a recollection of the past

The next morning Miranda wakes up with a headache and blinks her eyes, looking around the unfamiliar surroundings.

"How's the head?" She's greeted by James, who is preparing breakfast for himself and the attractive teacher, wearing only sweatpants.

"Not great." She says.

"Drink this." He tells her, pushing over a glass with an orange fluid.

"Just do it alright? I've had my fair share of experience with curing hangovers." He says.

"Thanks." She says, holding her head and downs the drink in one go.

"Do you want bacon?" He asks, preparing plates for them.

"No thanks." Miranda replies.

"Alright." He says and puts down two plates on a table, pulling out the chair for her expectantly and she sits down in it lifelessly, staring at the toast and scrambled egg on her plate.

"It should kick in any minute." James tells her when she looks like a body fished out of a river while he's getting some cutlery.

"Wow. What was in that?" The green haired beauty asks when her head stops pounding soon after.

"You don't want to know." He chuckles and takes a bite from his bacon.

"So, about last night. I don't think I remember everything. But thank you for taking me home." Miranda thanks James gratefully, sipping on the coffee he set down in front of her, already mixed with milk and sugar like she usually drinks it.

"No worries. You're actually my first visitor in 3 years other than my brother." He chuckles.

"Well the place looks like it too." She chuckles, books and papers stacked all around the living room.

"Beats your snail house of a place." He challenges, since his place is twice as big as her living arrangements.

"Haha. So, anyways what happened yesterday night? With George." She grumbles, trying to remember the last evening.

"He was trying to go back on his word. I doubt he'll show his face to you again now though." James tells her.

"Thank you. But I have a question, why are you in my class? I admit I don't know how strong you are, but everything you did the last days tells me you should've graduated years ago, with me or even before me." She says confused.

"I had reasons for staying a the bottom, reasons I can't tell you about... not that that's my decision. It's dad's orders." James tells her.

"How is your relationship between you and your family?" Miranda asks softly, finishing her meal and brushes crumbs off her dress.

"My brother thinks everything is fine. I kind of resent him after these four years, but I knew that going in. And my father, well he... he's difficult. He places the country above blood and isn't shy about spilling it." James answers tiredly.

"That rough?" She asks caringly.

"Can't choose your family." He only replies, looking into his coffee cup.

"I'm curious. How do you have conversation when half your life is a secret or unpleasant to talk about?" Miranda asks laughing at him teasingly.

"Like I said, no visitors, who am I going to talk to?" James comes back pointing around his messy living arrangement.

"Sounds lonely."Miranda says softly, holding out her cup and James accepts it, giving her a refill before taking his seat at the table again.

"Let's be honest Mir. Until I became your student even you wouldn't have talked to me out of your free will, despite what happened 2 years ago." James says.

"You can't still be holding that over my head." The teacher says, pouting.

"I saved your life. And you make it sound like I'm blackmailing you." He laughs.

"Yeah yeah, everyone knows the story." She says smiling to herself until he says.

""That story is fake. I thought you knew?" James replies.

"What do you mean fake?" She asks shocked.

Just then a knock is heard on James's door along with five pitiful voices talking amongst themselves.

"I need to know." Miranda says, grabbing his hand tightly when he gets up to answer the door.

"Fine, I will tell you when we're alone." James says, nodding and looking genuinely surprised that she doesn't know the truth about how she almost died and got the scar decorating the back of her left shoulderblade.

James then goes over to the door and opens it, revealing Yasmina, Lily, Leonhard, Henry and Serena all looking like they got run over last night.

"Told you I know where he lives." Lily says before grabbing her head in pain.

"Hello to you too." James laughs, letting them enter and the five stumble in only to look at their teacher with wide eyes as she's sipping on her coffee in James apartment.

"Hi." She greets them half embarrassed, half amused.

"Miranda?" Yasmina asks accusingly, noticing that the sexy older woman is wearing the same clothing as before while James is running around topless.

"I told you the two were an item." Henry says before putting his hands over his mouth comically.

"We're not. Not that I don't admire Mir and think she's gorgeous. But I only let her sleep over because like you all she can't hold any liquor." James says, getting started on making more of his hangover cures.

"Dude, Someone ripped your books apart." Serena says, noticing the many loose pages around the room.

"No, no they didn't. Just sit down everyone and don't touch anything." He says, slapping Henry's hand away from a podao he has hanging on a wall.

"I'm gonna make you a hangover cure and then you can all leave." James says working on the drinks.

"We wanna stay. We want to get to know you better. Yasmina says pouting."

"I think you all know me plenty." He replies Miranda smiling at her students happily, loving that she's accepted by them especially since she has no prior teaching experience.

"You know what you five are?Annoying." James tells them, before handing each one a glass of the orange liquid and tips Yasmina's hand up, making her drink it when no one volunteers. Once the white haired girl downed the drink her drunken classmates follow suit and hold their heads before barely minutes later they feel refreshed and no longer hung over.

"Impressive, you gotta give me the recipe." Lily says.

"No I don't and believe me it's better if you don't know it." James tells her.

"Now why are you here? I'm not comfortable with visitors with my home in its current state." James says, picking up some of the most dangerous and secretive research he did from all around the room and forcing it into a cupboard, which opens up on him over and over until he jams a knife into the wooden frame, blocking the door.

"Paranoid much? I'm not interested what kind of pervy stuff you have lying around, unless some of ir is your brothers." Lily says, grinning to herself at the last part.

"Again, almost old enough to be your father." James tell her, tossing a wet kitchen towel over her full, blonde hair, which promtly gets tosses back at him and he dodges the wet towel, which then hits Miranda.

"Oops." Lily says apologetically while her classmates all start laughing along with their teacher.

