She already knew what awaited her when she arrived home… Well, more like when her father arrived home. She sat on her couch with her knees drawn in and her chin upon them while she let the record play one of her favourite bands. It was the only thing she could use to distract herself from being so very bored at home. She had finished all her homework and had even been talking to Jeanne on the phone for over an hour.
The sun had already begun to set as Arturia prepared for her father to ground her for the third time this semester. She knew he was going to be upset with her and so she had already disconnected the television, the computer and left her phone on the table after turning it off.
The front door groaned as it was opened and she heard her father remove his shoes before entering any further into the house. She peaked out from the living room and watched as he walked past her and into the kitchen.
"Welcome home, I made dinner…" She stood from the couch and made her way to the kitchen.
Her father turned on the stove and was rummaging through the refrigerator as he looked up at her—since he was crouching—he gave a frown, "Hello, how was school?"
Arturia's eyes widened as she silently thanked the principal for not having called her father, "It was alright."
"Why wasn't it good?" He stood and put something to cook—most likely bacon.
The young girl shrugged, "I'm not on good terms with everyone."
"I mean, there is always going to be someone out there that hates you; no matter if you have done anything to them. Not everyone will like you, and that is something that you have to learn—the hard way." Her father was right, there was people who would hate her for virtually no reason out in the world, and that was a fact.
She gave a nod, "I punched a boy today." Yeah it was a lie and it wasn't her to do it, but if she was going to take credit in front of the principal, then she would continue her lie. She had learned from Gawain afterschool that the person to land a punch on the pretty boy was Lancelot. Arturia had demanded to see the male but since they had football practice; she could not give him a high-five.
"I heard from the principal." Her father ran a hand through his partially-grey hair and leaned against the kitchen counter, "Arturia, I think that I've been a good father and taught you some values. It was quite shocking to hear that you entered the male washroom and punched a kid in the face. Now, I don't know what that's all about but I feel it has to do with that blonde kid that brought you home the other day. I will not ground you again, but I expect to see improvement from you. Your marks are good and all, but you need to fix your behaviour." Her father spoke, "I think you should go back to fencing and keep busy like that."
Arturia had been looking down at her feet but once her father had mentioned fencing, her head shot up rather quickly, "Father? But we agreed that I would not return." She had quit fencing after the death of her mother because she felt as if she did not want to do anything for a year, then she slowly came to dislike it because it reminded her of what happened to her mother.
"Fencing gives you discipline, you are going back. Now, please go to your room."
"Father, I will not go fencing anymore. Put me in another activity but fencing." The young female argued.
Her father crossed his arms over his chest and groaned, "You are going to Fencing and that is final. I will not change my mind, Arturia. Be prepared this Friday."
"But—"
"Arturia." He shot her a stern look, brows furrowed in annoyance already.
Arturia heaved and hung her head in defeat, "Yes, father." She turned on her heel and ascended the stairs without another word.
The following day, Arturia noted that Gilgamesh had not gone to school—she guessed it was because of the detention and the fact that he had a black eye. His ego was much too big for him to show up at school with a dark circle around his red eye and show weakness.
Jeanne practically watched her the whole day so that she would not skip the detention. The Frenchwoman even went out of her way to walk the shorter female to the class that detention was being held at, at the end of the day. The class was 221 and far away from her locker so they had to go halfway across the school just to get to the class—plus the school's numbering did not help.
Jeanne set Arturia down and then gave her a warning look before exiting the room with a small 'bye-bye'. According to the paper, her detention was from 2:30 to 4:00 and it was only 2:26 at the moment so the detention teacher had not arrived. Some other students entered and then a teacher with short red hair walked into the classroom. She had a huge red bow on the collar of her white shirt; Miss Sophia-Ri. There was a rumor going around that she was engaged to the art teacher Mister El-Melloi, but no one was really sure of that considering she was a very flirty person.
"Well, I hope you all don't get into trouble anymore, I really hate coming here all the time. Anyways, just keep silent and write a full-page report on what you did wrong, why you did it and how you are going to change." She looked at the half-filled classroom, "Go on, and get to it." She waved her hand after the students blinked at her. She sat down at the desk and began t mark whatever she was marking.
Arturia simply took out a piece of paper and tried to finish her report as fast as she could. By the time she had arrived to it, she looked up at the clock and noticed that she had thirty more minutes to spare. She sat back on her chair and crossed her arms over her chest.
There was a knock on the door and the teacher stood from her seat and walked towards the door. Upon opening it, her attitude changed quite a bit. She smiled brightly and twirled a lock of hair around her finger. She laughed a little and continued the conversation with whoever she was speaking with.
