Nothing Happened

16th of September. After the Emergence of the Black Lizard

Time: 07:00 AM

Meme walked out of his room with a side bag hung around his shoulder. Even though the Monster Emergence had happened just a day before, there were no holidays for students at the Monster Hunter Academy. 

Of course. They could not rest. Their job was not to rest after a Monster Emergence, after all. 

"Ha…" Sighing in relief as the pictures of yesterday's attack came into his head, he stepped up the stairs to bring Jogu along to the academy. 

They always walked to the academy together in the morning. 

Meme walked across the corridor and stopped before room no. 23. 

Loud thudding noises and moans were echoing from the other side of the door. He narrowed his eyes and checked the messages sent by Jogu in the morning. 

He swiped up his phone and checked his inbox. 

[Jogu: Go alone today, mate. I won't be coming today… Elise said she'd occupy me for the entire day for jump-scaring her like that yesterday. So yeah – don't rush into our room. It'll be an unholy sight if you come inside. I know it's breaking the rules, but you know Elise.] 

With an annoyed expression, Meme stared at his friend's door. 

Well, he couldn't judge them. The man was about to die yesterday, after all. 

"Enjoy, Jogu… if you are enjoying that crazy woman, that is." Meme placed the phone back in his pocket and exited his building alone. 

Outside the building, it was a mess. 

Rabbles of the crumbled-down buildings were lying on either side of the street. Cranes were covering the entire block, raising the massive rocks in search of citizens lying beneath them. 

Smoke was still rising from the molten buildings. 

The gigantic footprints were etched into the roads. No car could move on the road in that condition. 

Ambulances were parked here and there and the medics were carrying bodies into them. 

Meme took a glance at the destroyed city once. As he glanced at the bodies carried into the ambulances, covered in white clothes and burned to a crisp – the only thing he could imagine was himself in that situation if Miss Jane hadn't blown up the Black Lizard's head. 

He sighed and looked away from all the catastrophe. 

Then, he turned around and plugged his ears with his airpods. He played an upbeat song from his Spotify playlist and started his new day in a better mood. 

He recalled a few words that Miss Jane had said to them during a lecture in the Monster Hunter Academy a few months ago. 

"You know, many people die before your eyes. Women cry. Children cry. Even men cry. For the dead… Yes? But, I think. You shouldn't cry for the people that died. You should be crying because you're alive. Crying from joy because you get to live another day in this beautiful world." 

"Miss, the world is ugly." 

"Ok, the goddamn ugly world." 

Everyone was confused when she told them this quote. No one took it seriously because they hadn't experienced such a catastrophe. 

However, looking away from the dead bodies and thinking about his life ahead, thinking that he had to live this life and have a chance to lose his virginity, meeting more slutty women like Miss Jane, arguing with Jogu, and experiencing the ugly and beautiful world… 

Meme couldn't hold back his tears from the joy. 

***

[Miss Jane: Come see me at the Monster Academy in the morning, Meme. You know where my morning lectures are right? Around 7 AM, the lecture hall will be empty.] 

Meme checked his texts again as he walked through the hallways of his Monster Academy. He was already 15 minutes late.

Well, it was to be expected. With a few blocks of the city destroyed, the streets were jam-packed with traffic. 

He was wearing his decent work coat with the Monster Hunter badge on his shoulder. The badge resembles the skeleton head of a dragon. It wasn't the usual blue uniform worn by all the other students walking around the hallways. 

He walked with pride as a successful Monster Hunter Intern and all the students stared at him in awe. 

The lecture hall Miss Jane used was mostly empty. She was a busy professor. He knew this because he used to play cards with Jogu and the other boys back in his second year. 

Once, Jogu and Elise had sex at Miss Jane's table. Meme had only heard the tales. Maybe they were lies… Well, no one knew whether what those morons said was true or not. 

Meme pushed open the doors of the lecture hall and came into a dead silent place. All the seats before him were empty. 

When he shifted his head, he saw Miss Jane in her usual thick dark blue bike jacket. She was leaning against her table in the front with her arms crossed below her massive breasts. 

"Oh, there you are." She seemed slightly irritated.

Meme chuckled nervously. "I mean – the streets were packed like hell. The taxi could hardly move… I had to run halfway to the Monster Academy to make it here, 15 minutes late." 

She pouted and looked away. "I'm not talking about that, you moron. I'm talking about what you told me yesterday. Jeez – acting as if nothing so special happened yesterday." 

Meme began to sweat nervously, even more than he sweated when he ran all the way here. He pulled his collar and said, "I thought we were cool with that…? I was nervous and stupid at that moment. You said that yourself, yesterday." 

She gasped as if it was blasphemy. "What? You thought I'd let you loose that easy, huh?" 

Meme stared at her with uneven eyes. "No, actually. I was half expecting this to happen to me."

"Oh? See. You were thinking about those words all night, weren't you? What I would reply to you," Jane raised her eyebrows curiously. 

Meme could see that his Professor was teasing the living shit out of him. 

"No. I was just pressured to the bone yesterday. Otherwise, I wouldn't be breaking Academy rules. Asking out Professors and getting kicked out." 

Professor Jane chuckled. "Oh?" 

Meme scratched his head. "I – I don't know what you wanted from me here in the early morning… But can we talk about the Butterfly Essence stuff? Who and what will —" 

Professor Jane grasped Meme by his jacket and pushed him against the wall. Meme's heartbeat raised for a moment as he glimpsed at the dark face of Jane for the very first time. 

She wasn't pouting, acting sad, or smirking…. 

She was frowning with a dark expression written on her face. "Meme. The Butterfly Essence," she whispered in her student's ear, pressing her body against him tightly. "You never speak a word about this again. Not a single word, you hear me? It never happened. We never had that conversation. You scrubbed no goddamn window… right?" 

Meme gulped and nodded. 

"Yeah," he chuckled nervously. "Nothing happened. No Butterfly whatever." 

"Good…" she released his jacket and rested her hand beside the wall, still leaning close to her student. She wasn't frowning then. There was only a slutty smirk on her lips. 

Meme stared into Professor Jane's dark blue eyes. 

"So…" she whispered under her breath. "You like me, Meme-kun?"