History: A touch of color in the Gray

Book 1: Shade the black.

Date: June 25, 2019

Author: Me -_-'

Translate and Beta: Koneko has taken over!

Fandom: D Gray Man

Warning: No, I do not own D Gray Man and I do not make any profit with this story.

Summary: After landing in the nineteenth century, Ennaèl discovers that she started working with the Kamelott family, essentially, the villains of DGM. Taking the name of Eve, she became Tricia Kamelott's handmaid, helping her with her daily tasks. Now that life is a little less chaotic, Eve reflects on her arrival in this world and makes the decision to make her own opinion on the characters— ...people of this new world despite her knowledge of the manga. She gradually becomes aware of the social differences towards women at this time and becomes afraid for the future especially when she is saddled with Road and the twins ... Deciding to visit London, Eve encounters, as if by chance, Allen, then Tyki and they become friends. A few days later, the three go their own ways. However, it was not a long parting between Eve and Tyki. After having a rather awkward first meeting with the Duke, Eve decides to flee like the plague, her attempts to escape leading her to make a trip to Paris with Tyki, where she meets Victor Hugo who entrusts her with a bunch of information about the holy war before dying a few days after. As a result, Eve was dragged to a ball by Tyki, because he does not want to suffer alone, the sneaky guy, and Eve faints spectacularly because of her too tight corset. Don't ask how, but then she discovers a strange talent for musical instruments and wonders with horror if she could be the 14th. It does not help that the Duke has discovered her talents and seems to be more interested in her. And then of course, Tyki discovers how the other maids have been treating her…

French version: 33 chapters long :)

English version: KnK: Koneko here! I am currently in college, so I may give up a chapter or two occasionally in favor of schoolwork. I will do my best to keep with the once a month schedule.

Fanart: You can see a draw of Eve and some fanart made by Kazemarune and Arya39 on my Tumblr (Ennael too). Also, Elogane made a canon side-fic but in french, It's "Nuancer les sentiments"

Italic: french, important thought (or both)

I passed my exams : 3 I am now in vacan ...!

BOUM

* summer homework in the face*

Well ... well, it's gone, listen, we'll sleep later. And you, how are you? :) If not well, we have an almost murder in this chapter! Almost 6,000 words to evacuate some frustrations before going back to it. X)

Good reading!

Shade the Black Chapter 21

September 1885

Three weeks.

Three fucking weeks.

Letting out a shaky breath, I clenched my fists, squeezing my fingers firmly and pushing my nails into my palms. Pushing as much air as I could out of my lungs, I stayed like that for a few moments, until an unpleasant burn developed in my chest, pushing at me until I relented and I opened my lips to greedily suck in air until I couldn't take any more.

Repeating that process a few times, I let my shoulders relax, leaning over gently to crack my neck. Feeling calm enough, I opened my eyes and stared at them.

Nope, still no change.

"It doesn't matter, everything's fine, everything's fine… What's a little dung on your sheets, nothing at all." I murmured into the empty room. Taking another deep breath, I frowned at the smell and headed for my closet, hope squeezing my chest.

Hope that died very quickly when I saw that my clothes had suffered the same fate as my sheets.

So, I'm usually not very materialistic, but… I liked this orange dress! Tricia had chosen it specially for me and Road had told me that it emphasized my hair very well. Hell, even Jasdero had stuttered a compliment! Luckily I was wearing my favorite purple dress today… It would have been sad if it had been damaged with the others. Looking sadly at the clothes to see if I could save anything, I pulled out some underwear, a skirt, and two of the old Eglantine shirts miraculously spared from the carnage of the pile before resolutely closing the cupboard and opening a big window. Luckily, I had hidden my male clothing (that I used when I snuck into the city with Tyki) outside of my room a while ago to avoid being discovered by Road, so they avoided the same fate.

Throwing one last sorry look at my bed, I didn't dare to even look at the small table in the room before turning resolutely to the corridor. Slowly closing the door of my room, I crossed the corridor with nervous strides before planting myself in front of the twin's room. Taking another breath, I pasted a happy smile on my face before knocking on the door.

Waiting patiently, the door soon went ajar, letting me see a dark eye framed by ruffled black locks. "Eve? What's the matter?" Jasdero asked, opening the door wide when he recognized it was me on the landing.

