The Simulacrum ~Chapter 12~ Part 3

I felt unusually tired as I left the classroom a good five minutes after the long bells signaling the end of the day sounded. ntally, not physically. It might have had sothing to do with my assistant being more troubleso than usual, or Snowy showing up... Or maybe, just maybe, it was because I had to spend all the breaks between the afternoon classes restraining the princess so that she wouldn't try to drown the newest addition to the entourage in a spoonful of water while we weren't looking. The rest of the girls also took the news with minor reservations, but they at least attempted to feign disinterest.

I let out a weary sigh as I finally arrived at the main hall and trailed behind the rest of the group. We dispersed near the entrance to get our shoes. I headed for mine, only to stop in front of the locker and blink a few tis in disbelief.

"Oh for the love of..." I griped under my breath as I noticed the piece of white paper sticking out from under its door, an exclamation I soon learned to regret.

"What is it? What is it?" Angie rushed up to with the well-trained nose (or in this case, nosiness) of a blood hound, her eyes sparkling with equal amounts of curiosity and mischief.

"Nothing," I grumbled while trying to hide the incriminating evidence.

"Oooooooh..." She suddenly grinned like a well-fed cat and began waving down the aisle. "Judy, co quick! Leo got another love letter!"

I sighed and began to very, very delicately grind her temples between my knuckles.

"O-ow-ow! Not fair! Violence is bad!"

"So is spreading lies."

She broke out of my hold and glared at in a fashion that I was pretty sure had to be a secret technique shared only between teenage girls. anwhile, Judy also arrived at the scene and looked over us with her subdued brand of reserved interest.

"Sorry, what did you say? I couldn't hear it properly."

Angie looked over at my assistant and was about to open her mouth, so I quickly gained her attention by clearing my throat and making a few covert grinding motions with my fists. She audibly gulped. After a mont of hesitation, she looked at , then glanced at Judy, and at last she took a deep breath and exclaid, "Leo just got another love letter! Bye!"

I reached after her but she slipped under my arms and imdiately dashed away.

"I will get you for that!" I yelled while theatrically shaking my fist at her. She only grinned back at from the entrance, as if saying ‘You have to catch first!', and left with a small wave. I let my fist down and sighed in exasperation, which was followed by another as I noted the piece of paper again.

"So, is that the love letter?" Judy asked with subdued curiosity as she stood right next to .

Against my best efforts, my face twisted in exasperation. I had a very good idea about the sender of that letter, and I had a feeling reading it was going to be awkward enough without Judy looking over my shoulder. I could honestly do without all the hassle, especially considering the afternoon I had.

Anyways, there was no point in avoiding it. I reached out towards the locker and opened its door. The simple white envelope inside all but flew out of it as I did so, but I was prepared and caught it mid-flight. I glanced left and right before I broke it open and took out the letter.

"What does it say?" My assistant inquired quite insistently, rising to her tip-toes to get a better look. A quick glance showed that the contents weren't particularly embarrassing after all, so I lowered it to her eye level.

"et at the roof. We need to talk," My assistant read the words aloud. She paused for a mont before she glanced up at my face. "Not very romantic."

"No, not really." I pocketed the letter and closed the locker's door again. "I guess I should go and see what this is about."

I headed for the stairwell but stopped after a few steps as I noticed that Judy was following after in my shadow. I looked at her and she gave a ‘Why did you stop?' look.

"Why did you stop?"

"That was redundant," I told her, much to her apparent puzzlent. She even raised an eyebrow. A little. Anyways, I told her, "You really don't have to co along for this." She only stared at as if she was trying to bore a hole into my head with pure force of will, so I decided to change approaches. "Why don't you wait for here? I should be done in a minute."

She honest-to-goodness huffed (though, as usual, her expression remained the sa) and turned on her heel. "You don't have to rush things. I'll go ahead."

Before I could get a word in she walked off, leaving alone in front of the stairs with a mounting sense of exasperation. I watched her leave without her looking back even once. I took a deep breath, cleared my mind, and headed for the roof again, but this ti a bit more sourly than I originally planned.

I was still quite morose by the ti I finished climbing the stairs, and to my surprise I found the door leading to the roof slightly ajar. That fact alone almost piqued my interest enough to shake out of my surly mood. I carefully moved up to the exit and pushed it open with one hand.

