Helloooo people I'm so sorry for not updating in so long :') I had a pretty whacky semester and currently it's my break, but I still gotta work 2 jobs to earn moolah :'))) I'd love to update more regularly but oh well, life amirite? Anyways, I hope all of you out there are taking care of yourselves, no matter which part of the world you're in. Wear your masks and wash your hands with soap. Merry Christmas and here's to a better 2021 to everyone!
Hope you enjoy this chapter and some reviews would be lovely (if you have any ideas or inspiration for me then do let me know hehe)
Koala felt a light poke on her cheek. She ignored it.
Another poke.
"What is it, Sabo-kun?" She sighed. Her eyes remained fixated on her chemistry notes in her hands, not looking at the boy.
"Quiz me," Sabo begged.
"Look, we only have 5 minutes left. No amount of quizzing will make a difference at this point," she replied flatly, still reading her notes. "Besides, it's your fault for not preparing for midterms earlier."
Sabo pouted. He turned to Emma, and was about to ask her for the same thing but before he could even speak a work Emma cut him off with a flat "No."
"I haven't even said anything!" Sabo exclaimed. Emma shrugged.
Emma too, was reading the notes she prepared for the midterm tests. Students were gathered in the hallways, outside of the classrooms. The voices of many students reverberated in her ears. Many of them had the same idea as Sabo and were giving each other last-minute quizzes, others trying to confirm some theories, and some just murmuring chemistry whatnots to themselves in a pitiful attempt to stuff information in their tiny brains just few minutes before they had to be ushered into their classrooms.
Few minutes later, the teacher came out of the classroom to announce that they could enter the classroom, put their bags at the front of the classroom, bring only the necessary materials blah blah blah…
Koala took her stack of notes, and gently tapped on Sabo's head once, then both his shoulders. "In the name of the God of Chemistry, I bless you with the knowledge you will need for this final paper. Good luck!" Koala beamed at Sabo as she waved at him. She grabbed Emma's wrist and pulled her along towards their classroom.
Emma waved at Sabo too. "If you ever get stuck on a questions, just communicate with either one of us with telepathy!" She advised, before disappearing behind the doors with Koala.
"…Thanks for nothing, both of you," Sabo sighed, making his way to his own classroom for the impending doom that was about to befall on him.
—
A week later, everyone got back their midterms results. Koala did decently, getting a good mix of As and Bs. Whereas for Emma, she got more Bs than As, but she was still satisfied with her results. Except for that one C she got for biology…
During their break, both girls went over to class 2-B to see how Sabo fared.
"Mostly Bs, thankfully," he sighed. "Luffy though…"
"What about him?" Asked Emma.
Apparently he failed all his papers, but the saddest part is he failed just by a few measly marks. Koala chided Sabo for allowing this to happen in the first place. Right before the day of their first paper, they were fooling around and playing video games with Ace. It's not too much of an issue for Sabo, since he listens in class (but whether he did his homework or not is another issue). For Ace? He sleeps in class a lot because of his narcolepsy issue, but at least he bothers to catch up on lessons when he is awake. Luffy? He can't be bothered, he just wants to have fun. Always running around screaming something about Freedomand The Ocean.
"He barely made it into the second year, didn't he?" Koala recalled, tapping a finger on her chin.
Next to her, Emma nodded. "There was even a betting pool on when Luffy will drop out of high school."
"Eh?!" Exclaimed Koala. "Who—what—why?"
Emma only needed to say one word to answer all of Koala's questions: Law.
Ah, figures, Koala had muttered to herself, before Shachi and Penguin decided to barge in on their conversation.
Both boys each wrapped an arm around Emma's shoulders, Shachi on her right and Penguin on her left, and greeted her with a loud 'Emma-chaaaaaan!'(and for the damage they had done to her ears, she pulled on their ear lobes until they let go of her).
"How was your midterms?" Shachi asked first, quickly recovering from Emma's ear pull.
"It's fine, nothing to brag home about," Emma brushed off easily. Well, not like there's anyone at home for her to brag to anyways…
A figure towered over Emma from behind, and a very familiar voice announced: "Your biology paper didn't seem fine."
Emma slowly turned around and craned her neck upwards a little, Law's steel-grey eyes bore through her, and unless Emma's eyes were playing tricks on her, it almost seemed as if his eyes were gleaming with glee.
She frowned. "At least I passed," Emma grumbled.
"Barely," Law shot back. He glanced at the clock on top of the the blackboard, fifteen minutes till their break is over.He grabbed Emma's arm and started dragging her towards the door. "I'll take a look at your paper," Law drawled, ignoring Emma protests and arm-slapping as she was fussing about how she didn't need any help from him.
Just before they reached the door, Emma turned to her group of friends who were still circled around Sabo's desk. She looked at them with her best I'm-a-kicked-puppylook. They waved her off with smiles on their faces.