"Oh, nothing, I was just wondering if I could hide this…" I said, lifting the clothes in my arms, "in your room? Road doesn't like my old clothes and wants to get rid of them, but I'm rather attached to them…" I answered with a simple smile.

"Yeah, come in." He replied with a shy smile before stepping aside to let me in. I thanked him with a cheerful smile, moving to stuff my clothes into one of the dressers near the entrance before going to tease Devit who seemed stressed enough to tear his hair out because of his grammar assignment. Grimacing when I saw the subject, I still ended up staying and trying to help the two of them until dinner before picking Tricia up and bringing the whole gang up to the dining room before taking my leave.

With a tired sigh, I climbed the stairs to the family rooms and pushed up my sleeves with a determined look, covering up my nose before opening the door of my room.

I would like to have cleaned it immediately! With a little luck and the windows wide open, I could have slept there tonight, but of course that wasn't an option. The mansion was constantly swarming with servants, making the act of sneaking terribly difficult. There were fewer of them in the afternoon, as they tried to be scarce when the householders were walking, and I could have tried then, but… what if I had come upon Road? Or Tyki or Sheryl?

My only options I had learned in recent weeks, was to clean up the mess at dinner. Not only were the Noahs of course all seated, but the servants were equally busy, with one third doing the service, another third panicking in the kitchens and the last third assigned to some rooms to clean them from top to bottom to work ahead for their chores the next day. So, I had a good hour of free time to clean the last attempt from some of the servants trying to make me leave this place.

With a bucket in one hand and a shovel in the other, I first tried to remove the bulk of the manure. Fortunately, my torturer of the day hadn't been very diligent and hadn't even taken care to spread it around.

I didn't complain.

Catching the corners of my sheets with deep disgust on my face, I pulled it up in one heap before knotting it and dropping it with a viscous noise in the center of my room. Pulling out the sheet underneath, which unfortunately had suffered just as much, I slipped it into the closet and used the same technique on the clothes, tying them inside.

My stomach turning at the smell, I grabbed the two bags of dirty laundry in one hand, the bucket in the other and I headed for the stables, taking great care to make a wide detour away from the kitchen.

Throwing the contents of the bucket on a stack of his fellows, from which he had surely been taken this morning in order to graciously spread stuff on my bed, I entered the stables. Stopping to caress some stallions, I approached the back where a large basin and washboard were found. It was usually there that the stable boys cleaned the old horse blankets and I could not have been happier to have thought of the place. It was the first time I had dealt with something as extreme as horse poop on my bedding, but the servants had a fabulous imagination and it must have been at least the fifth or sixth time in those three cursed weeks that I found myself having to clean my clothes from disaster.

With a disgusted face, I dropped the first sheet into the basin and grabbed a brush, promising myself I would clean my hands several times after I've finished.

Unfortunately, I have absolutely no ability to remove stains. The pure white sheets would certainly turn a disturbing yellow by the time I'm done with them, but it's not like I could ask for extra sheets, and it's already September… I will have a blanket covering them up for a good while, so I had to get by.

It's interesting to note that this whole situation has created a deep division between the employees. On one side, there were the stalkers, mostly jealous chambermaids who had been there longer than me and who were particularly outraged by all of the benefits I had gained in recent months. Among their ranks, there were also some butlers who, even if less zealous, supported their female counterparts, whether with genuine conviction, a small attempt to be better seen, or just to follow suit. Fortunately, only three of them were really virulent, the other few just follow orders without any real heat. Then there were the indifferent servants, of whom I could only identify five.

And then there were those that openly supported me, like the groom and his apprentice, the coachman with whom I often went to London, and the chief cook (luckily, because otherwise there would have been the very disturbing possibility that my food would have been poisoned too…). The factions were therefore almost equal, and the tension permeated the whole household. The mansion was heavy with it, and I was pretty sure that even the twins who don't like to leave their rooms had noticed it.

Tricia had definitely noticed, and now I had to take into account diverting her questions about the other employees. But how was I supposed to answer? Oh noooo, everything is fine, I'm just afraid to walk alone through the mansion now! After all, an accident had already happened… and it's just tragically convenient that I'm one of the employees that's without company most of the day, isn't it?

Urgh, please stop me now, I'm starting to joke about my own death…

Honestly, I don't really know what's holding me back from having a fit and complaining to Tricia.