"Don't worry. It's James fault anyways." Miranda says, using a spell to cast a fog around James to smack him with the towel playfully, only for the teen to fall to one knee, once the fog appears, grabbing his throat instinctively, worrying the older woman and his classmates.

Miranda dismisses the mist quickly and he returns to normal, looking around the group embarrassed.

"I'm weak against mists alright?" He tells them grumpily while Miranda helps him to his feet.

"Really? That's weird. I could've sworn your family was prominent for being skilled in mist spells." Lily says surprised.

"That's only my father your talking about." James says.

"Anyways we wanted to ask you if you want to come train with us." Leonhard says, informing him of the reason for their visit.

"Yeah sure, just starting from tomorrow alright?" James agrees, still visibly freaked out by the mist spell.

"Good. We'll hold you to that." Serena says, getting up while motioning for her friends to do the same and the group leaves again, bidding James goodbye who is more than happy to get rid of them quickly.

"Sorry about the mist. I didn't know. I was trying to play a joke." Miranda apologizes guiltily.

"It's fine. It was bound to get revealed sometime." James tells her.

"Tell me the truth please. What happened? I know for a fact that you were a master of mist spells in the past." Miranda says.

"Heh, I guess that confirms you really don't know what happened." James says shakily sitting down on his couch, the beautiful teacher joining him quickly and looking at him intensely.

"Please. Tell me. I need to know." She says, putting a hand over her left shoulder, feeling the edge of her scar.

"Can I see?" He asks, the woman nodding and turning her back towards him before pulling her dress over her head, sitting in front of him in dark blue underwear with him tracing gentle fingers over her 15 cm long scar.

"We were in the same part of the training dungeon. You were at the end of your 2nd year and I would've passed my 1st year soon." James says, remembering what happened and telling her the whole story.

"I was following you and your group, I guess because I liked you even back then. And you were with your friends. You kept flirting with that one guy, I think Ralf was his name." James says, his hand softly moving over her back thoughtlessly, Miranda listening attentively while enjoying his warm touch.

"You guys destroyed I think 12 groups if demons and were getting cocky.

None of you noticed a secret demon none of students heard of before trailing you just like me. But wasn't interested in admiring you. When the five of you were resting something happened. I don't know exactly what. I was training myself afterall.

When you were moving on I passed by your camp and found it. The girl with you, your best friend was dead, but I saw her leave with you and your three other friends.

I ran after your group and when I caught up The two other boys were already dead, killed in a very gruesome way.

You and Ralf were fighting the demon which looked like a normal girl but were forced into a corner by it.

I jumped in to help and tackled her away, using my trademark mist spell I thought we could hide and escape, but all it needed was a touch. She turned jnto me and had my powers. I grabbed you and your friend and we ran. We ran while the mist around us was getting thicker, and it wasn't mine. Even with it being my very own spell I couldn't tell left from right." James says, tears dripping down his cheeks, landing on Miranda's back and she turns to look at him concerned, but lets him continue with the story.

"I led us right into a trap." James says guiltily.

"The mist lead us right into the heart of the dungeon." James tells her.

"Your friend Ralf didn't even survive 10 seconds before taking his own life." James says, recalling watching the teenager stab himself with a sharp rock.

"He killed himself?" Miranda asks quietly.

"The heart of the dungeon. It affects the mind of everything there. Your friend was weaker than us and couldn't handle it. You were also not well off, this scar, you got it by jumping off a cliff in the dungeon.

I managed to grab onto you and pull you up. I pushed you into the ground to hold you down and you hit your head, which probably explains why you can't remember. I still feel guilty, but I had to stop you somehow." James says, a single finger moving through her green hair, finding a scar on the back off her head.

"Why were you not affected?" She asks confused, reaching around and her hand joins his finger, exploring the small mark on her head.

"I was. My body stopped breathing on its own. I managed to keep myself conscious by forcing mist into my lungs over and over." I grabbed you and ran as far away as I could, which is when teachers found us, they went looking when they felt that unrecorded demon's energy.

The school made an agreement with my father, forbidding me from telling the truth and instead convincing everyone that I saved you from a rockslide. But I always thought you knew and were too traumatized to talk about it. When you couldn't even look at me afterwards I was pretty sure of it." James says, helping Miranda back into her purple dress.

"The scariest thing about the whole event besides feeling responsible for what happened to you and not noticing the demon sneaking up on your group is that no one knows yet what it was. It could change forms and takes on a person's powers. Who says it didn't just leave the dungeon pretending to be an student?" James tells her while pulling the dress over her back, resting a palm on her lower back thoughtlessly, before pulling it away quickly.

"I'm sorry. I never knew. I always thought it was just a rockslide and no big deal." She says feeling terrible.

"It doesn't matter. Anyways that's why I can't handle mist anymore. Whenever I see it, let alone cast it I feel as though I'm suffocating. That's probably something you should help me overcome... Teacher." He says with a small smile.

"I will try my best." She promises and turns around, hugging him tightly.

"I bet if Henry would see us like this he'd be getting the wrong idea again." James chuckles, returning the hug, taking in the calming scent of her hair.

"Thank you for saving my life and I'm sorry you had to deal with it alone." Miranda tells him softly, ignoring the comment.

After the hug the two lean back, still facing each other though and Miranda leans towards him, her supple, warm lips meeting his gently before leaving his again.

"Don't think too much into it alright? I just felt that this is a well-deserved reward for all your help, even if it's not enough. " She says with a cute blush on her cheeks before she gets off the couch

"It's worth a treasure to me." James tells her, looking at her intensely and making her feel overwhelmed by the strong feelings he seems to have for her.

She turns around and quickly leaves his home with James eyes following her every step.