Thanks to the scary coincidence at the start of the lesson my concentration was completely gone for the rest of it. 

“Rora?” Ria asked, shaking my mind back into shape. 

“Hmm? Sorry?” 

“Did you hear what Miss Halvorsen said?” 

“Ah, did she say something? Sorry I wasn’t paying attention.” 

“To make sure to read through pages 105 to 120 for Monday as there might be a new test then.” 

“Oh, thanks Ria.” I smiled and noted it down in my class diary.

“Em?” I turned to Emma, apparently she’d been just as out of it as I was because she looked at me with a weird look on her face. “Did you hear what Ria said?” 

“Yeah, yeah… test on Monday, right?” 

“Yep… was that a guess?”

Emma blushed a little. “Maybe.” 

“Geez, you two.” Claire shook her head. 

“Claire, you weren’t paying attention either.” Pres corrected her. 

“Lies, slander and propaganda I tell you!” 

“So you didn’t get called out on it three times by Miss Halvorsen?” 

“Details.”

“Girls, I know the loss of your tests was a big shock to you, apologies again for that, but please don’t let it distract you as much as it did today, okay?” Miss Halvorsen had made a stop at our row before heading out. 

“Yes, Miss!” Pres dutifully replies. 

She’d only just walked out the door as Mx. De L’Arbre walked in with the biggest smile on their face I’ve seen in a long while. 

“Psst, Em.” I poked my friend. “Look at that, do you think this means their date went well?”

Emma looked over and started grinning in glee too. “I think so, yeah.”

Mx. De L’Arbre must’ve heard us as they started blushing profusely. “Oh, you girls.” They put their hands over their cheeks. “It was wonderful.”

“Where did she take you for lunch?” Claire was the one to ask the question everyone of our group had on their minds.

“A very romantic bistro near the market square - she even hired a violin player. We had spaghetti bolognese and that was so wonderful as well. I’d definitely recommend it.” Mx. De L’Arbre then went to their desk at the front of the class while we were left cooing about the romantic development between two great teachers.   

“Whaaaa, I’m so happy for them. It’s so sweeeet.” Ria couldn’t contain her enthusiasm. 

Karin also was clearly very enthused but did so without saying a single thing. 

“However,” Mx. De L’Arbre coughed. “It’s now time for class so please everyone, asseyez-vous.” 

 

For the most part of the class I did manage to concentrate however, how closer we got to the end of it, how harder it became. With the challenge of P.E. arriving I wasn’t completely at ease. Especially when I remembered that my body had changed quite considerably.  

Emma had noticed and stayed behind with me in the classroom while the others already started heading towards the gymnasium. 

“Looks like you aren’t only worried about having to hold yourself back?” She asked. 

“Mhmm.” I nodded. “Yesterday I found out something… a bit harder to hide… I didn’t think about this earlier because I forgot, but it might be quite a big issue…” 

“Necrosis?” 

“Huh? No, nothing like that!” I saw a couple of people look into the classroom to see what’s up so I immediately lowered my voice again. “You see, when I was looking in the mirror yesterday, my body looked too perfect…” 

Emma blushed. “W-what do you mean?” 

“Uhm, for example… Do you remember that scar on my calf?” 

She nodded. “The heart shaped one?” 

I nodded as well. “Yeah, that’s gone. And that’s the same for all my other scars.” 

“Well… she hasn’t noticed up to now, right?” 

“Huh?” That was when I realized I was just wearing a skirt and short socks. “Shit, I’ve been walking around with a ticking time bomb this whole time?” 

“Maybe she did but thought you camouflaged them with some very good make-up or something? That’s what I was thinking… not that I look at your legs a lot… okay, I do but they are just really nice… I’ll just shut up now...” Em bit her lips. 

“R-right.” I stuttered. “I guess that’s possible…” 

“Apart from t-that, any other things?” 

“...Yeah, but mostly my core muscles…” 

Emma nodded. “In that case you might just go to the bathroom to change…if you think it’s very noticeable…” 

“O-okay, I might do that. Thanks for the advice, Em.” 

“No problem.” She rubbed the back of her head. “We should probably catch up now to not draw any suspicion though.” 

