"You cannot make people learn. You can only provide the right conditions for learning to happen."-Vince Gowmon

    Tutor Session

Vallin rested his chin against his hand, as the teacher handed out the classwork to each student’s desk. He was trying his best not to close his eyes and doze off. He was able to get some sleep last night however it wasn’t enough to make up for the nights when he was unable to get some rest. 

Vallin stared down at his paper, his vision blurring as he tried to complete the problem. He struggled for a little bit before he gave in and decided to rest his eyes. Only for a few minutes, Vallin thought as his eyelids slid down over his green eye and black eye. He still needed time to complete his classwork after all.

His eyes were still covered by his hair and if anyone were to look at him, they would think he was reading the paper. So Vallin didn’t have to worry about getting caught as long as he didn’t get too carried away and actually fall asleep.

“Hello there!” Vallin’s head snapped up when he heard a familiar happy voice. Standing beside his desk was the pink curly haired girl from the first day of school. 

“You don’t mind me working with you?” The pink haired girl asked him. She was smiling down at him, holding a paper and pencil in one hand and a chair in the other.

“Huh?” Vallin looked up at her, his eyes burning from the interruption of his rest and tried to make sense of her question.

“Mr. Das said that we are allowed to get together with a partner and work together to complete the work.” She gestured to the classmates around them. Their classmates were working with partners and in some cases groups of threes leaving only the pink haired girl and Vallin without a partner.

“Oh…sure I guess…” Vallin said sluggishly as he cursed himself in his head for giving in to his drowsiness and not paying attention to the teacher while moving his paper and pencil over to make room for the pink haired girl.

“Great!” The girl cheered, pulling her chair up to the side of his desk and placing her paper and pencil down.

While the pink haired girl was adjusting herself, Vallin turned his head to rub the sleepiness out of his eyes. Once he was feeling slightly more awake, Vallin was able to fully register the fact that not only was the pink haired girl sitting at his desk but that he also agreed to  work with her. 

“Now that I’m all settled, I can finally introduce myself to you.” The pink haired girl gave him an excited smile. “My name is Monique and you are?”

“Vallin.” He responded back with a small smile, his body tensing up as he unconsciously put his guard up against the bubbly girl.

“Nice to meet you Vallin!” Monique held her hand out for a handshake and Vallin hesitantly gave her his hand. She gave him a quick but energetic handshake and he quickly took his hand away from hers after it was over.

“I wanted to introduce myself to you back on the first day of school but I noticed you weren’t in…the best of moods.” Monique said while twirling a piece of her curly hair with her pencil. The small smile on Vallin’s face slid off immediately and was replaced with a frown at the reminder of the first meeting between the two.

“I’m sorry! I knew you were just trying to see if I was okay but I was in a bad mood and took it out on you!” Vallin blurted out as he grabbed her hands with his head bowed down in shame. “I meant to apologize for my rudeness on the first day of school but I didn’t know if you were mad at me. So I was going to wait until I figured out how you were feeling before I apologized.”

Vallin could feel his cheeks and the tips of his ears burning but knew Monique couldn’t see his dark skin flushing with his locs in the way. He remembered the smile Monique gave him on the first day of school but at the time he didn’t know if she was mad at him or not. If it were Vallin in her position he would still be a little salty at himself. 

For a moment Monique didn't answer him and he was still bowing his head down so he couldn't see her expression. Vallin felt her slipping one of her hands out of his but she tightened her grip with the other hand that was still being held by his own. He began to sweat and his neck was getting sore from keeping his head down as another moment of silence went by. Vallin couldn’t wait anymore for Monique to respond so he lifted his head up.

His green eye and black eye widened in surprise at the pink haired girl, whose purple-red eyes were sparkling with amusement as she was clutching her hand over her mouth trying not to laugh out loud. Did he say something funny? Vallin took his hands from Monique’s hands and gave the pink haired girl a confused frown. She removed her hand from her mouth and took a deep breath in and out before speaking.

"Ha, I'm sorry. I didn't think it was that big of a deal so I wasn't expecting to receive an apology from you." Monique chuckled. 

