I do not own Another or Code Geass.
The warm, sticky syrup latches onto her clothes, and something wet clumps up her eyelashes. Though her jaw remains unhinged, with the expression of a screamer, she's unable to shout or screech, rather, her reaction is quite delayed. As the crimson liquid lashes across her school uniform, staining her desk and splattering across her ginger hair, she trembles, her whole body withering in her seat.
Various shouts from other students become distant, her attention latched on the crumpling figure that slumps onto her desk. Finally, Shirley is able to yelp, screams escaping through her parted lips, bleeding in with the other shouts of students behind her, shocked by the scene. Shirley's unable to stop screaming, as her whole body stiffens, rigid in her seat, her hands held out in front of her, trembling as she observes the blood seeping into the ridges and callouses on her palm.
Ms. Venetta was just circling around her desk like a vulture, peering over their shoulders as they take the test, when she began to oddly tremble, when suddenly, her body jerked around, and with the blood suddenly gushing out of random wounds, it seemed as though she'd been punctured by swords out of nowhere. She just happened to just be in front of Shirley's desk, when this sudden action occurred.
"Shirley!" she doesn't respond as Lelouch appears into her blurry vision, over the rumpled body of Ms. Venetta, blemished in her own small puddle of mauve blood. "Shirely!" he snaps again, with other students beginning to crowd around her desk. Shirley whimpers finally in response, unable to control her jerky movements. She lowers her shaky hands, onto her sopping wet test paper, finally clamping her mouth shut, swallowing a lump of tears that scald her throat that's already sore from screaming. She focuses her vision upon Lelouch, who continues to stare back with a concerned expression, with Kallen behind him, her attention fixated upon the corpse.
She yelps as something cold comes in contact with her shoulder, and she twists around, nearly toppling out of her chair, to see a tanned hand wavering, hovering over her shoulder, retracted by her sudden response. "Hey," Suzaku, the person who brushed her shoulder. "Do you need to go to the nurse?"
"I wanna go home," she whispers, her eyes beading up once more, as tears begin to flow over her waterline. "I want to go home," she hisses, her voice stronger from her feeble tone before, her words articulated and clipped from either frustration or just shock. She slides out of her chair, onto her buckling legs, staring at the damage. The blood is already staining the wooden floor, seeping into the splintered boards. Ms. Venetta's richly hued clothes are now ruined by her own crimson liquid, her long silver ponytail frizzy and clumped into knots from the same substance. "Please," she whispers, unsure of what she's saying and who it's directed to.
"I'll call your mom," Sophie offers, clearly also struggling to recover from this. In reality, Shirley wants to be near Lelouch, who always seems to know what to do. She sniffs, nodding in acknowledgement, and realizes how the cuffs of her uniform are stiff, along with the rest of the patches of blood, causing her knitted sweatshirt to become disgustingly crispy and feels crusty underneath her stained fingers.
"I think the real problem is what we're going to do with the body," Lelouch adds. Kallen nastily glares over at Lelouch, who shrugs. "What? I do feel bad for her, and it's truly a horrific scene, but the janitor isn't around and let's be honest, nobody here wants to touch her, I assume?" Nobody objects. "Here," Lelouch gestures, and she pauses, realizing he's beckoning for her to come forward, Shirley skirts around the body, quickly averting eyes with it, before stepping next to the willowy student. "First, let's take you to the nurse." Shirley nods, and allows him to take her blood covered hands into his, and leading her out of the classroom, towards the infirmary.
They continued as though their professor just didn't collapse, welling out blood, all over a traumatized Shirley, and ended up waiting for the janitor to bleach the floors at the end of the day. The students automatically, perhaps even instinctively, continued on as though this horrible incident didn't just happen, and for a moment, this makes Suzaku wonder if it even happened. The only evidence is Shirley's empty seat, her bloody desk with her test basically glued on the cover from the sticky fluid, and the dark, rather large stain on the floor. They managed to call someone over to at least remove the body. For now, they're just waiting for a substitute.
"Why don't we talk about it?" Suzaku leans over, lowering his voice as he begins to converse with Rivalz, who immediately scowls.
"We just don't. I mean, technically, even though acting as though Ms. V doesn't exist really doesn't count, but it just helps us forget in a way." Rivalz bites his bottom lip. Suzaku's unsure whether or not he wants to forget. It'll continue to haunt him either way, so does it really matter? Yes, yes it does. "Now, did you hear about Milly's new announcement about allowing snacks during class sessions?"
"Listen up!" Suzaku's sure his ears are deceiving him. After all, that sounds much like-
"Lloyd?" Suzaku chokes, his voice clogged up within his throat, startled by his sudden appearance.
"Listen up, Kururugi, now, I'm your current teacher for now, so I advise you treat me like one," the lilac haired scientist taps his long figures together. "What a small class," he comments aloud, with his sadistic, low timbre. "Hmm, no problem. Quite a benefit, actually. Now, take out your history textbooks, we'll come to see the history of what America was like before we took over." he says nonchalantly.
"Hey," Suzaku quickly catches Lloyd after class. "How?" he inquires, using that one single word. A smile curls upon his guardian's face.
"I just happened to be passing by to see you, you left your lunch. And once I heard you needed a sub, especially because I happen to be a genius," he boasts without a hint of arrogance. "I decided to take it up."
"Liar, you're doing this for the money." Suzaku snickers. Lloyd just shrugs, returning to his story, a smile plastered across his face. Suzaku bets that generally substitute teachers don't get earnings or any payment, however, he suspects Lloyd will be here for a while, maybe even becoming a full-time teacher while at it due to the lack of employment (well, Suzaku bets that nobody would want to become the teacher of this group, especially in the middle of the year) they might end up actually paying him for taking up a risky role. He wonders if the principal is aware that Lloyd knows about this curse.
