The Simulacrum

Chapter 54

I never thought I'd agree with Josh's old sentiment, but it was true: once exposed to enough strange things, it was the simple days of mundane, everyday life that would start feeling uncanny instead. Take this day for example.

It was already after school, with most of the placeholder classmates well on their way home, yet absolutely nothing unusual happened till now. No sudden info dumps by random creeps, no unexpected knightly transfer students, no silly and yet extremely dramatic invasion by super-intelligent penguins in flying saucers, no nothing. Everything was so peaceful and normal that it was straight-up weird.

But then again, maybe the day was only preparing itself, hiding its reserves of cuckoo-for-cocoo-puffs absurdity until the very last moment, only to suddenly strike once we were fully lulled into a false sense of security. As such, we could all agree it was best to be prepared and ever vigilant.

"Oh, man..." my nervously fidgeting friend whispered under his breath, and after giving him a glance, I had to revise my previous statement. Being vigilant was certainly very important, yet everything had to be done in moderation, and Josh was waaaaaay past that point.

"Relax," I said as I fully turned in my chair and faced the guy behind me. All of our classmates have already left the premises, which included the gang as well, so it was only the two of us waiting for the disciplinary committee to contact us. I thought it would be a nice change of pace, yet Josh looked like he was about to crack under the pressure, so I noted, "You're acting like you're going into a life or death battle."

"It might not be life-or-death, but it is a battle... kinda..." he countered between two sneaky glances towards the annoying sliding doors of the classroom.

"You say that as if you've never been in one of those," I pointed out, earning me a scoff from him.

"But this is the first time I'm an aggressor. It's different."

"Is it really that different though? Is it?" I responded in a contemplative tone.

"It is to me," my friend held defiantly. At the end of the day, I decided it wasn't worth arguing over, so I shrugged my shoulders in acquiescence.

"Fine, then it is. It's still no reason to be this nervous."

"But I don't know what I'm supposed to do," he... well, I don't want to say he whined per se, because that would've been rude, but he pretty much did, so I'll leave it at that. Josh also looked like he wanted me to say something, but since I steadfastly maintained my silence, he finally blurted out, "Are you sure you can't come along?"

Oh? So that's what this whole agonizing act was for. Unfortunately, as much as I wanted to see the gathering of the placeholder creeps get raided, I had to decline.

"I already told you that I have other things to do. Not to mention, this is your chance to get on the good side of Armband Guy, so you should just stick to him and follow his lead."

"I know, but..." he began, but then his words trailed off into indistinct mumbling, so I decided to throw him a bone.

"How about this: imagine all the upskirt shots and other voyeur photos they are sharing there. Does it make you annoyed?"

"... Yes," he responded curtly, with just a hint of skepticism in his voice.

"Does it make you angry?"

"... A little."

"If so then take that anger and let it build up. Then, when you arrive there, just let it flow through you with a 'JOSH SMASH!' and destroy them all."

"And then?"

Now it was my turn to give a skeptical look.

"And then everything is smashed and everyone lived happily ever after. The end."

"That's it!?" Josh suddenly burst out after, and I shrugged my shoulders once again.

"What were you expecting?"

"Some wise, old, mentory advice for one. Something that would actually help me," my friend grumbled, and this time he earned himself a proper scowl.

"Cut it out with the 'mentor' crap, I don't want to die just yet. Also, I have helped you. You aren't nearly as nervous anymore, are you?"

"I'm not?" he blurted out, only to pause right after that and then repeat himself, this time with palpable bemusement. "I'm not. Huh. How does that work?"

"It's just simple, run-of-the-mill psychology, my young friend," I answered just a smidgen smugly.

"Don't you mean 'my young padawan'?" he shot back with a provocative smirk on his lips, and I was just about to threaten him with filling his pie hole with his pencil case for his continued mentorisms when the classroom's door slid open and drew our attention.

We both expected that it would be Armband Guy, yet contrary to our preconceptions, the one stepping into the room was Angie of all people. This time she had her hair in a ponytail, and instead of her uniform, she was dressed in a loose white tank top, a short pleated skirt, sneakers, and a pair of thick, scrunchy pink long socks that reached up to her knees.

She immediately locked onto us the moment she entered and she jogged to our side with sparkling eyes.

"Thank god, you didn't go home yet!" she exclaimed before she came to a halt and turned a pleading eye to her childhood friend. "Jooooooosh? Could you help me? Pretty pleeeeeease?"

Oh, wow. She even fluttered her eyelashes when she asked. Maybe Judy got the idea from her? Putting that aside, I decided to speak up. If someone had to rain on her parade, I figured I might as well do it myself.

"Sorry, but Josh already has something to do."

"Do you guys have some plans for the afternoon?" the Celestial girl asked as she turned her attention to me, only to turn back when Joshua gave her the answer.

"No. I just have some business with the disciplinary committee."

"Are you in trouble?"

"Nah. Josh just volunteered to help Armband Guy round up some nasty baddies doing secret dealings in the school," I supplied the answer, and it ignited an excited light in her eyes right away.

"Whoa! Is it a sting operation? Like in those police dramas?"

"Nah, I'm not going undercover. I just help the disciplinary committee because erm let's just say I have a personal stake in getting rid of some contraband and the like and stuff"

The tail end of Josh's explanation inexplicably turned into awkward mumbling as he averted his eyes, yet his childhood friend didn't seem to mind.

"So you're just going to help catch them? That's cool too!" She flashed a toothy grin at us, but then it just as quickly withered as she began to ponder. "So you really can't help me, huh? What about you, Leo? Are you going to strike the criminal element down with the iron fist of justice too?"

"That's an unnecessarily flowery way to put it but no, I..." 'have other plans' is what I wanted to say, but before I could do so, she all of a sudden jumped in front of me and gave me the puppiest of all puppy eyes I have ever seen. She even clasped her hands in front of her chest and everything.

"Leeeeeoooo? Could you help me? Pretty pleeeeeease?"

I awarded her repeat performance with a flat look, but she continued to stare me in the eyes all the same, her gaze full to the brim with expectation, so I could only sigh and say, "Depends. What do you need help with?"

"Yesss!" she softly exclaimed with a small fist pump, as if the deal was already in the bag, and then she rapidly explained, "There's going to be a local tournament in two weeks, so the club is having extra practice in the afternoon. We have this really cool pitching machine in the gym storage, but it's kinda heavy..."

