“It finally went KABOOM!” a blonde-mopped student that looked like he belonged in two grades past exclaimed, his free hand clenched in a fist. His other hand was wrapped around his precious cellphone on top of his desk. That hand was clenching his device, fit to crumple it if he wasn’t also the weakest guy in class.

“What are you blabbering about, Nichols?” The dark-tousled Oye asked, looking irritated.

Hoshino, the only boy in class with somewhat messy red hair, sat up, blinking in surprise, rubbing at his brown-to-red eyes as he frowned at Nichols.

“I—I…” Nichols stammered at his friend’s sudden attention. “E-even if I told you all, it wouldn’t mean anything to you. I was just reading aloud. I’m sorry.”

“You always have your nose buried in some kind of ebook on your phone, Nichols.” Oye chuckled. “If you joined us once in a while for a game of basketball, people wouldn’t hassle you so much, you know.”

Nichols squirmed, not deigning to dignify Oye’s suggestion. He knew all too well how his stature affected his chances if he were to play against the taller other boys. It was enough for him to watch them in the corner of his eyes as they played.

“You’re harassing him again,” Hoshino said with a wry expression with a yawn as he straightened.

“Nah… I’m just looking out for Nichols.” Oye scowled as he crossed his arms across his brawny chest. He was one of the class’ athletes, although he didn’t play for a school team, preferring to enjoy their after-school three versus three matches. “Your stupid ass white-knighting for him all the time won’t do him any good long term.”

The nerdy, scrawny Nichols looked down with a frown as his lips tightened. Why must his friends insult and patronize him?

“Rise!” class president Haruna Ami, a girl with long, straight, black hair and hazel eyes, exclaimed. The four who were speaking turned their heads forward along with their classmates to watch their home room teacher step into the room with a bright grin as usual.

Koizumi sensei’s eyes slid from face to face as she gracefully walked to the podium, setting down her satchel of materials. “Good morning, everyone.” Her students hurriedly put down whatever they were doing and stood. Many lowered their heads respectfully as she prepared to begin class.

“Good morning, Sensei!” The students all greeted their teacher together with the volume of their voices varying in their enthusiasm.

Their teacher smiled warmly as she turned towards the classroom’s television set that was mounted in the corner by the panel of windows to the students’ left, where sunlight streamed lazily inside. Her gaze was thoughtful, but she shook her head negatively.

“As you all know, everyone, I was going to start today with a discussion about cell division in single-celled organisms… I even had a video lined up for the occasion.” She rubbed her luscious lips and smiled, shrugging. “However, because something monumental occurred in the scientific world last night, we’ll be changing the subject.” Turning to the chalkboard, she lifted a piece of chalk and started writing as the class fell silent and students looked at each other, eyebrows raising. The piece of chalk gently scraped on the blackboard, filling the classroom with soft clicking noises as it contacted the surface, leaving its substance behind as letters.

“B - E - T - E - L…” The teacher’s chalk clicked and scraped onwards on the board as she wrote and spoke each letter slowly as she went. Looking over her shoulder, she smiled teasingly.

“Can anyone here guess what we’ll be discussing now?”

The students all looked at each other, frowning, searching for signs of understanding in each other’s eyes and not finding any hint of it.

With a small cough, Nichols blushed as he stood up, looking away from the eyes of the other students, uncomfortable with the pressure of the eyes latched onto him. He fidgeted and fiddled his fingers around each other as he peered around.

“Ah… Nichols-kun.” Koizumi sensei grinned. “Please speak. I’ll assume that you have a good guess to offer.”

A half of the students scoffed and watched, amused over Nichols’s fidgeting.

“Um… yes, Sensei. W-what you wrote was… I mean… I kind of cheated… I was reading the news this morning and I think that maybe…”

“Oh! Such a diligent student.” The teacher approved. “Just say it, Nichols-kun.” Her eyes were now fixed on Nichols, making his heart ping-pong in his chest. His teacher was, in fact, an exquisite woman. It was common knowledge that he had a huge crush on his teacher, not as though a quarter of his classmates felt the same. 

“Uh… yes…” Nichols gulped. “It’s… um. It — exploded. It went… um…” He yanked his hands apart.

“Damn it, man, spit it out!” Oye scowled.

Hoshino watched in amusement. “You can do it. Get over your shyness. It’s not a big deal.”

Nodding, Nichols took a deep breath and his lips started writhing, but nothing came out.

“He probably just had an explosion in his pants, looking at sensei like that,” Beppu, with a brown hairstyle like a messy starburst, observed lazily.

“Shut up, asshole.” Oye frowned at his friend, who had been quiet until now, uncharacteristic of him, to say the least. “Just let Nichols talk. You know Sensei won’t say anything until he answers.”

“Now who’s white-knighting?” Hoshino grinned knowingly at the two.

Leaning towards Nichols, being still tongue twisted, particularly the result of Beppu’s comment now, Hoshino asked him quietly, “Just tell me the answer. I’ll get this over with.”

Nichols nodded gratefully and leaned over and whispered in Hoshino’s ear the answer.

Hoshino blinked, finally putting it together. He’d half-expected an announcement that something like a building or monument was destroyed by terrorists somewhere in the world when Nichols hinted at some sort of explosion having occurred, but it hadn’t dawned on him right away that the old star would have finally kicked the bucket.

Rellawing

Please check out Assurbanipal II's work. I also want to mention MajorKerina, who has been writing much longer than myself. I was reading one of her stories before I really established myself. It's thanks to her reading my story and liking it that has made me decide to continue writing RLA and publishing it weekly! Assu's editing brings greater clarity to this series! Thanks, nya!