Lucy and Jasper headed back towards Attwood after lengthy conversations drawn out under the stars, but hearing not so far out shouting and cheering, Jasper immediately moved him and Lucy into the cover of some bushes. A hundred naked students stampeded down the dirt path, some protecting their exposed privates with an arm or hand, others blissfully and unabashedly running like escaped wild animals.
After a neglectful second, Jasper covered Lucy's eyes. Lucy thanked him because despite how unsettling the view was, she couldn't manage to look away.
"Oh wow." Jasper gasped, once the hoard of streakers mostly passed. "Pecilia was absolutely right in her assumptions of Renzan."
Jasper also watched Freya strutting behind the crowd, head bobbing back and forth gleefully and Pecilia sulking far behind everyone else, with arms and eyebrow crossed. She seemed more discontent than usual, and Jasper eyed her worriedly. After a while when he was sure everyone had passed, he turned to Lucy.
"Hey, you head back to the dorms. There's something I want to see."
Lucy eyed him with a face that said, really?
"Not that." Jasper denied.
"Well, circumstances considered, pardon me if I don't believe you," Lucy said, getting to her feet. "But there is nothing there I want to see so I'll leave you to it."
Jasper shrugged his shoulders as his friend wandered away and he made his way to Pecilia.
"Enjoying the view?" Jasper asked. Any other girl might be scared to be approached in the middle of the night on a walk alone through the forest, but Pecilia barely batted an eye.
"At most, it's an underwhelming average view. Except for Renzan, with who I was utterly right about in my assumption."
Jasper chuckled.
"I saw what you did in there tonight." He said, referring to her distracting Algernon.
"I'm so generous." Pecilia spited as if she hated herself for it. "I'm like a genie in a bottle."
"You come when you're rubbed?" Jasper quipped.
Pecilia eyed him but with a small smirk curling her lips. A gesture she never willingly awarded anyone, or at least an honest one.
"Do you really trust him to not hurt her?" Pecilia asked. The thoughts of her mind that would have kept her awake, coming out easily to Jasper.
Jasper looked to the ground. "I don't know." He admitted, watching as his shoes kicked some pebbles, "I've never been great at knowing people's true motives, but what other choice is there but to trust him?"
"None," Pecilia spat. "Trust me. I've thought about every other possible one."
Jasper smiled admirably at her pout. "You truly are a kind person."
"Kind?" Pecilia repeated in disgust. "Kind is the worst possible thing you could label me."
"Kind is what you call someone who shows hesitation and meekness." She ranted, releasing an old festering rage. "Kind people don't take sides, whether they know what is right or wrong they remain silent, unprovoking, and docile. Kind people let themselves and others be walked all over for the sake of a contrived, fake peace. Kind is what they describe you as when you haven't accomplished anything worthy of praise, so they applaud you for being nice and pity you for having no actual qualities of substance."
Jasper gapped at Pecilia for quite a while after her tirade as he searched for a response. "I am truly sorry." He eventually settled on.
Pecilia recrossed her arms, thinking that was the end of what he would say. And she didn't care. She had already wasted too much breath on this conversation anyways.
"That your experiences in this life have led you to believe your kindness is a flaw." Jasper finished.
Pecilia turned back to Jasper, still trying to pretend she didn't care, but Jasper saw how her scowl turned to a sorrowfully gaze towards the ground.
He smiled, because no matter how she tried to mask it, he knew at her core goodness governed her actions.
And abruptly Jasper's silent admiration was disrupted by a shouting warning to get out of the way.
Pecilia and Jasper both turned around and wished they hadn't as they saw Luke sprinting towards them, as bare as he came into the world and laughing maniacally into the wind.
"Your hands aren't even red!" Orenza yelled, chasing after him with arms full of clothes.
Luke ignored the objection, running to catch up with the rest of the school. He honestly forgot to check if they were or not, he just knew there were so few opportunities to run naked in life without judgment. When he passed Jasper and Pecilia's flushed faces, he questioned what the Lucy protection squad were doing here, and with Lucy nowhere in sight, he wondered what kind of danger that meant she might get herself into tonight. Luke shrugged his shoulders, supposing she couldn't possibly get herself into too much trouble..... but then again....
YOU ARE READING
Algernon Black
Romance"Gods aren't born. They rise." Algernon Black is the most infamous boy known throughout his world for a prophecy that would make him a god if he sacrificed the one he loved most. Downcast and disheartened, Algernon never paid the rumors much mind, u...
