"And don't forget children: the school festival is only a month away, so let's discuss your ideas for this year's class performance during the next homeroom! Make sure you come up with many fun activities to choose from!"

Mrs. Applebottom's enthusiastic reminder came at the end of her English lesson, yet all I could muster in response was a tired yawn. My reaction was something of an outlying case though, as the rest of our classmates were all pretty enthusiastic about the idea, from the not particularly important placeholders to the quite important (and eager) childhood friend duo.

"Come on Leo! At least pretend you're excited!" Josh called out to me after poking my back to get my attention. He did, and then I promptly dismissed him with a shake of my head.

"No can do. It's Monday. I don't get excited about anything on a Monday."

"Wow! You sound just like Garcliff!"

I sent a flat glance at the source of the previous comment, and the newly arrived Celestial girl gave me an ear-to-ear grin in return.

"Is that the fat red-striped black cat from the comic strip that always drinks tea and eats fish and chips?"

My guess, based on some vague references I saw on the trope site, made Angie's smile widen even further.

"Yeah! He also hates Mondays!"

"Show me a person who says they like them, and I'll show you a liar," I grumbled back, which made the princess sitting at the desk right in front of mine barely stifle a giggle.

"You're right. The resemblance is downright uncanny," Josh commented with a grin of his own, and I couldn't stop my eyes from rolling even if I tried. Which I didn't.

While the childhood friends were clearly excited by the prospect of the school festival, I obviously didn't share their fervor at the moment. Considering how many things I still had to take care of and/or had to worry about, I think no one could blame me. It's been two days since my encounter with a certain chatty piece of metal, and while its discovery was disconcerting, it ultimately didn't derail our bonding adventure with Abram. We talked a lot, ate a lot, I outlined my idea of either investing in internet stocks or creating more online services ourselves, and it even turned out I had a bit of a knack for bowling. I couldn't really measure up to dad-in-law, and he said Sebastian was even better at it, so I still had a long way to go, but as they say, every journey to annoy a dragon started with a single roll of a ball. It was also pretty fun, so I decided that one of these days I should take the girls out for a date and teach Judy how to play as well.

But all of this was kind of beside the point. The thing is, once I parted ways with Abram, the rest of my weekend rushed by me in a blur. I still had to work things out with Mountain Girl, transport materials and equipment to Labcoat Guy's workshop, constantly keep an eye on all the 'bad guys' for any sign of them starting to move again, and then on top of that now I had an entire set of enchanted armor and trinkets to analyze, and the less is said about the talking super-special-awesome sword, the better.

I was still trying to wrap my head around the last one and what it was doing inside my second deposit box, but I imagined I wouldn't get any straight answers until I managed to interrogate some of the Knights with the Obtusely Long Name. I mean, I supposed I could try interrogating the sword itself, but I figured it was in my best interest to stay away from now lest I trigger some kind of 'chosen one' quest while still neck deep in other things to worry about.

Put all of these figurative and literal headaches together, and I believe it adequately explained why even a blind man could see that I was totally drained and not in the mood to discuss any school festivals at the present.

"I vote on a band! What about you, Leo?"

Needless to say, my friend completely missed the obvious clues and asked me an incomplete question while poking my back again. Because of course he would. Though again, I'd been constantly under the weather for a while now, so maybe he just got so used to seeing me indisposed it simply no longer registered with him? Either way, I had no idea what he was talking about, so I sent him a questioning frown, and it only took a couple of seconds for him to properly explain himself.

"I'm talking about the cultural festival, of course," he clarified with a look that said he couldn't believe he had to say this out loud. "Didn't you hear what Mrs. Applebottom just said? We're going to vote in the afternoon!"

"Don't blame the Chief. He is obviously fatigued," my dear assistant came to the rescue, followed by a practiced hand landing on my forehead. "At least you don't have a fever. Good."

"I'm just tired. I had a busy weekend," I told her, only to twitch the moment a new voice entered the fray.

"What were you doing?"

I glanced over my shoulder and told the class rep, who once again used her inexplicable sneaking skills to surprise me, "You haven't done that in a while. I'm not going to lie, I wasn't missing it." She looked a tad confused by my comment, so I answered her initial question. "I was doing some heavy lifting, some enchantment-analysis, and lots of multitasking."

"Now that you mention it, you do look exhausted," Angie noted as she took a closer look at my face from a couple of different angles.

I figured they wouldn't drop the topic, so I decided to get it over with as quickly as possible.

"I'll live. So, what was that thing about a band you were just talking about?"

Josh's eyes immediately lit up at the mention of the word and he leaned closer to explain himself.

