I managed to make myself fall asleep pretty easily. I was really getting the hang of this entire ‘sleep while you don’t actually need sleep’ kind of thing. So that’s cool.

My morning routine went by without a hitch and I met up with Ria like usual. She seemed in quite a better mood than she was yesterday morning.

“Rora!” She jumped in my arms.

“Ria!” I called back and lifted her a bit off the ground. “Were you that enthusiastic at your home as well? Because you might want to tone it down there, just in case your parents think something is up.”

“Oh! Right!” She tried to put on a poker face, but you could still quite clearly see she was pretty happy. Ria carried her mood on her sleeve, which was definitely one of her cute points.

“Eh, you can always tell them today’s menu at school is something you really like.” I shrugged with a smile and gave her a good morning kiss.

“Macarorani.”

“....”

Ria laughed.

“....” I didn’t move a muscle.

“Rora! It was not that bad!”

“....”

“Rora!!” She gave me a kiss.

“Oh, Ria, please don’t go into stand-up comedy. I don’t think that’s a career for you.”

“Awh, all my plans are ruined now.” She giggled.

“Come one, little jokester, otherwise we’ll miss class.” I took her by her hand and together we marched on to school.

When we arrived at the gate there was no sign yet of our girlfriend and her sister, so we decided to go on to class by ourselves. To our surprise, they weren’t there yet either, although we did find Claire. Her face was red, and she looked like she’d been crying.

“Woah, Claire, is everything okay?” I asked when we entered the classroom.

“Oh, hey guys.” She turned around like there was nothing wrong.

“Are you sad, Claire?” Ria asked.

“Did Anya break up with you?” I was already ready to go and demand an explanation for my friend.

“Ah, no. I’m fine. It’s going to sound really stupid…” She took a tissue and wiped a couple of tears away. “You see, I bought this new hand cream yesterday…”

“Uh huh?”

“And my hands were really dry this morning so I decided to use it… but it turns out I’m allergic to one of the products in it.” Now that she said that, I did notice her hands were red as well. “And then a small gust of wind blew some sand in my eyes and I wanted to rub it out…”

“With your hands…”

“Yeah… so that’s when my eyes started watering and here we are.”

I honestly had to try to keep in my laughter, but the seriousness of her symptoms did manage to temper the humor of the situation.

“Shouldn’t you go to the infirmary?” Ria asked. She was even more concerned than I was. “It really looks bad, Claire.”

“Really? I think it has already cleared up quite a bit.”

“What!? How did it look earlier?”

“Well, the swelling on my hands has already gone down….”

“How the fuck did Miss Hill let you pass her like this?”

Claire shrugged.

I rolled my eyes and took our mutual friend by the wrist. “C’mon, I’m taking you to the infirmary. Ria, you stay here to explain to Mx. De L’Arbre if we don’t get back in time.”

Ria straightened up and gave me a cute salute. “Yes, Rora!”

“I really don’t think this is necessary, Aurora.” Claire tried to resist but I pulled her off her chair nonetheless.

“Claire, you practically look like an overripe tomato. No complaining, just come along.”

“Alright….”

“You’d think this doesn’t happen to you that often, Claire… but you are just as much of a derp as every single one of us.”

“Even the best among the best make mistakes, my dearest Aurora.” She chuckled.

“Mhmm.” I mhmm’d as sarcastically as humanly possible. “Anyhow, I hope your little fuckup clears up before the end of the day because we wanted to tell you about the thing after school.”

“I’ll try my very best to fight it.” She nodded.

We then turned the corner into the hallway where the school’s doctor’s office was located. Miss Nightingale, the school’s doctor, was standing outside, talking to a student. Her long blonde hair, tied up in a ponytail by a black ribbon, was bobbing along happily as she was pointing at a couple of boxes in the student’s hand.

“Just as last time, take 12.5 miligrams of these every day, and 6 miligrams of these. Your blood works looked fine, so I didn’t change the prescription.” She smiled at the student.

“Thanks, miss!” The student smiled back and went on her merry way in the opposite direction.

