"Ooh? Is that so?"
T. Myrcella asked, her voice dangerously smooth as she stared down at Wyne. A slow, chilling grin spread across her face. "Then why be so brutal about it?"
Wyne, completely missing the proximity of the teacher, shrugged her shoulders casually.
"Eh… I wasn't planning to be so brutal about it. In fact, I planned to do it earlier than 3 AM—9 PM to be exact. Not until Nomoro interrupted us on the way…"
"Really? Tell me more about… Nomoro," T. Myrcella prompted, crossing her arms, still smiling faintly.
Wyne eagerly nodded, clearing her throat for a dramatic explanation. She still hadn't registered that T. Myrcella was standing right behind her.
"Well, yesterday after hanging out, me, Trizha, and definitely Margaret, we all went to have a drink before heading back to the dormitory. Not alcohol, just soft drinks."
Wyne began, gesturing wildly with her hands as if conducting a chaotic orchestra to describe the events.
"That was the time I decided to take revenge after making me feel extremely dizzy back on the first day."
Wyne moved her arms around to emphasize her points, physically acting out the scene for better understanding.
"Then I got an idea to make Trizha drink actual alcohol, even though she's sixteen. I lied to her that it was coke, she drank it once, andddd—and she already got drunk."
Wyne paused for dramatic effect.
"Well isn't that inappropriate, I see… and then?" T. Myrcella inquired, her eyes tracking Wyne's every exaggerated movement.
"And then… me and Margaret were carrying Trizha between our arms, laughing to each other while heading back to the dormitory. All good and games, nothing bad happening, definitely none," Wyne assured her, clearly trying to minimize the illegal nature of her activities.
"But hear me out—this is the genuinely weird part of it…"
The scene shifted into Wyne's flashback: Several hours ago, in the corridors of the dormitory. 7 PM.
Wyne and Margaret were struggling to carry the giggling, dead-weight Trizha in their arms, heading toward her room. Wyne stopped walking dead in her tracks, her face frozen in disbelief.
Nomoro was standing in front of the doorway of Trizha's room. He turned to them, his expression unreadable as ever.
He opened the door and calmly told the two girls to bring Trizha inside softly.
Wyne immediately let go of Trizha and snapped into a defensive stance, thinking Nomoro had come to confront them.
Meanwhile, Margaret was once again amazed by Nomoro's scary but imposing figure, nearly dropping Trizha onto the floor during her momentary distraction.
Wyne returned to the present, recounting the shock to T. Myrcella.
"Nomoro was there…! Standing in the doorway!" Wyne whispered, still affected by the memory.
"Okay…? So what's bad about that?" T. Myrcella asked, her voice dripping with skepticism. "He's just waiting for his roommate."
"Exactly! That's the weird part!" Wyne insisted, tapping her forehead repeatedly. "Why would he, out of all people, wait for Trizha? They are not even close! Both of them even had a conflict with each other weeks ago! They're basically enemies!"
"Okay, I see your point. What else happened that was confusing?" T. Myrcella prompted, leaning closer.
"Well, after things were settled, I kinda tried to sneak-punch him from behind, but he caught it—" Wyne cut herself off, nervously waving her hands. "I mean, never mind that part! Let's just say no one ended up getting hurt. The key is what happened afterward."
After they brought the drunk Trizha inside, Nomoro gently laid her down on the couch.
Trizha was mumbling random, incoherent words like a typical drunk person. Nomoro then went back to the doorway and suddenly bowed to Wyne and Margaret, an undeniable gesture of appreciation.
Margaret remained captivated by Nomoro's presence, but Wyne was thoroughly weirded out.
"Yeah, he was being weird all of a sudden," Wyne narrated, pulling a face. "Bowing appreciatively to us like he actually cared for her? What happened to the time Trizha tried to make him vulnerable by hurting him verbally? They are enemies!"