"Now that I think about it, you weren't around last time, so you probably don't know the process." I very nearly pointed out that even if I was, I still wouldn't remember, but by then he continued with, "The same applies to Elly too, so I might as well explain from the beginning. Before the winter break, the school always has a big cultural festival. Every class puts together an attraction, and then both the students and their families can visit them during the day. Last year we made a haunted house."

"I was a spooky ghost," Angie told us and raised her hands over her head, followed by a loud "Booooo!"

"Don't make too much noise," the class rep chided the energetic Celestial, and she immediately let her hands down, though not without a giggle.

"As I was saying, every class makes their own event, and we're going to vote on what to do this year. First, everyone can propose their ideas, they get written onto the whiteboard, and then everyone votes on what they think we should do, and then we argue a lot, and in the end there is a compromise that occasionally satisfies the majority! Democracy in action!"

"Sounds fun!"

The princess's eyes were practically sparkling with excitement, and while I really didn't want to disappoint her, I figured tempering her expectations would help in the long run.

"I imagine this cultural festival is going to be really hectic. We probably won't have much time to enjoy it ourselves."

"It depends on the type of event we'll do," Ammy noted on the side. "If it's something only a few students can do at a time, such as 1-C's fortune teller booth from last year, then everyone takes shifts, and whoever's not on duty gets to try out the other classes' attractions."

"It would make no sense if we couldn't visit the other classes. How are we supposed to have fun like that?" Angie asked in faux dramatic horror, and she was quickly followed up by Josh.

"Yeah, what she said! That's the whole point of the school festival! Everyone is having fun… except the single guys who have to watch all the couples showing off around this time of the year."

"Stop looking at me like you're a victim you oblivious neutron star." He naturally didn't get the point of my comment, so after sucking in a long breath, I let it go, dropped the subject, and returned to the previous topic while completely ignoring his eyes asking 'Why a neutron star of all things?'. "So this year you want to form a band and hold a concert?"

"Yep. It'll be a ton of fun!"

If skepticism was water, I could've probably drowned the entire class at this moment, but Josh was as water-proof as usual, so I had no choice but to directly voice my concerns.

"For the record: can any of us actually play any instruments?"

"I can play the guitar. A little," Josh replied, suddenly sounding much less sure of himself, but immediately after that he doubled down anyway. "It's not that important though! We can just play some instrumental music in the background and focus on the singers instead."

"Then that's not a band," I pointed out, only to get elbowed in the shoulder by Angie for my trouble.

"Stop nitpicking."

"It's not a nitpick, it's about definitions," I countered back, but she was impervious to my logic, so I changed my approach. "Putting that aside, who's going to do the singing? I warn you; if you put a gun to my head and told me to get up onto a stage and sing, I'd probably risk losing an eye."

"Of course you wouldn't be the one singing," Josh uttered with barely disguised disgust. "It's the girls."

"Elly is a pretty good singer, isn't she?" the energetic Celestial continued while counting on her fingers. "I'm not super-confident, but I can try, and Ammy can hold a note pretty well too. As for Judy..."

The way she trailed off into silence made me raise a first a brow, then a question.

"What about her?"

"Well... her voice is a little flat, isn't it?" my friend uttered, followed by a hasty, "No offense," aimed at my dear assistant.

"Excuse me, but are you deaf by any chance?" I asked, and before I knew it my voice already dropped by an octave.

"Erm... no? I'm just being honest. Not everyone has a great voice for singing, you know? It's normal," my friend proceeded to dig himself even deeper, like usual.

"Listen, Josh. We are friends, so with your best interest in mind, I'd like to warn you to stop speaking rubbish before I would accidentally knock you out."

"How do you knock someone out accidentally?" Angie blurted out in mild surprise, so I flashed her a smile and asked:

"Do you want me to show you?"

"No fighting in the classroom," Ammy immediately entered into class representative mode and warned us, but before I could say anything in response, Elly beat me to the punch.

"Don't worry, Leo is just joking. I think. Probably."

"Are you sure? I felt pretty threatened for a moment there."

Josh's comment was mostly disregarded as everyone was focusing on Judy instead.

"Don't worry about what the idiot over there said, Dormouse. Your voice is great."

"That's right. You just need some more singing practice," Elly tried to agree with me, but it only made me even more confused.

"Does she? When we went to the karaoke a month or so ago, I thought she was doing great."

"She was, but…" the princess muttered in a mild panic, but at the end of the day she couldn't say anything else and instead looked for help from Judy of all people. My dear assistant let out a long breath the moment their eyes met and she gingerly put a hand on my shoulder.

"It's fine, Chief," Judy tried to stop me from insisting, but I stood my ground anyway.

"No. They are objectively wrong, so they have to be corrected."

