The walls on both of my sides felt compressed like I was about to be flattened.
It was nearly pressing onto the side of my body.
You could hear the humming tone of the drunkard called Basil from way ahead...
...then a ruckus of falling items. Basil’s groans’ echoed in the night.
This was a night that would’ve been otherwise quiet if it weren’t for the party of students.
"...fuck yeah..! Let’s go, baby!"
...or the intoxicated Basil.
From ahead of me Solomon walked, his shoulders and spine straightened.
Behind me was Sam who had an expression I was unable to discern, or was I brave enough to look behind me.
Tap, tap, tap.
The soles of the school’s given leather shoes made a clacking noise against the concrete pavement.
Crows’ and other birds cawed.
Out of the blue, Solomon stopped walking.
At that point, there were critters that were skittering all around and were making strange noises.
"You’re not..."
Solomon coughed.
I really thought I was going to be eaten by Solomon, who was an entomopath or something.
But the words that came from his mouth were instead something understandable to me.
"You’re not from around here, are you?"
We found a drunken Basilian A Ramos in a rubbish bin.
Though he stank, as we helped him up—Sam who did nothing but watch and Solomon carrying him by the shoulder and I, elevating him from off the bin—we noticed a white powder sealed in a plastic bag in between his pointer and middle finger, barely hauling it.
It had nearly fallen in the hands of an tipsy man.
I went to grab it when Solomon snatched it first.
He looked at me nervously.
"For something."
I stared at him back with an expression that showed that I wasn’t playing around.
I recognized that little bag at once.
Though, I had no memory that might give me a clue on how I knew about it—I was sure of it.
"Solomon."
I said at once.
He does not look at me as we put Basil down.
When Basil was fully on the ground, I let go of him and let Solomon do the difficult work.
"Solomon."
The little bag fell off his hands when he did, so I once again carried Basil.
"He doesn’t want—"
He picked it up, not meeting my glance.
"Solomon."
Despite Sam’s meddling, I continued to speak.
"Solomon," I said at last, "do you realize what’s in that bag? That white powder?"
"I do."
Solomon’s voice was low, but it was also very technical. It was like he was out of touch with reality.
I scowled.
"How small-minded can you be," I dared to say, "to let an intoxicated man possess fucking coke?"
The words may have come out harsher than I expected.
For some reason, the words came spilling out.
It wasn’t the same as that time in the subway...It was more akin to something like...
"You don’t know what it’s like, Regulus, to want to live forever."
Solomon straightened his posture, pressing on his glasses then smoothed out his hair.
Right. It was more akin to caring for someone.
But that didn’t seem right either.
Why should I care for people I’ve only just met?
I understood, then, that this must be a clue to my past.
Solomon dropped the bag of white powder into the hands of Sam.
They all looked at me all at once.
The scene reminded me of earlier when I entered that "gathering" of masked men and women.
I was, once again, left alone to decide.
Last time I didn’t have a decision regarding if I wanted to go to this school, or if I wanted to part with my newly-made comrades.
These comrades had eventually abandoned me.
But I didn’t blame them at all.
Hazel eyes, greenish eyes, and brown eyes pierced through me.
...brown?
"We, as mages, will do as we like. It depends on you if you want to be around us any longer."
Basil’s brown eyes seemed glazed over, his back pressing on the rubbish bin. And he was the last speaker despite being blotto. The words came out muddled and nearly gibberish, but I understood every word of it.
"Well, I don’t think someone who isn’t from ’round here would care about us "small-minded" folk."
"Reverie."
The teaching instructor proclaimed my name once class ended.
I was about to be off and was preparing for the next subject.
The instructor was nearly bald, and it reminded me slightly of...
"Worse than being bald?"
There was no need to dwell on it.
This was their choice.
And even if their choice was to be against me, I had no right to tell them not to be.
I had nearly killed that child without weapons that day—I had read so in the school’s paper, the Daily Herald.
It had been nearly a week since I was caught in that party of Bohemians and caught them in the act of...insufflating.
The matter was a bit annoying, to be truthful.
The orientation that was given to us just that day, while given to those only in the Colegio, applied all over the 68th floor, you know.
These people had lived there their whole lives and they were forgetful? At that point, they must be doing it on purpose.
However, there was one thing I was not oriented on...
The instructor approached me with an impression that was hard to identify.
On my desk, he plummeted a photo.
"You were seen alongside "God" a week ago at Crook’s. Do you recall?"
...and that is the art of mages.
I would come to regret not studying any further.
The image given to me was of me, a tall, blond boy, a twintailed brunette girl, and a man wearing dapper clothing.
I stared at the man with dapper clothing.
...his face was not legible at all.
It was a photo, but the image of his face was smudged off with a person’s thumb like graphite pencil or paint.
""God?" Nope. I’ve never seen him."