Successor To Devil| PART 7 |

Sam pulls away from his memory and finally sits down at his seat, directly to the right of Mason, placing his books down neatly at the corner. Sam unpacks his bag and lines all of the contents up to their edges. Then, he takes a ruler to each length of every book and pencil. He needs them to line up and measure up perfectly to start his day, otherwise, it itches at the back of his skull like a bug if there’s anything misplaced.

The classroom hushes and murmurs around him as he focuses on the carved numbers of his metal ruler. He gets oddly close to the tool. Once everything checks out, Sam clears his throat, and sits upright, preparing to talk to his friend.

“Ahem…-”
Sam catches his words before anything, looking at the growing bubble hovering above Mason’s Head. Snores fill and empty out of the animated feature and Mason’s head lays flat on his desktop. Mason’s mouth hangs loose, a drop of drool slides closer to the edge of his desk.

“Already!?”
Sam thinks to himself, half-impressed at Mason’s ability to fall asleep anywhere at any given time, but also half-annoyed that he didn’t get to speak with him beforehand. Sam looks around in worry, making sure his friend won’t get in trouble, or maybe it’s-
“Heh heh heh.”
A sneaky grin races across Sam’s face, his eyes tint into a deep red hue.

Mason’s snore bubble grows and shrinks, none the wiser.

Sam reaches for his perfectly prepared marker set, this time with a clear disregard for how roughly he’s grabbing them, tossing the ones he doesn’t need further across his desk, and even onto the floor. He has to move fast. One small slip-up could mean dire consequences. This will take precision and deep focus. A focus that his Cursed trait also lends him.

SPOP
SQUI SQUEE SQOO

Some students take notice and giggle, not attracting enough attention to distract. Sam’s eyes are fully shaded red now, and in their reflections is his masterpiece creation. Mason’s face twitches, his cheek pulls upward as the final mark is made on his upper lip.

Sam clicks the marker cap back on and smiles at his success, devilish. His eyes return slowly to their natural leafy green hue, The red glimmers one last flicker and then disappears. Sam wears a shyer smile, slowly widened to a smirk revealing that even without his curse playing Hell with him, he has a less-than-holy side to him too. He enjoys this, messing with the unmessable Mason. Fixing his glasses up to his eyes, a prim little shove with his middle finger lights the lenses with a bright white.

“Nyeghhh.”
Mason yawns and slurs awake, shaking himself a bit as he picks his head up. His dry lips smack together as he looks around through heavy eyelids. The harsh sunlight breaks through the blinds on his eyes and he braces the blinding Sun with his hand alone.

“Good sleep, buddy? Ready for home time?”
Sam lends his voice to heavy sarcasm, babying his friend.

“Shud dup (Shut up). I do want to go home. Beats having Melody throw her whole body at me.”
Mason tries to give a reason for his exhaustion, wiping away the eye boogers formed at his tear ducts.

“WHAT!?”
Sam stands up. Impossibly fast, he’s at Mason’s collar, gripping onto it and holding him upward in his chair now. Sam’s teeth bare slightly, as an enraging animal. The class turns and stares at the two. Mason’s eyes are barely open.

“She threw her body at you? Like- D-Did you guys-”
Sam trips over his words, afraid of the possible truth behind them. Speaking to the left and right side of him, ravenously and nervously.

“Get off me!”
Mason throws Sam’s weaker grip off of him, scoffing at Sam’s blood-red eyes, abhorring the misunderstanding. Sometimes he finds Sam’s uncontrollable drive for perversion to be off-putting, mostly when it makes Sam act up towards him. Mason turns away from the now sat Sam.

“Jeez.”
Mason wrings his collar, straightening it with a quick pull at the bottom of his shirt. Glaring off at the onlooking class, making them all turn toward their friends or the front.

Sam squeezes his wrist, ripped away by Mason a little too tough.

“Hmph. Well, now I’m just gonna let everyone see your new look!”
Sam pouts in his head, moving to enjoy the prospect of his prank, twisting his wrist in stretching motions.

As the two quietly reset, Mason sits up in his chair, his forearms resting flat on the desk before him. Sam sits at his desk, looking straight forward and his arms are by his sides. It takes a minute before Sam‘s returned to normal and Mason’s ready to talk again.
“Ahem.”
Sam clears his throat, looking to get to the topic he tried to before, before realizing Mason had fallen asleep.

Mason looks at him from the side of his eye. Half-interested but still half-pissed off.

“Did you-”
“Hey, did you hear! We might have that new teacher!”
Another student bursts into the room, toting his book bag behind him and throwing himself to his friend’s desk-clump. Sam is cut off, but his message is relayed nonetheless. More students flood into the room and begin to murmur in shared rumors, huddled into clamored whispers.

“Ugh. Mason, did you hear about that?”
Sam picks up the message and asks his friend anyways, bothered by all the distractions.

Mason looks forward and shuffles in his seat, fixing his placement and getting comfortable again.
“Nah, no idea. I heard pretty much the same thing you did.”
Mason finds a comfortable spot on the uncomfortable chair and slides his arms forward, resting again.

Sam sits forward, aligning his thrown-about pencils and books, knowing his less-controlled self made the mess. Long used to picking up after himself.

Mason drops his elbow onto the desk and rests his head in his palm.
“Higher-ups hired a new teacher after the last one decided to become a plant salesman or something?”
Mason’s pinky finger finds itself in his right nostril, picking away at some dried boogers. Almost as if he’s not even paying attention to his own words.

Finishing up with his ruler, Sam leans back and looks at Mason.
“Yeah, I heard that much too, but I wanted to know what you think about him possibly being-”

SHKOOM!

Continued in PART 8…