I montarily had to shield my eyes, but even through my fingers, I could make out the figure of a girl standing in the middle of the roof. The only problem was that... well, it wasn't the girl I was expecting.

"So you've co," the princess stated in a voice that might have been ominous if she could have stopped herself from fidgeting for a second. I blinked a few tis as my eyes got used to the glare and took a step forwards. I honestly wasn't expecting her. I figured this would turn into one of those wacky scenes where Snowy would take my advice about writing a letter for Josh, but accidentally put it into the wrong shoe locker. I was expecting a lot of hijinks, maybe sothing of a heart-to-heart discussion, possibly an opportunity to ask Snowy about her vamp act... But to be perfectly honest, I was actually okay with this situation as well. I wanted to have a private talk with the princess anyways, so her letter only switched up the order of events a little.

I gave her a small smile and closed the door behind . "You got the key this ti? Good. That ans you are learning."

"Of course," she snapped at . "Like I would make a fool of myself in front of you again!" For a mont it seed like she said more than she actually wanted to and she bit her lips in frustration.

In the anti, I was slowly making my way over to her, and to my surprise, I found her constantly shifting her posture to face my direction. In fact, her stance kind of reminded of a fencer's, just without the sword; trying to provide as small a profile as possible while ready to jump at a mont's notice. Hell, maybe it was a fencing stance. She was a noble archetype after all; they usually did fashionably anachronistic things like fencing and riding and speaking with ‘thous' a lot... But back to her posture: did that an she was on guard? Against ? The idea sohow made strangely frustrated, so I made an effort to move as carefully and non-threateningly as possible.

"So," I stopped at a few paces away from her and flashed my winning smile. "You wanted to discuss sothing, right?"

"R-Right!" As if just rembering why we were on the roof in the first place, the princess took a huge breath, paused, and then directed one of her patented soul-piercing glares at and began to speak in a soft voice. "I wanted to talk to you one last ti before..." She paused again, and I noticed so uncertainty in her expression, but then she steeled herself and began again. "No, I wanted to give you a chance to explain yourself."

"About what?"

"About her," the princess spat the words out with such venomous intensity that it actually caught off guard.

"You an Snowy?"

"Of course I an her!"

"Okay then. What about her?"

At this point the princess began walking, though it could have been better described as slowly circling at a fixed distance around without breaking her guarded posture.

"I wanted to give you the benefit of the doubt. I wanted to believe you. To hell with it, I actually did believe you!" She paused, her face twisting into a pained grimace. "Only to see you stab in the back! I saw you revealing your true colors, and I would—!"

"Okay, stop," I stated as forcefully as I possibly could without actually shouting as I raised an open palm in her direction. The princess shuddered and did just that, staring at with giant doe eyes for a mont before she rembered the situation and doubled down on the glare. I sighed and continued, "You are blowing this waaaaaaay out of proportion."

"Am I? Am I really?"

"Yes. Yes, you do. Also, please stop strafing around . It's distracting."

"S-Shut up! Don't try to change the subject!"

"I'm not changing the subject, I'm changing the context." Saying so, I took a step forward and began walking toward her at an even, leisurely pace. For a mont I could see her panic, raising her hands in front of her in what I presud was so kind of fancy self-defense style, but she hesitated just long enough for to reach her. I reached out with my right arm and clasped my fingers around her extended hand. The mont our fingers made contact she let out one of her customary strings of allegedly cutesy sounds (well, okay, in this case they really were kinda cute) and tried to pull back, but by then it was too late. I had a firm grip on her.

Without further ado, I picked the closest bench and began dragging her behind . She only offered token resistance, but the entire affair was a little embarrassing, so I began to talk to her with a level, serious voice.

"Listen, princess. Under normal circumstances, I would let you do as you please and listen to your woes in whatever fashion you wanted. However, as it happens, you just managed to catch in a pretty rainy mood, and I really don't have the patience for all the bells and whistles at the mont. So, this is what we are going to do." By pure coincidence, this was the exact mont we reached the bench. Never one to let dramatic convenience give a pause, I used my free hand to point at said bench and continued, "We are going to sit down, face each other, and talk like reasonable people. No tantrums, no circling, no vague accusations. You say what's on your mind and I will try and relate to and answer anything and everything you throw at . Deal?"

