Chapter 17 Trip To Kendo

"Ow....Ow....OW!" The sounds of Zeno whincing slightly in pain reverbated softly in his classroom. Though it did sound somewhat fake....."Why don't you tell me why the hell you grabbing me about by the ear?" he asked me with a bit of a groan.

I rubbed his noggin with a bawled fist of mine, slightly ruffling his hair. "Hey!" he retailiated verbally but did nothing to counter. "This is for leaving me for dead, you bastard!" I replied, sounding annoyed. In reality though I could tell he saw the sly grin underneath my expression. Maybe that's why he just accepted this as a punishment for his little 'prank'. Wonder if this got to do with me rousing him from that nightmare yesterday...

While Zeno while busy gazing off into the distance by the window, I had snuck up on him and grabbed him by his right ear. Though for some odd reason I'm pretty sure he seen me coming from a mile away...."Let me go already...." To signify him becoming bored with this 'farce' of mine, Zeno grabbed my arm and applied force onto some delicate pressure points. "Ah....ow!" Wincing in slight pain, similar to that of a pinch, I retract it back to do a double take.

After seeing me step back, he went back to gazing through his window. With his chin slouched on his arm he asked me a question with a deadpan voice. "What you want this time?....."----"Didn't I tell you earlier today? We going to check out the clubs."-----"Your still on that?"----"What you think I would forget? Not happening bub. Besides....its not like the two of us got anything better to do."

There was no obvious change in voice or posture, but for some reason I could tell he tch'ed one way or another. After a second or two of this observation he sighed and reached for his backpack. "God your as excited as a annoying toddler asking for candy...lets make this quick already."

HAHA. VICTORY!

"I don't look like a mess do I?"----"What are you? Some girl about to go on a date?"----"Are you TRYING to get smacked?" he replied, though his eyes blank with emotion as always.

---------------------------------------------------------------

The school building consists of many classrooms and other faculty rooms. Of course it does come with a variety of miscellaneous rooms with purposes....undecided.

Usually those rooms serve as storage areas for a variety of assortments until further notice. In other words, with the school  having no clue how to use them, they decided to leave all the responbility to the students. Under normal circumstances hardly a dozen students was interested in the idea, but that changed when the faculty adverstised the idea of the 'extracurricular credit'.

This 'gesture of love' was one way that the school uses to give their students the ability to quote unqoute "express their creativity". That about roughly sums up the history of clubrooms in this school.

At any case its nothing epic in reality. At the end of the day its nothing more but the adults bribing the kids for things they to lazy to deal with. Plus its not like there is an exceptional variety of choices. They are the clubs one would see in any other school.

We explored the halls for a couple of minutes or so, all the while giving out a basic explanation to Zeno.

Any clubs that doesn't involve outdoor activites were located indoors. The sports type of clubrooms were located near the trackfield and gymnasium. They particularly served as hangout rooms to hold private team meetings. I think there was one also involved gardening but I think it was too unpopular to bring up.

"As for the rest, they was pretty much a mish-mash of sorts. Sewing club, book reading, kendo class..... yeah apperantly this school has a damn mini dojo to its name." I explained further.

Speaking of sewing club, it was soon coming up on our little tour. The sound of sewing machines echoed through the walls.  I didn't open the door but we could peer through the single window pane.

A sizeable ratio of girls to boys occupied the space. An assortment of fabric sheets and clothes of sorts 'littered' the area.

The room was vibrant with colors and creativity. Looks like they was making a bit of personal merch. Oh and fun fact. There was a rumor once upon a time that the Vicious Two had procured supplies and ulitilized members of this club to make their special uniforms. The gold ingot sigils Orion have was supposedly one of them.

"Don't tell me..... did this club caught your eye....?" My eyes dart back to my companion who show some sign of interest. Looking at his intrigued expression, the idea of Zeno sewing for a hobby came to mind. Honestly....thats a thought I rather not describe.

"Don't even start." Before I could see it coming a swift handchop landed on the side of my skull. Guess he could see my train of thought huh..... "Not the club.....its her."

Her? Dude didn't even used a single gesture to point to no one, and eighty percent of the people here was females. Regardless I decided to do a second glance hoping to find someone to fit the bill.