Heartless bastards.
—
Nothing much happened for the rest of the school day. Instead of the usual lessons, the teachers have prepared various activities for the week to teach the students things that are out of the curriculum to "broaden their horizons". The lists of activities includes a Cooking Class (some students argued: 'Isn't that the usual home economics class?'), a trip to the Edo-Tokyo Museum, and finally the annual Sports Festival to end off the week.
— Tuesday: Cooking Class —
Everyone was told to gather in the kitchens after home room. And please bring along your aprons, caps, and food containers. Since there were only two kitchens in the school, class 2-A and 2-B got to go in the morning, and they would switch over in the afternoon for 2-C and 2-D.
Their home economics teacher announced that they will be working in pairs, as usual. Typically they were paired according to their order in the class list. In that case, Emma should be paired with Shirahoshi, as usual.
Her eyes darted around the kitchen until she saw the pink-haired girl talking to another girl in their class. Emma walked up to her. "Shirahoshi-san! Should I get the ingredients for the both of us?"
Shirahoshi turned upon hearing Emma's voice, and her head tilted slightly to the side as she looked at Emma funny. "Eh? But I'm pairing with her today," Shirahoshi pointed to the girl she was talking to earlier. "Since Camie-chan is absent today, the pairings got affected," she explained.
'Oh, that's right,' Emma thought, 'Camie wasn't there for home room this morning.'
So instead of partnering the person before her, she would be partnering the person after.
Wait.
"Oi, what are you doing?" A familiar voice snapped at Emma.
Emma sighed. That's right, Trafalgar was after Sylvers.
"I've got the stuff already, get your ass over here," Law motioned to one of the counters where he had placed the ingredients already.
"Blessings be upon me," Emma whispered to herself, making her way to where Law was.
They were making scotch eggs and a simple salad. The teacher offered to make rice for everyone, so that they can all eat what they made for lunch.
Emma gave herself a mental pat on the back for not preparing today's lunch.
The students followed along as the teacher gave them instructions. Boil the eggs, put them in an ice bath, peel them, set aside, chop up the veggies, yada yada yada.
They decided to take turns cutting the vegetables.
Emma stood next to Law as she watched him have a go with the knife. She found herself slightly impressed, from the way Law handled the knife, he's definitely not foreign to the idea of cooking. Without realising it, Emma let out a hum of approval.
"I know how to cook too, you know," Law remarked when he heard Emma. He eyed the girl next to him, and was slightly taken aback to find her grinning at him.
"Couldn't tell, you always ate store-bought onigiri before you started stealing my lunch," she pointed out. "By the way, I still want repayment for all the times you stole my food."
Law waved her off, and went back to cutting the onions (Emma insisted he cut the onions because he's a lot taller, so he wouldn't cry. He rolled his eyes at her logic, but really he found it amusing).
After that, they prepared the patty that was to be wrapped around the egg. Minced pork, bread crumbs, milk, onions, some spices, and eggs. Emma was dead set on cracking the eggs. So Law let her have her fun, and teased her when she got a bit of the shell in the bowl.
"Such as amateurish mistake for someone who cooks often."
Emma clicked her tongue and slapped his arm lightly in retaliation. "Happens from time to time, get over it."
With gloves on, both of them took a boiled egg each, and started wrapping it with the minced pork. After that they coated the wrapped egg with flour, more egg, and bread crumbs. Emma blew some leftover flour in Law's face, and he flicked her forehead.
They brought the wrapped egg to the deep-fry station. The teacher had set up three fryers, and there was only one other pair of students now. Law and Emma took another fryer. Law placed an egg on the strainer for Emma to gently lower the egg in hot oil. "Be careful of the oil splatters," he warned.
The first one was alright. Come the second egg, Emma was lifting her elbows up to avoid the oil splatters from the first egg frying. After the second egg was in the oil, she recoiled her arm away quickly. There were a few red spots forming on her arm from the oil splatters.
"I'll take over, go wash your arm," Law told her. He picked up a tong and moved the eggs around so that it will get an even fry all over.
After Emma washed her arms, she went back to the deep-fry station, but stood at a distance away to avoid getting burned by more oil splatters. She watched as Law stood in front of the fryer, not even flinching at all when the oil came into contact with his skin.
After a few minutes Law took out the eggs out and placed it on a tray with paper towels that Emma prepared earlier, and they went back to their counter.
There wasn't much to do for the salad, it was just some chopped cabbage, and dump as much sesame dressing as you want. Tada.
They were one of the first few pairs to finish, so they sat at their counters and watched the rest of the class as they were struggling.
"Oh, Black Leg-ya and Killer-ya are really going at it," Law observed.
