“Hey... Ms…. Ms Losnedahl?”

That voice caused her to lift her head from her desk with a jolt, as she turned her head towards the source.

The cause of her startlement flinched at her action, or at least as much as he was capable of.

It was the blond hair, Holger looking at her with confusion, holding a book, and a bundle of scattered papers in his hands. It made her realize she was in the middle of class.

The class sessions have been going on much more smoothly than the previous ones, with actual work and progress being done.

It did not end in another all-out brawl, nor did it end within another disciplinary debate accompanied by a lecture. And with the results of her previous tests, she knew what to expect and what she should work on for each of her students.

Enok stewed in his chair, quietly refusing to do any work assigned to him. This was, of course, unhelpful. She knew his pride would eventually force him to prove her wrong, especially with his older brothers catching up.

She just needed patience. She had gotten used to his sharp, harsh glare that followed her throughout the sessions by now.

Erna, despite their very awkward encounter that night, was her star pupil. Lapping up every word that came from her mouth and reading as much as he could. Even asking to know more about certain aspects of the topics she had recently gotten into. She knew eventually he would have to move to a more advanced tutor to do college-level work.

Not her expertise, but the boy, despite his attempt at a sour demeanour, seemed to relax around her by now.

Holger was not a difficult student by any traditional definitions, more unmotivated. Getting Holger to write something of substance was the biggest challenge she had, so it was strange to see him in the middle of a worksheet session come up to her.

In his rather dead voice, he said, “I can’t do this…”

She raised her eyes to the boy and let out a sigh and went on to explain the concept again to him for the remaining class period.

Carole once her session was done, raised herself from her seat carefully as she dismissed her class and went on with her day.

She felt... somewhat ill, and not in the way she was used to.

It was more akin to a bunch of fruit sitting somewhere in her soul. Those fruit were rotting.

An old nauseating feeling of wrongness and she could not quite put her finger on what was the cause, nor why this bothered her so much.

Ever since that night, the feeling was as persistent as the pain in her back and leg. It of course, unlike those things, went away as swiftly as it came, only to return within the next few hours. It was not truly nausea, nor was it quite painful, it just felt…. wrong.

Carole was about to get to her room and rest until that feeling went away, however on the way she once again came across her, unfortunately, frequent companion, Hildmire.

For the past weeks, most often because of her no longer having the energy to protest, he had been around her to either talk or play games. Mostly play games, as he seems to invite himself when she looked like she was doing nothing.

The goat-boy, did not seem to notice her presence as he was in the middle of another confrontation with some other staff once again. This time, his bare arms had bruises and his knees scraped. An obvious black eye closed his right eye shut.

“Shut the hell up already!” Yelled one of them.

“Aww, I never thought mentioning facts can hurt your fee-fees that much. Maybe next time stay off the grease only diet. I can see the acne scars,” he said in all its cheeriness.

“So that’s how he talks to them,” Carole at this point understood those people's distaste for Hide right away.

She heard another smack, knocking Hide to the ground, as one pig beast-kin woman put her foot on to his chest as he grins up at them, despite the clear pain.

“Press down, as hard as you can, cute girl! Or you suddenly became too stupid to use those sexy long legs of yours porker.”

The lady grit her teeth and seemed to be about to stomp down hard upon his chest, potentially breaking some ribs only for her to get held back by the others.

“Come on, this beast isn’t worth it. Creepy-ass bastard,”

Despite her obvious reluctance, she moved her foot away, glared harshly at him, spat at the ground near him before turning around and leaving.

Hide’s previously playful demeanour slowly disappeared as he watched the two with a blank stare as they left.

Carole, feeling like it was the right time, walked up to him as his ears flicked upwards and his expression became one of surprise.

This is the second time she caught him getting beaten up, and maybe it was just her, but she saw a flush on his face as he looked at her with confusion.

She was starting to suspect...

This guy is allergic to being polite or reasonable or decent.

“My, my, don’t I seemed to have a little voyeuristic stalker,” He said as a lazy grin formed.

“... Do you want to make that situation much worse for yourself?” She at this point had to wonder

“Do I have to kiss ass 24/7?” he flatly replied.

Carole decided not to give a response to that statement. She held out her hand towards him, much to the latter's bewilderment and hesitation. He gawked at her outstretched hand before slowly reaching out and accepting it with his own as Carole pulled him up from the ground.

It was strangely very rough, even beneath her gloves and deaden burnt hand flesh she could feel that rough callus texture. Odd for a guy who did not seem to have much in the way of physique.

He dusted himself off and pulled out of his side bag, another sealed container he always has on him. He gave off another impish smile as he said. “This meal has blueberries in it,” somewhat reminding her of another reason she tolerates him around her so much.

The meal they shared was a well-done fruit salad of some rather expensive looking fruits, all cut into the shapes of stars with the blueberries being the round planets with such precise skill it was making her stare at like an art piece.

Along with it was Hide’s meal of a vegan spinach lasagna, while she was content with her soy meat ramen noodle cup.

She wondered who was exactly making Hildmire’s food. He could not be constantly stealing for every meal, not that she would put it past him attempting that.

As usual, their usual banter played out with Hide making his usual announcement, “Let’s play a game, Q and A, ask any question and we both have to answer 100% honestly. Any backing down and I win.”

Carole internally sighed. This kinda thing has been going on ever since he kept hanging out with her. Normally, it would be games like, ‘find me this’ or ‘truth or dare’. All games she normally ‘loses’ because of not wanting to continue for much longer.

The guy had too much energy.

“Fine... have you ever committed a crime?” might as well.

Hide puffed out his chest with an odd sense of pride, “well hell yeah, who hasn’t?”

Of course, he would.

He sipped on his juice before asking, “Angels usually have some special skills, right? Miracles. So what’s your gimmick? Unless it’s just being sour.”

“None...don’t have any and never had one..” She did not want to dwell on this topic for too long. Not because it particularly upset her, which it did. It usually leads to a doorway of other issues.

Hide then took a big bite out of his fake cheesy meal and hummed joyfully at her answer, “Lame your turn.”

She thought for a bit before asking, “How old are you, anyway?”

She assumed 17 at most. A very, very immature 17-year-old.

And without missing a beat he answered, “27.”

Carole nearly choked on her ramen noodle at the curt answer. That was... unbelievable... from his appearance to his actions to his behaviour, Carole could not believe this guy was older than her.

He might as well have said he was 50 and she would have believed it just as much.

No... that’s…

Hide, noticing her shock, bursts out in laughter.

“What’s with that reaction? Has my sexy, youthful appearance made you do a double-take?”

“I would have thought you were more likely a tall 14-year-old…”

Hide scoffed, “When you all are old and grey you would look at me and be going, damn look at that young sexy bastard. Wish I was him and not old and dying”

Carole, despite herself, let out a dry chuckle at the response and said, “we’ll see... we'll see, sure.”

“My turn, hmm, single and ready to mingle or taken and baking,” he gave her a teasing smile

“Single,” she answered tersely. She would not say the last part, it was too stupid.

As he bites into a star from the fruit salad, “mmm, why no back story? Or a tale of a turbulent love affair?”

“You didn’t ask that....” She then thought of a question that lingered at the back of her mind, mostly regarding the things she had heard about him that night. However, she knew she should not make it too obvious what she had been doing. She sipped up the last bits of her ramen cup and asked, “What was your first duty when you got hired?”

Hide’s demeanour changed, going from his relaxed posture to a rather rigid, stiff one.

“Well, it was nothing at first just staying around looking at things, but then it was helping a personal issue with one of the family members, you know stuff,”

Despite his usual casual tone, Carole knew he was not telling the entire truth. Just vague pieces of it that could not be disproven only expanded upon.

Breaking from her thoughts he asked that question,

“So you must drink a lot, am I right?”

His expression was still playful, seemingly oblivious to the question he asked.

A question dripping with old venom.

“Why do you care?” she said with little thought.

His tone still jovial had shifted, "I’m just wondering Carly, can’t help be a little curious you know.”

“I’m done..”

Hide shrugged his shoulders with a satisfied smile on his face, “I win..”

The tone of this time despite the cocky attitude seemed to be more of relief. As if even he wanted this ‘game’ to end early.

“Who cares,” was all Carole had to say as they continued to eat their meal

“Another game,” the horned man said, getting to his feet, the game this time was more trying to guess what was on the other person's mind, with Carole only barely paying attention as she was getting the feeling that he was somehow cheating.

However, when they finished their meal together, she saw something peeking around from under Hide’s shirt, just around the neck area.

Shiny metal.

She had seen it before, many times. She used to pay it no mind thinking it was nothing more than a tight choker necklace.

But after that night she paid extra attention to him and that piece of ‘jewellery’ no longer looked so comfortable.

Was that... a collar?