Chapter III - First Impressions Part Two

The boy didn’t know how they got there much less that she knew. He had been in the Student Council Room since five and there weren’t any new files or I.D.s in the Student Identification Files until just now when he checked. A sudden, arbitrary urge to search them up on the school system came across him, and he deftly struck the keys of the desktop in feverish expectance to only discover they weren’t in the system at all.

Bewildered, he peered at the papers, conjecturing the many explanations of how they slipped into the folders without his knowledge, speculating if perhaps she had placed them in there herself, but if so, when? And why? The screen in front of him manifestly told they weren’t even supposed to be here at Amorei.

Perchance fate, or simply coincidence, the very girl he just thought of walked into the room, he still staring fixedly at the papers as if they would offer some clue to this esoteric finding. Head jerking up at her sudden appearance he swiftly whisked them out of sight behind the table, a faint blush upon his cheeks from being found out.

She walked smoothly towards him in purposeful, slow strides, halting a few centimeters from the front of his desk. Giving him a fleeting calculating look she then began to speak, her tone terse and clear as she laid her palms on the burnished wood, looking at him eye level.

“Don’t log the information into the system.”

He glanced in the direction of the alluded papers hidden near his lap. Until hearing those words, despite his absurd inklings of a conspiracy otherwise, he took the missing data as a system error. The enrollment forms undeniably proved they were actually transferring to the school, so there was no other sound explanation to the predicament than an error. However, why didn’t she want them to be registered into the computer when they are in fact attending this school? Not only that, but she knew they didn’t show up.

She smiled slyly at him, knowing full well he wouldn’t nor would ever comprehend the situation.

Brows slightly furrowed he said one single word.

“Okay.”

Her eyebrows lifted at his trusting answer. Either he meant he wouldn’t ask questions, or he was up to something as well. Whichever way, she was beginning to understand that underneath his straitlaced demeanor was a sagacious mind.

He could’ve refused or even interrogated her about the whole business, for as the Student Body President he had the authority to do so. Regardless, something told him he wasn’t the one who had the authority this time. He couldn’t pinpoint what, but everything about this was off. And especially her.

Did her sister know as well? ...No. That seemed unlikely.

Withdrawing out of his deliberations he noticed the girl had crossed over to the door, her face hidden from him. With one hand on the latch, and one foot out the room, she angled her head towards him, a faint smile on her face as she departed with these words.

“This’ll be our little secret, Sebastian.”

~Forever Waiting~

Elisabeth’s eyes twitched vexedly at the bustling corridors. A single noise and students swarmed out into the halls, merging at the center into a distorted, yet somehow flowing chaos.

I’m never going to find her.

Standing with eyes deadpan at the crowded disarray before her, schoolbag clutched in her crisscrossed forearms, Elisa’s mind did a little blank. It ought to be easy to spot her sister from a crowd. But this, this was too much of a crowd!

Just as she was about to go wandering futilely into the multitude, someone smacked into her from behind, knocking her hastily closed bag onto the floor. Writing utensils skittered across the linoleum, the good fortune of the first day obliging Elisa in her not having accumulated papers to scatter as well. Only a single, roguish shard of paper made its way out, Elisa’s distracted mind failing to follow its descent and landing.

The person, the boy, indifferently glances upon her crouched position as she reached for the rolling sticks, her hands dangerously close to shuffling shoes. Beginning to saunter away he suddenly trips over something---an outstretched arm.

Eyes furrowing into chagrin, he glowers at the cowering Elisa. Instead of literally being looked down upon by the unnaturally red-haired guy, the brunette stands up. Although wanting to say something witty to rebuke this churlish boy, nothing popped up in her head. So instead, she sent a retreating glare and melded into the student body.

Unable to wedge her way through the mass, Elisa dejectedly follows the flow and winds up in a deserted stretch of the school. Her heeled sandals softly tap against beige and chalk tiles, eyes surveying the area. The structure of the hallway, the angles and crevasses of the wall, it seemed familiar. Going around a bend she abruptly jerks to a halt. Voices.

“I hope you’re not hiding anything from me Sebastian.”

“ ----- -- --- ”

Elisa’s ears strained to hear the response, but it seemed to come from inside the room the other person was exiting out of. As the person’s form appeared from around the encasing walls of the door, she ducked her head behind the corner. Though sure she hadn’t been spotted, the click of heels sounded her way. Swiftly walking away as if she had just been passing by, Elisa turned her back on the approaching person.

“Miss Elisabeth Andrews,” came a startled voice.

She looked back in the guise of surprise, now eye to eye with the Principle of Amoris.

“Oh, Mrs. Petrosky!” she replied in feinted astonishment, “I didn’t realize you were there!”

Urk. Maybe that last bit was too much. Can she see through my bluff?

“Nor I Miss Elisabeth,” the lady replied cheerily, seeming not to catch on.

Thank goodness, breathed Elisa mentally.

“Well, I’ll be on my way. And I hope you as well.” And she promptly left.

Sneaking a glance around the corner to encounter vacancy, she too then exited the vicinity.

When the steps of both persons diminished completely a figure soundlessly alighted from the ceiling near two adjacent walls. Scoping the emptiness, she flicked a black, cellphone-like device to her ear and jaw.

“Agent M1, I thought you said the coast was clear.”

“Sorry, I didn’t detect S.K.Y.’s movement, and E2 is supposed to be in Room 2003,” came a static voice from the gadget.

“Well make sure to track her from now on; I have a bad feeling about her.”

“Your hunches are usually right E3.”

“It’s called a women’s intuition; never doubt it. Over and out.”

“Over and out.”