This kind of thing never happened to me in my old life… Maybe a little bit in primary school, but I honestly had no more experience to draw from since my memories from before I was 14 are almost non-existent. I had always been in favor of discussion before violence, but I have to confess that my meager social abilities have had very little effect and I'm barely restraining myself now from slamming my most adamant torturers into a wall…

Things hadn't been the most fabulous before Tyki sent this girl back, but it had been okay. I could deal with petty remarks and little pranks without much malice behind them… but now? I was just damn impressed to have dealt with three weeks. Of course, things weren't immediately serious, they had gradually worsened, but still! I was a little proud of dealing with all of this, I had to admit. I don't know if it was because of the dimension jump or all the madness here so far, but I definitely wouldn't have made it two weeks in my old life. I think I would have cracked last Friday, in fact, the day they filled my room with a bunch of round creatures that had beady eyes and way too many legs. And frankly, where did they find the time to catch so many?

Anyway, I opened my door this Friday afternoon to find my bed full of bedbugs, slugs, fleas and whatnot. I had been on a quest to slouch for a minute in bed, and it was only a clumsy movement that led to me crashing onto the floor rather than on top of what was trapped under the sheets. I'm pretty sure the sound I let out at that moment was more like a dog being strangled to death than a human, but… removing spiders and slugs was not exactly a pleasure activity and I was close to a nerve crisis. I admit without shame that I burst into tears in the middle of my cleaning. Now, fleas on the other hand… Well, let's just say I haven't slept in my bed since that day.

The sofas in the library were much more comfortable anyways.

Optimism, Eve, optimism…

All that is to say that I really, really, really want to go to Tricia, damn my morals. It's really hard to care about someone's future when they are actively trying to make your life as difficult as possible… and I am far from a saint. I know that if I continue like this, it's only a matter of time before things go far enough to hurt someone. Most likely me. And when that happens, either things will be discovered, or my torturers will be scared enough to stop. (I choose not to consider the other option.) The obvious choice would be to go directly to a concerned authority, right? Since it would eventually end up with it coming out one of these days, so I could save myself some pain…

But I won't do it.

Because despite all my best efforts, I could not consider the responses of these people without my knowledge of the manga. Of course, I had what seems to be a good relationship with them, but… weren't the Noah meant to desire the destruction of humanity? And, well, I'm human, so…

Yeah. You see the problem. I tried to tell myself that, at this moment, I've been hanging out with them for more than a year daily, they can't have been pretending to appreciate me for this long… right? And at that, the word "NOAH" starts looping in my head…

So, yes, I could have complained to Tricia, but what then? It's not like she wants or could get rid of half of the mansion employees… We appreciate each other, of course, but she also gets on well with the other staff. Hell, our very first conversation had involved how Tricia's employees were "nice"! Of course, there were some who only acted nice to get a better paycheck, but for the most part, I am convinced that they just love their mistress. It's hard not to love Tricia after all.

But, let's say Tricia decides to report my problem to Sheryl… so what? Sheryl remains the master of the house and he would be smart to get rid of the root of the problem, namely me, as opposed to the half dozen people who created it. Especially since we don't really have positive feelings between us. There was a chance that we could have gotten along better in the beginning, when I was just there for his wife and daughter and I managed to take care of the twins which took care of a huge thorn in his side… but it all sort of went to hell at the arrival of Tyki and the insinuations of Road. We often discussed his daughter-complex, but he certainly shouldn't underestimate his brother-complex, it's quite something…

Anyway, in either case, leaving because of the employees or being dismissed by Sheryl, the problem remained the same: the fear of the unknown.

I've said it before, but I was incredibly lucky to have been hired by the Kamelott's. What would I have done if it had just been me, poor girl of the 20th century in the bottom of London? I didn't know anything about life there back then, apart from the romanticized counts, it would be laughable to think I would have made it out smoothly.

So, with all the trips I've taken with Tyki and the stories that Allen sent me, I was much more likely to get out of homelessness now… but still!

I preferred to endure a bit more harassment rather than throwing myself towards the streets of London with only the clothes on my back. Well, that's what I told myself at the beginning of last week.