"So you need me to haul it to the tennis court," I guessed, and she nodded right away.

"Yes." She paused here for a long moment, then she did that weird gesture where she repeatedly joined and then pulled apart the tips of her index fingers as she meekly added, "Also, we need you to assemble it. Oh, and if you could turn it on and show us how it works, it would be super cool."

"... And pray tell, just how am I supposed to show you how to use your own club's equipment, which, I must point out, I've never even seen?"

"Don't be silly!" Angie replied between giggles as she swiped at me, her earlier display of shyness disappearing as quickly as it came. "You are a boy! Boys know all about technology and stuff!"

I rewarded the enthusiastic Celestial with a look flatter than the salt plains.

"What you just said is no doubt some kind of '-ism'. I don't know what kind yet, but the moment I figure it out, I'm going to make a hashtag on the internet out of it, and you're going to feel really stupid."

"Pfff. Hashtags are soooo last year," she dismissed me with an irreverent wave of her hand.

"Don't tell me you didn't know?" Josh barged into the conversation with a voice dripping with fake shock. "I thought everyone knew the internet was just a fad..."

"Yeah!" Angie readily agreed, followed by several quick nods. "Nobody is doing interneting anymore! Everyone moved on to um wombat racing! Yes, that's the new hip thing right now!"

"I can't believe you are so behind the times. I feel ashamed for you," Josh mumbled as he dramatically wiped the corners of his eyes.

I waited for them to quiet down, then I asked, "Are you two finished?" The childhood friend duo shared a not at all subtle look between each other, so I hastily raised a palm and added, "Just so you know, depending on your answer, I might have to call Brang and tell him that you can't keep your comic book collection in the secret base after all."

"Hey! That's a blatant abuse of power!" Angie raised her voice in (what I presumed to be mock) horror, and I shook my head with a smirk befitting the situation.

"I'm not abusing anything, I'm just stating the facts. Take it or leave it." I waited for her to respond, but the friendly neighborhood Celestial only kept glaring at me with her cheeks puffed out like a chipmunk's. I kept up the staring contest for a couple of seconds, but then I noticed that she wasn't breathing and that her face was getting purple, so I decided to be the bigger man and said, "Oh, fine. I'll help you take out the pitching machine, but I make no promises after that. Are you happy now?"

Her expression immediately turned on a dime, as usual, and her angry pout was swiftly replaced by a beaming grin.

"Thanks, Leo, you're the best! Or at least you would be if you weren't such a tyrant, so... Second best?"

I gave her a look that unambiguously said 'Can it.', but it only made her giggle again. Anyhow, since I promised already, I stood up and grabbed my bag before I addressed my still sitting friend.

"I'll go to help the tennis club then. Break a leg."

Josh frowned at my well-wishes and mumbled, "Thanks, but... why is wishing someone to break their leg a good thing again?"

"'Cuz idioms are weird?" I proposed, and based on the small grunt he gave in response, he apparently agreed.

Anyways, we said our goodbyes and I followed Angie out of the classroom. She took the lead, since I didn't know where the machine was stored, yet the moment we reached the first floor, she immediately slowed down and sidled up to me. I figured she wanted to talk, so I matched her pace, and the moment I did so, she immediately directed a suspiciously innocent upturned glance at me.

"Sooo... How's it going?"

I wasn't sure what she meant by that, but I decided to answer as well as I could.

"Well, I mostly recovered from my enchantment-fatigue, and preparations for dealing with our recurring bad guy are proceeding relatively smoothly, so I can't really complain."

"That's neat, but to be honest with you, I was more interested in how things are going with your girlfriends."

My eyes narrowed into a small, suspicious frown before I knew it, and I inquired, "Which part are you curious about?"

After our unexpected and slightly baffling discussion yesterday, Judy seemed to be really hell-bent on blowing my middling interest in recreational procreation activities out of proportion, to the point she was having 'emergency meetings' with the princess in every single recess. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't slightly apprehensive about the contents of their discussions, but I figured they would confront me sooner or later anyway, and there was no point worrying about the inevitable. The real question was whether Angie was sent by them to sneakily test the waters, or she noticed their recent behavior and she was worried and/or curious on her own.

In the meantime, the Celestial girl thought long and hard about how to answer my question with a finger on her lips, and she ultimately told me, "Please don't take this the wrong way, but you know that what you guys are doing is weird, right? I mean, if someone told me some guy's openly dating two girls at the same time, I would totally go 'Pff, that will never work out!'."

"Well, I guess, but"

"It is, right? And yet here you are, happy as a bunch of peas in a pod! It's crazy weird!"

"Wait, that was the part that you found"

"Right!" she interrupted me before I could finish my sentence, and she continued with, "Like, before you three started going out, there was always this tension between Judy and Elly, but then it all went 'Poof!', they just got along all of a sudden the moment you started dating! It's incredible!"

"I wouldn't really"

"I still can't believe how you managed to pull it off! I was afraid that it would make things difficult, or there would be fights in the group because of it, but you've been going steady for two weeks already, and instead, the two of them are besties now, and you three look super-adorable together!"

"Um Thanks, I th"

"So What I'm trying to ask is You know, I'm just kinda curious how you do it? Is there some kind of secret trick to make your relationship work with more than one girlfriend?"

This was the point when I realized that Angie's angle was very different from what I originally expected. She apparently wasnt sent by my girlfriends, nor did she notice their conspiratorial huddles, but instead she wanted insider info on how to make a polyamorous relationship work. Considering that she already showed interest in the idea in the past, I couldn't help but wonder; could it be that she was sneakily aiming for a harem-ending? Considering Josh was favoring Snowy as of late, it wasn't impossible that she also decided to follow Judy's odd take on the prisoner's dilemma.

But then again, Angie never really struck me as the type who would put that much thought into things, so maybe she just wanted to give it a try because I created a precedent? Not to mention, it wasn't like the option wasn't on the table from the beginning, considering how polygamy-friendly this theoretical battle harem world proved to be.

Anyhow, it was rude to keep her waiting so I did just that. I mean, she cut me off four times in a row, so it was only fair. I pretended to be deep in thought to allow her to stew in her own juices for a while, and we almost reached the gym by the time I decided I should speak up.

