Peering into the classroom, he saw that Akoja was already inside. He rolled his eyes at her excessive punctuality and marked her down as present on his little attendance sheet. The blackboard was full of horrible drawings, love confessions and other garbage, but he knew better than to wipe it clean right now — a clean blackboard was utterly irresistible to some of the idiots in his class, and they would no doubt make a mess again by the time the teacher finally showed up. Who knew, maybe if he left it alone long enough Akoja would take care of it on her own initiative, as she was sometimes wont to do.
The first to arrive were, surprisingly since they weren’t normally early birds, Aneka and Armie — the (in)famous Ashirai twins. The Ashirai family consistently produced soul-bonded twins as their descendants, and the two sisters he shared his class with were no different. Zorian had considered asking them for help back when he thought he was soul-bonded to Zach, or at least questioning them about the mechanics of soul bonds, but eventually decided it would be a bad idea. For one thing, mage families tended to jealously guard their family magics, and it was obvious that the Ashirai family was trying to become an official House with their own magical specialty centered around their soul bonds. Asking too closely about their family style could have ended up blowing up in his face spectacularly, and Zorian hadn’t been willing to risk it, time loop or not. A second concern was that the twins were unreliable. Benisek-level unreliable. They were giggly little twits who took nothing seriously and wouldn’t keep quiet even if he paid them.
No, it had definitely been smart of him to stay away from them.
Next to arrive was Kael, who apparently couldn’t sleep very well after yesterday’s revelations, and eventually decided to just come early. They didn’t talk much before the morlock boy decided to retire to his seat, but Zorian could already see there would be more questioning in the near future. Lovely. He had forgotten how inquisitive and interested in the time loop Kael had been the last time he had been aware of it.
Briam, Naim and Edwin were marked down as present next. Briam gave him a wave as he passed by him, his other hand holding his fire drake familiar close to him, while Naim and Edwin were too absorbed into their conversation to take notice of him. Zorian didn’t really mind, it wasn’t like he knew either of them all that well. Naim was a first generation mage, much like Zorian and Akoja — a child of some soldier that rose to the rank of general in the wake of the disruptions caused by the Splinter Wars. Edwin had golem makers as his parents, and they clearly passed on their enthusiasm for the craft to Edwin — he was always tinkering with various mechanisms and making blueprints, even during lectures or other times during which he should have been concentrating on something else.
The next to come was Raynie — the red-headed mystery that transferred into their class in the previous year. She was reserved, polite, extremely attractive, a good student and absolutely refused to tell anyone about her family or origins. The only one who knew anything concrete about Raynie was Kiana, another of his female classmates, and she was resolute in her silence.
And so it went, student after student, until the list was complete and he could finally slip inside and try to rest for a bit before class started. He absent-mindedly erased the blackboard with a single alteration spell, causing the chalk to simply peel off the surface and fall to the floor, and sat down to wait.
«No, Ben, you cannot turn in your assignment a week from now,» Zorian growled. «The deadline was yesterday. I have to hand them over to Ilsa today. Don’t you see the problem here?»
«Come on, Zorian, this is what friends are for,» Benisek complained. «What good is having your best bud as the class rep if you can’t ask him to cut you some slack?»
«You’re not asking for a favor, you’re asking for the moon,» Zorian told him, giving him a flat stare. «I cannot help you in this regard.»
«But I really, really can’t get another demerit,» Benisek said, giving him a hopeful smile.
«Tough,» Zorian said. «I guess you should have thought about that before you decided to completely blow off another assignment from Ilsa. You already know she can’t stand students boycotting her homework.»
«She’s completely ridiculous!» Benisek said. «What kind of teacher gives out 3 assignments during the first week of the year?»
«Umm,» a new voice cut in. Zorian silently offered a prayer to whosoever was still listening on the spirit planes for the interruption. He was seriously ready to strangle Benisek to get him to shut up. This wasn’t the first time he was suffering through this conversation, but he usually wasn’t so tired when dealing with his… sort-of friend. He was honestly rethinking his connection with the boy at this point.
As it turned out, the interruption was by Neolu, though Kiana and Jade were also hanging behind her. All three were holding a sheet of paper.
«I know the deadline for the assignment was yesterday, but I was sort of wondering—»
«If you could turn it in now?» Zorian finished.
She nodded furiously and extended the paper towards him.
«No,» Zorian deadpanned.
«Seriously?» Jade piped in. «You’re going to make a big deal out of this?»
«Yes?» Zorian asked rhetorically.
«Why don’t we just leave this here,» Kiana said, placing her assignment on his desk, «and you can decide whether you want to bother with them when Benisek is done annoying you and you cool down a little.»
«Hey!» Benisek protested.
«Sure,» Zorian shrugged. «You do that.»
Zorian patiently watched as the three of them left their assignments on his table and filed out of the classroom, waited until Benisek finally gave up on convincing him to… write Benisek’s assignment for him, he supposed? And then he calmly fished out a pen from his backpack and wrote ‘did not turn in assignment within the deadline’ at the top of each sheet of paper before unceremoniously shoving them into his backpack along with the other assignments. There, let Ilsa decide what to do with them.
«Why are you still here, Ako?» Zorian sighed, turning to the last person remaining in the room. «Your assignment was flawless, if that’s what’s worrying you.»
«I’m glad you decided to take the position from me,» she said. «I don’t think I could have gone through another year of it. When I accepted the position back in our first year, the teachers said it was a privilege. That there were benefits for the class representative. That it commands respect. But it was all a sham and by the time I realized that nobody was stupid enough to take the position from me.»
«Hey…» protested Zorian lightly.
«I’m not saying you’re stupid for taking it,» she immediately clarified. «You accepted it because it was bundled along with the apprenticeship with Ilsa. You were far smarter about it than I had been.»
«More like less naïve,» Zorian said. She flinched at his remark; apparently he hit too close for comfort. «Why did you sink so much effort into it if you hated it? Why not just boycott the whole thing?»
«Because it would be wrong,» she said vehemently. «You shouldn’t shirk your responsibilities. And I had accepted the class representative duties as my responsibility.»
Zorian gave her an incredulous look.
«What?» she challenged. Defiant. Daring him to tell her she was wrong.
«Nothing,» Zorian said. He didn’t want to argue with her. Ever since he had started to develop his empathy, he became increasingly sure she had a crush on him. A small one, but it was there. And while he didn’t return her feelings at all, he also didn’t want to hurt her emotionally. And he would have hurt her if he started talking to her honestly — they were two very different people, with different worldviews and ideals, for all that Akoja seemed to think they were alike.