At first, the princess was pointedly avoiding my eyes and was stiff as a plank, but she eventually glanced over in my direction. For a blink of an eye, I could see her hesitate, but then she suddenly averted her face (probably to unsuccessfully hide her embarrassnt) and then abruptly dropped her pretty backside onto the bench while still holding my hand.

"I hate you," she muttered, and I could only smile at the amount of sulkiness on display.

"Yes, you sure do." I sat down as well and tried to let go of her hand, but to my surprise I found her fingers holding onto mine like a vice. For a mont I thought about whether I should ask her to let go, but after a bit of brain-wracking, I decided against it. She was obviously still a bundle of nerves, and I didn't want to set her off with sothing like this.

"So, you wanted to talk about Snowy, right?" The question seemingly took her aback, but then she gave a tentative nod. "So? What's the problem?"

"The problem..." She began with a level voice, though at the sa ti her hand proceeded to squeeze mine angrily. "The problem is that you are supporting her."

"I am?"

She stamred for a mont, but then she glared at all the fiercer.

"Yes, you are! You stopped from chasing her away!"

"We are in school. Of course I stopped you from starting a fight."

"But she is seducing Joshua!"

I gave her a wry look.

"You know, I can distinctly rember a transfer student who ca here with the express purpose of seducing a certain friend of mine not too long ago. Can you guess who I'm thinking about?"

She imdiately averted her eyes and flushed crimson.

"S-Shut up! That was completely different! I had legitimate reasons for that!"

"Really? Maybe she does as well. Have you tried talking to her?"

"No, she doesn't! It's just in her nature to seduce n, that dirty..." I was afraid she would get into an angry diatribe, but instead her voice slowly trailed off into a quiet mumble as her eyes opened wide as saucers before she abruptly yelled out, "That's it!"

"That's what? Also, careful with the volu settings there."

Suddenly excited, the princess clasped her hands together, seemingly completely oblivious to the fact that she was tugging my arm in the process.

"I figured it all out! I can't believe I didn't think of this sooner! I was such a fool!"

I sighed and gave her a look that roughly translated to ‘Enough buildup, please give the punchline.' She gave a knowing smile and tried to point at , but then she paused and raised her other hand instead. So she was aware of holding onto ! She had to be!

"Listen, Leo!" She leaned closer to look into my eyes before she continued, "Whatever she might have promised you, whatever feminine charms she might have shown you, you have to understand that she is only using you. You have to--"

I raised an open palm to make her stop and then used the sa palm to bury my face in. "stop. Please stop. I just realized what you were getting at," I grumbled while massaging my temples with one hand, "You think I was seduced by her, didn't you?"

"Erm... You... You weren't?" I gave her a flat look and she blinked in surprise before she exclaid in a weird mix of worry and relief. "You weren't!"

I shook my head and let my hand down. "Seriously now, you must have a really weird idea about how seduction works."

"But... Why didn't she try to seduce you?"

"Well, technically she tried..." I admitted a touch ruefully, if only to ruffle her feathers, "I just told her to cut it out."

"You did? Why?"

"Because it was really awkward? I don't even know why she puts up the vamp act, to be honest, because she is embarrassingly bad at it. It might have sothing to do with her family; or at least the last ti I talked with her brother it, seed like she was doubling down on the charade in front of him. I didn't want to pry then, but I guess I will have to the next ti I speak with her, especially so that she would stop doing that in front of Josh at the very least. They got along better once I stopped her from doing it anyway and... why are you looking at like that?"

The princess twitched and imdiately proceeded to try (and fail) to casually close her still hanging jaw.

"You told her to stop seducing Joshua?"

"Yeah."

"And she stopped?"

"Mostly. She still relapses into it from ti to ti, but she is making progress."

"I see... And when... did you talk to her brother?"

"Friday. On the phone."

"Do you... talk to him often?"

"Nah, it was a one-off thing. It's a long story, but suffice to say, I don't plan on talking to him any ti soon. He sounded like a dick."