A few seconds into the search someone familar did look towards our direction. "Wait thats....."------"Huh...Didn't know she goes here too.." Zeno mumbled aloud. Did he know her? It was the purple haired chick from eariler today. When she saw us through the window her eyes lit up and she made her way to the door.

~~~

"Well hello there!" She replied to us after stepping up into the hallway. However she was mainly focused on Zeno, with me being in the backdrop.

Zeno waved softly in return. "Who would have guessed you was a student here too."---"Took the words right out of my mouth!" A small yet warm smile was plastered across her face. "That's werid though. Never seen you around these parts before."

Perhaps he was too lazy to respond, but he readdressed his collar in a manner to present his student uniform to her. "Ah." After glancing over his attire, seems like she managed to come to her own answer. "So your a transfer too huh? Coincidences never cease do they?"

'Too'? Guess my hypothesis was on the money. "Too? How long you been here?" Zeno responded, picking up on the same detail for different reasons.

"About a month or two I guess.... I don't really count the days you know?"----"Understandable." At one point into the converstation, I really started to feel like the third wheel in this.

"You like sewing?" Zeno walked towards the window pane again and saw the 'industrial' work. "More or less. Its a tedious job and I'm still getting used to it."----"You ever made something here?" I asked her. "I helped create some pieces here and there, but nothing special." She moved her hand to rub the back of her head before following up with a cute "teehee".

Suddenly that expression was quickly altered by a sudden jolt of surprise. Her eyes widen with temporary shock as Zeno grabbed her right wrist and pulled it into his face.

With tension rising by an atomic level she couldn't even let up a "huh?" before he interrupted her. "Your hand.....they're injured...." It was true. Her fingers was clumsily wrapped by thin, and very cheap bandaids. Seventy percent of it was lightly damp with blood. If you was perceptive enough you could smell the iron from at an arm's length distance.

She chuckled aloud."Eh heh.....I just made a few mistakes...."----"A few?" He asked, clearly not buying it. "Let me see your other hand."----"Huh? Why?" But Zeno didn't respond. Instead he threw what I assumed a diluted version of his fiercesome signature deadpan glare.

That glare was enough to stop her halfway before extending her left hand. To no one's surprise it was the same. Except this time you could see a couple drops of blood spill through the gaps of the adhesive. "Just what the heck you doing in there? Giving your fingers surgery?"

She tried to give off some excuse along the lines of 'I made a mistake' or 'Its nothing special, so relax!', but in the end her flushed expression told us she couldn't find the right words to say. I'm not the percpetive sorts when it comes to love or the like, but was she....blushing? Her face seemed shy and her hands seemed all weak in the 'knees'.

...I swear if this woman has a handholding fetish....

Zeno kneeled down onto one knee with one hand still extended with her left in his grasp. Pft, this some damn marriage purposal? He reached into his satchet and searched for some mini foldable alcholic wipes. "Hey....wait a second....!" She said aloud, but he ignored her.

"These bandages are a mess. You didn't wrap it up like this yourself did you?" Pretty sure it would be hard to wrap anything up if your fingers was impaled and scrapped by light cuts and bloody jabs. Don't get me wrong though. When Zeno undid the wraps and cleaned the blood up, the actual damage wasn't anything crazy. Looks like the accumlated blood on the bandaids gave the illusion of effect which may or may not seem to worry him in some way.

After a minute on each hand, he had did a professional level job on properly wrapping the damaged fingers. "Try playing with the joints a bit." He said lastly, still closely examining it.

She bawled her hand into a fist and did a bit of light stretching. Her face seemed pleased with the result. Even if it was simple bandages and standard disinfecting, it was done so well and efficently it was as if a seasoned nurse did the work. "Not too lax...not too tight and just the right amount of peroxide and ointment...are you some professional doctor in disguise?"

That joke of hers struck a nerve with the two of us. It wasn't mean per say but it did serve to bring up old things of the past.

Zeno's family to be more specific.

I could tell Zeno adverted his gaze elsewhere being lost in thought for a second or two. "...I had a teacher.... or three to teach a bit of this and that..."----"Teacher? Oh so like safety awareness?"---"....sure lets go with that."

Refusing to elaborate further, Zeno collected the little pieces of trash and concluded his operation on his patient. "Still though....did you have to do that much? It really wasn't nothing dangerous."----"You say that as if infections aren't a thing." She winced at his response. "Even if its a scrape or two, always try to remedy it accordingly."

Why was Zeno so into this moment right now? If it was some other dude, hell even an unfamilar aquiantance he wouldn't come on to them over something minor like this. Was this co-worker of his important?

The girl sighed and showed her gratitude. "You doing anything right now?" I asked her. Zeno however nudged his right elbow into my hip. Guess he took it as if I was hitting on her. "There is one more thing I gotta handle." She gestured towards us trying to come inside. Me and Zeno glanced at each other with raised eyebrows before we followed her.

We slipped past a couple of tables and said "excuse me" to a few people before we arrived in the back of the room. There was fabric and other art supplies overflowing from the walk in closets. She pointed to a couple of hangable banners by the rug. From the looks of it there was a subtle yet striking fresh lines of stitches.

"These banners got a bit torn in an accident at the kendo club a couple days ago. I managed to resow the tearlines, but as you can see..." she tried to pick them up by the bunches, but struggled slightly. They was decently heavy. About twenty or thirty pounds?

"You want us to take them back for you don't you." Zeno assumed. "I mean I would have done it myself....but I don't want to fuck up the bandages again." Ah so that explains it. The reason why the bandages looked so clumsily wrapped was because they were coming undone while she was trying to move these.

"You don't gotta help if you don't feel like it. I can just get it done later. Pretty sure my fingers will hea---"-----"Ohgi. The next place on our list is the dojo right?"-----"Huh? Oh yeah."

"Cool." Zeno then approached the banners and grabbed them by the bunch. He was carrying atleast nineteen pounds right now. "Hey let me help too." I grabbed some from the floor as well. ".....Wow....you guys actually helping?"-----"Got a problem?" He replied. She shook her head with a grateful smile on her face.

I looked around the room again. There was a couple of boys here, and atleast three of them here I know would be capable of carrying these. Guess she did ask for help, but everyone turned her down. Its understandable if you're busy with something else, but still mean nonetheless.

"Thats all?" I asked. "Better be." Zeno replied as to which I nuddged his hip with my elbow in return. His pile almost toppled from his grasp. Karma's a bitch ain't it? Hehe.

"Yeah that should do. Thanks Zeno and....?"-----"Ohgi."----"Nice to meet you Ohgi. Oh and the name's Wiz."