"Hm?" Emma looked at where Law was looking, and saw the two guys in question glaring at each other, and their respective partners standing far away from them. "What are they doing?"
Law shrugged. "Don't know, but at least it'll keep me entertained for," he paused and looked at the clock, "forty-five minutes."
Emma hummed again, and decided to watch the two blondes argue as well. A few minutes later the teacher intervened, and somehow the entire situation escalated to Sanji and Killer facing each other for a cook-off. The rest of the class abandoned their scotch eggs, and opted to look at Sanji and Killer as they made another dish. Everyone insisted the teacher to be the judge.
Emma whistled. "Wow, they're really fired up."
"Now this,is entertainment." Law chuckled.
Both of them watched the impromptu cook-off away from the crowd, occasionally making their own remarks and commentaries to make it more fun.
"What do you think is Black Leg-ya's secret ingredient?"
"His perviness and never-ending desire to please the girls."
"Wrong, it's the blood coming out from his nose, probably mixed with some of his nose hair."
Emma laughed. "Ew."
Neither of them realised it, but at some point they called truce to whatever disagreement they had with one another. And at some point, Emma found herself enjoying the position of the bystander, watching all the chaos and fights from the sidelines, instead of just avoiding it completely.
When it was nearing the end of the lesson, Sanji and Killer were handing out samples of the dishes they made to everyone in the class. They made extras for everyone, and the students of 2-A were more than happy to be getting free food. Before the teacher could announce her judgement, the bell rang, and abruptly told the class to pack up and move back to their classrooms, much to the disappointment of everyone.
On their way back to the classroom, Emma took a bite of the chicken karaage Killer made, while Law tried the curry pasta Sanji made. Without a word, both of them held out the containers they had for the other to make a switch.
"We're well fed today," Law said, still chewing the food in his mouth.
"Gotta work all these calories off later during training later," Emma sighed as she rubbed her tummy.
Until lunch break came, Law and Emma read their own books (Bookworms of 2-A!), not listening to the teacher as he was talking about the history of Rakugo.
Lunch came, Penguin, Shachi and Bepo decided to come by and drop them a visit. Penguin and Shachi heard a commotion coming from 2-A during the cooking class, and wanted to know what the fuss was all about. Emma told them about the cooking competition between Sanji and Killer, and how everyone in 2-A had their own share of food.
"Did you save some for us?!" Shachi asked.
"We ate everything," Law replied. "It was delicious," he added, just to provoke them even further.
"Law! How could you!" Shachi cried.
"I thought we were friends!" Penguin cried too.
Emma ignored their antics and turned to Bepo, offering half of the scotch eggs they made earlier.
Bepo munched on it happily.
— Wednesday: A Trip to Edo-Tokyo Museum —
The school's Humanities Department arranged different activities across different cohorts. For the second year students, the teachers decided to bring them to the museum to learn more about the Edo period. They were all given worksheets, and had to go around the museum to fill them in. And to top it off, they had to write up a report and submit it the following week. Everything was to be done in pair work.
When their home room teacher announced this, Emma sighed (she's been sighing a lot recently, she realised). Camie was still absent, apparently she came down with a pretty bad flu, and won't be in school for the rest of the week.
She felt the weight of a flat object placed on her head from behind. "Don't sound so depressed, I recalled you had a lot of fun with me yesterday," Law mocked.
The school had chartered buses to transport the students. The museum is quite a distance away from the school, their teacher estimated they would take almost an hour to reach there, provided there is no traffic congestion along the way.
For some reason, the teacher insisted everyone sit with their partners. Sheesh.
Despite that, it was a sight to behold, really. Everyone else in the bus were either chatting up with their friends, or fell asleep the moment they got to their seats.
Emma and Law whipped out their books and started reading before the bus even left.
Emma wasn't even halfway through Sophie's World. She didn't want to rush it, and took her time reading it to digest the information, and to understand the theories that various ancient philosophers came up with. She found herself having to back track a few times to read sentences over and over again. Law, on the other hand, was already reading another book. He had returned Emma's book last week.
Ten minutes into the bus ride, Emma found herself getting motion sickness from reading while the bus was moving. Reluctantly, she closed her book and kept it in her bag, and chose to look out the window instead. Long ago, someone told her that if she ever got motion sickness, looking far out helps with the headache and nausea, so that's what she did.
Law noticed the change, but did not comment on it. He continued to read, unaffected by the jerky movements of the bus.
Eventually, Emma felt drowsy, and thought she should get some eye shut for a bit.
She woke up to Law shaking her shoulders lightly. Her head was leaning against Law's arm.
"We're reaching soon," Law informed her. Emma responded with a yawn.
"So, do I make a good pillow?"
Emma tried her damndest to swallow whatever feelings of embarrassment was bubbling up within her, and feigned indifference. With a steady voice, she replied: "Yeah, ever considered going into the pillow business? People can pay you and use you as a pillow."