“Alright.” I agreed and together we quickly caught up with the rest of the group. 

 

“Sorry for the wait, we wanted to discuss something with Mx. De L’Arbre…” Emma lied. 

“Found out some more details about their date?” Claire asked. 

“It was just about the lesson.” 

“Awh, I wanted to hear more about their love story. Love stories are always so fun to hear.” Claire winked at me.

-That sly vixen.-  

When we arrived at the gymnasium we still had a couple of minutes of break left before we had to get dressed so we all stood outside in a circle to enjoy the afternoon sunshine. But sadly that moment didn’t last long as Miss Garcia herded us indoors. 

“Get dressed already so we can get a nice long P.E. session.” The Spanish passion burning inside of her, if you were to believe national clichés at least, didn’t give us an option to decline. 

“Do you mind if I get dressed in the bathroom, Miss?” I asked her, making her give me a bit of a weird look. 

“You can get dressed wherever you want Aurora. As long as you don’t try to sit out the lesson there.” Miss Garcia shrugged. 

Ria looked at me a bit concerned.

“Nothing’s wrong, Ria, I just wanted to freshen up a bit before the lesson.” I tried to comfort her and luckily it looked like it worked, as a smile crept back on her face.

“See you in a bit then?” 

“Yeah.” I smiled and took my sports bag to the bathroom to get dressed. 

 

I walked out of the bathroom a couple of minutes later, ready to try my very best not to do my best in today’s lesson and keep that fact hidden too. 

As I was the first one to be ready Miss Garcia had me place some markers outside for a warm-up exercise. 

A couple of girls from our class had also left the gymnasium and seated themselves on one of the benches. “Wow, don’t you think Aurora looks even more….” They started talking in between each other. If not for my enhanced hearing I’d probably not be able to hear it.

“She looks even better than usual… does she work out a lot?” 

I looked in their direction after placing the last marker down. 

“Oh, shit, she’s looking over here, act natural.” One of them waved at me, with the other two following suit. 

I smiled and waved back and started giggling to myself. “If only they knew I could hear them.” 

“Hey, Auro, need some help?” Emma had arrived as well and walked over to me. 

“Nah, this was the last marker.” 

“Damn, you weren’t lying about your muscles were you…” She inspected me closer before she started to blush. “O-on Tuesday it wasn’t like this…” 

“My body might still be adapting to my new me, I guess.” I looked back over to the girls on the bench. “Even they could tell my body had changed.” 

“Did they come and tell you?” 

“No, but my hearing...” 

“Oh, right. I guess you could always say you started drinking protein shakes.”

“Heh, a tomato juice diet more like…”

“Or that you finally got over your hatred for milk.” 

“That’d be too unbelievable.” I laughed.

“Maybe so.” Em started laughing with me. 

 

When the rest of our friends arrived Miss Garcia started to explain our warm-up exercise, after which we dutifully started it. 

It was hard to say the least. Emma told me to just match her pace because my pre-vampire physique matched that of hers pretty well, but I still needed to somehow make it look like I was working just as hard as her. And acting was definitely not my forté.

When it came to our stretching exercises after the warm-up, Emma was also my first choice.

“Do you think they noticed anything?” I asked while she was helping me stretch by pushing my back. 

“Hmmm... Remember to breathe out by the way. Like I showed you.” She waited for me to do so and then pushed while she looked around. “I think Miss Garcia might be onto something… and Ria and Claire might be too...”

“Shit. I don’t know what to do, Em. How do I fake getting tired?” 

Emma thought for a second while pushing on my back again. “Have you tried holding your breath while running?” 

“Huh?” It was now time for us to switch, having me press on her back. Not that she needed it. 

“You need to look out of breath, right? So maybe, if you hold your breath...”  

I laughed softly. “Huh, that sounds so out of the box that it might actually work.”

“Plan B is trying to pull a sprint and face planting into the gravel.” She said that so casually that it made me start chuckling. 

“Haha, I think I’ll try that, but only as a last resort.” 

“Alright class, come over here!” Miss Garcia announced the end of the stretching exercises. 

-Here we go, the moment of truth has arrived...-