The princess only nodded and it was around this ti I noticed how sweaty her palm was getting. I tried to loosen my grip on her, but instead she just squeezed even harder as she spoke in a low, lancholic voice.

"You know... Sotis I wonder if I should be scared of you."

"Where did that co from?" She looked at , ready to answer, but in the end she closed her mouth again and averted her eyes, earning her an amused chuckle at her unusually timid display. "If it's all the sa to you, I'd prefer if you weren't."

She didn't react right away, but then she faced with a determined look in her eyes.

"I would like to, but first you need to tell whose side you're on."

"Do I really have to? Take a side, I an?" She only continued to stare into my soul without even twitching a muscle, so I sighed in resignation. "Fine. If you really want to know, I'm on Josh's side."

"You an... you are neutral?"

"Kind of, but not quite," I replied while thoughtfully scratching my chin. "I have my own situation here, but as far as your little thing over Josh is concerned, I just want to maintain a drama- and annoyance-free environnt which, if I may add, is a lot harder than it sounds because of certain people refusing to get a clue."

"Is that so?" The princess mumbled to herself, apparently still not getting said clue. "So you supported her to avoid... um, drama?"

"Naturally," She still seed skeptical, so I gave her a reassuring smile. "She is actually a really nice girl once you get to know her. You should give her a chance."

"Impossible."

"Are you sure?"

"Completely."

"Even if I ask really, really nicely? I can be really persuasive." After saying that I promptly proceeded to give her the puppy-eyes treatnt. Her eyes opened wide for a second, but then she swiftly turned away from .

"Awawa! Fine, fine, just stop doing that!"

"See, I told you," I chuckled heartily for a while. "Is there anything else?"

"Just..." She hesitated for a mont before she turned back to , her eyes once again serious. "What if she still tries sothing?"

I sighed, partly to hide my mounting frustration, and answered, "I will do sothing about it."

"Do I have your word on it?"

"Yes."

"Pinky-swear."

I awarded her a flat stare in place of a flat no and stood up, pulling her with .

"You know what? We should get going. I'll take you ho. I think we are done with the most pressing points; we should discuss the fine print on the way."

"Wait, you didn't promise! Also, don't I even have a say in this?"

I pointedly glanced at our still clasped hands and told her, "I figured you wanted to go ho together."

Her eyes followed mine and then they opened wide as saucers in a show of slow-motion bewildernt. Or at the very least I really hoped it was just a show, otherwise I would've had to conclude that the princess really wasn't aware that she was gripping my hand for a good ten minutes by this point. I an, she had to be... The alternative was just way too silly, even for her.

Anyways, she let out a string of cutesy yelps long enough to constitute its own language and let go of my hand like it was red-hot iron.

"I-I-It wasn't on purpose!"

"I figured."

"It was an accident!"

"I know."

"I was just caught up in the heat of the mont! It ant nothing."

"Obviously. You don't need to explain yourself." She finally fell silent, though if the way she was biting her lip was any indication, it took her a lot of effort. I picked up my bag from under the bench where I deposited it when we sat down, and seeing doing that prompted the princess to scamper off and get her own bag from behind one of the trashcans in the corner of the roof. She returned just as I was reaching the door, and by then she even managed to get her complexion under control and returned to a less-crimson flesh tone.

We walked down the stairs, changed our shoes, and left the school building without sharing as much as a single word. In fact, if the princess weren't sticking to almost uncomfortably closely we could have passed for complete strangers, and it didn't help that she refused to even look my way. We were already halfway to her mansion by the ti I finally got fed up with the silence and decided to break the ice. All I needed was a nice topic.

"You know, I'm kind of under the weather." She finally looked at , though her reaction was still a bit slow. I smiled at her and added, "Hey, is Sebastian around? I could use a good verbal sparring match to liven up my day."

"Don't do that!" she burst out so suddenly that I almost missed a step, going from ek to her usual tone in about one nanosecond. "Do you have any idea how long he lectured about not associating with rude people like you the last ti you spoke!?"

"Really? That's nice. It ans I made an impression."

"A bad impression. Don't make it even worse."

"What about Josh?" She tilted her head questioningly, so I rushed to clarify. "Did he say anything about him? Especially in comparison to ?"

"No. Not particularly."

"Really?" I clicked my tongue. "Damn, I hoped it would help."

