Chapter 34.3: Pastry Pals (II)

  Ace stared at his phone, which was devoid of notifications. For the past three days, Dante had texted him saying that training was cancelled. If there was one thing about Dante, it was that he was extremely consistent. The messages always arrived just before lunchtime.

  But lunchtime had come and gone. The text was nowhere to be seen. He tapped Shiro’s arm eagerly and showed him the text history. “He didn’t cancel on me today, I think. By this time, he would’ve texted, but he didn’t.”

  Shiro handed him two dorayakis from his pocket, which had been slightly squished. “Well then, young man! Take these with you,” he declared as if entrusting him with a grave mission. “Have a good chat with him.”

  Ace nodded and tucked away the dorayaki in a secure corner of his bag. The moment work ended, he practically flew to the gymnasium, not stopping to knock on the doors. When he stepped into the dimly lit gymnasium, he was immediately thrown off by the amount of dust that was in the air. The soles of his shoes barely squeaked like they used to, as they could hardly find a grip against the dust-caked floor. He looked up, making out a silhouette of a man dangling in mid-air.

  “Why are you here?” boomed Dante, his green eyes glittering in the darkness.

  “Well, I u-uh.” Ace fumbled his words as he took in the sight of Dante doing a handstand on the rings. He sidestepped to where the light switches were, flipping them on. Dante was wearing an oversized hoodie that was tucked neatly into his sweatpants. The grey fabric was significantly darker around his underarms and back, but he hardly showed signs of fatigue as he held his posture.

  “Why are you here?” repeated Dante.

  “You didn’t say that training was cancelled, so I came here after I finished work…”

  “Hm.” Dante let out a grunt as he swung his body down, holding onto the rings firmly. “How much do you remember?”

  “If you are talking about what I saw,” Ace started, “I remember seeing someone leaving and…”

  He trailed off, unsure of whether to continue. “Answer the question,” Dante said.

  “Can we talk instead? Heart-to-heart? It feels a bit weird to be interrogated like this.”

  Dante leapt off the rings the moment the statement left Ace’s lips. Ace swore that he saw the silver flash of Dante’s sword.

  Where did it come from?! He isn’t wearing his harness! Ace thought as he scrambled for a weapon.

  Dante landed with a loud thud and became invisible in the blink of an eye. Ace snatched up a staff that was leaning against a wall and instinctively used it to shield himself. A blow immediately bounced off it, sending the impact down his spine.

  “I see you have not forgotten this instinct.” Dante showed himself and toyed with his sword. The blade whistled as though mocking its victim.

  “I won’t!” Energy coursed through Ace’s veins, reinvigorating him after a long day of work. “And I will never forget what I saw!”

  “Nosy-parker.” Dante leapt away and turned invisible once more. Ace swung around blindly at first but stopped as he reached deeper, beyond his instincts.

  Pull back that stupid cloak of invisibility! Ace slammed the end of his staff into the floor and poured his utmost into his next move.

  A massive clowder of cats sprang from the pool. Big, small, fat, scrawny, tabby, orange, black; all shapes and types of cats formed a meowing band and clawed back Dante’s technique. I didn’t go around petting stray cats for no reason! Ace thought as he charged at Dante. “Convergence!”

  The horde of cats piled on top of both of them. Ace strained to maintain the intensity of the technique as he closed in on Dante. Dante swung his sword in a wide arc, aiming for his neck. With a yelp, Ace ducked and took the opportunity to sweep Dante’s legs. Dante slipped and crashed onto his side. His blade slipped out of his grasp.

  “Bye-bye, sword!” Ace yelled, sending the blade flying with a solid kick. He dropped hard onto Dante's stomach and drove his staff downward, but it froze just centimetres short of Dante's chest. Dante thrashed beneath him, desperately trying to buck him off.

  “Aiya! Come on...!” Ace grumbled, summoning a black kitten wearing a white cone. The conjured creature bounded down to land beside Dante's head.

  A vein swelled on Dante’s temple as his eyes darted between him and the kitten. “Please…” Ace implored.

  Dante sighed loudly, and Ace felt his entire body drop slightly. He could feel the warmth of Dante’s body, and the end of his staff made an indent in the thick fabric of Dante’s hoodie. He lifted the staff slightly and tapped Dante’s chest again to confirm the absence of Indifference.

  “Was once not enough?” Dante muttered.

  “Yes! I won!” Ace whooped and clambered off him. Dante sat up and dusted off his clothes. He left behind a pool of sweat, which he wiped with the sleeve of his hoodie.

  "Was it the cat that did the trick?"

  "No."

  "Just admit it. It was good."

  A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  "Striking soft points," Dante said. "Underhanded."

  "But now we can talk," Ace said. "We can talk about what I–"

  “My parents quarrelled,” Dante interrupted. “It ended with my mother leaving. I don’t remember what they were fighting over or where my mother went after that.”

  An awkward silence fell between them as Ace did not know how to proceed. “Mr Kusakabe…” Ace started, but Dante held up his hand.

  “He called and told me everything. Everything that he told you,” Dante said. “I will plug the gaps. Nothing more.”

  Ace remained silent as Dante continued with his story. “It turned out that she went back to London, and the last I heard from her, a drunk driver crashed into her car at a junction. My father remarried and had two children. I never had a relationship with the lot of them.”

