Chapter 31

A gentle tune was coming to me through the edges of my dreamland. I was somewhere in between the dream and the reality, where things started to melt and mend together.

"AAAARGH!"

"FUCK!" I sat up immediately with my vision clearing up in an instance. Frightened from the sudden scream of a man.

A few seconds later, I understood that it was the tune I set up as an alarm clock on my phone.

"FUCK ME!" I took the phone and turned off the music. It started with a gentle tune that turned into a rather loud metal song. I hated it so much, yet it was really effective at waking me up.

"Now that I think about it, I don't remember setting up an alarm clock." as I looked around, I understood one thing.

I was alone.

Violetta was gone while my clothes were still lying on the floor. If I remember correctly, we booked the room for a whole day, so I still had some time to wash up.

"The night was wild."

As I went to the bathroom, the things we did were still vivid in my mind. One more evidence of the things we did was in the mirror. Looking at my reflection, I saw that I had a whole string of teeth marks as well as hickeys going down from my neck toward my shoulder and chest.

Strangely enough, I didn't have as much of a reaction as I had last time. And my heart was peaceful. I've had this hope that we would eventually forget the animosity between us, and the thing we've done in bed will help with it.

And judging by her reaction, she was indeed walking in that direction with the way she screamed while we had sex. I even remember her shouting how much she loved it.

After taking a long bath, I went out and started gathering my clothes. It got creased slightly, but overall it looked okay. Dusting everything off, I put my clothes on and thanked God that I chose a turtleneck sweater instead of something else.

Hiding the marks she left on my body, I took the phone and remembered that I needed to meet Mara and return the money to her. As I took my bag, I remembered something else.

"I started recording, huh." as I took the small camera, it looked like it was working the whole night.

"Interesting how much it actually recorded?" I didn't put it in a specific position and just threw it into the bag, so it was probably recording the insides of my bag. I put the camera to charge so I can check what it managed to record.

"Talking about the insides of my bag." As I looked through it, all the documents that I needed to get my stipend were there. After sorting everything out, it was time for me to leave.

I took the camera and looked through it. It seemed that it caught at least a part of what happened at night.

Feeling that I was rather lucky, I went down. Leaving the key at the reception, I attracted a few gazes from the staff, but it was a small price to pay.

Achieving everything that I needed, I felt refreshed. I could concentrate on training while deciding what I want to do later on.

Life was great.

It was my honest feeling. Even the meeting with Mara didn't feel so terrible to me at the moment.

Looking at the map through my phone, I arrived at the campus rather quickly using public transport.

The classes were still going on.

I've already sent a message to Mara that I would be here soon. I've messaged her again that I'm here and I would take the money.

Finding my way to the cashier's office was easy. It was in the middle of the tower. A few cubicle-like rooms all had the same insides. A small glass table and a chair. The cashier was sitting behind the bank-like wall with a small window to exchange the documents and money. As I was filling in some blanks while the cashier checked the documents, I saw that Mara was already waiting for me behind the glass door.

Ten or so minutes I was out with the money. Some things turned out to be tricky for me as I wasn't the same Erlig, but I somehow managed to fill them in, using other documents as a reference.

"Took you a long time." she bared her teeth in a grin.

"Sorry, I was busy with the training." I could only shrug.

It was getting rather chilly with the winter coming close. That's why she was wearing thigh-high black leather boots. This and the tight blue jeans emphasized her long and beautiful legs.

On top, she wore a black overcoat and a simple red t-shirt. Her bangs were held by a hair clip, and she had her usual piercings.

"Aren't you dressed lightly?" She gave me an assessing gaze.

"I'm fine." I shook my head. "Here's the money." I wanted to get everything out of the way before judging what to do later.

I pulled a stack of cash that I stuffed into the bag a few seconds ago. As she looked through it with a rather bored expression, I was somehow getting nervous.

After she finished counting, she hid the part of her face with the cash, but I could see her eyes smiling. "You are short on a few thousand surs."

"Surs or sur" was the currency here, and it was cheaper than dollars in my previous life. However, a few thousand was still an amount I couldn't just pull out anytime soon.

I rubbed my nose bridge. "You did it intentionally, did you?" I gave her an accusing gaze. How can I believe in her words and feelings if she acts like this?

"I didn't do it intentionally." she pouted. "You may not believe me, so let's talk about this while we eat. How about it?" She sounded apologetic, but she couldn't hide how happy she was.

"Whatever, I give up."

"Then let's hurry up and eat at the cafeteria." she finally took the cash away and stuffed it into the depths of her overcoat. Her smile bloomed even brighter.

Now that I think about it, I was hungry, all the night's exercise drained me, and I felt like I could eat a whole cow. There weren't many people in the canteen. Mostly athletes who were on a break while the students were attending the lessons at the moment. As we both took a plate full of food, we went to a table.

As soon as we sat down, I started stuffing myself with food. I always was the type who couldn't prolong the pleasure from eating and ate rather quickly if there wasn't something interrupting me.

"You may not believe me…" I heard Mara starting to talk before gulping the tea she ordered. "But I didn't have any intentions of making you indebted."

I creased my eyebrows.

"I know what you think, don't give me that look." She pouted. "I thought about it a lot."

"About what?" I swallowed a big chunk of bread.

"You said let's start as friends, didn't you?"

I nodded.

"What do the friends do?" She inclined her head sideways and looked at me.

"Cough, cough." I almost choked on the food. "What, what do you mean by that?"

She rolled her eyes, "And what do you think I mean?"

"Don't you have any friends?" I was surprised by this question.

"Of course I have." Mara sounded miffed. "I mean, what do you and your friends do? What do you mean when you say, friends? What is the meaning of this word for you?" she narrowed her eyes and leaned closer to me.

