Aspen cooperatively raised his arm and used his free hand to pull at the line, revealing a zipper. “I can’t put on shirts normally due to the shackles, so all my clothes have zippers like these at the side. Weird?”
“It’s quite high-class to have custom-made clothes for a prisoner”, River contemplated. He was seeing these clothes for the first time, which meant that Aspen had several different sets of clothes.
“It’s an expensive zoo. The professor observes me all day like I’m an animal, noting down whatever I’m doing and stuff. There’s bigger examinations every three month, where they check my brainwaves and other things like that.” Aspen smirked at the beginning, but towards the end, his smile fell away. With a tired face, he played with the zipper. “They just enjoy seeing how different I am from them.”
He was only eighteen.
It didn’t matter whether he regretted his actions or not, or why he was the way he was.
He was only eighteen, and he had never found anyone who just accepted him the way he was. People had always expected him to fit into their expectations, and he just didn’t.
Even when there was someone who looked on him favorably, it was only because the man was something of a researcher. Someone that wanted nothing to do with the person himself, only the value he held.
How would he have turned out if there had been someone just placing a hand on his back and saying, “You’re fine the way you are”?
He shook his head, pushing the annoying thoughts away and smiled at River, whose light-gray eyes were piercing through him. “How long to go?”
River pursed his lips. “Soon.”
Soon for River wasn’t soon for Aspen, but the time came. This time they attached themselves to Bun, again seeing the little fight with Skirt but this time following Bun. After being left behind by Skirt, she quickly deflated.
Rather than angry, her drooping shoulders made her seem sad.
Both men twitched when she suddenly slapped her own face softly, straightening up and walking somewhere else.
The two guys had a natural splitting of tasks, with River not letting Bun out of sight for a single second and Aspen watching their surroundings.
“Oh! Dude!”
Aspen hit River’s arm. The easterner winced, discreetly rubbing it and following the line of Aspen’s pointing finger.
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
Dude was in the middle of a group of near identical shadows. He was talking, his movements wide and filled with arrogance. The way he laughed made River take an involuntary step back, uncomfortable.
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Vaeccfv, atf raevfca qjerfv ktlif Vxlga rajgafv ab rmbiv tlw jybea rbwfatlcu.
Dec kjr j oeii tfjv rwjiifg atjc Gevf jcv bo qfalaf yeliv mbwqjgfv ab atf ygbjv ues. Pa kjr j rmfcf bo j Jtltejtej agslcu ab yjgx ja j Gbyfgwjcc, frqfmljiis ktfc atf batfg uesr jii jgbecv rajgafv ab mtemxif.
No one took her seriously, but Bun either didn’t notice or didn’t care, continuing to barrage Dude with words.
Dude chuckled condescendingly. He raised his hands in mock surrender, saying a couple bored-sounding words before he turned to the side, calling out.
The man passing by was scrawny but visibly an adult. He paused when Dude called him over, then unwillingly approached. The teacher – who was the last Actor – listened to the group of male students quickly explaining something while Bun’s hand dropped in disbelief.
In the end, it was her who got told off by the teacher, to the group’s amusement.
“I don’t need to hear a single word to know what just happened.” Aspen clicked his tongue. “So this kind of scene happens no matter what time we are in, eh?”
Unaffected by what happened, Aspen and River strolled after Bun, who was rushing away again.
“You’ve seen it before?”
“Yeah, I went to a common school with my siblings. Not like this, of course.” He made a vague gesture at the school. “But we did have slightly bigger courses than the rich people do. I’ve seen this kind of behaviour often – people grouping together to give each other support in establishing a lie.”
River had never been in contact with most of his fellow students, so he didn’t really run into it. “What happened?”
“For example, you’d see them pushing the matter of something getting damaged on someone else. I’ve also seen people who cheated but managed to get by because their friends always gave them an alibi.”
They walked around a corner, avoiding more shadows. Bun vanished into a room and Aspen was about to follow, but River stopped abruptly and grabbed Aspen’s collar.