"There really isn't a trick to it," I told her, and she immediately frowned at me.

"Come on, Leo! Don't be like that! I swear I won't tell anyone about your secret!"

"But there really is no secret," I doubled down, and I have to admit I was a little taken aback by her insistence.

"I don't believe that. You must do something special to keep a relationship like that afloat."

"I really don't though. My job is just to spread my affection equally and not play favorites. If anything, it's the girls who are the ones responsible for keeping our relationship working as intended."

"Really?" she suddenly perked up again, but since we just reached the gym storeroom, I waited for her to unlock the door before I answered.

"Yep. I just have to do my best to be a doting boyfriend; they are the ones who have to put up with the inconvenience of sharing my attention between the two of them. After all, if they said no from the beginning, there's no matter how hard I would've tried, we couldn't have ever gotten to where we are right now. It's all thanks to them."

"So it's really up to the girls" Angie whispered under her breath, followed by a determined nod, and the way she was obviously making a mental note of my words immediately confirmed my suspicions.

I secretly wished her luck in her romantic endeavors, but I still added, "To be fair though, the fact that Elly's family is surprisingly supportive also helps a lot."

"What about Judy's parents?" she asked absentmindedly as she scanned the insides of the storeroom for the machine, completely unaware of the fact that her question was the verbal equivalent of dumping a bucket of cold water over my head.

"They don't know yet, I think" she instantly glanced over her shoulder at me, so I hastily added, "I mean, I believe Judy told them we're dating, they just don't know about the whole polyamory thing."

"You really didn't tell them?"

She sounded way more dumbfounded than necessary, to the point I started to feel a little uncomfortable.

"Hey, cut me some slack. Judy's dad is scary."

"How so?"

"He has a gun," I muttered, belatedly realizing that explaining it as simply as that sounded like a poor excuse even to myself.

"Elly's dad is a pureblood Draconian," Angie countered, and I could only shake my head. "That's waaaaaay scarier than a gun."

"Yeah, but he's also a friendly goofball. Judy's father is more on the overprotective side. I can deal with supernatural shenanigans, but a normal guy with a gun is a different matter."

"That sounds tough, buddy," the cheerful Celestial told me while mechanically patting my shoulder. "Keep up the good work, and I'm sure things will work out."

"Very amusing." I brushed her off and looked around as well. "More importantly, where's the machine?"

Angie must have interpreted my attempt to get on with the business we came here to do as my way to closing the previous topic, as she also completely ceased any further attempts at inquiring about my love life. As for said business, we found the pitching machine in its original packaging under a bunch of miscellaneous gym equipment, and it was considerably lighter than I expected.

Once I managed to dig it out, my first question was naturally, "Where's the user's manual?"

"Don't be silly, Leo! Boys don't need manuals! You're just supposed to know how to operate this!"

"That's still not how it works. Also, I still think what you said is some kind of '-ist'," I grumbled as I hefted the box and we headed outside. I still hoped that maybe there was an instruction pamphlet somewhere in the bottom, but since I was going to unpack it once we got outside anyway, I figured I could leave searching for it until then. With that in mind, I walked outside, followed by a giggling Celestial, only to stop and ask, "What's the time?"

"Huh? I don't have my phone with me, but I don't hear the track club, so it's not four o'clock yet."

"Really? Then I better hurry up," I said as I began to walk with some extra spring in my steps.

"Wha-? Hey, slow down! Leo!" Angie tried to follow after me, but in the end, she had no choice but to start jogging to catch up. "Uuuu! You are cheating! Your legs are too long!"

"Are you sure it's not your legs that are too short?"

Instead of answering, she lightly punched me in the shoulder, and we both stifled a laugh as we scurried along.

As for why I was in a hurry? Well, let's just say that after this detour, I had a very important appointment with a certain school nurse. One that he didn't know about yet

"This is such bullcrap" I grumbled under my breath as I made my way back to the man building. I was lucky that no one was around at this point, otherwise they might have thought I was some kind of weirdo mumbling to himself but then again, the fact that I was doing that meant that maybe I was one? I left that conundrum to be solved by hindsight, and instead I continued to happily fume without being disturbed by anyone.

The reason behind my foul mood was naturally the tennis club in general and one smug Celestial in particular. I mean, just because the pitching machine was really intuitively designed and could be easily put together without the manual, it didn't make her right in any shape or form. They should've been able to do the same without my help anyway, yet all the placeholder girls were looking at me like I was some kind of knight in shining armor who appeared to help them in their moment of distress, sparkling eyes and all. Except for Angie, of course, because she was just grinning like an absolute wiseacre.

Anyhow, I was about to reach the wing with the nurse's office, so I decided to put my encounter on the tennis field out of mind (though not too much; I had to remember it in order to serve my sweet, cold revenge in the future), and focused on step #467 of my implausibly complex plan to help Josh become a real protagonist and finally start carrying his weight, if only so that I could focus on my own endeavors.

Speaking of him, I quickly Far Glanced at him, and it looked like he just met up with Armband Guy and they were passive-aggressively quipping at each other. In other words, business as usual.

I contemplated whether I should check the others as well, but I was in spitting distance of Peabody's little hidey-hole, so I figured I would do it later and get this over with as soon as possible instead. It was like pulling off a mental band-aid; it might hurt in the short term, but it's over quicker as well.

Thinking so, I stopped in front of the familiar door and opened it without even bothering to knock. I already checked on him, so I knew the nurse was in, and when I entered, the portly man quickly swiveled around on his chair in surprise, only to ease up once he realized it was just me.

"O-ho-ho! Why, hello, Leonard! It's been a while."

"Yeah, yeah. Good afternoon, et cetera," I gave him something that could be, if you squinted hard enough, considered a greeting and I closed the door behind me. "I came to talk."

"O-ho-ho? Could it be about your amnesia?" the old guy asked with his eyes open in anticipation.

While at first I wanted to dismiss him out of hand, in the end I had to grudgingly tell him, "No, but now that you reminded me of it, I suppose I should thank you for not telling anyone about my lost memories after all."

"No need to mention it!" he responded unusually boisterously, accompanied by a huge grin. "I believe I've already told you, but I'm as bound by doctor-patient confidentiality as any licensed physician. O-ho-ho! You certainly won't hear me tattling about your condition to your peers, that's for sure!"

