“Wait, hang on! You can’t go out that way!” I called out to him but, before I could do anything, Ikky hopped right out of the window.

Concerned for this weirdo’s wellbeing, since we were on the second level, I ran over to the window and looked out from it. Lo and behold, there was the same boy who just jumped from the window, waving at me as I looked through the window. Somehow, he looked unharmed.

“That’s something like a thirty foot drop…” Arlo commented as he came over to my side to look.

“Perhaps he ducked and rolled?” I tried to think of some logical explanation that could explain how Ikky managed to jump from that height without having a scratch on him.

“Tootles!” Ikky shouted at us, as he waved and started to walk off.

“This has been one interesting start of the day…” I mumbled, as I watched that weirdo walk off into the distance.

“May I ask, what is so interesting outside?” A gruff voice speaks from behind us. We both knew that voice, and it sent shivers down our spines. As we slowly turned around, both of us were met with a stout, round man with incredibly greasy skin and hair.

“Oh, just getting some fresh air, Mr Cartwright.” I lightly waved at him, as I started to shimmy away from the man.

Mr Cartwright was our teacher for the morning, and telling him a decent lie was so much better than telling him the truth. 

Ichthys, just after leaving the girl and her friend, was sitting underneath an oak tree. It seemed like he was making a daisy chain out of a few daisies, looking in the direction that he just came from.

“It couldn’t be… Could it?”

“Broke the rules just to lurk, Ichthys?”

The colour in Ikky’s face drained and, with that, the air around him felt cold and he shivered. Making a face, he turned his head towards the voice that was coming from behind him, and he was met by a very stoney faced man, in a sharp black suit. Those unchanging cold green eyes were boring right into his soul.

“Cat killed the curious?” Ikky cheerfully smiled at the man.

With no emotions in his face or his words, the man spoke again.

“The phrase is, ‘curiosity killed the cat’. Not the mess that you said.”

Somewhat ignoring what the man said, Ikky plucked a nearby flower and held it out to the man.

“Flower?”

The man briefly stared at it for a moment, before turning his attention back to Ikky.

“I advise you to go home, the one who helped you has already been punished.”

“Oh… Well, it’s a ‘nice’ punishment, I hope?”

“No.”

“Oh… Hmm…”

“You are lucky that someone vouched for you to not receive punishment for this law breaking…” The stone faced man continued. “So, go home.”

Ikky made a face at him, and the other man’s face did not change at all.

“Just a little more time.” 

With a little sly grin, Ikky chucked a pile of daisies at the man’s face, causing him to shut his eyes for a second and, when he reopened them, the brown haired boy was long gone.

“Seriously?” The man huffed as he dusted the flowers of his suit. “He is as bad as that moron…” Sighing slightly, the man turned around and disappeared completely.

—-

A short distance away from the tree, stood a dark, shadowy figure, which was just watching. Their head is turned towards where the school is.

“Why?”

“Why?”

“Why are they…”

In a puff of scarlet mist, the figure disappeared. But, being carried along the wind was the last sentence the figure uttered.

“Why are they here of all places?”