Miss Nightingale then turned towards us, she’d heard us approaching in the otherwise empty hallway. I could see a small hint of surprise when she saw Claire but she camouflaged it well enough with her smile.

“Hey, Miss Nightingale. I’ve got a patient for you.” I escorted Claire right up to her.

“I can see that.” She smiled calmly. “What happened?”

“I got an allergic reaction to a hand cream…” Claire replied, scratching the back of her head in shame.

“I see…” She opened the door behind her. “Come into my office, I’ll see what I can do for you.”

“Do I need to wait here?” I asked as Claire joined Miss Nightingale.

“No, you can go back to your lesson.” Miss Nightingale replied. “I think your friend will be able to go back to class in an hour or so. So don’t worry about her too much.” She gave me a confident smile and then closed the door behind her.

I returned back to class and actually got back right in time for the lesson to start.

“Ah, Aurora.” Mx. De L’Arbre welcomed me. “Do you have any news about Claire?”

“She’ll be back next lesson period, that’s what Miss Nightingale said, at least.”

“Alright, it’s sad that she’ll miss my lesson, but her health comes first of course.” Mx. De L’Arbre turned around and started writing a sentence on the blackboard.

“Was it really that bad?” Em whispered as I sat down next to her.

“It was.” I whispered back. “But Miss Nightingale said she’d be fine.”

“Okay, good, so we are still one for after school?”

“Yep.” I nodded.

Mx. De L’Arbre shot a warning glance in our direction, telling us quite clearly we should pay attention instead of talking. We both decided to heed that warning for what it was worth.

The next lesson period, Claire returned to the class. She still had a couple of red spots on her hands, but nothing that serious anymore. Although she did apply a little bit more salve that she had been given throughout the lesson period.

After the last lesson of the morning, Claire’s rash had completely cleared up. She sighed. “Oh, I’m happy that’s gone.”

“To think you were so reluctant to head to the doctor’s office.” I shook my head with a smile and patted her on the back.

Claire laid her head on the desk. “I know… thanks for dragging me along.”

“No problem, that’s what friends are for.”

“I am a bit sad that there are no pictures of your tomato face, though.” Em decided to tease Claire with her misfortune.

Claire turned her head, so she could look Em straight in the eyes. “Hey Emma, is it true that you purr like a kitten when Aurora kisses you?”

“Eh!?” Em bounced back, her face completely red.

In an instant, Claire had gotten hold of her phone and took a picture of my blushy girlfriend. She’d successfully gone on a counteroffensive, which could easily be described as a lightning war.

“D-d-delete that picture! That was unfair!”

“But before you do, please send a copy to me.” I gave Claire a wink, and to tease my girlfriend a little bit more, of course.

“Sure thing friendo.” Claire winked back and quickly sent the image over to me on social media.

“Aurooo. Delete it pleaaase.”

“But it’s really cute, Em. I think I want to frame it.” She did actually look incredibly cute in the picture. But then again, I’m biased as fuck.

Ria just sat by and was giggling at the entire situation.

“If you don’t delete it, I won’t tell you what I found out.” She pouted.

“Found out what?” Ria tilted her head.

“It’s probably about the food truck that will be here for lunch.” Pres said as she sipped from her tea. She’d also just been observing us in her usual quietness.

“Pres! No! My bargaining chip!”

Pres shrugged with a smirk and took another sip from her tea. Some heroes did in fact not wear capes, but were tea slurping class presidents instead.

Em bowed down her head in defeat before she looked up again. “Remember those girls we met at our chess game?”

“Ah, Kay and Arisa?” I asked.

“Yeah. I ran into them with Karin today, and Kay said that the American styled food truck was arriving today. Apparently that was a collab with their school as well.”

Ria’s eyes were so big, she almost looked like an actual anime character. “We will go, right? Rora? We should, right?”

“I think we don’t really have a choice in the matter anymore, do we?” I chuckled.

“No!” Ria got up, took her bag, and jogged over to the classroom’s door. “Are you coming?”

The group started laughing. “Of course we are.”