"Would you pay me to use me as a pillow?"
"Nope, wouldn't pay a single yen."
The class of 2-A got off the bus, and gathered in the lobby to meet their guide. After a brief introduction on the museum's history, the guide brought them in and started to show exhibit after exhibit to the students. He shared about some of the artefacts that archaeologists unearthed, ranging from pottery to cutlery, art works to samurai armours. Most students dutifully took down notes and filled in their worksheets, while some decided to snap pictures of the description of each display and fill in the worksheet later. Emma and Law decided to snap pictures first, do work later.
When their class reached the samurai exhibit, they found Zoro all alone, looking at the samurai armour display. His classmates were nowhere to be found.
"Zoro, you're not lost, are you?" Nami sighed. Sanji was snickering behind her.
"I'm not lost," Zoro gritted out. "They were just here a second ago, and left without telling me. How is that my fault?!" He grumbled a bit more, and started to walk off somewhere else, but Nami held him by the collar before he could get away any further.
"Hold it, don't go anywhere! If you get lost, the teachers will call for a manhunt for you. Just stay here and follow our class!" Nami scolded him, but she did not stop there. She went on to rant about all the previous times Zoro got lost, which caused a lot of trouble for everyone, just to prove her point. Eventually Zoro got tired of hearing all of it, told Nami to shut it, and followed 2-A begrudgingly.
Emma thought it was amazing how no one told them off for being noisy in the museum.
It didn't take long for class 2-C's teacher to realise that Zoro was missing. Just a few minutes later their teacher received a phone call, and Emma overheard their teacher saying "Don't worry, his friends are keeping a tight leash on him. He won't get lost again."
After going through the entire exhibit, the students were given some time to themselves to wander around the museum. Emma wanted to check the gift shop to see if they sold any interesting books about the Edo Period. Law went to the museum cafe to get some coffee and to laze around for a bit.
Emma spent quite some time holed up in the gift shop, together with Nami and Koala, as they pored over introductory books, and went around poking at little trinkets displayed on the shelves. Much to Nami and Koala's surprise, Emma decided not to get anything. There was nothing in there that caught her interest.
Law expressed the same sentiment. He raised an eyebrow at her when he saw that she came back empty handed "Found nothing huh?"
Emma shrugged, and took a sip of the coffee she had requested Law to get for her before she went to the gift shop. "Nothing that can't be found on the internet. I was thinking maybe I could find something that will help us with the report, but…" She trailed off.
"Internet," Law finished for her.
"Yeah."
Not too long after, Shachi and Penguin came along and made themselves comfortable at their table, complaining how there weren't any empty seats left in the museum cafe as it was all occupied by the other students. By some dumb luck—or perhaps, misfortune— the both of them were paired together for this history assignment. Between Law, Emma, and the whole of class 2-B, it is no secret that both Shachi and Penguin hate history with a burning passion.So when the pair approached Law and Emma, the both of them already knew Shachi and Penguin had some sort of ulterior motive.
Penguin leaned forward and rested his elbows on the table, cupping his face with his hands. "Sooo…"
Shachi copied Penguin. "We have a requessssst…"
"No," Law rejected flatly.
"Listen to what we have to say first!" Shachi complained. "Geez."
Penguin eyed Emma as she was filling up the worksheet they were given, referring to the pictures that she and Law took while they were looking through the exhibits earlier. Penguin clapped both of his hands together and bowed his head low. "We're begging you, Emma, please let us copy your worksheet!"
"Sure," Emma replied nonchalantly as she scribbled the answers for the last question on the worksheet, and held the piece of paper out for Penguin. He snatched the paper out of her hand in a flash, giving Emma a wide grin. "Thanks Emma, you're a lifesaver!"
Law stared at Emma blankly, and she was pretty sure she felt an aura of disapproval radiating from him.
"…What?"
Law shook his head in response. "You're gonna spoil them."
"Nah, they'll be fine," Emma waved him of nonchalantly. "They'll do so well in physics and win so many competitions in the Robotics Club, they'll get scholarship offers from Universities all over the country."
"If, they do win," Law reasoned.
"If, indeed."
They spent the rest of the time at the museum cafe discussing on how they should go about writing the history report, where they should get their resources from (Emma suggested to ask Robin, and Law agreed with the idea), and of course, when they should meet up to get started on the report. Law proposed they get started this Friday after the Sports Festival is over, then meet up on Saturday to get the bulk of the report done, and if necessary, meet again on Sunday to finalise everything and tidy things up.
"I have work this Saturday, my shift ends at 5pm," Emma said.