What does a friend mean to me? I was stupefied by this question. I thought about Andrew. It was probably the only friend I ever had in my life. Everyone else was at most a good acquaintance before fading away from my life.

And here I am, in another world. I have a few friends. However, was there a moment when I thought about them as my friends? Probably Jet or Jessie. But I didn't know anything about them. And they didn't know anything about me. If they are good to me, it doesn't mean they have automatically become my friends.

I long ago put down the fork. Whom can I call a friend? And why Andrew became my friend?

"I don't really know." exasperated, I looked at Mara.

"Thought so." she leaned back to her chair and hugged her chest before pointing at me with a flick of her fingers. "How can we become friends if you don't know what a friend is."

I thought about it.

"I think, first of all, we should learn about each other more."

"Uhum."

"We should also have at least some compatible hobbies or something like this."

"Aha."

"And we should be generally interested in being together. That's what a friend is." I almost said it questioningly.

"Then what do you say? Won't you take some of your time to get to know me better?"

"I guess?"

I think I was still influenced by the previous Erlig. I was also looking at Mara through the prism of rumors. She could easily be a girl I didn't want to be around, but I needed to know her at least a little bit better.

And I should as well leave the remains of another person behind.

"I think we should learn about each other more." I nodded.

"Great!" she almost clapped her hands.

"Do you have any plans on how to do it?"

"Yeah, we will use your debt as you yield the choice of what we were going to do. And I've got just the thing to do."

"Spare me from all the mysteries." I winced.

"Don't worry, it will be fun. And by the way, all the mysteries would be unveiled later on. Don't you think it's much more fun?" she licked her lips, and I shuddered.

"Anyway, you can at least say when we are going to do it."

"Oh, I don't really know it myself. I don't have a strict schedule."

"What can It be?" I was puzzled. I probably wasn't a simple cinema or game center. Looking at Mara, it was hard for me to think she would go around places like that.

As I was trying to probe her, she only grew even more pleased while I was half fed up and half eager to figure out what she was talking about.

The atmosphere around our table was cheerful, that's why I didn't notice how the bell that indicated the end of classes rang.

There was one more thing I didn't notice.

How a certain girl passing by us saw us and dropped down her plate.

"Er-Er-Erlig wha-what are you doing with her?"

It was a voice that I knew. It was a voice that made Mara frown immediately and brought me a headache.

As I turned around, I saw Joanne trembling with her whole body.

"Why, why are you with her?"

"Joanne, let me explain." I stood up.

"I think I better leave you two alone." Mara stood up as well. She had a complex expression.

"Wait, Mara…"

"And you better remember the things I told you before and the things you said to me right now." She gave me a meaningful look and turned around.

"What are you two talking about? What did she say to you?" Joanne was pale.

I sighed. "Listen, Joanne, we should talk, and I don't think this is the place."

I barely managed to take her away from the eyes of students, and we walked outside and to one of the backdoor so fewer people would look at us.

As we were walking, I thought about the thing Mara told me. She definitely talked about how I didn't know what a friend is. And what was the second thing?

And when I saw the frightened and longing gaze of Joanne, I think I got what Mara was talking about. I didn't hold any grudge towards Joanne. In fact, I felt pity for her. I don't know why she did what she did. But I'm sure she had genuine feelings for the boy.

"Joanne, can you please listen to me." I tried to smile gently but didn't know if I managed to do this.

She gulped and nodded. Her body was still trembling, and her face was still pale, she was chewing on her lips.

"You can guess that the old Erlig is pretty much dead."

She froze for a second.

"I will never be the same. I changed, and I would probably continue to change."

"Is it…"

I shook my head, "The trauma doesn't have anything to do with it. Though the time it gave me do. I thought about a lot of things." I took a deep breath. "I think we should stop our interactions."

Her gaze that held a tiny bit of hope became dead in a second.

"It's because of Mara, or was it Rose." she almost mumbled this.

"It's not about them. I just don't think I can be your friend."

"And what about Jet?" she started breathing roughly.

"Jet is different…"

"AND ELLE?" She started talking louder.

"We both know that Elle doesn't mind our relationship. If I disappear the next day, she won't worry too much."

"BUT WHAT ABOUT ME?!"

"We are done, Joanne."

"You can't do it…" she took my hand and looked at me with her eyes growing wetter. "I can't…"

I barely managed to free myself from her. "Joanne, we both know why there can't be any friendship between us."

She opened and closed her mouth a few times before she pursed her lips. Tears were flowing down from the corners of her eyes.

"Find yourself a good boyfriend, and don't let the things that happened to you before cloud your reason."

"I'm sorry." my last words were an apology. I went away without glancing at Joanne even once.

I had a rather shitty feeling. Taking responsibility for someone else's feelings was fucking awful.

I needed to take a nap back home. As I was walking back towards the school gates, I was suddenly stopped by a security guard.

"Excuse me?" I've never seen one before, and here I am being stopped by one.

"You are student Erlig Grimes?"

"Um, yes, is there something wrong?"

"You were asked to meet the student's guidance counselor."

"Are you sure?" Why would Violetta want to meet me?

He nodded.

"Thanks for notifying me."

Strange, what does she want?

I went through the crowd of students towards the office I saw so many times already. After arriving at the door, I knocked up and entered the room.

There I saw Violetta walking around, taking some papers and shoving them here and there.

"What do you want?" I was in a bad mood, so I didn't even try to be polite.

As she turned around, I saw a smile blooming on her face. However, unlike before, I felt that the smile was genuine. Vicious, sadistic, triumphant, gloating, and relishing were all the words that could describe her smile.

"Student Erlig Grimes." I heard Violetta, who didn't even try to stifle her smile, "You are going to be expelled."