Emma was clearly awaiting a reply as I just stood there shocked by her sudden confession.

“I… uh… didn’t expect that….” Words stumbled out of my mouth while my mind was racing to catch up with what just happened.

“S-sorry… I shouldn’t have... J-just forget I said a-anything.” Emma turned around and started to walk away from me.

I reached out and stopped her, gently grabbing her wrist. “Wait, Em, no. Don’t be sorry. There’s no need for you to be sorry, like, at all… it’s just…” I took a big breath while Emma slowly turned back around to face me, even more tears had started running down her cheeks. “My mind is just one huge mess right now… The thing I was going to talk to Ria about, apart from me being a vampire, is that I recently found out I’m gay too… and then I wanted to talk to you about it as well, because I really like you… but there’s also Ria… and it’s just… emotions and feelings are so fucking hard, you know?”

Emma laughed nervously while trying to stop her tears with her handkerchief. “I-I know what you mean…”

“So… uhm… will you wait until I’ve sorted things out? I promise you I’ll give you an answer as soon as I can.”

“Mhmm.” She nodded. “I’ll try…” after which she flew into my arms and gave me a big hug. “Thank you…”

I hugged her back. “Thank me? I should be the one apologizing for putting you on hold and rambling.”

She shook her head. “No, you did a lot more than that… and as for your rambling, I’m used to that.”

“Hey, that’s a bit rude.” I joked, relieved that she was clearly feeling a lot better than before.

“I know.” She hugged me a bit tighter before letting me go. “Let’s go and hand in your uniform now. We might still make it if we hurry.” she walked a bit ahead of me and turned around for me to catch up.

“Great plan.” I caught up and together we made our way to the student administration.

“Uhm, Auro, if I may ask, when did you realise you were gay?”

“The day before yesterday, after we went running.”

“So the talk with Claire…”

“Yep, I wanted to ask for her advice.”

“Makes sense I guess… and how did you realise?”

“Apparently vampires have this funny thing where they greatly prefer the blood of the gender they are attracted to and apparently even more so from people they are into...” I should probably not have added that last part considering the circumstances.

Emma shot beet red. “S-s-s-so you liked m-mine a lot?”

“Uuhh… y-yeah it… uhm… was p-pretty good…”

Having arrived at the student administration office I knocked on the door and the both of us walked in. It was the same lady who gave me my new uniform.

She immediately greeted us. “Ladies, how can I he… oh dear, have you been crying?” She looked at Emma with concern in her eyes. “Did something happen?”

“It’s n-nothing, Miss. It’s just my… allergies…”

“That’s a pretty severe reaction, maybe you should go see the nurse?”

“No, I’m fine, I just shouldn’t have been so careless.”

“She took a good long sniff from a flowerbed she knew she was allergic to - the lillies next to the pond.”

Emma quickly jammed her elbow in my side, so fast that the lady of administration didn’t see. I’d have definitely felt that one if I weren’t a vampiress. “Ah, yeah, foolish of me, right?” She fakely giggled while shooting me a death stare from the corner of her eye.

“Alright then, but if it gets worse please do head to the nurse's office, she’s there for a reason.”

“Will definitely do so.” Emma rubbed the back of her head.

“I see you have your old uniforms with you?” The lady now looked over to me.

“Yes, I came to hand these in like you asked.” I handed my uniforms over to her which she immediately hung on a nearby clothing rack.

“Thank you very much. I’ll note down that you handed them in, Aurora Belmont was it?”

“Beaumont actually.”

“Right.” She searched through her files and marked something in them. “You both can go now, make sure you aren’t too late for your first lesson.”

“Thank you.” We waved the nice lady goodbye and headed off to our IT class.

“See, we made it just in time.” Emma proudly proclaimed when the bell rang just when we entered the classroom, having taken a short detour for her to wash her face, to ensure no one else noticed that she’d been crying.

“Well your timing is impeccable like always. Let’s get to our seats.” I didn’t need to say that twice as Emma had already started heading towards where Ria, her sister and Claire were seated. Because these rows were organised to have five PCs per row, Pres was sitting on the rightmost spot in front of us. This time however she wasn’t drinking tea, as this was the only classroom where drinking was, logically, prohibited. It was clearly showing on her face.