Now, however, I'm not so sure… every day without a reaction on my part, the "jokes" have become more and more violent. So much so that I don't dare to stay alone for too long. At least Road and the twins were happy about the attention. I had even returned to my dreaded piano lessons almost daily! And Merlin knows I hate the professor… Tyki looked at me strangely for days after I returned after only a few days of boycotting. He told me he was confident that I was going to ignore the teacher continuously unless there was a big change. At the same time, I was definitely going to, but the twins had their classes in the afternoon, as well as Road, and Tyki had to be out of town sometimes for Sheryl, so I had to find a bodyguard on those days! And because the piano teacher shows up in the room whether I'm there or not… Well, I guess he gets the joy of my presence a few afternoons a week.

And wow, were my hands suffering…

I'm already against physical punishment in education, but who thought it was a good idea to hurt the hands of a piano player? Is that not, I don't know… totally counterproductive?! Meh. I guess I just don't have the same logic…

I want a bath…

With grim eyes, I cast a desperate look at the stack of clothes I still had to "clean" before I could hope to return to the mansion. I really wish I could use magic right now, immediately. Heck, this was taking way longer than I thought, I was a little too optimistic… Dinner would be over soon, and even if I didn't worry about seeing someone bad here (the healers were absolutely unaffected by the whole story, I could say they're probably a bit on my side, since they let me use their facilities and sometimes bring food without a word) I will need to be absolutely careful and quiet when I'm returning after.

Ruminating on my dark thoughts, I still end up slaughtering the load of laundry and I get up to crack my lower back. Merlin I was tired. I haven't slept very well lately… The library is definitely comfortable, but I'm always afraid I'll be found by someone or that I won't wake up in time the next day. Then I kind of fall into an unpleasant half-sleep where even the slightest noise awakens me with a start. In fact, I think the rate of my napping has exploded in the last two weeks… I must be at least a little suspicious, but it's hard to resist dozing when I'm sitting comfortably in the library, an old English book in my lap and Tyki who, by his mere presence stood guard unconsciously against my torturers. So many times this has happened, that it's not uncommon for me to find myself waking up drooling and in an awkward position, or, on one memorable occasion, my head on Tyki's shoulder and Road's head on my lap. It took all of my composure not to jump and wake Road (who almost certainly was fully aware already, since, you know, Noah).

It was already dark by the time I pushed on the door of the stable, a basket of clothes that were more or less clean in my hands. They were still soaked, of course. I did my best for the wrinkles, but it was much more difficult alone and I would have to lay them out between two chairs in my room before being able to get to the library to sleep.

The exterior doors were closed at this time, but luckily it was easy enough to slip inside by the large window of one of the small living rooms. Ironically, it was the one where I brought the twins for our first prank on Road. Many others had followed since, but now I was careful not to interfere. Closing the window carefully, I picked up my heavy basket before slipping into the dark hallways towards the grand staircase.

Dinner was over by now, the Noahs were most likely in one of the upstairs family lounges or, occasionally, in their bedrooms, and the servants were avoiding the main halls as much as possible, so the logical choice was to use those. What's more, it would bring me upstairs faster, the place where I would really need to pay attention.

This logic was still valid… but you must know that logic isn't my thing, because who else is at the top of the stairs but my chief torturer. I froze at the sight of them in the process of placing a new candle in a candlestick for the corridor.

Before I could even sketch a gesture, she spotted me, and her face wrinkled in deep disgust.

"What have we here..." she sneered as she walked toward me, a grin on her face and anger in her eyes. "Should you not be in your room Miss Campbell? It's not very appropriate to walk alone so late..." she added with a condescending tone, stopping a few steps away from me.

"Exactly, I was just coming back, if you would excuse me..." I replied with a tight smile, before rushing a few steps in her direction, all too aware of the stairs at my back. Nobody had attempted a murder so far, but there was no reason to try the devil...

"Oh, don't take another step." She said immediately, stepping aside to directly block my path, forcing me to stop to not hit her. Curses, these corridors are too small… there was no way to get around her easily, and my hands were already occupied with the basket, which didn't give me reassurance. "You're so arrogant! Rejecting me like I'm junk when I'm simply making conversation. So consumed by your rank that you treat even fellow servants like dirt under your shoes! And Jean doesn't see why I don't trust you! Just admit it, you've charmed them, haven't you? You witch, you whore, ugh, you disgust me!" She hissed suddenly, letting out all of the rage she had accumulated against me.

Hate was not beautiful to see.