"I wasn't really worried about that part," I said a little absent-mindedly as another thought took root in the back of my mind. Even though I tried to keep it a secret in fear of affecting the nebulous narrative in some shape or form, at this point I have more acquaintances who knew about my amnesia than ones who didn't. Since I got to this point, I figured it was about time to let the rest know as well, so I made a mental note about it before I returned to the conversation at hand and told the nurse, "I was actually more impressed by the fact you didn't tell the Arch-Mage about it. Very principled of you."

"Thank you for the compliment, but I can't say I understand what you've"

"Please stop playing dumb. I'm really not in the mood for it," I cut him off before he could say something silly, like 'What is an Arch-Mage?' "I came here because I wanted you to deliver a message to your nephew."

The moment I said that the atmosphere in the room went from jovial and easy-going to well, still fairly easy-going, but with just a teeeeeny bit of tension on the top. Similarly, while Peabody maintained his lukewarm smile, the eyes under his bushy brows opened just a fraction wider, only to then narrow into suspicious slits a mere moment later.

"O-ho-ho? Refreshingly direct, aren't you?"

"As I said, I'm really not in the mood to beat around the bush," I answered with a shrug. "I would also prefer it if you did the same." Peabody only looked at me with a mixture of caginess and expectation, so I told him, "I want you to tell Friedrich that I'm willing to hear him out."

"Is that so?" The nurse's eyes opened wide again at the mention of Labcoat Guy's name. He obviously didn't expect I would be privy to this detail, and that was the exact reason why I decided to drop his name in the first place.

I naturally pushed ahead to hit the iron while it was still hot, so before he could regain his balance, I quickly continued with, "Tell him that I want to meet him in person. I know it's not 'scheduled', but I want him to arrange one of his little ambushes just after school's out."

"Oh-ho-ho? Well informed, aren't you?" Peabody mused as he rubbed his jaw and scrutinized me from head to toe. "Since you told me to keep being direct, let me ask you this: If you want to talk with him, why don't you just go to his workshop?"

I'm not going to lie, the candid way he asked it was really refreshing, even if the question itself was a pain in the neck to answer without giving away too much information. In the end, I settled on, "No offense, but I've heard that your android friend is a little trigger-happy, so I wish to avoid staying in an enclosed space with her for the time being."

"Very well informed indeed," he whispered under his breath.

In the meantime, I pushed him even more by declaring, "This time, I'll be there in person. Unfortunately, I'm being watched as of late, so it would be best if he could make it look like I was caught up in the Purple Zone by chance. That way nobody would suspect we made contact on purpose."

"O-ho-ho? But didn't you just make contact with us?"

"No. I simply visited the school nurse before going home. There's absolutely nothing suspicious about that, especially considering that there's no way for me to suspect that you are related to Friedrich, or the Research Society, or that you're an old friend of the Arch-Mage, or that you visit the old man using a secret back entrance to the School under this building, or that"

"I understand! Please say no more!" Peabody suddenly blurted out. Once I fell silent, he let out a tired sigh, reached inside his vest, and then wiped the sweat off his forehead with a yellow cloth handkerchief before he finally told me, "I understand you are truly, terrifyingly well informed. There's no need to highlight it any further."

"If you got the point, then I stop," I told him with my patented roguish smirk. "Tell your nephew I'll see him tomorrow."

I wanted to end the discussion on that decisive note, but before I could turn around and reach for the doorknob, I was stopped by a burst of irritating chuckles behind me.

"O-ho-ho! But wait just a moment, Leonard! If you're worried about being watched, wouldn't leaving my office so soon be considered suspicious?"

"Not really," I said as I tried to deflect his words, but he completely ignored me and patted the chair next to his own.

"Don't be in such a hurry! Come and sit. It's been a long time since you last visited here; why not talk a little, if only for the sake of appearances?"

I really wasn't in the mood, and there wasn't anyone tailing me to begin with, but since I wanted to keep up the pretense of this meeting, I had little choice but to go along with his suggestion. I didn't know whether he did it to entrap me on purpose, but looking at the lopsided grin on his face made me doubt he was the mastermind type.

Speaking of which, just what was Peabody's type? By that, I didn't mean his preference in women (or men; I don't judge), but as in our own classification. He sure as hell started out as a placeholder; I can still remember when he locked up during our first meeting as if it was yesterday. Yet at the same time, he was the uncle of Labcoat Guy and an old friend of the Arch-Mage, two important 'side-characters', to use the terminology of our narrative hypothesis.

Now, if he was only getting more animated over time, I would have absolutely no problem with his behavior. It is already well-established that when it comes to placeholders, more interaction with them equals more complexity, and with enough attention, they can quickly go from weirdos who would stab themselves with a pencil to quirky girlfriends with minor trust issues (but you didn't hear that last part from me). In Peabody's case the problem was in the fact that, based on his background and importance in the 'plot', he shouldn't have been a placeholder in the first place.

Let's take someone else for comparison: Melinda. She's by no means a major player in the 'plot', as far as we're aware of it, yet just by being Elly's chambermaid, aka being connected to someone 'important', resulted in her being a relatively normal and animated side-character from the very start. In contrast, Peabody was related to not one but two 'plot-relevant' people, yet he was unmistakably a placeholder the first time I met him.

I really didn't like to resort to this, but the most obvious way I could explain this discrepancy was through the application of retroactive continuity (or retcon, for short). This was something that we've discussed with Judy a number of times; the idea that the universe we lived in would 'fill in the blanks' when we weren't looking to enforce a sense of coherence. For example, while I can't say for sure either way (as I've never seen them beforehand), there's a good chance that before my early interactions with Judy, she had no parents. As in, they literally didn't exist until she was deemed important by 'the narrative', at which point they poofed into existence to complete her background.

I didn't like this. In fact, I found it about as disturbing as Judy's insistence on the narrative actively manipulating everything and everyone all the time. That said, it wasn't impossible, and it would've been irresponsible of me to dismiss the idea just because of some instinctual aversion. Sure, Judy and I butted head over these things a lot, but that was precisely why I hired her in the first place; so that there would be a second opinion I could argue and reason with. If she just blindly agreed with me all the time, then it would just result in complacency. Who knew? Maybe she was correct. I really hoped she wasn't, but ignoring her arguments would've been a folly of epic proportions.

