Chapter 2: Episode 2: The Girl That Switches
Middle of Who-Knows-Where
Who-Knows-When
In Atdonus Highschool
8:05am, Azel left the classroom.
Pandora, who was silent during the scolding, watched him walk out of the classroom. The medical staff had arrived to pick Evan up, leaving hastily to treat the wounded. Mr Andrews walked into class, his stern face twisted with rage as he whispered things to himself. The class remained quiet, still stunned by what Azel had done. They heard the rumours, they spread the rumours, but nothing prepared them for the actual thing, the class-renowned 'bad guy'.
"If I see anyone else fight, the suspension is the last thing you should be worried about!" Mr Andrews warned the class.
Pandora scanned the class, trying to figure out what was going on. She had only been part of the class for a day, and have yet to hear the rumours about Azel, she was shocked to see him actually hit someone though. She did not know what Evan had done to deserve getting hit, in her eyes, he was a kind guy that let her have his seat.
11:30am, the bell rang.
Pandora was instantly assaulted by a few other girls. They gathered around her desk, looming over her. The girl on her far left had long, curly, auburn hair, flowing just past her shoulders. She had pale green eyes and pale skin, standing around 167cm tall. The middle one was blonde, her hair tied up in a crazy fashion, almost resembling a bird with outstretched wings. Her eyes were a pale blue, and she stood at 165cm tall. The one to the right had black hair and tanned skin. She seemed the most calm between the trio, her black hair flowing freely to her shoulders and standing at 170cm tall.
Pandora, who wanted to be alone, found it hard to escape. The girls were not the tallest in class, however, compared to Pandora's 159cm frame, they were large.
"Did something happen between you and him?" The middle girl asked.
She wore the expression of concern on her face, and Pandora disliked that look. A look hiding many emotions, ridicule, hate, envy, jealousy. She disliked it, there was no telling whether they were showing genuine care and concern for her.
"Him?" Pandora asked, slightly confused by the phrasing. "Would you be referring to Evan Aquarius or Az-"
"Don't!" The blonde girl shouted, reaching out to close her mouth.
The rest of the class had looked over at them. The tanned girl waved them off, sending the message to not interrupt. Pandora was slightly confused as to why she was stopped, the only thing was going to do was say Azel's name. The blonde girl let go and leaned closer to Pandora, "Don't say that name in class, he will kill anyone who says his name."
"Why?" Pandora asked, curious.
"You never heard? That man's insane! He once flipped over a car when he was about to get run over, or that time he was allegedly thrown off the roof but survived. He could uproot a tree tens of meters high and throw it like nothing!" She whispered.
Pandora replayed the events she had seen of Azel.
He seemed like a gentle person, he had allowed her to eat with him on the roof when she was all alone, even telling her his name. Yet, he had punched someone hard enough to shatter the glass of the hallway, the reason was still unclear.
"He even did something weird this morning." The auburn girl commented.
"He took out the trash, right?" The tanned girl said.
"Is that not good?" Pandora asked.
She was brought to the window of the classroom, it was wide open, allowing the breeze to pass through. The blonde girl pointed to the courtyard, a giant trash bin was there, commonly used to transfer to the garbage truck. It was some distance away, Pandora doubted she could even throw a ball that far. The blonde girl told Pandora, "He threw the trash there."
"Is that not normal?"
"He threw it from here."
Pandora double checked where she was standing and back at the trash bin. Azel did that? He could have just gone down like everyone else, take his time, or perhaps, he was in a rush? But what could he be rushing for?
"This morning, some of our classmates found trash bags on your seat, putrid-smelling things." The blonde girl explained. "It seems that he wanted to clean it up for you, so we want to know if something happened between you two."
Pandora was backed up against the open window, surrounded by three other girls. She wanted to run away, be alone, or at least, not have information forced out of her. She had transferred into the school hoping that she could fit in somewhere without her past interfering. She disliked nosy people, judgmental people, meat and she disliked most forms of conversations.
"Nothing happened." Pandora finalized.
"Are you sure?" The auburn girl asked, getting closer.
She pressed herself against Pandora's significantly smaller frame, holding her chin in her fingers. She whispered, "Does that mean you're free now?"
"Sylva, stop that." The blonde girl snapped. "You're creeping her out."
Sylva cursed under her breath and moved away from Pandora. The blonde girl gave Pandora an apologetic smile, saying, "So sorry about that, she's a mischievous one. We honestly only wanted to have some girl talk with you."
"Girl talk?" Pandora asked, the concept foreign to her.
"Yeah, you know, talk about relationships, maybe who's your type."
"I guess that's fine..."
The blonde girl smiled and pulled all three of them to Pandora's desk before saying, "Sorry for the late introduction, but I'm Lesley, she's Sylva."
She had pointed at the auburn girl who proceeded to give Pandora a playful wink before Lesley pointed at the tanned girl. "Her name is Angela."
"Nice to meet you." Angela smiled, shaking her hand.
Angela was friendly, so Pandora thought they could get along well. Lesley laughed, "Even though we're here to talk relationships, the only one of us in a proper relationship is Angela. She has this super pretty boyfriend in another class."