Law raised an eyebrow at that. It was rare for high schoolers to work a part time job, since most of them would rather spend their free time to catch up on their studies or have fun with their friends. In fact, it was common for schools to ban students from working part time during the school term since they don't want the students to neglect their studies. Thankfully, their school does not have this particular rule.
"Where do you work at?" Law asked.
"Tully's Coffee, at Sunshine City" Emma replied.
"How about I meet you there after your shift ends," Law suggested. "We can get some work done there. They do offer free Wi-Fi, right?"
Emma nodded. "We can probably stay there until closing, I'm sure my manager doesn't mind."
They talked a little more about the report, Emma's workplace, and somehow the entire conversation led to them getting into a little debate on why cereal is not soup—in Emma's case, Why Cereal Is Soup.In between all of that, Shachi came by to return Emma her worksheet after they were done copying her answers. A few of their classmates circled around them to listen in on the heated discussion. Then, Sanji joined in as well with the opinion that cereal isn't soup, only to change his opinion immediately after finding out that Emma was arguing that cereal is soup.
Eventually the teacher came by to collect their worksheets and informed the students to line up and get ready to board the bus back to school, effectively breaking up their argument before they could arrive at a conclusion.
— Friday: Annual Sports Festival —
Students were buzzing with excitement, classrooms filled with tension as students in every class were getting ready to play games with—thrash—students from other classes. Everyone was proudly clad in their class t-shirts which students have designed themselves, with a cloth headbands tied around their forehead. Those who volunteered to represent the class for various events huddled together as they went through the game plan one more time, while those who preferred to stay on the sidelines have prepared bottles of isotonic drinks, paper fans, clappers, pom poms, and really just about anything they could get their hands on that allowed them to render quality support to the athletes.
One by one, students marched out of their classrooms and out onto the school field, where the festival will be held the at the entire day.
With the whole school gathered at the field, the principal begins with his welcome speech. After that, upbeat pop music starts to play through the speakers as teachers announced the games and which classes that will be playing. "Piggyback race, representatives of class 2-A, 2-B, 2-C, and 2-D, please report to Area C now!"
Nami and Sanji stood up, the former with a somewhat irritated scowl on her face while the latter was swooning over her and chanting: "Nami-swaaaaaan~ I'll carry you to the moon and back if you'd let me!" The second-year students snickered at Sanji's display of affection, much to Nami's chagrin.
As the representatives made their way to the reporting area, if you look closely enough, you'd notice there are a few students who are not paying attention to the festivities going on around them, and instead they are busy typing away on their phones, and murmurs of "betting pool is open now".
Emma turned around to look at Law as he kept his phone in his pocket. He met her eye on eye and grinned at her. "So, which pair are you betting on?"
"If I win, will you pay me everything in the pot?"
"What do you think?" Law answered, grinning ever so widely.
Emma allowed a little smile on her face. "In any case, I think Sanji and Nami will win this for us." Suddenly, her eyes widened a little bit and her mouth formed a little 'o', as if she came upon some grand revelation. "How about you create another betting pool to see if Sanji will have a nosebleed during the race later?"
Law chuckled. "If I did that, I'd end up losing money."
With the event starting soon, all the second-year students turned their attention to Area C, where the respective class reps are preparing themselves. Girls hopped on to their male partners. Students started to cheer for their classmates. The deafening noise of clappers rang in everyone's ears. Seconds later, the teacher sounded the horn and lo and behold, Sanji took the lead and sprinted ahead of everyone else while Nami had her arms wrapped around his neck, pressing herself against his back.
All too soon, Sanji crossed the finish line and the first runner-up only crossed the finish line a good eight seconds after Sanji. The class of 2-A erupted into loud cheers and applauses, congratulating the pair as they made their way back to where their class was seated at. Sanji, of course, came back with tissues stuck in his nostrils to help with his nosebleed.
Events went by one after the other, more betting pools opened and closed one after the other, and soon it was time for lunch break. Lunch was made by Killer, who surprisingly decided not to take part in any of the games this year and would rather be part of the support team.
"I swear it's because he's separated from Eustass Kid. It has to be," Koala insisted, while they were talking about it(read: gossiping)over lunch.
After lunch, the afternoon games started. The afternoon games are typically the main event of the Sports Festival every year. The teachers would plan different obstacle course relays every year, and they have never disappointed so far as they kept coming up with new challenges every year. This year was no different.
The relay requires ten people, some of the obstacles are meant to be done by one person, others obstacles meant to be a teamwork between two people. Some bugger in class 2-A had a bright idea to pair Law and Emma together and make them 'The Ultimate Bookworm Tag Team of 2-A'.
And so, Law and Emma were standing at the start of their obstacle course, both of them bound together by a paper bracelet on their wrist. Law was standing slightly behind Emma, prepared to reach out his arms the moment Bartolomeo comes running with the baton while crying at the fact that he wasn't able to run the relay with Luffy and Zoro this year. Sure enough, Bartolomeo was sniffing and wiping his tears away as he ran towards Law and Emma. Law snatched the baton as soon as Bartolomeo was within range, and the both of them sprinted to the first obstacle: climbing over a huge ass wall.