But back to the point: if I presumed that such retcons could take place in this universe, even to already 'established' people in our social circle, then there was a good chance that Peabody really was a placeholder at the beginning, but due to my unwitting interference, he was recognized as 'an important character' by the world. Following that, he was given a backstory, and said background retroactively linked him to both Labcoat Guy and Lord Grandpa, all the while he remained the same, mostly ineffectual person.

I mean, he was apparently a friend of Amadeus from their school days, yet as far as I knew, he's not a mage, and he's linked to the Research Society, yet I never saw him doing any magitech tinkering or discussing any technical details with his nephew either. As a matter of fact, he was so mundane in comparison to his associates it made him stand out like a sore thumb.

But then again, there was at least one alternative explanation I could come up with: maybe he had all of these connections from the beginning, but he used to be a placeholder because, due to the way he had no supernatural abilities, he wasn't really related to the 'plot', so to speak? In fact, if not for my Far Sight, I doubt anyone would've ever figured out he was related to the important guys.

Anyhow, all of this was food for thought, but for later, and the moment I reached this conclusion, the man in front of me let out another one of his grating chuckles.

"O-ho-ho! So, what did you want to talk about?"

I narrowed my eyes at his question and stated, "Nothing. You're the one who told me to stay a little longer, so if anyone wanted to talk, it's you."

"O-ho-ho! Come now, don't be shy," he coaxed me with a disturbingly amicable smile as he leaned forward in his swivel chair. "Boys of your age always have some kind of problem to talk about! Puberty, changes in your body, relationship problems I'm here to help you with all of those!"

" What do relationship problems have to do with the school nurse?" I blurted out as my brow climbed my forehead on its own.

"I'm also the school counselor," he declared with an odd sense of pride, after which he let out a small chuckle and asked, "So, I gather you do have some kind of relationship problem after all. Why else would you focus on it right away?"

"There could be many, many reasons," I responded a little dourly, but the annoying nurse only continued to chuckle under his breath.

"Now, now. I told you there's no need to be shy! I can listen to all your woes, and none of them will leave these four walls."

My gut reflex wanted to dismiss him right away, but after a moment of consideration, I realized that the man in front of me was the closest thing I had to a normal, responsible adult amongst my acquaintances, even considering that whole mallet malarkey and the Hippocratic assassins. That was sad. It also meant that, as absurd as it might've sounded, his was probably the closest to a 'normal' perspective if I wanted to get some 'normal' advice for my current woes.

"Fine. I admit I do have something," I confessed, but before the nurse could break into one of his self-satisfied guffaws, I quickly added, "Let me warn you though; if you tell anyone about what I'm going to talk about, I willknow, and I will make you regret it."

"O-ho-ho? Calm down, Leonard. You should know I'm a professional, and I don't want to get hunted down by the Brotherhood of"

"Already heard that joke, so stop it," I huffed, but Peabody's smile only widened in response.

"Have you? Oh, what a pity. It is my best one."

"I'm sure about that. So, can you listen to me for a moment?"

"O-ho-ho! Certainly! That's what I'm here for!"

"Good. So, here goes nothing." I took a deep breath and then began with, "I know that you know that I'm currently dating Eleanor," I started with a half-truth to ease into the conversation.

"O-ho-ho! Of course!" he exclaimed with his usual, grating joviality. "I can remember it like it was yesterday; when you gallantly carried her into this room after school! Believe it or not, I could already see the attraction between the two of you!"

"Im sure you did," I responded flatly, but then before I could continue, he cut me off with another laugh.

"O-ho-ho! How could I not? Believe it or not, I used to be quite the Casanova in my younger years, and while I might have lost my touch a little over thirty years of marriage, I would've had to be blind not to notice the spark between you two! Oh, the wonders of youth!"

"Yes, yes. Can I actually get to the point?"

"Oh, certainly," he told me while brushing off my scowl directed at him with an affectionate smile.

"So, here's my problem: we have been going steady for a while now, and according to my girlfriend, it is about time we take our relationship to the physical level."

"There is nothing wrong with that," he told me almost instantly, his voice sounding suspiciously rehearsed. "You're going through puberty, and the urge to explore your sexuality with your partner is perfectly natural. So long as she consents, go for it!"

That was a significantly more easygoing answer than what I expected. I quickly stifled the groan threatening to escape my throat and told him, "That's nice, but I'm not the one pushing for it. She wants to take things further, while I'm not really interested at the moment."

"O-ho-ho? Is that so? There is nothing wrong with that either. Some of us are late bloomers, and you might be one too! Why, believe it or not, I was a late-bloomer too! It wasn't until I was twenty when I joined my first swinger party, and I didn't try to use the back-door before I was"

"Too much information! Can we stick to the topic, please?" I interrupted with all my might before the mental image could take root. "So, in your expert opinion, not wanting to rush this is not abnormal."

"Not at all! In your place, I would be more alarmed about why your girlfriend wants to take you under the blankets so soon."

" Should I really?"

"O-ho-ho! Well, 'alarmed' might be too harsh of a word. You see, Leonard, she is going through puberty the same way you are, with all its urges and hormone imbalances. It is perfectly reasonable to suggest that she simply has her own needs she wants you to fulfill. Yet, the intricacy of a woman's heart is a twisting road that few of us menfolk dare to tread, and even fewer of us see its end."

"Very poetic, but could you be just a bit more straightforward? Please?"

"Put simply, your girlfriend's desire to have sexual intercourse with you might have less to do with her physical needs than her mental ones. For example, have you considered that she might feel that your reluctance means you find her unattractive? Or that she could feel pressured by the way you act around other girls? If my memory serves right, your little group of friends is full of pretty girls, is it not? Have you considered that maybe she's trying to seal the deal because she is afraid someone else might snatch you away?"

I didn't know what I hated more; the candid way he was talking about these things, or the fact that what he said actually made a lot of sense in context.

"That's a lot of food for thought," I finally stated a little absent-mindedly, which earned me another low-key laugh.