Arturia was not paying much attention as she could not see who the female teacher was talking to, and it was none of her business. That was until she heard the other's name. The simple word 'Diarmuid' caught her attention and she leaned forward in an instant to get a better listen of what they were speaking about. She had come to notice that the Fashion teacher spoke to Diarmuid quite a bit.
"Why does a chemistry teacher need to speak with a fashion teacher?" Arturia mumbled under her breath as she leaned a little more over her desk because she still couldn't make out what the conversation was about. She still was not able to catch it even after they had bid each other a farewell and then the red head turned back to the class after closing the door behind herself.
Arturia had caught herself glaring at the teacher before her about ten minutes before her detention was over. Once she noted that her eyes were slits, she immediately looked down and tried to doodle on a paper as she wasted the last few minutes.
Once the clock had hit four o'clock everyone stood and the teacher dismissed them. Arturia looked back at the woman to check her hands and sure enough there was an engagement ring on her finger. Diarmuid was flirting with an engaged woman and he would not even look at her? Wow.
She did not even notice how she arrived in front of her chemistry class, but there she was. She was a bit angry and ticked off as she opened the door and peaked her head inside. She saw that there was no one in the room and she was about to give up when she heard a shuffle from the indent of the room that she was not able to see.
"Um, Pendragon? What are you doing here?" The man had pushed his chair from the indent to be able to catch a glimpse of the person who had entered. His eyes grew upon seeing the short blond female.
Arturia closed the door and walked closer to the man, "Hey," she waved.
"Need help with a question or something?" He raised an eyebrow as he rolled his chair back to the computer.
She shook her head in response.
"Well, um, then… why are you, uh, here?" He furrowed his brows and tilted his head a little—in a rather attractive way that made Arturia's heart flutter slightly.
The student gave a shrug, "You know, you shouldn't be flirting with women that are taken and soon to be married." She tried to hide her uneasiness as she crossed her arms over her chest.
The male let a chuckle slip as he shook his head, "Right. Oh, and you shouldn't enter the boys' washroom."
"When have I ever done that?" She questioned and tilted her head as she drew a hand to her chest.
The man laughed and turned back to the computer, "So did you simply come here to tell me not to flirt?"
"I also came to ask if you were still mad at me." She leaned against the demonstration bench,
He looked over at her, "I was never mad at you," he spoke.
She furrowed her brows and pursed her lips in a straight line, "You were. Totally seemed like that when you held my hand and were yelling at me in the infirmary."
"I was not mad at you." He was now looking in her eyes, "I was simply concerned. I am very sorry for having hurt you…" He glanced over at her hand, "How is it doing?"
"Ah," Arturia rolled up her sleeve, "It's okay." There was a faint bruise but one to remain only a day or so.
Diarmuid stood from his seat and walked towards her, "May I?"
Arturia looked down at her wrist and nodded, she then offered it to him. He took a hold of her hand and she felt it go numb, as one's limb does when it falls asleep. The feeling of static taking over the places that his own big hands were in contact with. She felt his fingers flying over her wrist and it probably meant her cheeks were dusted pink.
"I'm really sorry…" he mumbled.
"It's totally fine," She shrugged.
"No, I shouldn't have been jealous. I was being ridiculous…" He slowly let her hand go, his voice a whisper for they had gotten rather close.
She slowly looked up at him and blinked, "Why were you jealous?"
His Adam's apple bobbed as he gulped and then he ran his teeth over his lower lip, "I'm sorry, Arturia. This isn't good. We, um, we've talked about this and it wasn't going to work out."
"You were jealous that I was with Gilgamesh? You know that there's nothing between us. At all." She smiled and then wrapped her right hand around his black tie. She brought him down to her level, earning a gasp from him and then she placed her lips on his right cheek, next to the beauty mark, "Don't worry about Gilgamesh." She smiled, trying to supress her blush, "My eyes are on you, only."
His cheeks lit up pink and the blush even reached the tips of his ears, "A-Arturia."
"I get jealous too, so, um… don't talk to those girls so casually." Her cheeks were also pink and she was biting the inside of her cheek to not feel so embarrassed, "Especially not Grainne." Her fingers slipped from his tie and then she gave him a nod before quickly exiting the room.
Once she deemed the hallway safe, she brought her hands to her cheeks and shook her head rapidly as she felt how warm they were, "What am I thinking? That was so embarrassing!" She then ran down to her locker to get home as soon as possible so she could call Jeanne and probably scream into her phone with regret.