Without any grace or ceremony, Law picked Emma up and threw her up on the wall, while being careful of the paper bracelets connecting them by the wrist. Emma had the lower half of her body hanging over the other side of the wall, waiting for Law to climb onto the wall so they could jump down together. Next they had to crawl under a tunnel, and it didn't help that the tunnel was very narrow. Law went in first, dragging Emma behind him, and not taking any care to make sure he did not kick her in the face. Thankfully, they had the advantage for the last obstacle, which required the students to grab a bell that was hanging from a tall pole. Emma climbed onto Law's shoulders and plucked the bell of the string with ease. They made their way to the finish line while laughing at their shorter counterparts, most of them struggling to even brush their fingers against the bell.
They made their way back to their class, and were welcomed by more cheers and congratulations, and many slaps on the back. Law dropped by 2-B for a short while to get some updates from Penguin about the bets for this game.
"You gave them a good run for their money, most people betted on 2-B or 2-D to win because of the people who participated in this game. Who would've thought that the shortest bunch of them would be stuck on the last obstacle…" Penguin remarked.
"Tactics, Penguin, tactics." Law chided, "Good players aren't good enough, you need to have a good line up to back it up."
"Will keep that in mind before I bet recklessly next year," Penguin laughed.
The last event was the finale of the Sports Festival, and it is the event that everyone looked forward to the most: Capture the Flag.
The playground? The whole school (except for certain restricted areas).
Teachers have planted flags all around the school, each colour representing each class, with a number on it to indicate which year the class belongs to. It was an all-out game, seniors could bully their juniors, and juniors could retaliate their seniors all they want. It was a game where the notion of 'mutual respect' is thrown out of everyone's dictionary. Alliances are formed. Betrayals everywhere. Promises to not steal an ally class' flags ignored.
Chaos ensues.
Of course, to make sure things don't go out of hand, teachers are stationed at every corner of the school to make sure no one gets injured.
Everyone was given fifteen minutes to strategise. Within that time, the second-year students miraculously decided to come together (will they really?) and wipe out the first-year and third-year classes first, before battling things out among themselves.
Emma leaned slightly towards Law. "How about you create a betting pool to see how long this alliance lasts?"
Law hummed in thought for a moment, shrugged, and started tapping away on his phone. "You keep coming up with these weird ideas today, am I turning you into a delinquent?" He mocked.
"It's just a suggestion, I'm not taking part in any of these bets." Emma smiled innocently.
At the sound of the horn, students set off immediately to steal as many flags as they could, and finding their own class flags so they could protect it. Some students stayed behind to protect their class' base. Emma was one of them, together with Killer and Shirahoshi.
"By the way, thanks for the bento lunch today, Killer. It was really good," Emma beamed at Killer.
Killer nodded in acknowledgement. "Thank you."
"How long did it take you to make all of the food? You must have woken up really early today," Shirahoshi quipped.
Killer shared he completed most of the preparations yesterday, and only had to wake up half an hour earlier than usual to heat up the food and pack everything. Soon enough the three of them were deep in conversation about cooking, exchanging cooking techniques and recipes they have learned so far, and the conversation turned into them critiquing celebrity chefs.
"… Jamie Oliver can't make fried rice for shit." Killer remarked.
Emma agreed wholeheartedly. "He should stick to making fish and chips."
"Don't be so mean… he's just trying to share his take on fried rice," Shirahoshi reasoned, as calm and gentle as ever.
Occasionally some people from their class dropped by to deposit some flags before running off to find more flags. To no one's surprise, they stole some second-years' flags despite the alliance they agreed on just twenty minutes ago. The game lasted for another ten more minutes, and the horn sounded again to signal the end of the last event. Students gathered back at the field, and from afar Emma could hear Luffy, Kid, and Bartolomeo arguing with one another about someone defecting from the alliance. She could faintly hear Kid screaming "I'll check all of your fucking boxes, and I swear I will fucking find my class' flags in one of you assholes' box!"
Killer shook his head and sighed.
"He won't scream his head off at us, will he?" Emma asked.
Killer sighed again. "As long as I'm around, we should be fine… I hope."
Kid's screams could be heard when he looked into 2-A's box.
—
After the award ceremony and cleaning up the field, students slowly made their way out of the school gates in groups, making dinner plans at nearby eateries. Law and Emma were invited to hang out with the rest for dinner, but turned them down as they had plans to get started on their history report.