"You're welcome. But remember, if all else fails, the two of you should sit down and talk things through. Do not bottle it up, as the longer you leave a problem unaddressed, the harder it is going to deal with it once you open that bottle. Why, if only I talked to my wife right away after that enema incident back in college, we might"

"Stop! Too much information! Again!" I exclaimed as I crossed my hands in front of me, but Peabody only continued to grin at me. I rolled my eyes and let my arms down, then I told him, "Thanks for the advice. It was way more reasonable than I expected."

"Oh, and before I forget!" the portly nurse suddenly exclaimed as he reached out and began rummaging through one of the drawers in his desk. "Just in case you experience some performance problems in bed, I have the business card of a great urologist colleague of mine. Where did I?"

" I redact my last statement," I grumbled under my breath, but before I could say anything else, there was a series of knocks on the door.

"Come in," Peabody called out right away, probably by reflex, and the door immediately opened wide.

"Sir, I have an injured," an upperclassman announced as he more or less dragged one of the creepy amigos into the infirmary by his shoulder, and he didn't even spare a glance at me. On a closer look, he had an armband on him, meaning he was probably part of the disciplinary committee, and the guy he was pulling along seemed to be a fairly battered Mr. Bedhair.

"O-ho-ho? What happened?" the nurse inquired as he finally stopped searching his drawer, stood up, and gestured towards the nearby bed.

"We conducted a raid against a group of delinquents trading contraband," the upperclassman told him in a flat voice. "He attempted to escape through the first-floor window but slipped and fell. Luckily the hedge by the wall broke his fall, but the captain told me to carry him here for a checkup."

Saying so, he unceremoniously dumped poor(sic!) Mr. Bedhair onto the bed and then immediately turned around and left without even saying goodbye. Placeholders, amirite?

Anyhow, Peabody immediately sprung to action and began to examine the creep. I was wondering whether I should leave or wait for him to finish, but then my dilemma was solved when he looked over his shoulder and told me, "O-ho-ho. It was a pleasure talking with you, Leonard, but I'm afraid this young man needs my full attention."

"I understand," I answered as I stood up. "I'll leave you to your work then. Just remember to relay my message."

"Worry not, I will."

I gave him a nod in lieu of a goodbye and I quickly walked over to the still-open door, but just as I was about to cross the threshold, the nurse called out to me.

"O-ho-ho! Just a moment, I almost forgot something!"

I turned around, and found Peabody already standing in front of me with an outstretched hand.

"Good luck," he told me as he pointedly shook his wrist, and after a moment of hesitation, I decided to shake his hand. Unsurprisingly, there was a small, rectangular object in his palm, but before I could refuse it, he already pushed it into mine and then followed it up with a playful wink.

That last bit surprised me so much I couldn't react in time, and before I could say a word, he already closed the door in front of me. This time I didn't bother to stifle my groans as I shook my head and glanced down at my hand.

"I seriously have no need for an urolo" I muttered under my breath, only for my voice to halt as I realized that the object in my hand wasn't a business card, but a condom. Correction: a full pack of condoms. The bumpy variety, if the slogan on the front was to be believed. I raised my head to dumbly stare at the door in front of me, then back at the rectangular red packet in my hand, and I couldn't decide whether what I got was better or worse than a business card.

At last, I decided to stop thinking about it and let out a sigh, then I promptly pocketed the pack. I mean, it was technically a gift, so it would've been rude to throw them away. It certainly wasn't because I had a feeling I might have to use them sooner or later. Also, I certainly didn't have a better impression of the nurse after this encounter. Not even a little bit.

I checked my phone one more time as I was waiting for Josh by the shoe lockers. It was a little after four, and I've been standing around while twiddling my thumbs for a little more than fifteen minutes by this point. Last I checked on him, Josh almost finished his customary verbal sparring session with Armband Guy, so I figured he should be coming my way soon. I wished he'd hurry up a bit, but then again, I was also a bit of an aficionado when it came to the craft of heckling people I didn't like, so I graciously allowed him to take his time.

I was still getting bored though, so I decided to quickly check on everyone else with Far Sight, partially out of habit, but mostly just to make time go faster. First and foremost, I checked on our resident mad scientist, and I found him in his evil lab, busy building something obviously evil with his evil robotic accomplice. By the looks of it, it was either some kind of infrared death ray super-weapon or a toaster. Based on their discussion, it could've gone either way.

There was nothing else to see there, so I checked Peabody, and he was still taking care of the injured placeholder. Oh, wait. Armband guy just arrived to interrogate the guy on the bed. That meant Josh should've been already on his way, or at the very least I sincerely hoped so.

I didn't check on him just yet (where's the fun in that?), but instead I moved on to the members of our little collection of magical misfits first. My first target was Angie, and she was coming right towards me?

I blinked in a hurry, both due to surprise and as a way to readjust my vision, but by the time I found my bearings she already passed by me and stormed out of the school building. She didn't even bother to say hello. Or change her shoes, if we were at that. I wondered what her problem was, but at the end of the day I decided that if it was important, I would learn of it soon enough away, so I moved on with my remote observations.

The class rep was in the School underground doing more paperwork. Go figure. I watched her for a while, but it wasn't exactly what I'd consider riveting, so I quickly moved on. To my momentary surprise, I found the Dracis couple and their butler-cum-secret-ancestor inside a lavish local coffee shop. More baffling still was the fact that they were discussing the details of Abram's and Sebastian's urgent business trip out in the open, and with the enthusiasm (and 'natural' delivery) of a group of community theater actors. It took me a while to figure out what they were doing, but after listening to them a little longer, I had to conclude that they had to be trying to unsubtly spread the info in public, hoping it would reach the Knights' ears.

I had mixed feelings about this kind of approach, and even planned to make a mental note about trying to discuss more effective (and less hammy) methods of spreading disinformation with Abram later. Alas, the idea was soon drowned out by tepid exasperation when I checked on Snowy and found her discussing something with my girlfriends inside my living room. I listened in, and it didn't take long for a groan to escape my lips.

"You can't be serious" I muttered under my lips without meaning to, not expecting anyone would hear it.

"About what?" A voice from my side jolted me out of my Far Sight session with a perfectly reasonable question that once again reminded me that I should get rid of my bad habit of muttering to myself when I was alone.

