CHAPTER 31: CHAPTER 31: EXTRA C AND A SCHOOL DAY

"The district superintendent got suspended? Must be some power politics again."

"Oh... Finish your toast."

"They rescued a cat from a building not so far from here. This city, I swear."

"A cat, alright? It’ll get cold by the way."

"Accidents, Obituary, politics... Ah. Aren’t elections coming up soon?"

"Abel!"

I snapped my head up and looked at Anna. She had her eyes narrowed, glaring at me. I quickly put the newspaper down and picked up the toast lathered with peanut butter and bit down on it.

"Pretty good," I said. "Thank you."

"Don’t mention it," Anna said with a smile. The school uniform of Fairfax Academy looked quite familiar on her.

"Let’s take the bike to class today," I said. "We have to carry a bunch of stuff, right?"

Anna and I both looked at the bags we had left near the table. A chart and a bit of a few papers alongside our usual bags.

There was a story to tell.

***

"And in the end, with the insurance coming in, Mrs. Benson’s arcade is slowly being put back as it was, with better games than before."

"Please consider checking it out if you ever do."

Lia and Emily ended the presentation for the English project with those lines. I and Sebastian held up photos of the arcade now under development that Eric had gotten printed.

The students all clapped, mostly as a formality, but all of them genuinely seemed interested in the arcade and how we got roped into such events. This story had no details about how the arcade was actually thrashed, or how New Engine’s people were all mostly arrested now, thanks to me, but that was natural.

"Amazingly done," our teacher clapped and asked us to take our seats again. "That was a very interesting story, definitely. You kids narrated it well. Did you find anything about Mrs. Benson’s son then?"

"Nope," said Emily. "I doubt we will. But I guess that’s alright now. Things rarely work out the way you expect them, but they definitely end up working out."

"That’s a good thought to have," said the teacher. "I am quite impressed. So, that was the last group, wasn’t it?"

"Yes!" the students echoed.

I, too, pulled my seat back and sat down. The same place as usual, at the end, near the window, while the other five sat almost all together towards the other end of the classroom. Lia and Anna both glanced at me, as if they wanted me to sit closer.

"Man, Abel, you should switch your seat next to mine!" Sebastian shouted from there, and others in the class chuckled lightly.

Damn it. I disliked all this attention. Waving at him, I turned my head back to the window while the English teacher continued saying something.

"On which note," the lecture was almost about to end. "The time for student council elections are coming up. The nominations have already started, since I am part of the committee organizing it I want to encourage any of you who want to contest the elections."

My ears perked up at that. Earlier in the morning, I was thinking of elections, it was going to be at the start of next year, but it seemed another election was much closer than I thought.

How interesting.

In Heaven Waits, Hell Grabs, the student council election was a part of the start of the main story-line and was also an important arc for the Helping Hand club.

Years had passed for me while I had been living as Abel and barely remembered the fact that this was a part of a novel’s storyline, but from what I remembered, the elections were related to a part of the dark side of the story line.

I knew exactly what it was.

"TRRRRRRIIINGGGG."

The bell rang, breaking my thoughts.

The class ended and Sebastian rushed over to my seat.

"Hey, Abel," he said. "You wanna join me and Eric for lunch today?"

"Hm?" Lunch with these two was new. I didn’t want to, to be honest, but now at this point I didn’t feel very averse to the idea of it. "I’ll tell you?"

"Works. Anyway, more importantly, let’s start sitting together from next time?"

"I like this seat."

"Is that a rejection?"

"Unfortunately."

"Hahaha, fair enough. I’ll see you at lunch, alright?"

"Maybe."

When Sebastian left, I dropped a text to Anna and asked her if she wanted to have lunch together again today. We had been doing this every day since the start of the month, since she was rejected by Eric.

[Anna: Sebastian and Eric were talking about wanting to do something with you earlier.]

[Anna: I think you should eat with them today. I’ll sit with Em and Lia as well.]

[~: Works. I’ll do so.]

[~: Don’t really want to.]

[Anna:? You can skip it, you know?]

[~: I don’t mind it either.]

[Anna: ~]

[Anna: Ok.]

[Anna: I have a lot to catch up on with Em and Lia too.]

[~: Have fun.]

That handled that.

The next few lectures passed by quickly, and finally, the bell for lunch rang. At that time, Sebastian and Eric both got up and looked at me eagerly. I quickly picked up the lunchbox from my bag and walked over to them.

"Let’s go," I said.

"Hell yeah."

"Please get me out of here," Eric said. "I don’t want to listen to their opinions on Sartre and Camus."

I tilted my head, and Sebastian smiled.

"The three of them are major philosophy nuts. Who would have ever thought, huh?"

Who indeed. Not those three.

I imagined Anna heatedly discussing Existentialism and quickly shook my head. That was a little difficult to think of.

The three of us went towards the circle at the center of the school grounds. A place that we called the circle, but was just a round-shaped structure like an altar that had no purpose but to fill some empty space in the school with some beauty.

A lot of people would sit here usually, mostly the freshmen like us.

"So," Eric said. "You sending him the link?"

"No, no, let’s let him watch first."

Sebastian pulled out his phone and started tapping away. A bad feeling took over me.

"It’s hilarious, seriously. 200 bucks just because we are from this school? That’s literally free money."

"I’ve already brought mine to 350," Eric grinned.

The plotline of Heaven Waits, Hell Grabs which was related to the student council elections. And a bad thing I didn’t want to get involved with.

"Here, look at this, Abel."

A website was open on Sebastian’s phone. ’Vangels’ its name was.

"It’s an online casino. We can make serious bank."