"Stop it," Angela joked. "We're just a normal couple."
11:57am, the bell rang.
Pandora stiffened up, looking around to see if anyone was blocking the way. She then tried to excuse herself, "I don't feel too good, excuse me while I use the restroom."
She got off her seat and walked quickly out of the classroom.
Left in the class, the three girls looked at each other. The direction Pandora had gone only had a boy's toilet, the girl's toilet was the other direction. Seeing as Pandora was new to the school, she might not have known this, so they were worried that she would get into trouble, either with teachers or other students.
"Should we check on her?" Lesley asked.
"I'll go." Angela volunteered.
Angela stood up and followed after Pandora, wondering if she would be able to catch up to her. Outside the classroom, a few steps in the direction, there was a stairway to the left, the toilet further front. From pure coincidence, Angela had looked down the stairway, seeing a faint flash of grey.
Running through her head, were several thoughts. Could she have found out it was the boy's toilet and was trying to find a different toilet? Or was she just finding an excuse to stop talking to them? Putting on her finest smile, she ran down the steps, shouting, "Pandora, where you goin'?"
With one big leap, she jumped down half the flight of stairs, landing on her two feet and turning around to see Pandora.
Pandora was at the bottom of the stairs, basically at the floor below their classroom. The surrounding was quite dark and not many students were there since those students were either at the cafeteria or in their own classrooms.
She was hunched over, clutching her head with both hands.
"What's wrong?" Angela asked, taking a few steps closer.
Pandora did not reply, instead, bumping her back towards the nearby wall, sliding down into a sit. She had tears flowing down her cheeks as she started whispering, "Too scary, I can't do this..."
Angela approached silently, unable to hear the whispers, she thought that Pandora had started crying because she got lost. The big sister instinct in her activated and she approached Pandora, reaching out a hand. Pandora noticed the hand and jerked backwards, hitting the back of her head against the wall, causing more tears to fall.
"There's nothing to be worried about." Angela told her.
Pandora's neutral look, an expression that showed that she had already formed an image of you in her head, a polite look that could not be taken as any form of offence. That expression was replaced with absolute and utter fear. Her eyes were wide and shaky, everything was taken in as a threat, there was no calm assessment of people or situations, only fear towards everything.
Angela, seeing this, retracted her hand from surprise.
"Wh-" Angela started.
Pandora scrambled and ran off, further down the stairs. Angela paused for a moment before chasing after her. She needed to know what had made Pandora show such an expression of fear, she was concerned, and wanted to help. Angela leapt down from the bottom half of each flight, landing with grace each time, catching up to Pandora two floors down.
Angela's shoulder-length black hair was messy, having been wildly tossed while jumping. She held Pandora down while she struggled, trying to get loose of Angela's hold. Pandora cried, "Let me go! Don't hit me! Please, let me go! Mother, don't hit me!"
Angela was taken aback.
From what Pandora had just said, she was abused? Or was she just confused?
"As much as I would like to be your Mom, I'm not." Angela said.
Pandora calmed down slightly but was still crying. Angela let go of her, collapsing on the ground, letting Pandora get up. She got up, and started a teary apology, going on about how she shouldn't have done what she did.
"So, why the sudden breakdown? Are we that traumatising to talk to?" Angela joked.
"U-Um..." Pandora muttered.
"What's wrong, Pandora?"
She reacted to the name, her body tensing up for a moment before she relaxed again, her body trembling. She leaned closer and whispered into Angela's ear.
12:30pm, both of them returned to class.
Angela sat at her seat, unable to listen properly in class, too many thoughts racing through her mind at once, the most jarring one about what Pandora had told her. In class, Pandora, seated at the back, was lucky that not many people would pay attention to her while the class went on.
Having been told what she was told, Angela felt conflicted as to just what Pandora was, even to her, Pandora’s situation was odd. The more she thought about it, the more it stuck to her mind, occupying her memory space.
3:10pm, classes ended.
Angela remained in her seat, thinking while everyone left the classroom, including Pandora, Lesley and Sylva. Deep in thought, her eyes were basically drilling a hole through the floor.
When the class was completely empty, with not a single soul other than Angela, someone walked into the classroom. With the window still being wide open, a gentle breeze blew in, making Angela’s hair sway slightly.
“What has you so down?” The person asked.
Angela looked up, a smile on her face. In front of her was a boy standing at 165cm tall with a thin frame. He had long white hair braided into five thin braids falling over his back, past his waist. He had eyes the colour of dirty snow, normally with a nonchalant expression that showed no emotions. He had a girly face, almost as if he was really a girl, except for the male uniform and Adam’s apple.
Angela rolled a pencil across her desk. “I’m not down, why would I be?”
He tilted his head, his pale skin shining under the light as he replied, “I waited for you, but you don’t seem to want to meet at the bookstore.”
“Doesn’t matter now, does it? This is much better!” Angela cheered, hopping onto her feet.
She gave a big smile to him and held his hand, dragging him out of the class and eventually wherever they wanted to go.
3:20pm, Pandora stood in front of the male’s dorms.