I blinked in surprise, and it took my brain a long second to recognize Josh, who for some reason sneaked up to me while I was zoned out. I already had a simple excuse on the tip of my tongue, but then my eyes focused on my friend, and the words immediately dissolved as I noticed that his downcast face had a comically visible hand-imprint on it.

"Never mind that. On the other hand, I have a feeling you might have a story to tell me," I told him in place of a greeting, and he immediately rolled his eyes while wincing.

"Yeah, unfortunately, I do. Let me get my stuff first, I'll tell you what happened on the way home," he told me just a touch dourly, so I let him do that.

It took only a minute for him to change his shoes and grab his bag, during which I quickly checked off all the boxes on my 'people to Far Glance at' list. In short, Rinne was 'patrolling' with a burger in one hand and an extra-large paper cup of coke in the other, Crowey was sitting at his desk for a change but with the same vacant eyes as usual, and Armband Guy was still interrogating the hapless Mr. Bedhair in the infirmary. In other words, nothing particularly noteworthy.

At long last, Josh got changed and he walked up to me again, just as I finished my own business. He looked at me as if he was daring me to ask him how he got that handprint. So I did. Because I was a daring kind of fellow.

"So," I spoke up in an upbeat voice that was only a little strained as I gestured for him to follow me. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but I have a sneaking suspicion that the state of your face has something to do with Angie. Am I right or am I correct?"

Initially Josh only responded with a nod and a grumpy grunt, but once we passed through the front doors and were in the open, he mus've noticed I was expecting something slightly more verbose than that, and so he whispered, "Where do I even begin?"

"Try at the start. I've heard that's how most people do it," I advised him, but the look he gave me in return was about as flat as the Dead Sea, so after a small cough I hastily added, "Or wherever else you want. Your call."

My friend took a deep breath, which he immediately exhaled in an exasperated sigh, and then he finally began to recount his no doubt very riveting tale.

"So, from the beginning, huh? Okay. In that case, I'll start with what happened after you left the classroom." He paused momentarily as we passed through the school gates, then he told me, "A minute or so later Pascal and four other Disciplinary Committee members came to pick me up. All of them were from other classes, so it was a little awkward at first, but then he introduced me and I joined the group. He led us to the social sciences classroom on the first floor, and we just walked there without any fanfare. We didn't even bother to be sneaky about it, which was odd, but he told me we were in the right, so there was no reason to hide. Anyway, once we got there, we were joined by two more members keeping an eye on them from the other end of the hallway."

"So there were eight of you in total."

"Yep. Is that important?" he inquired while showing off his eyebrow-raising mastery.

"No. I just said that to show you I'm paying attention," I responded with a small smile, and Josh all but huffed at me in return.

"Whatever then. Where was I?"

"When you arrived at the The Gathering," I responded as helpfully as ever.

"Right. So, once we were there, the committee members started taking up positions around the doors like they were a SWAT team; they even had hand signals and code names and everything."

"That sounds both odd and yet surprisingly fitting for that bunch," I mused as we stopped at a crosswalk for a moment. "So, what happened after that? Did they break the door with one of those portable battering rams and throw in a flash-bang grenade?"

"Nah, it wasn't that exciting. Pascal just threw the door open and they rushed in while shouting something about the guys inside being a disgrace to public morals."

"You're right; that's considerably less impressive than I imagined. I also gather you didn't go in with them," I prompted him, and he nodded in the affirmative.

"My job was to stay outside and catch anyone trying to slip out. For a while it looked like I would only keep watch, but then one of the guys inside jumped out the window."

"Yeah, I know." My friend gave me a curious look, so I clarified, "I met the guy in the infirmary."

Josh acknowledged my comment with an absent-minded nod and continued with, "So, as you can guess, there was total chaos inside, and when Pascal wasn't looking, one of the guys grabbed a small backpack and escaped through the back door."

"Oh, right. These classrooms had two of those dumb sliding doors," I noted with middling interest, hoping we would soon get to the point. "I guess you jumped after him."

"That's why I was there," Josh confirmed with a small shrug. "I guess the guy was on the track team or something, because he dashed down the stairs and out through the back entrance of the main building so fast I could barely keep up. I only managed to tackle him in the courtyard." I figured this was the point where the plot would thicken, so after we crossed another crosswalk, I gestured for him to go on, which he did after another sigh. "So, I tackled the guy and took the bag from him. Then one of the guys from the disciplinary committee called out to me from one of the first-floor windows, so I raised the bag over my head to show him that I got it... Don't look at me like that! It sounded like a good idea at the time!"

"I'm sure it did," I responded with my most innocentest look that I've ever innocented, but he still seemed less than impressed.

Josh continued to scowl at me, but when I didn't stop beaming innocentism at him, he finally gave up and told me, "Anyway, I didn't notice at the time, because I was looking up, but Angie came over at one point. She probably heard the shouting and wanted to see what the commotion was about or something." Here, he paused again as his face twisted like he just bit into the world's sourest lemon. "Of course this was the moment that the stupid buckle of the stupid bag decided to fall apart and everything in it spilled over my head! It was full of gym clothes and underwear and all kinds of girly stuff, and it all ended up on me!"

"Odd, but not entirely unexpected," I noted as we came to a stop at the intersection where we usually parted ways after school. "Then what?"

"Then Angie grabbed me by the shoulder, turned me around, called me a pervert, and slapped me before she stormed away," my friend blurted out in a genuinely aggravated voice, following which there was a long beat of silence as I waited for him to continue. To my deepest puzzlement, he only fumed without uttering another word.

"That's it?" I asked with palpable incredulity.

"Yeah."

"... She just slapped you and left?" I asked to be sure, and he nodded. "Didn't she ask or say anything else?" This time he shook his head. "You didn't make any excuses she could misunderstand? Or say something she would get mad about?"

"I didn't even get a chance to get a word in!" Josh exclaimed in frustration as he threw his hands into the air.

I couldn't help but whisper a shocked "Wow..." under my breath. That was... considerably dumber than what I expected, and my expectations were already so low they were right next to dinosaur bones.

I mean, silly misunderstandings and being an accidental pervert were the bread and butter of being a dense harem protagonist, but this was just straight-up forced. This situation required not one, not two, but at least five contrived things to happen in rapid succession, from Josh being the one on lookout duty to Angie's completely irrational reaction at the end.

