#luckily for me the teacher was won over by how chatty my boy is

[jerevision]

My son's new summer school teacher: He's told us so much about you! Your name is ____, his daddy is in England, his name is Bojan right?

Me: .........what

Teacher: He told us about Bojan in Mama's phone because you video call him in England!

Me: Let me explain -

Son: No, Bojan is not Baba, Bojan sings Barve Oceana with his band and Mama likes to look at him on her phone!

Me: Something like that...

[grailacademy]

Welcome to Grail Academy - Chapter Four: Threshold

Students were funneling out of the rooms into the hallway, meeting up with friends, dropping things off at their lockers, or rushing to their next class. When the duo stepped out into the chaos, Yorick took a moment to throw away the bloodied tissue clumps in his nose and lower his goggles over his eyes to hide a bruise that was forming under his brow. A familiar silhouette was walking towards them, currently preoccupied with a small girl hanging on his arm. Bernard was giving sharp head nods and shrugs in response to all the questions that a student with springy blue pigtails was asking. But once he noticed his friends at the end of the hall, he held his free arm up to wave at them both, and they moved to meet him. “What happened?”, the taller boy muttered to Yorick and pointed at a streak of dried blood under his lip.

Flustered, he quickly wiped his face clean and laughed to cover up the poorly hidden injury. “Er, I uhm, I….” Yorick turned to Esmerelda in hopes that she would have a better story than he could come up with. “Oh, uh. Well, we were stretching and a brick from the ceiling fell. Luckily, Yorick had rolled out of the way in time to not get seriously injured, but I still need to take him to the nurse.” Bernard nodded, feeling a tug at his arm, and was reminded that he actually had someone with him. “Aren’t you going to introduce me, Bernie?”

He huffed loudly, “Yorick, Rettah. Rettah, Yorick.”

The girl let go of his arm and held out her hand, smiling shyly. “Hi! I’m on team BRSQ, nice to meetcha!”

Yorick could only stare at the hand she offered, because he was frozen in place. He hadn’t said anything since the girl walked up, and he was absolutely dazzled by her. Her sapphire hair was twisted in large pigtails that were tied in frilly bows, and her dress was a marvelous arrangement of ribbons and silk and knots. Just looking at her made his palms clammy, it felt like the lace she wore was strangling him. He was in love.

“I-I-I...I-I-I….Uh...I…” He tripped and slipped over his words, Yorick could feel his heart practically leaping out of his chest. Rettah watched him with a puzzled expression, sidemouthing to Bernard, “Is he usually this chatty?” Bernard gave her a small shrug, and the girl diverted the conversation almost on cue. “Well, I better get going, but before I do!”, she held up a finger and paused while she momentarily rummaged around in a small backpack, pulling out a pair of bright pink flyers decorated with glitter and stickers, “Yours truly is running for Prom Queen! So make sure you check off Mazarine on those ballads!” Rettah twirled on her heels and spun in a circle, her skirt fluttering as she did so. The huntress skipped down the hallway, giggling and throwing handfuls of glitter until she met up with Scarlet disappeared around the corner with him. Yorick looked down at the flyer she had handed him, a sheet of stock paper embellished with glitter glue, puffy stickers, ribbon, and little hearts. A photo of herself was printed underneath a handwritten tagline: A vote for Rettah is a vote for Grail! Mazarine means business! He tried his best to be discreet as he tucked the paper into his bag.

The hallway was beginning to empty, growing more quiet as everyone scattered to their lessons. Bernard and Esmerelda didn’t seem to care, though. The emerald-eyed girl raised a brow as her friends team was ushered away, then turned to question the hunter in front of them. “Don’t you and Nico have the same classes? Where is he?” Now that he thought about it, Yorick did notice the absence of a certain kind of shrill prattle that only Nico could produce. Bernard sighed and squeezed the bridge of his nose, grumbling, “He got detention for drawing dicks on his desk in Weapons Ec.”

“Again?” Esmerelda shook her head, already exhausted. “I don’t have time to deal with this right now.” In the course of one day, her teammates had already managed to either break their noses or get sent to detention, and class had only just begun. She knew the duties she took on as the leader of her team, but that didn’t stop Esmerelda from daydreaming about a long, candlelit bubble bath with no one to interrupt her. “We will see you back at the dorm, Bernard.” He gave a small wave before leaving the two of them to go to his class, and Esmerelda began to lead the journey to the nurse’s office.