  “Because you left for the Sanctum?” Ace asked.

  “No.” Dante smacked the floor lightly, sending up a small cloud of dust. “I joined the school’s gymnastics team and trained late into the night. I only went back to my room to rest for the next day of school. That’s all you have to know.”

  There are a lot of things you don’t know about Dante. Shiro’s words replayed in Ace’s mind. He decided not to press any further and nodded silently instead.

  I may not know everything about him… But I don’t have to, he thought.

  “You are not my first student,” Dante said, switching tracks abruptly. “Far from the first. I used to teach English at a tuition centre.”

  “I was a student there in junior college,” Ace said, rolling the staff up and down his thigh. “Went there for extra practice and their notes.”

  “Most students need not even be there,” Dante stated monotonously. “The same applied to Victor. He read and wrote far above his calibre and excelled in school. He was there because his parents could not get him into a primary school that was affiliated with an ‘elite’ secondary school. Bad balloting luck.”

  “So they wanted him to do well at the national exams,” Ace said, “to enter the school they wanted him to be in.”

  “Their dream was his nightmare.” There was no intonation in the narration. Dante’s eyes were staring far beyond the walls of the gymnasium, unblinking.

  “You must… have been close to Victor,” Ace said.

  “He was inquisitive. Did all of my work and more,” Dante said. “I graded him objectively, but for his final assignment, I gave him full marks. The following week, he turned up to class with bruises on his arms. I did not have to ask him about what happened because the cause showed up soon after.”

  “Why would they do that?!” A bubble of indignation rose in Ace’s chest. “He was just a kid!”

  “Because it was not supposed to happen,” Dante spat. His brows were furrowed, his words seemingly emerging from him in balls of bitterness. “They could hardly believe that he could obtain such grades, even though that was what they always expected. The extra assignments I gave Victor didn't follow the ministry's prescribed syllabus, and they weren’t happy with it. His work did not follow the model answers in the answer key. My former boss failed one of Victor’s assignments to appease them.”

  “Did you–”

  “I could not.” Dante lay down on his back, placing his hands on his chest. He breathed deeply before letting out a long exhale. “For some reason, I never spoke up for him throughout the episode. He died the following week. Took his own life. The mould that was supposed to keep him within expectations broke him.”

  A weighty silence befell the room. Ace clenched his fists. He had gone through the system, but he had never fathomed that he would hear about the extremes it had driven people to. It was an imperfect system, with its cracks widened by dreams never fulfilled and thrust upon unwilling inheritors. Every school is a good school. Ace swallowed a nasty aftertaste that the popularised saying put in his mouth. But not every school is the same school.

  “Parents pointed fingers at me. Kicked me out when I went to pay respects,” Dante spoke up after a while.

  “Why did they do that?!” Ace exclaimed.

  “His last words were shared with me, not them.”

  “But still…”

  “I didn’t blame them for their hostility, of course. I’m merely an outsider.” Dante exhaled and placed his sword down next to him. “But a week later, I killed their son again.”

  Ace gulped, unsure of what to say. “I’m sorry for your loss,” he mumbled after a beat.

  “Was your father like this, too?” Dante asked out of the blue.

  “My dad,” Ace said wistfully, “never scolded me for subpar grades. He talked to me and asked me what he could do to help me.”

  Ace looked at Dante and could not help but notice that his eyes glowed a brighter green.

  It's time to take these out. Digging around his pocket, Ace took out the dorayaki that Shiro had handed him and slid it towards Dante. “It wasn’t your fault,” he said. “Your affirmation meant a lot to him. If there were an Afterlife, I’m sure he would be a fantastic writer.”

  “You believe in that?” Dante asked as he took a dorayaki, unwrapping it slowly. “The Afterlife?”

  “U-Uh… I know it sounds stupid…”

  “I want to hear it.”

  “W-well…” Ace started, trying to sort out his thoughts. Dante nibbled on his dorayaki, waiting quietly for him to continue. “I’m not particularly religious to begin with, but I believe that someone is watching us from above. They would probably take pity on those who had it hard. Maybe reincarnate or…”

  “That’s a lofty belief,” Dante remarked.

  "I wasn't finished," Ace said. "Even though I believe in a merciful being, it doesn't mean that death is an easy way out."

  "Then what can one look forward to in their darkest hours?' Dante asked quietly.

  "I haven't lived long enough to answer that question," Ace answered truthfully.

  Ace drew a circle on the floor, conjuring baby Nova once more. "But there are times when there's something to look forward to the moment you open your eyes in the morning. I guess that's what's keeping me going. Even when I'm alone, there's always my favourite show to watch or somewhere to go and take pictures of!"

  "I see." Dante reached out to Nova's Vision. His fingers hovered close to its wispy whiskers. He seemed to mull over something for a bit before withdrawing his hand.

  "Ace."

  Ace sat up and perked up his ears.

  "You’ve great potential. Continue to work hard. Have confidence in yourself.”

  The bud of pride in Ace’s heart blossomed as he thanked him quietly. “How about the cats? You like them?” he asked.

  The atmosphere around Dante darkened. “I’ll be disallowing the use of that Vision in subsequent lessons,” he said.

  “That’s not fair!”

  “Get used to it.”