She silently stared at for several seconds, the gears so obviously turning in her head that I could hear their creaking in my mind's ear until she suddenly pointed at with a drawn-out "Ah!"

"Hm?"

"You made him angry so Joshua would look better in comparison!"

"Well, no. I pissed him off because I found it hilarious, but it was a side-benefit, yes. Too bad it didn't work."

Her fingertip suddenly closed the distance and poked in the chest. "Don't ever do that again!"

"Which part?"

"All of it! It's unfair!"

"The magic word?"

She gave a truly blank look, almost as if I just spoke in a completely different language.

"What do you an?"

"Please?"

"Please what?"

It took all my willpower not to bury my face in my hands. "The magic word is ‘please'. It's a common idiom, Don't tell you never heard it."

She started shaking her head, but halfway through she stopped, took a deep breath, and said, "Please don't do that again."

"Oh fine. But only because you asked so nicely." I paused for a mont. "Still, can I annoy the old guy if we et anyway? Just a little? For old tis' sake?"

"Absolutely not."

I would have probably kept teasing her about the topic until we arrived at her ho, if not for our conversation being suddenly (and rudely) interrupted by a deep and altogether all too familiar voice.

"Now look at that, boys! It seems like it's our lucky day!"

"Right boss, very lucky!"

I didn't even need to turn around to recognize the three delinquents sauntering out of a nearby alley, hands in pockets and stepping at a rhythm like they were extras in a particularly low-budget Broadway rendition of Grease.

"Well, if it isn't our resident goldfish-poop gang," I exclaid with fake joviality flavored by a spoonful of sarcasm and about a tric ton of ‘shit-I-am-too-tired-for-this-itude'. Sadly, our language has no adequate word to properly describe the exact emotion, but I was working on it.

"Fancy eting you here," the behemoth with the pompadour to end all pompadours exclaid as he walked up to us, his two flunkies right on his heels like loyal hunting dogs. "And look at that! He has a new girlfriend this ti!"

"Yah, another pretty one too."

"Friends of yours?" the princess inquired at my side. Her posture straightened the mont she heard the guy's voice and now every pore of her being was emanating the sa regal superiority she had when she first showed up at the school. It actually made realize just how used I got to her dropping her guard around as of late, but I didn't have ti to ponder on the issue at this mont.

"Acquaintances. Long story. Let do the talking."

Once I finished whispering to her I straightened myself, forced a neighborly smile onto my lips, and took a long step forwards.

"Wow, what a coincidence. I haven't seen you guys in a while." I rubbed my hands together and let my smile gain a bit of a wolfish edge. "Let guess: after your last humiliation you spent all your ti preparing for our next encounter, and now you are here to show what you've got."

"Not all our ti..." the short flunky protested, albeit weakly.

The big guy, Tony if I rembered correctly, flared his nostrils and crossed his arms in front of his chest as he thunderously replied, "We are!"

"Though it's not like we were looking for you in particular or anything..." the tall guy with the nasal voice added in a quiet voice, eliciting a snapping glare from his boss.

"Shut up Jones, you are ruining the mont!"

"Sorry boss."

"So, what is it this ti? Are we still going with literature?"

The big guy let out a short but resounding belly laugh and grinned at provocatively.

"Nah, we are not doing that anymore!"

"I still think we should have gone with the Potter books..." the tall one mumbled, but not quietly enough to escape the notice of mister pompadour

"I told you Jones, we are not the-naming ourselves after children's books characters, and that's final!"

"Actually, technically the books were written to grow up with the audience, so the last few books are considered young adult fiction," ca the counter-point from the short guy, his high-pitched voice sounding unusually dignified for a mont.

"Nuh-uh-uh! I don't give a flying crap about your literary theory Honey-Badger! We are not doing it, and that's final!"

"What was that?" I interrupted, "Honey-Badger?"

"Yah!" the small guy flashed a shit-eating grin that revealed a chipped incisor. "Because they are small but tough and an."

"I see... So you are going for an animal motif. What about you?"

"?" The tall guy twitched as he noticed I was looking at him and instinctively straightened his back. "I'm Giraffe Jones."

"Hm... There is a bit of alliteration there. That's good. But, why ‘giraffe' in particular? They aren't particularly fierce."