“My bad, I didn’t mean to make it a big deal.” Vallin said nervously while scratching the back of his head.

“No your fine,” Monique waved him off with a shrug and smile. “But I will accept your apology if you agree to be my acquaintance.”

“Acquaintance?”Vallin asked, tilting his head to the side curiously.

“I wanted to ask you to be my friend, but I thought that would be moving too fast. So I want us to get to know each other and build up a friendship.”

“I mean that doesn’t sound like a bad idea…”

“Is that a yes?”

“Sure?”

“Great!” Monique’s smile dropped and she stared at Vallin with a thoughtful look on her face.“You know when I first met you, I thought you were the type of guy that had walls up to keep people out to protect yourself. In fact I was prepared to break down those walls.”

“Um..”

“But I think I was wrong about you. You're actually a pretty nice guy.”

“Oh.” Vallin didn’t know how to respond back nor could he figure out how Monique came up with such an idea. He held her gaze for a little bit but ended up having to look away from Monique’s prying eyes. However, he was happy that she wanted to pursue a friendship with him and that she thought of him as a nice guy. It wasn’t often that Vallin had a conversation, a friendly one at that with another person who wasn’t from the orphanage. It was also the first time someone outside the orphanage has asked him to be friends or rather acquaintance in this case. 

Vallin felt warm inside and he had to force himself not to break out into a big smile and grin like an idiot. Shaking his head to clear his thoughts, Vallin turned his attention back to their paper and decided to change the subject. “Anyway, we should get to work before we run out of time.”

"You have a point, this work is due by the end of the class." Monique agreed with a nod and grabbed her pencil to begin completing her paper.

Vallin and Monique didn't speak as they finally got to work on their assignment. When he finished, she wasn’t done yet and was about to drift off into a daydream as he waited for her to finish. That was until Monique asked him for help with the work.

"I'm happy one of us knows how to do this." Monique said with a relieved smile after Vallin  explained what she did wrong on the paper and helped her fix her mistakes.

“I was surprised to see you struggling on this,” Vallin lifted his own paper with a raised eyebrow and a small smile. “Mr. Das gave us a review paper, the information you should’ve learned last year in your previous history class in this school.”

“I’m sorry I’m not as academically intelligent as you, Vallin.” Monique teased with a roll of her eyes. “And for your information I’m new to this school so don’t even with me.”

“Huh? You're also a new student? So am I!” Vallin said, staring at Monique in surprise.

“So were both new students to Pandora Hill Academia?” Monique asked and Vallin nodded in agreement.

“What do you think of the school so far?” He asked while resting his cheek against the palm of his hand, his posture relaxed, no longer tense like in the beginning of their conversation. 

“Honestly, I don’t trust this school. Sure our classes are nice, our teachers are nice, and the school looks nice. But the founder of this school isn’t the greatest guy and the students here aren’t the best students.” Monique frowned, furrowing her eyebrows and lowering her voice so only Vallin could hear her. “I mean the academic records of this school probably look great but the mindsets of the students here are terrible! They are so selfish, trying to protect themselves and their family reputations at the cost of others!” 

“Is that why nobody intervenes whenever someone messes with me or why everybody minds their own business here?”

“Mhm! The boy who told me why everyone minds their business got water poured on his head by some girl named Kamari. Not only did all the students there not stop her but even acted like nothing happened after she left!” 

“Really? What happens if somebody gets hurt by another student? Will they do anything about it?” Vallin asked nervously while twisting one of his locs between his fingers. The name Kamari sounded familiar but he couldn’t remember where he heard it from. 

“Apparently the students report to the student council president whenever a situation like that occurs.”

“Oh you mean Katrine? I wonder why they don’t report that stuff to Headmistress Roseburg or a teacher? They are adults that have the ability to handle situations like that while Katrine who is just a student in a position of power.” 

“I don’t know bro,” Monique let out a sigh and closed her eyes. Then she opened her eyes with a big smile on her face and leaned towards Vallin. “Hey, I almost forgot but there was something else I learned from that guy from yesterday.” 