"Oh, is that so?" Nami commented with a slight twinkle in her eye. "Perhaps another time then, see ya!" She waved goodbye to Emma, and walked out of the school gates with everyone else. Few minutes later, Law approached the school gate with Emma's bicycle in tow, and both of them headed for the train station.
They agreed to get dinner from the convenience store, then settle at Emma's house where they'll eat and do work at the same time. Both of them remained silent throughout the journey, and only spoke a few words too each other when they were buying dinner. When they arrived at Emma's apartment, she showed Law to the living room and recited the mandatory 'make yourself at home', and heated up their food in the microwave.
Not wanting to suffer from the heat and humidity any longer, Emma turned on the air-conditioner, made herself comfortable by the dining table. Both of them had their laptops out and wasted no time in starting their report.
For a while, the only sounds that filled the space was the rattling sounds of them typing away on their keyboards, the occasional sniffing, the gentle whirring of the air-conditioner, and the chairs creaking whenever either of them shifted on their chairs. After a while, Emma asked if she could turn on the television for 'some background noise'. Law simply answered her with: "This is your house, do whatever you want."
As the evening news played in the background, they continued typing away on their shared online document. Although, the atmosphere was noticeably less stagnant. Just a while after that, Emma asked about the development of the arts and religion during the Edo period, and both of them stopped writing their report for a while to do some research, which somehow ended up with them poking fun at how dumb the Shoguns and Daimyos were. Even after they resumed with their report, they kept up with the banter. Hours had passed, and neither of them noticed until Law looked up at the television and saw the time at the corner of the screen.
"I should get going, it's almost 10," Law announced. Emma responded with a yawn.
The fell silent again as Emma watched Law pack his belongings. Then, Law spoke up. "Do your parents work till late?"
Emma frowned a little and hesitated for a few moments, before finally replying. "My father works and stays at Shinjuku, I only get to see him once every few months."
Law waited, expecting her to continue. When she didn't, he let out a short 'oh'.
They stared at each other for a few more seconds.
"…My mother passed away from lung cancer back when I was still in middle school."
Law suppressed the urge to let out another 'oh', and instead asked, "Did she smoke?"
A heck lot, was Emma's reply. "She smoked so much that I made it a point to stay out of the house as much as I could to avoid second-hand smoke, plus the whole house stinks".
"That's…unfortunate," Law responded lamely. What was he supposed to say when a classmate reveals stuff like this? My condolences?
As if sensing the awkwardness, Emma quickly downplayed her family problems, saying things likes she's never been that chummy with her parents, at least she has a roof over her head, and she's living off whatever money her mother had saved up so she doesn't have to worry about finances for a while, and also—
Law patted her on the head once, which made Emma shut her mouth.
"It's alright." He said. 'You don't owe me an explanation,' he added silently.
All too soon, Law withdrew his hand and walked towards the front door. Emma showed him out, they wished each other good night, and Emma closed the door once Law turned around the corner and disappeared from sight.
Emma placed a hand on her head, where Law's hand had been resting on just moments ago. She let out the tiniest of smiles, and whispered:
'Thank you.'
—
The day passed in a blur for Emma. From the moment she clocked in at work at 11.30am, the weekend crowd came in never-ending waves, leaving no time for any of the staff to catch a breather. The team of four part-timers, together with their manager, moved non-stop like clockwork, from prepping the drinks to stuffing sandwiches into the microwave oven, from cleaning tables after tables to punching in orders into the system until their fingers were sore. So it was not surprising when Emma did not notice Law entering the coffee shop.
By some stroke of luck, a group of middle school kids left just when Law entered, so he occupied that table immediately and waited for Emma to end work.
Meanwhile, he watched her as she moved around behind the counter. She was an absolute whirlwind of a disaster, bumping into colleagues and stacked boxes as she manoeuvred around the workstation, throwing spoons and measuring cups into the basin which created a melody of clings and clangs. It's almost as if she was training for Karate even at work.
About ten minutes later, the crowd seemed to slow a bit, and Emma went to the storeroom to clock out and retrieved her bag. When she came out, she got elbowed by her manager.
"Ya know 'im?" The manager asked and threw a quick glance at Law, who was staring straight at Emma now. "That boy been eyein' ya for a while now."
"Ah… He's a classmate, we're staying here to get some work done, if you don't mind?"
"Eh, sure, why not?" The manager shrugged and patted Emma on her shoulder. "Get some coffee at least, I'll give the both of ya a discount," she winked at Emma and nudged her towards Law. "Now off ya go and have a good time with ya date!"
Emma groaned and rubbed her neck as she walked towards Law. She plopped down on the chair opposite him and leaned back, her head tilted upwards as she stared at the ceiling.
"Busy day huh?" Law commented. Emma groaned again in response.
Law got up to get some black coffee for himself, an iced hazelnut latte and cheesecake for Emma. Law said she will put on weight. Emma said she hadn't ate anything today, and she deserved a treat.