“W-What? What’s up?”
River pulled a face.
Aspen’s brows furrowed as he tried to figure out why River had stopped. It took him a moment, but when he did, his eyebrows raised up high. “Really? River, really?”
“I don’t want to walk into the women’s toilet. I’m not interested in hearing any noises”, River stiffly said.
The horror of communal toilets.
Nowadays, every toilet was a separate room, not these horrific designs where you could hear your neighbor on the toilet.
He refused to enter.
“Ooookay. Then I’ll go in? I’ll just make sure she’s actually going to the toilet and not talking to someone.”
The struggle on River’s face vanished after he decided that it was better not to miss the scene completely. Also, if Aspen didn’t care about hearing anything weird, that wasn’t his problem.
Aspen entered the toilet with another female shadow while River waited outside, sighing and looking out of the window. From here, you could see the other side of the c-shaped building.
River’s shoulders stiffened.
In the middle of the black, moving mass, anything of different shade was bound to stand out a lot.
The person on the other side was staring back at him, he was oddly sure. He couldn’t see their face from this far, but their body was turned to him and motionless.
It was only when two shadows stopped near them that they turned away and rushed into a room.
“What are you staring at? Is someone there?” Aspen popped up in front of River, giving him a scare. He flinched, then relaxed when he recognized the slender guy.
“The other person that entered this dream, I think”, he said uncomfortably.”
“I’ll kill her if we run into her and I get the chance, don’t worry.” Maybe sensing River’s discomfort, Aspen spoke in a low, soothing tone. “She won’t bother us. Don’t worry. You can solve your puzzle, and I’m here to take care of all the nasty things.”
The smile on the small guy’s face was a bit twisted. It shouldn’t be calming but it was, and River noted down silently that they were quickly forming an unhealthy reliance on each other.
With Aspen around, he could run free.
And with him around, Aspen stopped feeling out of place.
It wasn’t good at all, but it was the best they got. River accepted the statement with a nod.
With the break ending, they were soon confined to the boredom of waiting again. To avoid Aspen going insane, River found a piece of string and knotted it together to form a loop.
Apparently, as a prisoner, Aspen could distract himself for hours with literally everything, and that included a game of cat’s cradle.
To think that the knowledge about old children’s games would come in handy in a situation like this.
Squatting in the back of the classroom, River half watched the lecture that was going on. The blackboard was filled with simple math equations, their explanations unnecessarily complicated. It was no wonder that most of the student’s were bored out of their minds.
Bun, Ponytail and Glasses shared a class.
While Bun was listening to Teacher, Ponytail was busy playing on her phone below the table. Her seat neighbor Glasses was writing down notes, but… the notebook was Ponytail’s.
When the bell rang again, the students started packing up.
Ponytail got up and said something to Glasses in a sweet tone. Glasses was quick to nod, gathering up Ponytail’s things and putting them into her own backpack. Ponytail apparently only had a small handbag, barely enough for maybe a wallet.
Bun noticed it. She attempted talking to Glasses while Ponytail was on her phone, sending someone a message, but Glasses ignored her. Ponytail returned, saying something to Bun.
“Stupid”, Aspen commented, watching her hurry forward to Teacher. The scrawny man wasn’t willing to listen to her, only waving her off and hurrying out as the plain Skirt walked in, obediently approaching Ponytail.
Author’s Note
Aspen talks more about his past and about the way he is some other time~
This dream… As usual i barely understand what is happening
Thank you for the chapter!! ❤️❤️
Thanks for the chapter !
Thanks a bunch for the chapter 🐏🐑❤❤ I’m late but it’s fine 😊 Your writing is wonderful as always, I don’t know how you even come up with the puzzles in the dreams, they’re so entertaining❤ Thanks again
Thank you so much for the chapter❤❤
This is currently ny favourite novel to read.
Looking forward to the developments of river and aspen ❤❤