"Let me guess," T. Myrcella said, tilting her head. "It got even weirder? Or rather, far more confusing?"
"Yes!!"
Wyne cried out, throwing her hands up. "I spied on them! While Trizha was drunk, Nomoro was actually feeding her food on the couch that he cooked himself. And she ate those portions so calmly, as if muscle memory thought it was her mom who was feeding her!"
"Uh-huh…" T. Myrcella murmured, feigning interest in the drama.
"Even asking her where her clean clothes were so she could change for herself! Asking for permission if he could bring her to her bed to sleep!" Wyne continued, ticking off the strange actions on her fingers.
"It's all too weird and… maybe too vague? He's acting like a… like boyfriend. Whatever the case, if he is doing this just to get Trizha to apologize to him, let me tell you—he didn't do anything bad, in my view of him. Best to say that he was misunderstood."
"So that means that you actually cared for him?" T. Myrcella asked, a mischievous light in her eyes. "That's sweet."
"We'll yeah, but that doesn't mean we're even—"
Wyne abruptly cut herself off.
She noticed Margaret pointing a finger toward the space directly behind Wyne's head, her eyes wide with panic.
The gesture, combined with the sudden recognition of the authoritative voice she'd been speaking to, caused Wyne's heart to sink with nervous dread.
"She's behind me, is she?" Wyne asked Margaret in a shaky whisper.
Margaret nodded rapidly and nervously. Wyne slowly turned around, lifting her head up until she finally saw the intense, intimidating face of T. Myrcella looming over her.
Wyne's forehead immediately broke out in nervous sweat.
"Now I wonder how much slower that mind of yours can process, Idiot," T. Myrcella said, her voice dry and laced with mockery.
T. Myrcella flicked her finger sharply at Wyne's forehead, making her squirm with pain.
Wyne stumbled back a step, covering the stinging spot. T. Myrcella then walked past her and stopped in front of the still-sleeping Trizha, who was standing but snoring softly, then began to speak sarcastically.
"Oh poor little Trizha… having to be constantly overwhelmed by her fake, irresponsible friends."
"Oy! We're not fake—" Wyne started to protest indignantly.
"Shush," T. Marcela commanded sharply.
She reached into her bag and took out a bottle of POKKA coffee, opening the cap with a decisive click while standing in front of Trizha.
"You three should be lucky I brought this before getting here," T. Myrcella commented casually.
"I had to deal with a lot of things like agreeing with the terms and services of the hotel just to get clearance to bring outside beverages."
T. Myrcella gently held Trizha's chin to lift her head, before forcing her to drink the coffee in a long, deliberate gulp.
Wyne and Margaret watched the process closely, utterly baffled.
"Why are you making her drink coffee?" Wyne asked.
"Are you slow? Oh wait, you are," T. Myrcella replied with a dramatic roll of her eyes. "It's to wake her up, obviously."
T. Myrcella finished giving Trizha the coffee and sighed, recapping the bottle.
"There we go. She'll wake up any second now…" she stated with an almost scientific certainty.
"What do you mean 'any second'?" Wyne pressed, unconvinced.
"Oh that?" T. Myrcella explained, sounding like a lecturer. "Apparently, Trizha has a CYP1A2 gene according to her Health Description Paper, which makes her… sort of sensitive to caffeine, from what I remember. And yes, it only works if she doesn't have a fast metabolism. She's basically a caffeine time bomb."
"Uh-huh… that's interesting," a new, gentle, and utterly calm voice chimed in from the side.
Wyne, Margaret, and the adviser herself—all three of them, definitely with Trizha being an exception due to still being asleep—turned in unison.
They were struck with a blend of disbelief and shock at the new speaker.
Standing slightly apart from the group, wearing a clean white hoodie that concealed most of her appearance, stood the Mafia Queen, Yuri Calypso herself.
The hood was pulled up, but her face was clearly visible, smiling faintly at the chaotic scene before her.