"Shirley didn't come to school today," Milly sighs, crestfallen, her animated attitude vanishing. "How boring without her." No doubt one less student for Milly to torture is what's really bringing her down. "Well, I guess it's fine. She groans aloud. "Ugh, school's boring without her!" She quickly turns to Kallen and Nina to the side. "Not that you two aren't fun." One might find this slightly insulting, however, Lelouch knows that Milly truly appreciates all of her friends, no matter how much they treat them like puppets or dolls that she controls over. "Well, I made her-her favorite brownies," she pouts. No explanation is needed to why Milly baked pastries for her friend-though they all continue to refuse to acknowledge or talk about it, she probably made them for Shirley, after she experienced Ms. Venetta dying in front of her. She probably thought her chocolate fudged cake would comfort Shirley.
Suzaku reaches towards her small receptacle full of brownies, and in one fluid movement, Milly hisses, batting away his hand, bristling, as though he's reaching for a jewel rather than a container full of food. "These are only for Shirley!"
"Can I have one?" Lelouch questions.
"Sure!" Milly chirrups, and Suzaku snorts. Rivalz appears behind him, beaming, and slowly, as though to pierce him in a teasing manner, she snaps her food container shut, and away from Rivalz, who sulks at that, glowering at her. Milly smiles in response.
"How come he can have one?" Rivalz snaps, folding his arms crossly.
"Because he asked!" Milly snarls in response, before dropping her adopted anger, and returning to her bubbly, exuberant attitude. "So, I heard that-" her words become muffled as she crunches on her salad. She hesitates, sticking up one finger as though to indicate for them to wait, and she swallows her food in an exaggerated manner. "Lelouch has a crush on someone!" Suzaku groans, along with the rest of the table.
"I don't." Lelouch peers over his book, his expression passive and completely blank and as emotionless as his monotone voice. By now, Milly has taken up the role to make up the time of ignoring Lelouch, by annoying him. Suzaku sometimes suspect that Lelouch prefers having Milly become oblivious towards him, rather than nagging him and try to include him in her conversations. "Look, Milly, I'm fine. And stop dragging me into your little chats," he fumes from behind his story.
Milly scoffs, rolling her eyes. "You got it all wrong!" Suzaku's doubtful on that. "I won't stop irritating you until you allow me to dress you up in a cat costume!" she snaps. Oh, that's right. Suzaku snorts, swallowing the chunk of a dumpling he bit into, feeling the warm entity scorch the back of his throat.
"No." Lelouch responds. Suzaku, knowing Lelouch, probably even being his first friend, is quite sure that Lelouch wouldn't sacrifice his dignity just to stop Milly from pestering him. Besides, it's guaranteed for Milly to return to her daily schedule that includes bothering him. Lelouch, full of arrogance and pride, probably having something to do with that he was born into his noble family, definitely won't humiliate himself for something temporary.
"I just remembered why I liked Nunnally better. She isn't a stubborn arse." Milly grumbles.
The said girl giggles from the other end of the table. Suzaku smiles, recalling how two days ago, he visited the young girl, surprising her. They automatically became quite close, being long-time friends, and he had much fun going with a stroll while pushing her wheelchair, conversing with this young, generous girl.
"A field trip?" For some reason, the idea of a field trip doesn't seem quite common for such a classroom, Suzaku muses, he didn't think the teacher would think about taking the students out with this curse settled among them. Apparently, the rest of his classmates have the same thought, as a low murmur erupts among the classroom. "Yes, a field trip."
"Yep, he definitely doesn't know about...it," Rivalz mutters, snickering. Even though they already broke the ritual once Suzaku talked to Lelouch, they continue to act as though it doesn't exist for some reason. Probably makes everyone uncomfortable mentioning it, however, it clearly doesn't matter whether or not they talk about it anymore, judging by how Suzaku didn't mention it, and even continued to ignore Lelouch for the rest of the day, hoping to continue peace with the assassin. It clearly failed once Ms. Venetta decided to die suddenly. Thankfully, the janitor last night must've cleaned off the bloodstains, as the wooden floor remains polished and normal as usual.
"We'll be going up in sort of a camping trip, near a mountain. Now, whoever would like to know more or come, can be found on this permission slip. If you want to come, please fill it out. Everyone else will stay here with another teacher that I'll assign." Professor Aspen explains.
Lelouch loves the library. It's quiet, full of stories, and rather peaceful. Perhaps that has something to do with the lack of his boisterous, loud friends. "Hey." Lelouch blinks, removing his eyes from soaking up the words on his pages, and forces them to face upwards. Suzaku waves, before seating next to him.
"I didn't find you the type to read." Lelouch mutters dryly. Suzaku cracks his knuckles against his shoulder in a playful manner. "Now, why are you here?"
"I was looking in the photo books for my guardian, he's our sub teacher." he explains, holding up a rather dusty book. Judging by its lengthened shape and Suzaku's words, it's a photo book, however, the leather cover is slightly ashen, suggesting its old age, and filled with lacerations. "And I was talking to the librarian, he said that he always keeps all of the class photos, and whichever student he doesn't recognize, is the assassin, because the ghost disappears, and nobody remembers them anymore. He also mentioned how a couple years back, the sacrifice was actually the killer himself." Suzaku mentions, opening the book, and wisps of dust billows upwards, and Lelouch crinkles his nose in disgust.
"And this," Suzaku points at one grainy photo, at a specific person in a crowd. "Was Lelouch from more than twenty years ago."