"Wow. Leo is acting weird," Angie whispered to Josh, but I could still overhear her and send her an ever so slightly displeased glare.

"No, you guys are the weird ones,"

"Chief, please stop. It is unlikely Joshua's idea would be picked, and even if it would be, I don't want to sing in front of everyone anyway."

"Oh, right. I forgot to consider the most obvious point," I uttered in a daze as my head rapidly cooled down. "But just for the record, if by some totally random and not at all contrived reason we still end up with a band performance for the cultural festival, and you change your mind about trying your hand at singing, just say the word and I'll gladly punch Josh for you."

"I know that you're still joking, but that's really harsh, man," Josh grumbled under his nose, but I pointedly disregarded him once again.

"That said, are all of you guys even in favor of Josh's idea?" I asked while glancing around, and I could see various levels of agreement on the faces around me.

"I like it," Elly commented on the side, but it was kind of a given that she would.

"I wouldn't mind it, though as I said, I'm not that great at singing," came the next remark from Angie, followed by the class rep.

"I don't think anyone had done a musical performance like that for the cultural festival yet, so it would be at least a novel experience."

"I'm not particularly fond of the idea, but won't oppose it so long as I won't have to sing in public," Judy finished up the rounds, and her words immediately made Elly tug on her sleeve.

"Come on, Judy! It's going to be fun!"

"Now, now, princess, don't pressure her like that," I said as I poked her on her forehead, then turned to Judy with, "Just remember, if you don't want to take center stage, no one can force you to do it, but if you happened to change your mind midway, I'll make sure that no one in this school could hold you back from trying. Got that, Josh?"

"Yes, I got it! Just let it go already!"

I gave my friend an ambivalent grunt and addressed the whole group again.

"Just for the record, does anyone else have any other ideas?"

"I'm sure that the usual attractions are going to be taken by the other classes," Ammy said while absent-mindedly tucking a tuft of hair behind her ear. "That means the haunted house, the food stalls, the drama performance, and the café are off the table if we wanted to do something original."

"Do you mean a normal café, or one of those themed ones?"

"What do you mean?"

"You know? A café where the waitresses are wearing some kind of costume or something?" I blurted out, at which point Judy once again demanded my attention by poking my shoulder.

"Chief, please don't try to propose a maid café."

"I wasn't going to! I was just saying that the idea can be spiced up a little by introducing some costumes or theme into the mix, like cat ears!"

"Or maid costumes," Angie said with a giggle, and I promptly rolled my eyes.

"Yes. It's a common one too. I'm not saying we should do it, only that it's an option. And Judy! Stop giving me those suspicious looks!"

"She was looking at you suspiciously?" Josh asked and glanced between the two of us, apparently really perplexed by my words.

"Yes, obviously," I reaffirmed, but it only made him look more confused.

"But... she looks the same as usual."

"Oh, don't you get this started again," I growled, and my friend immediately raised his hands in surrender.

I have no idea where the conversation would have headed after this point, but it was a moot question anyway, as it was at this moment that the familiar Big Ben chime sounded from the speakers above the door, warning us that the break was almost over.

"Let's get back to this topic during lunch break," Angie proposed, and Josh followed her up with a still confused, "You mean the school festival, or Judy's expression?"

It was at this moment that he noticed the look I was giving him, and he once again threw his hands into the air in surrender, "I was just kidding! Geez! You really have a hair-trigger today."

"I told you I was tired. Bite me."

My token effort to excuse myself was apparently enough to convince him, and it looked like he wanted to say something else, but then the class rep called out to me.

"Talking about the lunch break reminded me of something. Leo?"

"Yes? Is there a problem?"

"No," she answered with a shake of her head. "Or at the very least I don't think so. Peabody asked me to tell you to visit him today when you had the time because he wanted to discuss something about a healer."

"Oh. Okay then. Thanks."

Ammy flashed me a rare, demure smile in return to my words, after which she quickly returned to her seat. The others did so as well (at least the ones who weren't already sitting next to me) just in time before Mrs. Applebottom returned, this time to teach chemistry.

I admit though; I wasn't paying any attention to the first couple of minutes of the lesson simply due to how pleasantly surprised I felt at the moment. If I was a betting man, the nurse's healer would have been my last possible choice for fixing my hand, but by the sound of it, I might've had to revise my opinion on the matter. But then, just as I was getting hopeful, I quickly reminded myself not to count my chickens before they hatched, tempered my expectations, and spent the next couple of lessons only mildly curious about what the portly nurse would tell me. I just really hoped it wasn’t something inane about a cabal of Hippocratic assassins or somesuch again, because considering my current mood, I might just pick up the mallet he was still keeping on his desk and apply it on his head.