After Law came back with the drinks, they got to work. Just like the day before, both of them worked in silence, only throwing some comments and ideas out once in a while. By the time it was close to 8pm, they were pretty much done with their work, and agreed that there wasn't much for them to tidy up anymore.
They decided to get some oden from the nearby convenience store for dinner. On the train, they stood side by side in the crowded carriage, and read news articles together on Law's phone. They were on the third article —something about local unrest in Peru over trains—when they had to alight.
The walk back home was just them discussing about the articles they've just read, ignoring the occasional drunken slurs and yelling from some people they walked past.
"Jesus, it's not even 10pm and they're all wasted already," Law scoffed.
Emma raised an eyebrow at that. "And what would you know about getting wasted? You're below the legal drinking age."
Law stared down at her and grinned, eyes reflecting some sort of unspoken mischief as he remained suspiciously silent.
"…You've drank alcohol before, haven't you?" Emma guessed. Law simply shrugged and made a sudden turn towards the convenience store.
Law stood at the entrance for a few seconds, eyeing the entire store until he laid eyes on a tall, blonde man in a light pink collared shirt, with an embarrassingly attention-attracting knitted beanie with heart patterns all over it. Law raised an eyebrow and sighed.
Emma was standing behind him and peered over Law's shoulder to follow his line of sight. "Someone you know?"
"He's my guardian," Law replied and walked towards the man and stopped behind him, Emma following as well. Law stared at the man, Emma stared at Law, then the man. Then back at Law. Law coughed a little and said: "Cora-san", and immediately the man jumped and somehow tripped on his own foot when turning around.
"Is he… okay?" Emma asked worriedly.
"Nothing that a bit of aspirin can't help. He's had worse injuries." Law replied stoically. He reached out to the refrigerator where Cora-san had been looking at earlier, and grabbed 2 bottles of cheap beer and placed them in the basket on the floor next to where Cora-san was still groaning in pain and was just starting to get up. "God damnit, Law. How many times must I tell you to call me Rocinante?"
Law ignored him completely. "Emma, Cora-san." He gestured towards Rocinante. Emma gave a small bow and a soft 'hello'.
Once Rosinante regained his composure and finally noticed Emma, he stared at her dumbstruck and blinked owlishly a few times, before he returned her greeting with an equally soft hello. Then he snapped towards Law. "You said you were going out to do a school project, not out on a date!"
Emma choked on her saliva.
"That's exactly what we did." Law replied.
"You meant the project, or the date?" Rocinante questioned.
"The project!" Emma wheezed.
—
After arriving at their apartment, Law made himself comfortable on the chair by the dining table and cracked open a beer bottle, gulping a few mouthfuls down.
"You know, I could get you thrown into the Boys' Home for underage drinking," Rocinante called from the kitchen as he was putting away rice crackers and cereal boxes into the shelves.
Law took another sip from the bottle and let out a satisfied sigh. "You have better things to do."
"Really? Like what?"
The younger man looked at the older one as if he's drunk. "Narcotics agent? Going undercover? Drugs bust?"
Rocinante clicked his tongue in annoyance. "…So that girl just now—Emma, she's the one who beat up those guys at the park?"
"Yep."
"Singlehandedly?"
"Mmhmm," Law took another swig.
"And you didn't help her," Rocinante remarked.
"Nope."
"That wasn't very nice of you, Law," the older man scolded.
Law rolled his eyes. "She handled them pretty well. Even if she couldn't, I was there."
Rocinante lit up a cigarette and blew the smoke in Law's direction (on purpose, of course). "And, pray tell, how did you plan to help her?"
Law said nothing and took out a pocket knife, swinging it around in front of Rosinante. That earned Law a disapproving look from his guardian. He pocketed the knife and continued: "Look, you took too long to locate a bunch of teenage junkies and their hideout, so I employed her help to speed things along. Case in point, it was effective, and you managed to catch them the next day."
Rosinante looked at Law in both shock and confusion. "How did you…?"
"You leave your case files everywhere." Law deadpanned.
Rosinante panicked visibly. "Oh god Law thosearehighlyconfidentialdocu— wait, so the anonymous tip that we got that time? That was YOU?"
Law waved lazily. "Hello."
Rosinante facepalmed himself, and let out a tired sigh. "That was very dangerous, Law. You know very well what kind of people I deal with and yet, you got yourself and that sweet girl involved!" Rosinante hissed, feeling the slightest bit of anger bubbling up. "Please don't do that again," he pleaded.
"Getting Emma involved?"
"And yourself," Rosinante added.
"Can't promise I won't do it again in the future,"
Rosinante looked at Law tiredly, silently begging him to just listen to him for once. After a few seconds, Law sighed. "Fine."
"Thank you."