged by such powerful thunder. Live strong. Arjay, Elrick.]

Riel thought of something like that as he saw the overwhelming difference between his students’ toughness levels. He then asked,

“Oh, does everybody have their umbrellas?”

Everybody nodded including the duo.

“R-Riel… Let’s go home together..”

Luna wore such a cute smile and expression which made it difficult for Riel to say no especially since they had been going home together a lot, but Riel had his own plans at the time and he didn’t feel like introducing his editor to the twins just yet.

“Sorry. I’ll pass for today. You two should go home first. I’m going to go report to the director.”

Fortunately, Riel’s lie worked because the director spent more time on his office than he would usually do. Riel went to the cafeteria after making sure that nobody else from his club was around. On his phone, he texted the new number that he had just recently received. Riel and Lydia would usually talk via Discord as writer and editor, but it wasn’t such a bad idea to text the traditional way.

“Where are you? I’m at the cafeteria. If you want I can go and get you.”

*krrr.. krrr*

“Sorry! 10 minutes more. I’m being held by my club.”

“What club are you in?”

“Art Club.”

Riel shuddered at how close Lydia was at him all this time. After all, the art club was one of the neighbors of their own literature club.

“She’s that close, and yet, she’s never talked to me. Not even when we were making a noise.”

He murmured to no one in particular as he went for the art club’s room. Riel was expecting that Lydia would be the first person he would be seeing, but as if fate was trying to mess with him, he met the blonde girl who would usually give them a middle finger for being too loud instead.

“Ah!”

“Oh, the adviser of the loud club.”

“Y-yo… How’s life? Ha ha!”

A weird smile could be seen on the delinquent-looking girl’s face as if she just had a revelation.

“Say, would you like to learn some techniques?”

But Riel didn’t have an understanding of what she was talking about.

“Errmm… What kind of techniques?”

The blonde, delinquent-looking girl decided to wear a smug face and a smile showing her fangs before speaking.

“Techniques that will shut the mouths of those who are being a bother to you.”

Riel felt something upon hearing the blonde student’s words. It was an overwhelming feeling of curiosity.

“Teach me, Master!”

The girl decided to pat Riel on the head first with “there, there.” before getting to the point.

“So, form a fist like this. Both of your hands need to be like this.”

“L-like this?”

Riel stretched his arms forward with his fists closed.

“Then raise your middle finger slowly but surely like this.”

“Oh, like this!”

“Yeah! You’re doing great! Now make it more dramatic. Withdraw your arms and extend it again quickly as if you’re meaning to punch someone and shout Forbidden Double-Ultra Ultimate Middle Finger Punisher!!”

“O-okay… Here I go… FORBIDDEN DOUBLE-ULTRA ULTIMATE MIDDLE FINGER PUNISHER!!”

“Great! PERFECT! You’ve mastered the ways of the wise. You may now live your own life, apprentice.”

“T-thank you. Master!”

“There, there.”

Riel’s face astonishingly looked like he really did get enlightened, but he had to wake up from that dream.

[W-wait… Did I just get fooled? Damn…]

“Errmm.. Is Lumara here?”

“Ah! Sorry for keeping you waiting, just a little more and I’ll be done!”

“Okay. No need to rush. It’s raining hard anyway.”

The other students urged Riel to come and take a look at their arts while the others were curious as to what Riel and Lydia were planning to do. One of the boys just had to make the sacrifice so that the rest could learn.

“What’s your connection with Lumara?! Is she a relative? A friend? Close friend? Or maybe…. Girlf-”

But before the guy could finish his words,

“She is an important partner.”

The girls all went “Kyaaahh!!” the moment they heard Riel’s words while the guys looked pretty pathetically disappointed thinking that Lydia was already in a relationship and they had no chance of taking her heart for themselves.

“Come on guys. It’s not like that.”

Said Lydia. The club members were wanting an explanation for it, but what came out of Lydia’s mouth was.

“We are in a situation where we are stuck with each other for a couple years now.”

And the whole arts club received a mighty double-ultra ultimate from the blonde girl for being too loud after that.

[I feel like she just made things worse… But I appreciate her looking out for me and not just suddenly blurting out my pen name and my online identity to everyone.]

A few moments later and the club declared the end of their activity for the day. Both Riel and Lydia were walking together towards the school’s exit when Riel asked Lydia.

“Do you have an umbrella?”

“Yup! I’m always prepared.”

“I see. I never bring umbrellas with me.”

“Hmm..? Are you sure it’s not because you’ve been caging yourself at home that you’ve already forgotten about the existence of umbrellas?”

Lydia said it in a teasing voice with her pointer finger poking Riel’s sides.

“Well, you could be right.”

“Jeez. It can’t be helped then. I will share my umbrella with you.”