“He said that students have gone missing in this school.” Vallin looked at monique with his mouth slightly opened in surprise. Wait a minute, that sounds familiar….

“Ah! I heard the same thing yesterday!” Vallin sat up upon remembering, slamming his hands against the desk, his face no longer resting against his hand.  

That’s right! Yesterday, when that dark skinned guy ran off the yellow haired bully by mentioning that Kamari girl and left with the pale boy, two female students started talking about them. However he recalled the two girls mentioning a missing girl in their conversation. Vallin shook his head, how could he forget something as serious as a missing student?

“Mr. Doe and Miss Rivers, can you please quiet down? You are disrupting the focus of your classmates who are still working.” Mr. Das said,looking over his computer at them with narrowed eyes interrupting their conversation. That is when both Monique and Vallin noticed the annoyed gazes and glares of their fellow classmates trained on them.

“Sorry!”

“Sorry…”

Monique flashed their classmates an apologetic smile while Vallin mumbled an apology. He folded his arms on his desk and sunk his head into them to hide the burning skin on his face. Not only was it embarrassing that the teacher called them out for being loud but they also disturbed their classmates while they were trying to work. He didn't mean to be so loud, he just forgot there were other people in the room for a moment.

He felt something touch the top of his head and jumped at the contact. He turned his head to see Monique giving him a reassuring smile while patting him on the head. 

“Don’t feel bad, Vallin. Just ignore them. It’s not like we purposely tried to interrupt them by talking loudly. All we have to do is control our volume when we’re speaking so they are able to mind their own business.” She smirked. “That’s their answer to everything anyway.”

“Yeah, I guess you're right.” Vallin felt slightly better from Monique’s words, the heat in his cheeks disappeared and he flashed her a smile. He lifted his head but kept his arms folded on the desk. “Anyway, I overheard two girls talking about a missing student. That’s how I found out but they were pretty hush, hush about it.”

“Hmm,” Monique hummed, twisting her pencil in a strand of her pink curly hair again. “ It seems like the school doesn’t want to make a big deal out of the situation, almost like they are trying to hide it. I’m curious as to why that is.”

“What makes you think the school is trying to hide it?”

“Did you know that anybody went missing here before enrolling and entering the school?”

“No, I mean I was told last minute that I was even supposed to go here.” 

“Do you watch the news?”

“No.”

“Well, let me tell you, not once was it reported in the news that anybody went missing in this school nor were there any rumors online about any missing students in this school. Trust me, my parents did the research on this school before sending me here.”

Right after Monique finished talking the bell rang, signaling the end of their class period and the beginning of lunch. Around them their classmates started packing up their belongings.

“Make sure to leave your papers on my desk.” Mr. Das informed his students without looking up from his computer.

Monique got up from her chair and gathered up her paper and pencil off of Vallin’s desk. Vallin repeated her actions by gathering up his own paper and pencil and getting out of his chair. He slid his pencil in his pocket and walked over to Mr. Das’s desk to turn in his paper. Monique went to return her chair back to her own desk before turning in her paper. Vallin waited by the door for her, standing off to the side so he wasn’t in the way of their classmates trying to leave the classroom. 

“Since this is our last class for today, how about we have lunch together?” Monique suggested after meeting him by the door with a smile. 

“Sure?” For a second Vallin thought about turning her down, but he quickly brushed down that thought. Monique was the first person who wanted to befriend him and he really enjoyed talking with her in class. He was also curious about her theories of the missing students. 

“Great! I have to do something right quick, so wait for me in front of the cafeteria!” They both walked out the door and she turned to wave to him before heading off down the hallway while Vallin turned the other direction to leave the main building. He had a small smile on his face as he weaved his way through the crowd of walking students. 

Maybe just maybe, he’ll finally be able to gain his first friend that was his age and not extremely younger than him. Vallin had always wanted a friend but nobody ever wanted to befriend him. Having a friend would be a nice improvement to his life, he thought as he left through the doors of the main building. It wasn’t everyday that another person could make him feel happy and put him in a good mood. Too bad good things never last forever.