Now, if Judy heard this, I could already picture her giving me a smug smile and declaring 'Witness the might of the Narrative, oh ye unbeliever, and despair!'. There was just one issue though: if it was indeed a somewhat conscious effort to enforce this event then why would the nebulous Narrative make it happen in such an unnatural way? Was it to reach some kind of 'the harem protagonist must get into a perverted misunderstanding with a love interest' quota? Or was it something more insidious, like trying to sneakily sabotage our plans for tomorrow by driving a wedge between Angie and Josh the day before? Or maybe the world is reacting to Angie being interested in the viability of a harem ending on her own, and trying to strain their friendship to push Josh towards a relationship with another member of his entourage?

Or maybe, just maybe, I was getting paranoid. I mean, coincidences are a thing. They happen, and they happen a lot around us anyway, so maybe I'm overthinking this? Maybe there was no malicious intelligence behind this contrivance, just the usual tropes playing off each other and resulting in a mind-boggling result?

Whatever the answer was, one thing was for sure: if this was indeed the result of a conscious narrative force or entity, then I had no choice but to conclude that it was an absolute hack, as this was some of the worst written, most blatantly overengineered trite in existence. Needless to say, I really hoped I was overthinking this. I would've preferred any other alternative, but if Judy was right all along and I had to live in a world governed by a nebulous super-intelligence, I sure as hell hoped it wasn't an incompetent one.

But putting all of that theoretical pondering about the unconfirmed nature of an unconfirmed narrative overseer aside for a moment, I still couldn't help but roll my eyes at the timing of this event, and I also voiced my exasperation.

"You know that tomorrow is going to be a very important day, right?"

"Yeah," Josh responded a tad late, apparently taken aback by my sudden change of topics.

"Then you know that we can't have you two fighting over a dumb misunderstanding like that."

"I know, but... what am I supposed to do? Apologize again? Like when Lili kissed me?"

"What? No, of course not," I denied his supposition while I opened my bag and reached inside. "That time you were partially at fault for being dense. This time it's entirely on Angie."

"Sooo... No apologies then? Good. But in that case, what am I supposed to do again?"

"Just give me a minute," I told him just as I finally found my phone.

I fished it out of my bag, unlocked the screen, and immediately tapped on my contact list. The list was in alphabetical order, so I picked the very first entry and raised the phone to my ear.

After a few seconds of ringing, the line connected and I was greeted by a dour, "Yes, Leo?"

I decided to open strong, so I took a deep breath and answered in a low yet forceful voice, "Shame on you."

"Um... What?" came a confused mutter from the other side, so I promptly repeated myself.

"I said shame on you. You messed up and caused unnecessary drama. My disappointment is palpable, and my day is ruined. Take responsibility."

"What did I do!?" Angie blurted out in a fit of confusion, and so I went ahead and explained the entire situation to her from the beginning, starting with the purpose of the 'The Gathering' and ending with Josh's heroic actions resulting in the recovering of the 'artifacts' inside the backpack. Once I finished, there was a brief spell of tense silence, and then she meekly asked me, "So... The contraband you guys were talking about were... panties and stuff?"

"Yes," I confirmed in a firm tone.

"And Josh took them from the bad guys."

"That's also correct."

With that came another moment of silence, followed by what sounded like a forehead hitting a desk.

"... Aw maaaan..." Angie exclaimed on the other side, followed by a muffled, "Am I a jerk now?"

"No. You are The Jerk. Capital T and J and all," I told her, this time in an ever so slightly lighter tone.

"... Aaaawww maaaaaaan..." she echoed herself, followed by another suspicious thud from her end of the line. "This is soooo awkward! Is Josh there with you?"

"Yes," I responded as I reflexively glanced over to my skeptical friend.

"Could you... maybe tell him I'm sorry?" she asked me with the hopefulness of a drowning man grabbing onto a dangling rope, but I quickly yanked it out of her reach.

"No," I declared on no uncertain terms. "You're going to tell him, in person, and within the day."

"Do I really have to?" the Celestial girl pleaded, and I could totally picture her puppy eyes even without using Far Sight on her.

"Yes, you do."

"Aw, fine," she relented at last, and much faster than I expected. "Tell Josh to call me when he gets home and I'll go over to talk."

"You do that. See you tomorrow."

"Yep. Bye, Leo!"

And with that, I cut the line. The whole conversation took less than five minutes, and all things considered, it went about as smoothly as I could have ever asked for.

I put the phone away and turned to Josh, saying, "She told me that-"

"I heard," he cut me off with a peculiar expression on his face.

"You're welcome," I pointedly told him, and he honest to goodness winced in response.

"Errr... Thanks, I guess, but... isn't this totally weird?"

Now it was my turn to give an odd look.

"Weird how?"

"I don't know, man," he mumbled as he scratched the back of his head. "Usually when I have an argument with Angie, we stay mad at each other for a couple of days, then forget about the whole thing afterward. Doing it this way just feels I don't even know. Anticlimactic, I guess?"

"What kind of climax were you expecting?" I asked him, single eyebrow raised and completely baffled. "It was a dumb misunderstanding, it got resolved, so there's nothing to be mad about anymore. End of story."

"Yeah, but..."

It was at this point that I let out an unsubtle snort and ever so gently whacked my friend on the shoulder.

"Stop asking for more useless drama and go home already. By tomorrow morning I want you two to be ready for action as your usual selves, all childhood-friend-y and swimming in UST, understood?"

"Yeah, yeah," Josh dismissed me with a wave of his hand as he turned around and walked away without saying his goodbyes. I have heard him mutter something along the lines of "What the hell is 'UST' anyway?", and I was tempted to yell after him that it was the thing he wouldn't recognize if it hit him in the nose, but I refrained.

But speaking of unresolved sexual tension, it reminded me to check on Judy, and what I saw made my brows furrow without my consent.

"Oh, you've got to be kidding me..." I whispered under my breath, but after another long sigh I resigned myself to my inevitable fate and headed to the closest hidden alleyway I scouted out and marked for occasions like this.

Once I arrived, I checked to see if I was followed, then used Far Sight again to see the whereabouts of Mountain Girl, and once I locked onto her, I quickly Phased over. I had to talk with her first, because based on what I saw just now, I was pretty sure I was not going to be able to go hunting with her tonight...

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