Sweetheart

98

A/N: Hi. Sorry. I'm going to post multiple chapters.

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The trio was sitting at their usual table, and they did their usual thing - homework. Well, and occasionally chatting, but it was mostly business at said table.

"You heading to the hospital again right after?" Lucy questioned, already knowing the answer.

A small and silent nod was the response, Aina not looking up from her calculus textbook. Her face held complete concentration, which told Lucy that she was, in that moment, distracted from what was happening. It was a sure way to get her to feel better. Yeah...an unusual approach, but it works when the person of interest is academically driven, persistent and a perfectionist that gives one hundred percent effort into everything she does. It was times where she wasn't distracted that hurt her the most, so Levy and Lucy tried their best to prevent Aina's mind from wandering too far away from what would help her.

"Do you think I should go talk to Mister Fernandes about that paper?" She asked.

"Didn't you already turn it in?" Lucy probed.

"Yeah, but he said that we had the option to redo it if we wanted to, so I wanted to see if I still could."

"But A," Levy reminded, "you got a 99."

"One point off from perfect," Aina reworded. "And I have a chance to redo it and try again."

"A--"

Lucy gave a discrete shake of her head to Levy, silently communicating that it was the best choice for her. The blonde suggested that Aina use the lunch period to go talk to the teacher, so Aina grabbed her stuff and made her way back inside the building, making her way to the psychology classroom.

Back at the lunch table, Lucy explained, "Let her redo it. It gets her mind off everything else, so if she wants to redo an entire paper in order to do that then we shouldn't try to convince her otherwise."

"But Lu, it's not healthy."

"Hey, it's preventing panic attacks and another school breakdown, so it can't be that bad."

As soon as the blue haired teacher spotted Aina's short stature, he waved her inside the classroom.

"What can I do for you, Miss Labelle?"

"I wanted to ask if I could get some advice for when I redo my essay."

"Re...do? The essay you got a 99 on?" He asked in shock.

She gave a bright smile and nodded, sitting down at a nearby desk from his own and getting out her notebook.

"I'll make sure to write your advice down here so that way I know what to do both for rewriting this one and for writing any future essays that you assign. It will be really helpful."

"You were only deducted a point because you forgot to put the class number and word count at the top. All you would have to do is add those and resubmit it. There's really no need to--"

"But you said that we would need to choose another prompt to write about if we redo it," Aina started to ramble. "And I was thinking of writing about judgemental behavior in society. I think it will turn out even better than the last one!" She chirped.

Like Lucy, the teacher had quickly come to the realization that this girl was doing anything and everything to stop herself from acknowledging the situation. So, he allowed her to sit there for another half hour as he gave her tips (all of which she already knew, but she still chose to write them down anyway). She placed her notebook back in her bag and gave a small wave before exiting the classroom and re-entering the lunch area.