Thoughts were running through her mind, was she allowed to be there? Would she be kicked out? To the side, she could see some people bring their spouses into the dorms, so she guessed that girls were allowed in. Fear kicked in, stopping her in place, her eyes wide as she thought about the possible consequences of visiting Azel, he had attacked a classmate after all.
The dorms were big, and there was no telling where his room would be in the first place, she might even get assaulted by the other students.
Before she fully made up her mind, she stared into space, as if she was thinking. Those passing her ignored her, not wanting to associate with someone as strange as her. A few seconds later, she stepped forward.
3:30pm, Pandora was lost.
She had not predicted that finding Azel was that hard, especially when no one else wanted to speak about him. On the verge of giving up, Pandora looked out the hallway window of the dorm, seeing the classes not too far away, the cafeteria and courtyard. She took the view in, taking a shaky breath before holding onto the wall below the window, afraid of falling.
The smell of frying chicken started surrounding her, almost making her gag from the smell of meat.
She located the source of the smell, coincidentally being the door at the end of the hallway. She was afraid to do it, but the smell was making her suffer. She knocked on the door with some force, shouting, “Could you stop that?”
Someone opened the door.
3:26pm, Azel had finished reading his book and was ready to make dinner for himself.
He put on an apron and pulled out his frying pan, placing it over the stove and filling it with oil before turning the heat on. He looked around and took out his prepared chicken, coating it, then throwing it into the frying pan, deep-frying it. It produced a strong oily smell with the aroma of the chicken hanging in the air. He was about to flip the meat over when someone knocked on his door, shouting. Curious, he went over to answer the door, pulling his chicken out early to prevent burning and turning off his stove beforehand.
At the door, he was greeted with a pained expression of Pandora. They made eye contact and Pandora gasped, surprised. Azel was surprised too, he did not remember telling her his dorm room’s location. He gave her a questioning look, wanting to know the reason for her sudden visit. Pandora fumbled with her bag a little before muttering, “U-Um... I just wanted to know why you hit Evan...”
He shrugged, unlocking the door to let her in. Hesitantly, Pandora took a step in, looking around for any potential dangers, but the dorm room was kept relatively simple and clean.
Azel pointed at the chair to his table, letting Pandora sit on the chair before entering the kitchen to bring out a few snacks and even tea. Pandora looked at the products suspiciously, unsure of whether she could consume them or if the products were dangerous to consume.
He pointed at the snacks and tea, then made a gesture, imitating eating a cookie by opening his mouth and bringing his index and thumb fingers to his mouth, pulling them away and biting down. Pandora picked up a cookie and bit into it.
Azel looked at his kitchen, then got an idea. He pouted towards the kitchen, then using five fingers, he pretended to hold a chicken thigh, biting and pulling away. Pandora watched with a hint of fear before understanding what his actions meant.
“I-I don’t eat m-meat...” She explained.
Azel raised an eyebrow, walking over to his shelf of books, he pulled out a book on Japanese cuisine and flipped open the book, showing a page of fried shrimp. He showed it to Pandora before trying to signal. He jabbed his thumb over his shoulder, pointed at the picture before raising an eyebrow.
“What...?”
He sighed and waved off his question, scratching his chin. He gave up trying to maintain a conversation, instead, bringing out his vegetables to whip up a simple meal, wanting to welcome his guest.
“Why did you punch Evan?” She asked while he cooked.
Without turning back, he shook his head.
He played the dish and brought it to the table, placing it in front of Pandora before walking off to look through his books.
3:55pm, Azel pulled out a book titled ‘He Was Not Innocent Detective!’. He showed it to Pandora and walked off, trying to find the proper words.
4:00pm, Pandora stiffened up.
She looked around, then at Azel. Her fearful eyes were now filled with determination, sharp and aggressive. She glared at him, her patience running low on the way he communicated. She wanted him to speak normally, not use these roundabout books to communicate. She pushed the plate aside, Azel noticed and pulled out a book.
He had his suspicion, and after seeing Pandora ‘switch’ once again, he felt like he knew the answer. In his hand, he held a book titled ‘A Split Mind’.
Pandora stopped in place, her fists clenched before she ran out the door that was left unlocked.
Azel looked at the book, he felt like he was correct, and he could know more about Pandora, or he had just ruined his only chance of getting a friend. He threw his hands into the air, giving up on those thoughts, instead, going back to cooking the fried chicken.
Maybe next time, he should prepare a light vegetable snack.
After he was done, he noticed something near the table where Pandora sat. It was obviously her schoolbag, grey in colour with criss-cross patterns.
Azel touched it with care. He needed to return the bag to its owner, but the owner had ran off. He put it down and collapsed in his bed, sitting down. He disliked troublesome things, things that needed him to go out of his way.
He placed his books back onto his shelf, staring at the collection he had.
He pulled one out, an old book, the pages already turning yellow, the edges already falling apart. The only thing keeping it together was a substantial amount of tape and glue.
It was a simple book, a children’s picture book, even. It was titled ‘The Voice of Silence’.
Azel held it close, looking at the rest of his collection.
Gifts
-- Gift
received Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone