My morning routine passed by like usual. Brushing my teeth, showering, putting on my uniform, petting and feeding Shima, and finally grabbing my bag so I could leave for school. It was pretty cold outside but luckily it wasn’t raining and the sky was nice and blue, so all in all it was a pretty nice morning.

Ria was waiting for me at the corner we’d met at yesterday but I could tell she wasn’t in a good mood. She looked like she was about to cry.

“Did something happen, Ria?” I immediately took her in for a hug.

“It’s just my parents, Rora.” She sniffed. “I don’t know if I can keep doing this until I’ve finished my studies. It’s so hard.”

“Ria…” I hugged her tighter to me. Those fucking parents, it just made me fume. Instead of offering her the same reassurances and platitudes I offered yesterday. I just offered her a comforting silence instead. Slowly rubbing her back while she continued sniffing into my uniform.

Five minutes later, she had calmed down a little and looked up at me. I wiped a tear from her cheek with my index finger.

“I think we should go now…” She looked back down and leant her head on my chest.

“Yeah, let’s get going.” I rubbed her back once more. “Let’s get to Em.”

“Mhmm.” She nodded after she got away from my chest.

“Want to have a tissue to blow your nose?” I dug into my bag, giving her a packet of paper tissues.

She took one out and blew long and hard into it. “Thank you.” Ria then smiled at me, her face still a bit red from her sniffling.

We continued hand in hand, and luckily for us, the city had invested in a lot of public bins, so we didn’t have to walk around with a dirty tissue for that long either.

By the time we arrived at school, you could barely tell Ria had been crying earlier, although Em immediately noticed something was off the moment we entered the classroom.

“Are you okay, Ria?” It was only the three of us and Karin in the IT classroom for the moment.

“It’s her parents, they are still bloody dickwads.”

Ria said nothing and just embraced Emma.

After having embraced our girlfriend, Ria went on to give Karin a hug as well. In the meantime, Em turned herself to me. “You are pretty angry at them, aren’t you?”

“You can tell?” I sat down on the desk and put my feet on my spot, putting my bag next to me.

“I can tell by the way you are breathing.” She nodded. “You’re not very good at hiding it.”

“It’s so fucking frustrating. I want to see her be happy.”

“It’s not an easy problem to solve.”

“And that’s what makes me angrier. It makes me feel incompetent.”

“It’s not your fault, Rora.” Ria came back to us and sat down next to me on the table. She then rested her head on my shoulder.

“But if we do nothing it won’t get better either.” Em stated.

“We could go try to talk to them, but I don’t know if I can contain my anger if we are face to face…”

“Mhmm…” Em nodded.

I tried to distract Ria a bit by putting my arm around her and rubbing her arm and back, but it looked like she was almost about to cry again. “Fucking elitists…”

I swear I could hear the *ding* of a bell as Em’s facial expression suddenly changed. “Auro… that’s it!”

“Uh? What did I say?”

Ria looked up at Em as well.

“Ria’s parents only care about your social background, right?”

“Uhm, yeah, that’s the issue, isn’t it?”

“Then why don’t we trick them into believing your social status suddenly improved so much that they have no choice but to accept you.”

“I-I don’t think I’m following, Emma?” Ria wiped her tears away and sat upright.

“Me neither.” I shook my head.

Em looked at us and then glanced at her sister. “I will talk about it after school, but the idea is brilliant, trust me, it’ll work. We just need someone’s cooperation.”

“Huh…” I scratched my cheek, wondering about what exactly Em’s plan was.

In the meantime, Ria’s expression had lightened up a lot. Em’s sudden enthusiasm clearly put her mind at ease.

“And now that that’s done, I’ll steal Ria away for a second to the bathroom.” Em commented and hopped over to Ria, taking her hand and softly pulling her off the table.

“Why?” Ria asked, hesitantly going along with Emma.

“Because your make-up has started to run out a bit.”

“Oh no!” Suddenly she was a lot less reluctant to follow.

I chuckled and waved at my girlfriends when they left the classroom

Claire entered the classroom just a couple of seconds after my girlfriends had left.

“Where are Em and Ria off to?” Claire asked, taking the seat next to me.

“Fixing Ria’s make-up. She was a bit sad and it started ruining her make-up.”

“Ah…” Claire looked back at the door. “Why bother, we have P.E. today, don’t we?”

I shrugged. “Don’t ask me, I don’t do make-up.”

“Me neither.” Claire replied. “Anya is a lot more into that stuff than I am.”

“They want to look their best for you.” Karin replied out of the blue. It dumbfounded Claire and me.

“I’ve never thought about it like that…” Claire nodded.

“That’s a pretty sweet thought actually, thanks Karin.”

Karin just nodded and continued reading. It was yet another different book that I’d not seen before.

“Hey, Karin, how many books have you read this week already? I always see you with a different one.”

Karin looked at me, looked back at her book and then closed her eyes as if she was counting something in her mind. After a moment, she replied. “The eleventh.”

“Wow…” Claire was clearly impressed.

“I don’t even read that many books in a year, if you don’t count light novels.”

“That’s also reading.” Karin shrugged and once more got back to reading.

Claire then tapped on my shoulder and whispered into my ear. “Maybe we should try to read a bit more, to at least look a bit more intellectual. I don’t need it personally, but for you, it might be pretty useful.” When she pulled away from me, I could see her shit eating grin.

“You bastard.” I started laughing.

After Em and Ria came back, with Ria’s make-up perfectly reapplied, the day’s lessons started to get rolling. And right up until the midday break they just went on like usual. Miss Peeters did ask me to help her bring some paper to the teacher’s room with her, as she otherwise had to carry two heavy boxes all by herself. Obviously I obliged.

“See you at the Italian resto!” Ria and Em followed our friends out of the classroom, while I stood by with Miss Peeters to wait for her to leave.

“Yeah, I'll be right there!”

Miss Peeters was messing with something in her desk for a bit before she appeared back and put two more pieces of paper into one of the boxes. “There. That should be it. Thank you for helping me, Aurora.”

“It’s nothing, Miss.” I tested both boxes and grabbed the one that was heaviest, as that didn’t really matter for me.

“Are you sure you want to carry that one?” Miss Peeters asked, grabbing hold of the other box.

“Yes, it’s fine, I can handle it.”

“Well, tell me if you want to switch, it’s quite the distance.”

I nodded, but it wouldn’t be necessary.

When we got out of the classroom, she closed the door behind us and we started moving again. Most of the students had cleared out of the hallways already, so they were pretty empty.

About halfway through the building, Miss Peeters had to put her box down on one of the windowsills to rest her arms for a bit. She looked utterly confused at how I was still holding the box without any issues.

“How are your arms not tired?”

“I’m pretty strong.” I shrugged.

“I guess I should start lifting weights again.” She quickly stretched and got hold of her box again. “But it’s always so hard to keep up with lifting weights when your arms hurt so much afterwards.”

I nodded. -The annoyances of a mortal body.- “I know the feeling.” I lied.

Not that long afterwards we reached the teacher’s room and I put the box down where Miss Peeters told me too.

“Thanks again for the help, Aurora.” She sighed. “Otherwise, I had to take two trips.”

“Any time.” I smiled.

“Have a nice meal.” She smiled back and waved me goodbye.

“You too.” I turned around as Miss Peeters closed the door to the teacher’s room, and I started heading in the direction of the Italian resto. I had no clue what I was going to eat yet… I guess you can never go wrong with pizza.