"I have no problem with the servants, rank does not matter to me." I snapped just as fast even though I knew unfortunately that nothing would convince this woman. "You're only jealous because I got the job you wanted for years in a week. I do not know you and what I've seen in recent weeks, I do not want to know you, but you seem to be a very bitter woman, one of those human beings who dishonors all others." I spoke distinctly with an acidic voice, fists clenched around my basket so that the joints were white. Maybe a week ago I would have tried to be the best version of myself and talk to her, tried to understand her problem and help her but now? Now, I was just tired, and I wanted this bullshit to end. Too bad for understanding Eve, I was far from being a saint and my patience had reached its limit. "It's not even that you disgust me, it would be useless to evoke feelings so strong for someone as pathetic as you, no... you make me pity." I finished in a loud voice with a crooked smile, head up and laughing eyes before forcing my way in front of her.

With outstretched arms and trembling legs, I forced myself not to turn back to her, well aware that turning my back was not the best of ideas, but what else was I supposed to do? What's more, it's not as if the woman was armed and it would be terribly stupid of her to try a hand -to- hand attack when we were barely a few feet away from the family rooms.

I guess I had too much faith.

I hadn't even taken two steps before a hand grabbed my collar and pulled me back, making me let go of my basket with a low cry of surprise. "Shut up!" The woman hissed, immediately pushing me to the ground, face pressed into my wet laundry basket. My mouth and nose clogged by the sheets, I soon gained my composure following my surprise and began struggling violently, tapping the basket to the side and using the new space to kick at her knees. Shouting in pain, she stumbled back, and I watched her fall towards the stairs in horror. "Watch out!" I screamed, pushing myself up, my hand outstretched to catch her.

And I almost did it. Almost. Right as my hand grazed her dress, two little arms wrapped around my waist, nailing me to my spot with a force that their small size should not contain. "Leave her." Coldly ordered a voice behind my shoulder, but it's not like I could have done anything else anyway: she was too strong for me.

And of course, eyes wide open in horror, I saw my torturer fall down the stairs with a terrified gasp, her shoulders hitting the stairs with a sickening crunch before rolling to the ground floor and stopping at the bottom of the steps, motionless.

Panting, I could barely feel the hands pull away from me as I ran down the stairs, almost stumbling in my eagerness to go to the woman. Letting myself fall onto my knees by her side, I tried, panicked, to remember my first aid classes, my eyes burning with tears. Steadfastly avoiding looking at her left arm, which lay by her side in an improbable position, I wrapped my fingers around her wrist with one hand and lifted her eyelid with the other, bodily sagging in relief when I felt a pulse. "She's alive." I was relieved to say as I racked my brains to find out what the hell I was supposed to do next.

"Sadly." A desolate voice sounded from behind me and I jumped a bit to see Road calmly walking down the last steps towards my location.

"Road?" I whispered with a trembling voice as the girl came up to me before leaning over the woman's body with a deep disgust on her face.

"You're right you know," she said instead of answering me. "She's really not a good example of the human species…" she remarked, squatting with her elbows on her knees and her head in her hands. "It was fun to see her poor attempts to improve her status in recent years. You're far from the first person she's bothered you know, but it's not because of that, I just don't like when others touch my things." She added, turning her piercing gaze on me instead. "Aaaah… I'm disappointed, Eve. I wish you would have told me about yourself sooner… I waited weeks, you know, this whole story could have ended much earlier."

My brain wading in semolina, I looked at the girl in confusion. It was… Road, right? This little girl that I had come to know in recent months? The one with whom I made snowmen and helped with homework and played… dolls.

Dolls.

I had already thought about this, hadn't I? I had always told myself that I was just a doll to Road, a new favored toy that she was taking care of, trying not to break it. I had told myself that and yet… yet, I had hoped that it was more than that, that I had thawed the heard of the Noah a bit… but it was just an illusion, huh? I shouldn't have deceived myself, honestly, what could little Ennael do, the weird girl that was completely disconnected from her feelings? Empathy? Ah! I had lied to myself, I had always been terribly bad at comforting other people and this was all for nothing! I can't recognize feelings if they hit me in the face. I could imitate them, yes, I could pretend, yes, my many years in theatre could guarantee that at least, but I couldn't tell if the feelings were real or not.

