"Morning," I greeted Josh when I reached my desk.

"Hi," he returned the greeting with a lazy wave of his hand, not even bothering to change his slacker posture in his seat. "You're late."

"I had to pick up the girls on the way, and we kind of lost track of time," I explained myself as I put my bag down onto the desk.

"Go ahead and explode, you normie," he told with an annoying grin plastered on his face, and I automatically rolled my eyes.

"That was not only a tired old meme, but it also isn't even applicable to me. F minus, see me after class."

My friend let out a mild, noncommittal chuckle and deflected by asking me, "Speaking of your girlfriends," he said while putting an obnoxious amount of emphasis on the 's' at the end of the word, "where are they? I didn't see them come in."

"Judy said she had to go to the toilet. As for Elly, she is probably still pestering my sister."

"Pestering?" He raised a rather elegant skeptical brow, as if just to mock my own efforts in the field of eyebrow-raisoligy, but I refused to let it bother me. "Are they fighting again?"

"Nah. If anything, they are too friendly." Josh still looked skeptical, so I dismissed him with a quiet 'you will get it when you see it' whispered under my breath as I sat down. "What about Angie and the class rep? I'm not seeing them anywhere," I inquired while deliberately glancing around.

"They left to get some papers for the teacher," he said as he slouched even lower in his chair. "Something about a questionnaire about the cultural festival before Christmas I think."

"Wait, we have cultural festivals?" I blurted out a surprised question the moment it surfaced in my mind, and Josh responded with a firm nod.

"Yeah, it's before winter break," he clarified while finally returning into a more sensible sitting position. "If it goes like last year, then first we'll have an open day on Thursday, where the parents sit in during classes, then the actual cultural festival happens on Friday, where every class has to set up a stall or an attraction, and then on Saturday evening we are going to have the Christmas ball."

"Really? Sounds like it will be a busy weekend."

"Yeah," Josh spoke with a tired sigh. "Last year we had a haunted house in the classroom. It was okay. I only had to move the sets with the other guys," he reminisced with a nostalgic smile, but then his expression quickly clouded over and he added, "but then I had sore muscles all over and could barely move the next morning, and then Angie got mad at me because I couldn't accompany her to the Christmas ball."

"So it's like a prom?"

"Something like that," Josh shrugged.

"And Angie invited you to it?"

"Yeah. She said something about how she couldn't bear the thought of her childhood friend being a wallflower at the ball, so she would sacrifice herself and accompany me even if it would completely mess up her plans for the evening. Then, when I couldn't go because I could barely walk, she refused to talk to me for a week. Girls can be weird sometimes."

"Yeah, sure, whatever," I wrote off my friend's denseness-induced misconceptions with a slow shake of my head, but then I fell silent for a moment as I ruminated on an idea. "Say, Josh? Now that we are speaking about girls being angry at us and whatnot, can I actually ask you for a bit of advice?" I asked him in the end after long and arduous consideration.

Granted, asking him of all people in regards of women-troubles might have sounded monumentally dumb, probably because it was, but I had to consider my options, and since my only other male 'friends', by a loose definition of the word, were a giant half-ram muscleman and the father of one of my girlfriends, said options were rather limited for this kind of discussion. As such, I decided to bite the bullet and ask Joshua, sink or swim. I mean, even a dense clock is right twice a day, so it was at least worth a shot.

"Sure," he answered without hesitation. "If I can help, I will." He momentarily paused here and then hastily added, "However, I cannot promise I won't make fun of you in the process."

"How gracious of you to warn me ahead of time," I grumbled aloud, yet my friend only gave me a toothy smile in return. I let out a small sigh and ultimately said, "So, here's the deal: yesterday I went out and tracked down the guys who ambushed you in the afternoon, during which I got a tiny bit injured. Nothing major."

"Oh," Josh responded by once again raising a supremely executed, curiously raised eyebrow. "I was meaning to ask about the band-aid on your face."

"Yeah, I'll have Angie take care of that…" I muttered, then after a momentary pause I added, in a tired whisper, "Geez, just how many times have a repeated this explanation already…?"

"Excuse me?"

"Nah, I'm just grumbling," I told Josh while shaking my head. "Where were we?"

"The point where you got injured," he clarified.

"Right, there. Okay, so here's the thing: After I came back home, Judy got really mad at me. As in, genuinely angry. We already made up, I think, but it still bothers me." Josh gave me a look that told me he still didn't get my point, so I decided to be blunt. "To put it simply, I get her reasons. She doesn't want me to get hurt. I can see her point, as I don't want me to get hurt either. I mean, duh, right?"

"Right," Josh nodded, though he still seemed a little lost.

"So now that we are clear on that, I also get why she was mad at me. I think it's something called 'anger born of worry' or somesuch; you might've heard about it? Anyhow, I really don't want Judy to be angry with me, but I already know that I'll inevitably have to take risks in the future, which means she will get angry over it. However, if I don't take such risks, then we might get blind-sided by even bigger threats, and if I get hurt then, she will be just as angry with me, made even worse by the fact that others can also get hurt on top of that. It's a total Catch 22, I tell you."

