13 Mask

Theo sat on his new bed, running his hands on top of the sheets. They were high quality. Much better than his had been in Riverrock and even better than the ones in the Wailing Captain. The bed itself was also just enough for one person.

Now that Era and Scarlett had gone back to pestering Lucy, Theo had the time to take a good look at the room.

As he had previously thought, it was big. Easily enough to fit them all four of them in there and not be cramped.

It was basically divided into four different parts. Each of them having one corner of the room for themselves. The girls had the right side while they had the left side.

As Theo had been the last to arrive, he hadn't had the chance to be picky and had to do with the leftover corner.

Era's and Lucy's side of the wall had multiple windows, letting in the evening sunlight from the outside. While his and Scarlett's wall was devoid of any.

The walls were made almost entirely of wood, except for the occasional line of the white stone spiraling out from the roof. It was reminiscent of the patterns he had seen in the exam hall.

If you were just looking at the walls and floor, you would have thought that this room was a part of some cabin in the woods, and not a dorm in an academy.

Alongside the bed and desk, they each had their own wardrobes. Aside from that, the room was pretty empty. But there was another door on the girls' side of the room that led somewhere.

He might have been more appreciative of it all if there weren't a constant ruckus coming from the other side of the room.

"Era, why do you keep asking the same question over and over again?" Theo asked. "Are you that interested to find out?"

Era turned to look at him. "No, she has already told us that the big breasted bunny eared girl is her big sister."

"Then why continue?" He asked.

Era's eyes narrowed and there was a slight smile on his face. "Her reactions are particularly interesting. I have never seen someone react to words like this."

"Same, but I'm starting to feel a little bad for her now." Scarlett just uttered some words that Theo found hard to believe. "Maybe we should stop?"

"What…" Theo mumbled to himself as the girl seemed to be genuinely suggesting that.

Scarlett heard him and turned to look at him. There was a twinkle in her eyes.

"What are you acting so confused for?" She asked with a confused tone, but the smile on her face betrayed her. "I'm an emotional person, you know."

"Are you?" Era foolishly bought into her lies.

"Of course, I am. I'm a fair maiden after all." She raised her hand and giggled into it as if though she was some elegant lady.

"Tch, you're far from a fair maiden." Theo said. "The only people who would ever call you a maiden are mentally deranged."

"Are you speaking the truth?" Era turned to look at him.

Scarlett smiled at him. "You don't have to be so jealous. You know that I would never cheat on you, darling~."

/-/

The moment the word left her mouth, she immediately regretted it. How did she forget it, again?

His breath hitched and his eyes unfocused. The annoyed expression on his faze was frozen into place with no movement.

"Sorry... I-I forgot." She quickly said as she looked at him awkwardly.

The mask had slipped from his face for just a fraction of a second before he recovered and replaced it with a smile.

"Don't worry about it." Theo waved his hand. "I was just lost in thought for a moment."

Era didn't seem to care all that much about what had just happened, once he realized that bothering Lucy wasn't fun anymore, he went to his bed and just laid down.

Scarlett awkwardly walked back to her own bed and sat down, but still glanced at Theo.

It was hard to notice, but his breath seemed labored. They were short and shallow.

It wasn't the first time she had fucked up like this. It made sense that he would leave the first chance he got.

She would need to be more careful around them all, or they might leave her behind. She didn't want that.

/-/

He got careless. A single word had caused his carefully placed mask to slip off. He had managed to put it back on quickly, but why did it slip in the first place?

'When did the mask start slipping?' He wondered as he tried to calm his breathing before anyone noticed.

Was it because he had finally been admitted to the academy? Because he had finally been able to relax just a little? No.

Was it because he had been put in a team with someone who knew about his past? Someone who could make all his dreams disappear in an instant? No.

It was because of those three. Theo raised his head and looked around the room. It was surprisingly quiet now. Era was intently looking out into the sky through the window. Lucy had positioned herself between the window and her bed, so that she was still hidden underneath the sheets she had now recovered.

Scarlett was lying on her bed, face down. Specifically, it was her. She just had passive help from the other two.

'Pathetic.' He thought to himself. Two years, two years he had managed to keep it on and let everything in the world pass by him and leave him unaffected.

And a single girl could rip it off his face with just a couple of words. Why? Was it because she reminded him of Amber? Was it because the current environment reminded him of happier times?

Honestly, he didn't know.

All he knew was that she didn't feel particularly accomplished or good whenever she managed to destroy it. That was good, it meant that she wouldn't actively do it.

But she was careless, annoying and all around a brat.

His breath had calmed down somewhat.

He would need to modify the mask a little. The quiet and cold persona wouldn't work with them. It wouldn't be weird at this point, either. It had already begun to lean towards a new type, anyways.

Not to mention that switching it up would make it a little harder for the Mannings to think that anything was wrong.

For all he knew, they might be thinking that he survived on his own after they sent their so called 'burglars' to kill his family. They might think that Theo thought it was just an unlucky chance of fate.

After all, the posters were never for a fugitive, but a missing person. Too bad for them though. He knew.

Though, the posters themselves presented another problem. If he had seen them, why hadn't he just gone to see them? After all, they had offered him a chance to join their family.

'This is going to be really hard, isn't it?' Theo thought to himself.

/-/

Scarlett awoke to the sunlight hitting her eyes. She groaned and snuggled deeper into her blanket before turning around.

"Ack!" The fact that her face met a wall was indicative that she wasn't in her familiar bed and home.

She quickly opened her eyes and looked around her, before remembering that she was in the academy now.

The only one awake currently was Theo. He was just coming out of the bathroom. His hair was slightly damp, but the dye in it still stood firmly in place. She knew it was dyed because she had seen him apply it once.

He had just been in the shower. That brought a little pang of annoyance from her. She had wanted to be the first to try it out. She had never used one before.

"Good morning." Theo said with a smile on his face.

His tone was warm and jovial. He was being nice to her.

It was disconcerting to say the least. The Theo she was used to would never say anything even this nice to her.

The only times she had seen him with anything other than an annoyed or passive face was when she said something that made him freeze.

She didn't know what the trigger words were and whenever she found one, she almost always forgot about it when talking with him the next time. It was like walking through a trapped corridor.

"What are you staring at? Do you want me to throw you into the shower myself, you lazy brat?" Theo narrowed his eyes at her.

That was more familiar.

"Hah! You wish you could carry me!" She said and snuggled even deeper into her sheets. "And what's with the rush?"

Theo had a smile on his face, but it wasn't the jovial one that he had had when greeting her. It was evil.

"Oh, well, I don't know." He said.

Why did he have a pair of iron rods?

He raised them and looked at her. "We can't hog the shower all for ourselves, can we? There's two others here as well."

She realized what he was going to do and scrambled to get out of her bed just as he brought the rods together. The resounding clang was loud enough to startle the two others awake.

Lucy let out a loud shriek and hid herself deeper into her blankets, while Era bounced up from his bed with wild eyes. His blanket was sent flying across the room.

"Oh, she can scream?" Theo smiled to himself as he looked towards Lucy before turning towards Era. "Sorry, classes start soon."

Scarlett scrambled to throw herself into the bathroom before any of the others.

As she closed the door behind her and looked at the white room in front of her, she felt both happy and annoyed at the same time.