After a brief play, Jiutiao Meijie’s icy gaze pinned me down.
Dubian Che suddenly kissed her, biting the cherry.
"It’s time for class."
"I don’t want to go," Jiutiao Meijie lazily treated Dubian Che as her bed, resting her head on his chest.
"Then I have to leave."
Dubian Che made a move to get up, but Jiutiao Meijie’s right hand spread open and pressed on his face, pushing him back onto the couch.
"What’s the point of going to class?"
"The first period in the afternoon is English, we have a vocabulary test."
"Boring. Stay here and keep me company while I nap."
At three forty in the afternoon, after the last class, Dubian Che was called to the office.
Akiko ate her chopped fruit with a knife and fork, occasionally grinning at Dubian Che as if teasing him, smugly and slowly putting fruit into her mouth.
Dubian Che, who was punished with standing, shifted his gaze to the English vocabulary tests Xiaoquan Aonai was grading.
"Teacher, ’suspicion’ is missing an ’s’."
Xiaoquan Aonai’s red pen paused for a moment, then marked a check on Kunii Shuichi’s paper.
After finishing grading class four, she took out another stack and began grading the tests from class one.
Dubian Che was so bored he memorized where those words were on the pages of the textbook, then matched the names on the papers with the faces he remembered.
He also saw Kiyono Lin’s test.
Although it was the same paper as the others, hers always seemed a bit cleaner. The English letters were also very beautifully written, a graceful script markedly different from Dubian Che’s printed handwriting.
When Xiaoquan Aonai graded Kiyono Lin’s test, she almost didn’t look, just circled away.
Dubian Che memorized the test quickly then recalled it letter by letter, regretfully finding no mistakes.
The last one was Yuzao Haomei’s test, with three mistakes, just enough to require retaking the test—two mistakes were the maximum allowed.
Kunii Shuichi as well.
Dubian Che helped out.
Xiaoquan Aonai finished grading, neatly placed the tests in the corner of the desk, near a few surprisingly still-alive succulents, then capped her red pen and put it away in the pen holder.
After all this, she turned around, took out a test paper and pen, and handed them to Dubian Che: "Do it now."
Dubian Che looked left and right, preparing to find a place to lean over and write.
"This way, this way." Akiko got up, warmly and kindly, even though the smile on her face couldn’t exactly be called friendly—it was full of schadenfreude and mockery.
"Thank you, Teacher."
Dubian Che sat down at her spot, quickly wrote his name and student number, then began memorizing the words.
Akiko walked over to Xiaoquan Aonai with her fruit and they chatted.
"Nowadays, do students all do this at school, skipping class for a date?"
Xiaoquan Aonai glanced at Dubian Che, who was writing furiously.
Akiko continued, "Back in our time, who would dare do such a thing? Even pretending to be sick and sleeping in the infirmary made our hearts race."
Xiaoquan Aonai tapped her fingers on the desk.
"How many times has he done this?" Akiko took a bite of a juicy cantaloupe.
"The first time." Xiaoquan Aonai answered, but she remembered the time during training camp when Dubian Che sneaked into the girls’ dorm.
She began to hesitate whether to make Dubian Che write a letter of guarantee.
"There’s a first time for everything, I suggest..."
"Teacher, I’m done!" Dubian Che hurriedly interrupted Akiko, coming over with his test.
"So fast?" Xiaoquan Aonai subconsciously took the paper.
He wrote in a hurry, but the handwriting was somewhat neat.
Xiaoquan Aonai didn’t look closely, just gave it a perfunctory glance—Dubian Che’s English test papers were usually used as answer keys, convenient for grading others.
But Akiko, who was eating her fruit, leaned over and looked at each one.
"Dubian." Xiaoquan Aonai looked up.
"What were you and Jiutiao doing skipping class?"
"Right, what were you doing, abducting our class’s Jiutiao?" Akiko’s gaze followed.
"Meiji wasn’t feeling well, I was just watching over her, we did nothing!" Dubian Che felt it was unfair.
In his mind, he had wanted to attend class, but had been pinned down, and it had nothing to do with him, the most annoying part being he couldn’t speak the truth.
"Why didn’t you go to the infirmary?"
"Yeah, why didn’t you go to the infirmary?" Akiko echoed, spitting bits of cantaloupe juice onto Xiaoquan Aonai.
Xiaoquan Aonai gave her a glance, and Akiko apologetically ingratiated,
"Teacher, I really didn’t do anything." Besides the initial physical contact, Dubian Che really did nothing, most of the time just slept.
"Is that really the case?"
"Even if I really intended to skip class to do something, I wouldn’t have missed English class! Mr. Xiaoquan, I like you the best, how could I skip your class!"
"Be careful, you can’t trust the words of Tokyo’s handsome guys." Akiko was like Xiaoquan Aonai’s devilish alter ego, constantly whispering words that incited war.
Dubian Che made a face that said he gave up: "Akiko, I really messed up, please let me off this time."
"Ha ha ha!" Akiko laughed heartily, "Alright, alright, young man, I forgive you. You may go now."
"Okay." Dubian Che quickly made a beeline for the door.
Xiaoquan Aonai called out to Dubian Che’s retreating back, "Not allowed next time."
"Yep, yep, don’t worry, Teacher."
"I bet he dares to do it again, just because you like him." Akiko turned out to be the actual devil, immediately betraying her promise and stabbing her in the back.
"Take care of your class’s Jiutiao." Xiaoquan Aonai glared at her friend.
"Ha! You think it was Jiutiao from our class who seduced him?"
"I do think so; Dubian is a good kid."
"Him? I... forget it, it’s no use arguing with you! Give me back my cantaloupe!"