"And how exactly can I help you with this?" Josh finally cut in, and based on his still confounded expression, my explanation of the problem was less than stellar.

I took a deep breath, tried to reiterate my point, but in the end I just deflated with a sigh and told him, "Honestly, I don't know. I'm open to any and all suggestions."

"Hm," Josh let out a low noise and he pondered for a couple of seconds. "You said that you'll inevitably have to take risks. Are you sure about that?"

"Let's just say that there are things only I can do, meaning I must do them myself," I told him a tad bit cryptically.

"Okay, then why don't you try to keep it a secret from her?"

I gave my friend a cutting glare and replied, "That's just a recipe for a disaster. Don't even joke about it."

"Fine, fine! No need to bite my head off, geez..." Josh had an annoyed grimace on his face, but it only lasted for a second or two, soon to be replaced by a contemplative expression more fitting our discussion. "So you can't hide it and you can't avoid it. Can't you at least lessen the risk of whatever this thing is that only you can do?" I gestured for him to continue this train of thought, and after taking in a shallow breath he leaned closer and told me in a whisper, "For example, when we were ambushed yesterday, the girls told me to stay safe, but I couldn't just sit still while they fought those Sprocket robots. I didn't want to get in their way, since they are obviously way more experienced in this kind of situation than I am, so in the end I stayed back and only used the wind blast spell that Lili taught me to support them as much as I could."

"And how exactly is that applicable to my situation?" I asked the million Jen question.

"I can't put it into words well," he muttered on while scratching the back of his neck. "What I'm trying to say, I think, is that if you already know that you'll be in danger, and others want to keep you out of it, but you can't afford to do so, then you should show her that you are trying to lessen it with your actions. Like, if you know you are going to be in a situation where you might get injured, then get some padded clothes or armor or something to show that you are aware of the danger and you are doing your best to mitigate it. That way Judy will be less worried, and even if you do get injured, you can point at it to prove that you tried your best to avoid it."

"That's... actually some really good advice," I mumbled as I digested his words.

"Is it?" he asked back a little sheepishly. "I still don't think I managed to put my ideas into words properly."

"No, I understand your point perfectly," I reassured him with a genuine smile. "Thanks, man. I owe you one."

"Don't mention it," he replied with an honest smile of his own, but then it immediately turned mischievous when he added, "But if you really want to thank me, you could always treat me to some foie gras."

That was the point where my smile vanished faster than a toupee in a hurricane.

"Don't tell me we actually have that in the cafeteria..."

"We sure do!" he told me with a toothy grin. "How about we have lunch there for a change?"

"We can't," a new voice denied his suggestion, and quite harshly at that, making Josh jump in his seat in surprise.

"Hi, class rep," I casually greeted the sneaky newcomer. "Are you sure you are a mage and not a ninja?"

The class rep hastily glanced around and then reprimanded me with a low, "We are in public."

"Nobody is paying attention to us. Also, let's backtrack a bit first. Why can't we eat in the cafeteria again?"

"It's not about food," she told me firmly. "We need to meet on the rooftop during lunch break. I have important things to discuss."

"Such as?" Josh asked back with a glint of curiosity in his eyes, but he was quickly shut down by Ammy.

"Not here. Too many onlookers," she told us in a hushed voice. "Let me repeat this, just to be clear: don't go to the cafeteria, we must all meet up on the roof."

Her insistence was a little suspicious, but at the same time she sounded sincere enough, so after a moment of hesitation (which she obviously noticed) I gave her a big nod.

"All right. Lunch on the roof then," I confirmed, and only then did she stop frowning at me.

"Also, stop talking about things you should not talk about in public, while in public," she warned me, and then she turned around and headed for her desk. I followed her with my eyes for a few seconds, then I let out a deep breath and glanced over my shoulder back at Josh.

"… What are you doing?" I inquired after taking in the sight of my friend looking into the invisible distance with a look of sorrow in his eyes.

"I really wanted to try foie gras," he answered with a despondent voice, prompting me to let out a groan in response.

"I'm happy to see you are back to normal after all that happened recently, but I didn't miss your obsessions with using me to pay for your overpriced food."

"It's not overpriced!" Josh denied my words with such vehemence it even startled me. "Authentic foie gras is made from the livers of French Mullard ducks specifically bred from this purpose and fattened up by gavage! It's one of the world's foremost delicacies!"

"Just one question," I interrupted as I pointed my palms towards him to keep Josh at bay. "What the hell is a 'gavage'?"

"Oh, that's just the French word for force-feeding the ducks with a feeding tube," he explained as matter-of-factly as if it was common trivia.

"Isn't that animal abuse?"

"I suppose," he admitted, albeit a little reluctantly. "I've heard it's illegal to make it at most places, and that's why it costs so much to import foie gras."

"In other words, its supply is low, so it's overpriced," I concluded, and Josh gave me such a hurt look in return that I couldn't help but shake my head and add, "Fine, I will buy you some artificially fattened Mallard liver or something. Are you happy now?"

"It's Mullard, but yes," he told me with a shit-eating grin.

I let out an only ever so slightly exasperated sigh and then turned away from Josh. As they say, the more things change, the more they remain the same…