Unexpected Blame

He sat down at his desk waiting with a smug look on his face in suspense for when she would arrive. He heard the bell ring, and soon after caught sight of the girl in question and could barely keep his laughter in check. It had been a long time since he had laughed at something that earnestly, and when she noticed him laughing silently, she pouted silently as she walked to her seat.

Well, I don’t need to feel bad, since she abandoned me in the first place.

Once everyone was seated, the teacher announced that they would be doing a hands-on lab today with a partner of their choice.

Wait a lab? Seriously? Is today just going to be filled with surprises left, and right?

He got up and looked around the room to find that nearly everyone had already paired up with someone else, except for five people and one of them was looking his way.

I guess I should go over there then, huh.

He then walked over to where she was and waved a hello

No! I need to do something fast. I’ll just ask her if she has a partner

“If you don’t have anyone else, you wanna pair up with me?”

Hopefully, she’ll say yes, otherwise I’m going to have to deal with someone who doesn’t even know I exist yet.

“Oh sorry, I just got a partner, so good luck!” With a smile on her face, she said those words to him.

That hurts way more than it should have.

He began trudging back to his desk to come up with another plan.

“Where are you going, partner?” She asked him while grabbing the back of his shirt

Huh?

“I need to go find a partner…so…let me go.”

Blood rushed to his face as he struggled to finish his sentence.

“Ah, sorry bout that.” Having realized what was happening, she let go of his shirt. Allowing him to turn around and face her. “Anyway, hurry up and sit down, partner.” With a smirk, she put her hand on the chair next to her.

I really am easy. I feel like such an idiot right now.

“Please don’t tease me like that again.” Turning to the side to hide his expression, he quietly muttered this to her.

“Fine, fine, but hurry up or I’m gonna finish without you.” She said while pulling out something from her bag.

Two can play at this game.

“Really, well in that case I’ll just be on my way then.“ Feeling somewhat peeved, he pretended to walk away

“Go get the supplies dumbass.” Not even bothering to take him seriously, she flatly responded to his attempt at getting payback.

I guess that was payback for not waking her up earlier.

He suddenly remembered the face she made as she picked her head up from her desk with drool leaking from her mouth. Feeling the corners of lips curling up unnecessarily, he quickly cleared his mind as he walked to the back of the room and silently approached the cabinet for supplies. After some waiting, he grabbed what he needed and returned.

“This should be everything we need.”

Dropping the supplies, he had gathered, he sat down next to her.

“Good job.” Without turning to look at him, she confirmed they had all the materials needed.

He leaned his head on the table and looked at her side profile. As he looked at her, he felt his hand unconsciously begin to move. He quickly sat back up, pushing down his desires.

I’m hopeless after all, huh. Even after all of this…I still…

“Ok, let’s get started then." With blood furiously jumping around throughout his body, he began working.

Half an hour of boring science later, they had finished cleaning up the materials that were used.

Okay that should be good enough, now to just put this…wait what’s that burning smell? We weren’t using any chemicals...

He looked around but couldn’t find anything out of the ordinary. Once he had confirmed that no one was in danger he realized that someone was pulling on his sleeve to get his attention, so he turned around.

“What do you want this ti-“

Before he could finish his question, he realized that she was lying on the table…sleeping again. A chill ran down his spine.

I remember feeling something like this, earlier this morning too.

With an unshakable unrest strangling his heart, he checked all the rooms in the school building.

1. There is no fire in the school building and 2. Running around the entirely school building while making sure to not get caught is extremely tiring, so tiring that I think I might pass out…like right now.

After this tedious mission, he returned to class and decided to join his comrade-in-arms and quietly rested his head on the table, facing her.

Well, we're already done so a little rest should be fine.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

A sudden wave of immense heat slammed into his body as he got up and looked around to find his surroundings filled with a cloud of smoke and found that the source of this intense heat was radiating from the front of the class.

What…?