"Oh, but they do have a an kick! And they can run surprisingly fast. Plus they have no natural predators that regularly hunt them because they are so imposing... and I think they are cool."

"I see, fair enough. And you, big guy?"

Tony in the middle puffed his chest, though I was pretty sure it was just for show. As far as his eyes were concerned, they were about one-third as self-assured as the rest of his body language was insisting on. He forcefully cleared his throat like he was preparing for a big speech in front of an audience before he, at last, spoke with a voice that suggested he had little confidence in our hearing.

"I am Tony the Elephant!"

"I see," I nodded thoughtfully and raised my arms, crossing one in front of my chest and using the other to prop up my chin in my best impression of a stereotypical art-house critic. "African elephant or Indian elephant?"

"I... what?"

"I said," I repeated with a raised voice, "African elephant or Indian elephant?"

"I... Idunno. African, I guess? Does it make a difference?"

"Oh, I see..." I nodded twice for emphasis. So it's an elephant because you are big, your hairdo is the trunk and it's African because of your ears. Clever."

"What? What is your problem with my ears?! There is nothing weird about my ears, right, Honey-Badger?"

"No boss, yer ears are perfectly fine!" the little guy whined like a battered housewife which was actually a little disturbing, but not enough to break my act.

Tony turned back to and gave a hurt glare. "You see, there is nothing wrong with my ears!"

"Hmmm..." I leaned closer as if I was examining an art piece and periodically nodded to myself like I was making profound discoveries. At last, I straightened up and nodded. "Right, on closer look your ears seem to fall into the range of the national average. I suppose your new na just predisposed to associate big ears with you."

"Well, you were wrong! My ears are perfectly fine, right, Jones?"

"Yeah, boss. Maybe they are a bit on the aty side, but they are nice ears. Really nice ears. No one would think they are too big."

"Unless you bring attention to them," I quipped with a smirk. The culturally ambiguous pachyderm gave a piercing look before he threw his hands into the air with a loud "Bah!"

"Fine, then I am an Indian elephant! Are you happy now?"

"I don't know," I raised my hand to my chin again and began to scratch it. "Wouldn't that throw off your the? The rest are African animals, so if you are Indian then it will look like you are separate from the rest."

"He is right, boss," the tall guy agreed with , quite unexpectedly. "Indian elephants are also dosticated."

"Not all of them! And they are still big and an!"

"The na doesn't fit either," I proceeded with the coup de grace in a purposefully absent-minded voice. "If you just call yourself elephant, people will still think of African ones, and if you qualify it by saying you are an Indian one it'll just sound too long and convoluted. I think it would be best if you scrapped the whole elephant idea and picked sothing else."

"Like what, genius?" he sneered at , and I shrugged my shoulders in return.

"Don't ask , it's your nickna."

"How ‘bout a hippo?" the short guy proposed with a smile. "They are big and an and they live in Africa."

"I won't be no stinking hippo!" Tony bellowed. "They are fat and they slap their crap all over the place with their tails. It's disgusting!"

"You know what?" I gave the guys a broad smile and took a step to the side. "It was nice talking to you, but we are in a bit of a hurry. How about you get back to once you finalized your nicknas?"

"Yeah, whatever, move along," the boss grunted at and then returned to the discussion. "How about a rhino?"

"I don't know boss... Won't that draw attention to your nose?"

"What's your problem with my nose?!"

"Nothing boss, it's a perfectly serviceable nose boss, but what if other people..."

That was the last sliver of the discussion I caught before we rounded a corner and the trio was out of earshot, at which point I relaxed my posture and limbered up my shoulders with a small sigh.

"Well, that filled my people-annoying quota for the day. Now I won't even have to bother your butler. A win for everyone, I say."

The princess glanced over her shoulder with an uncertain expression.

"Does this happen often?"

"At this point it's pretty regular, yes."

"You need to find better friends."

"I have. I'm taking one of them ho as we speak."

I punctuated the statent in a no way cocky smile, and she predictably averted her eyes and, less predictably, punched in the shoulder. Unlike Judy's love-taps, this one actually stung a little.

"Stop teasing . I hate you."

"Yeah, you sure do..."