Eyes wide, I opened my mouth without even knowing what I was going to say, but I closed it quickly when I heard a noise coming from the top of the stairs. Getting up all of a sudden, Road's expression changed dramatically, and she began to scream, crying "Help us! There was an accident, someone fell, we need help!" Soon, the steps approached revealing Eliott at the top of the stairs. Still with his usual empty aura, he glanced at Road, nodded, and then turned and disappeared down the corridor before my stunned eyes.

Uhhh… what?

Finally feeling the blood seep into my skirt, I hastened to remove my jacket to press against the head of the woman, not knowing what else to do. Road still did not seem determined to help me, in fact, she was looking at the whole procedure with a deep boredom. "I don't understand why you'd help her, she deserved it... Fortunately we don't have carpet in the hall, all this blood would have been impossible to remove!" She moaned, returning to the little girl I knew better, even though she was complaining about the death of a human instead of a doll.

Well, then again, it was pretty much the same for her ...

Luckily, just seconds later, we heard traces of racing feet again and Sheryl appeared at the top of the stairs flanked by Tyki and Tricia. "My God!" Tricia gasped, wide-eyed, covering her mouth with her hands, her husband and brother already descending the stairs.

"What happened?" Sheryl asked as Road rushed into his arms.

"Oh it was horrible, I saw everything!" Road began to recount with excessive drama. "The maid was naughty with Eve and tried to push her down the stairs, but luckily I caught her! The maid, on the other hand, was dragged into her swing and fell in her place." Cried Road, and now that I thought about it, it was noticeably true. I did notice the fact that she had completely avoided the fact that she had prevented me from catching the matron-in-chief though…

"Eve?" Tricia whispered from right next to me. Surprised, I jumped and snapped my head in her direction. I was still kneeling in a pool of blood near the woman, trembling hands pressed against her head and hazy eyes: I didn't paint a pretty picture. "Come with me, darling." She said softly, putting a hand on my shoulder.

"But… I… She needs help…" I stuttered barely understandably. Warm hands suddenly overlaid mine and I turned my head to see Tyki kneeling in turn to the woman, his eyes fixed on Tricia. "I'll take care of it, take Eve and Road, Tricia." He said before turning to Sheryl "Brother, call the doctor."

Sheryl nodded and gently pushed Road towards Tricia and me before rushing back down the stairs, Eliott already kneeling beside Tyki to help him.

"Let's go to the master bedroom, I do not think you should be alone tonight..." Tricia murmured, her hands wrapped protectively around our shoulders and I was just amazed that she took care of me the same as she did her daughter.

As we climbed the stairs, Tricia letting us go for a second to whisper a quick order to one of the maids who had just arrived because of the hustle, I turned my head to watch the scene continuing behind us.

With my hands still shaking, I watched more and more servants hurry up with medical supplies or simply to observe everything with morbid curiosity. Admittedly, seeing her falling down the stairs and crashing to the ground had been terrifying but...

A small hand slid around my bloody fingers, forcing me to turn my head to plunge my eyes into the unusually gilded Road's. A smile of contentment was on her lips, far from the weeping girl she had played just moments ago, and she pulled me gently towards Tricia without ever taking her eyes off of mine.

...But what scared me the most was that I finally realized the full meaning of the word "Noah". Mentally, I had known what they were, I even had a brief glimpse of Tyki's in Paris, but now it was obvious that I did not integrate the meaning well. Because it could very well have been me as the person bathing in their own blood at the bottom of the staircase.

Shivering, I instinctively tightened my hand around Road's little fingers as I followed her down the halls. Although I knew about all the horrible things I had just missed in the nineteenth century, I must have been taking things too lightly.

This whole story about maybe jumping dimensions is suddenly taking on a much more sinister look…

KnK: Pretenses are slowly being stripped away…

Nël: Is not it a little pathetic that I do not remember the last time I wrote an action scene? X) in fact, I do not even know if we can call it an action scene, there are literally only two sentences that describe the fall of a character whose name we do not even know ...

By the way, i made a chapter Bonus for 100000 words and 100 reviews of NlN! So when we reach 100 reviews here too, if Koneko can do it, you'll have the bonus chapter too :) It's 12,000 word of other characters explaining their point of you of STB from 1 to chapter 27.

Anyway! I hope once again that everything is going well for you :) and I see you next month! Tell yourself that if it's not the case, the next time you read Eve's woes, all your exams will be finished!