“Don’t worry, Pres. It’ll all be over soon.” Emma patted her on the back before she went to take her own seat.

“Please, end me.”

“Hmmm, I’ll take that into consideration.”

“Urgh!” Pres moaned. That girl really is like a zombie without her tea.

“Hey Rora!” Ria-chan tapped her hand on the seat beside her so I could sit down. Emma taking the seat between me and Claire. “Was there a line at the Student Administration?”

“No, not really, why?”

“Because you two took so long.” Claire explained with a sly smile on her face.

“Ah... we just took the scenic route, that’s all.” I lied while Emma was fiddling around on her seat.

“Mhmm, as long as you had fun.” Claire winked and then immediately turned her head to the front of the class when the teacher walked in.

“Students, please turn on your computers if you haven’t already. Now let’s get started on the basics of javascript...” Miss Anzo booted up the teacher’s pc and started the overhead projector as well so we could follow what she was doing.

IT flew by in an instant, even though Javascript was definitely not something I comprehend very well, I did manage to complete the allotted exercise in time. The second lesson period, Philosophy with Miss Kant, also went by pretty smoothly. Today’s discussion went about literature and how you often can tell what societal ideas an author has by their worldbuilding and details they put in their stories. Which also included an interesting section about why author’s pick certain names for their characters. Karin especially was abnormally interested in the lesson.

“I think that’s the most I’ve heard your sister speak in like, ever.” I started talking to Emma during our fifteen minute break.

“She does like literature a lot.”

“Do you want to become an author, Karin?” I looked over to her, she was still taking notes.

She took a break for a second and looked back at me, giving me two affirmative nods.

“Any genre preference?”

“Romance.” Her answer was short but filled with confidence.

“Nice, I’m sure you’ll make it work.”

She smiled with a nod and continued making notes in her notebook.

“Are you ready for English, Rora?” Ria-chan asked while already getting her books ready.

“For English? I fear I’ll never be.” I laughed and did the same. “But at least I’m getting a little bit better at it. And we have History after that so it’s not that bad.”

“I always wonder what you have with history, Auro.” Emma shook her head.

“I don’t know, I always just liked it.” I shrugged. “Why do you like running?”

“Fair point.” Emma smiled. “If everyone was the same the world would be a boring place.”

“Imagine if everyone’s favourite colour was red. The world would look so different.” Ria commented.

Me and Emma thought about it for a second before I agreed with her. “Red cars everywhere, red wallpaper, red brick houses…”

“What about the people who can’t see red, like people who are colourblind for example? Do you think they would get discriminated against because everyone else likes red and they don’t?” Emma remarked.

“Wow, that sounds really dystopian, but I think you’re not wrong. People do be dickheads like that...”

“Language, young lady.” Miss Edward’s voice almost gave me a heart attack, making me snap straight against the seat’s backrest. Apparently she’d entered the classroom a lot earlier than usual.

“Sorry Miss Edwards.”

“Good, you should be, this is still a school after all. But as for the subject you were talking about, humans can be incredibly cruel to each other and in that imaginary situation it’d not be any different, sadly enough.”

I was a bit surprised by her comment, so much so that she’d probably seen it on my face.

“What’s wrong? It’s not that because I’m strict for you that I’m a bad person, Miss Beaumont.”

“I mean, I know that but… you are really really strict though.”

“In my opinion some students need to be handled strictly to get them to work on improving. It took a while for you but you are definitely getting better.”

“I guess it’s true I did want to ru…” Miss Edwards interrupted me with a cough. “...I mean, show it to you that I could do it.”

Miss Edwards smirked and walked back to the teacher’s desk to prepare her lesson material. “Dolus an virtus quis in hoste requirat.”

“Wait, what does that mean?” I was left in confusion until Claire clarified.

“It means ‘who shall ask of an enemy if he succeeded by strategy or by valor’.”

“Ooooh, it’s the goal that matters, not how you got there?”

“Pretty much, I had to learn the sentence for a play I did.”

“Hmm, I see I see.” I stared at Miss Edwards who promptly gave me a wink when she saw.

-Maybe she’s not that bad after all…-