Yorick was left to sit in the small, white-paneled waiting room, something he was getting all too used to. Once the nurse checked him out and gave him a pill for the pain, she had recommended that he go to the bathroom to clean himself up. So there he was, holding the sides of the sink and letting the faucet run while he looked at his reflection in the small mirror. He didn’t know if he was going to survive this school. It wasn’t like anything he had expected, the classes, the students, the teachers, his team, everyone was so competitive and driven. Much more than he was. You signed up for this, Yorick. Finish what you started, he thought. Even though he wasn’t the most competitive, Yorick wasn’t going to let himself be pushed around anymore. Besides, he couldn’t abandon Rettah in this hellscape. He had to be strong, for her sake. He cupped his hands under the stream of water and leaned down, splashing his face to shake himself awake (and to clean off the dried blood still on his nose).

When he brought his face back up to the light, he let out a shriek and spun around, holding his hands up in self defense at the sight of Nico standing behind him with a towel in the mirror. “AHK!-Why does everyone keep DOING that!” The ruffian rolled his eyes and held the towel out to the shorter boy, chuckling out “Oh, don’t be such a baby.”

Yorick took the towel suspiciously, drying his hands off. “How long have you been standing there?”

“Long enough for it to be weird.”

“....Wait, aren’t you supposed to be in detention?”

“Technically, I’m supposed to be reflecting on my actions. A guy can reflect while he takes a piss, can’t he?”

“I….guess so. What do you want? I thought you hated me.”

At that, Nico took a step forward, overshadowing Yorick. “Oh, I do. I want to be very clear on that. But I’m here to make you an offer.”

For the first time in the history of Grail Academy, the boys bathroom was completely silent. A quiet that fell upon the two students like a thick fog, one that left them with eyebrow raises and twitches of the lips as their only form of communication. Nico pulled a crumpled slip of paper out from his back pocket, showing it to Yorick. It was another flyer advertising the school dance. “It’s at the end of the month. Now, Grail takes its school events very seriously, especially Prom.”

“What’s the big deal? It’s just dancing and fancy outfits.”

“Ooooh no, Yorick. No, no, no. It’s MUCH more than that.” Nico hissed through his teeth, backing his teammate into the corner of the bathroom. “The dance is just an afterparty. The real event is the arena battles beforehand. You do know what a Prom is, right?” Yorick thought he knew what a Prom was, but apparently not. Maybe it was because he had never actually been to one before and got all his information from movies, or maybe it was because Grail was just that wild, but he was starting to learn that he was in the dark about most things.

“PROM! Overseed Matches on Passive Rotation! It’s a fighting tournament!” With every word he shouted, Nico poked the words on the flyer with his finger. “Since Grail isn’t on the official registry for hunter academies, we can’t be entered into the Vytal tournament. So, we’ve got this instead. But it’s WAY more hardcore than the Vytal festival.” Yorick had his back up against the wall, wincing from the audio overload.

“EBNY has won Prom for the last 3 festivals, and I’m not about to let our winning streak get broken because some 5th grader was too scared to pull the trigger. So, I want to make a deal: Meet me after class, every night, let me train you. Help you prepare for Prom so we don’t get our asses handed to us.” Yorick furrowed his brow, trying to get a read on the pink-haired delinquent in front of him. Was he serious? He wanted to help him? This had to be a joke. Still, he decided to go along with it, just to see where it would take him. He folded his arms over his chest, moving forward away from the wall and making Nico take a step back and said, “What’s in it for me? Why should I believe you?”

“Because, if you don’t I’ll start a fire in the Grimm Studies classroom and blame it on you.”

“Hm….you make a very compelling point.” Yorick thought for a second. There really wasn’t any way out of this, in the end. He nodded. “I’m in.” he said. Nico perked up, giving his teammate a strong clap on the back before he fixed his hair in the mirror. “Great! So, we’ll play nice for Esme and Bernie, pretend to be best buds, and train until the festival.” He licked the tips of his index and ring finger, smoothing down his eyebrows with them. Then he pushed the door to the bathroom open with his hip, shooting Yorick some finger guns and quipped, “See ya tonight, babe.”

Now that he was alone in the bathroom, Yorick stepped into a stall, locking the door behind him. Hidden from view, he slouched against the stall and lit a cigarette while he read the graffiti on the walls.