“Can someone explain things to me?” I looked for answers but I just got glares.

The chair was pretty solid and the rope was reinforced. Meaning, they took a lot of precautions when they brought me here. I still didn’t know where here even was. The place did seem rather fancy, and judging by the number of girls, it was probably a hall of some sort of the girls’ dorm.

But then again, this place seemed way too clean. Were girls really just better at keeping things clean or was I just taken to a separate special place? The latter seemed more plausible as Elsa was pretty much the epitome of uncleanliness.

“Why are you doing this?” For someone being caught, my voice came out awfully cold. And as far as I could remember, I’d done nothing wrong, probably.

“You treated lady Eve-” The girl who led me in looked like she was the mastermind. She was the only one with a ponytail in the entire room. And I did not like that attitude. And basically, the gist of her act was ‘I’d treated Eve with great disrespect and I was using her, meaning I’d to be punished.’ It was utter BS, and I didn’t like it.

“I see.” I didn’t know what they wanted but one thing was clear. This probably happened because I had a fight with Eve. “Where is Eve?”

“Lady Eve is still asleep. She will-” I didn’t really pay attention to their bla blah blahs, all that much.

Eve didn’t have anything to do with this, at least that’s the conclusion I came up with. And since these girls were referring to her, as some sort of higher being or something, I got the impression, she was respected. But what if she made all this happen? What if she laid this trap for me? Didn’t that mean, Elsa was in trouble?

Did I perhaps make a mistake?

With a sigh, I glared back. “You know, do you guys like this place? I mean, I can always make this whole place burn: turn into a pile of ash.” It wasn’t a bluff. I could if I wanted to.

I’d already made one mistake and I didn’t want to make another. I had to find Elsa and send her back. I didn’t have time to sit back and relax in a chair, being tied up like some sort of masochist.

“Stop bluffing! You can’t do anything when your hands-“

“Actually-” One of the girls went close to the mastermind girl and whispered something.

“You can’t be serious!”

At this point, they were having conversations among themselves and didn’t really pay any attention to me. Of course, using my powers whilst being confined to a chair, was tough but it wasn’t impossible. And they’d underestimated me a bit too much.

“Ahem!” I cleared my throat to grab the attention. They all now focused on me. I looked up and set fire on a nearby poster. I was actually focusing on that very poster for the entire time. It took a lot of focus but now I could bluff all I wanted. “Just get these things off me and show me where Eve is. And I’ll pretend this never happened.” Maybe I was being a bit too generous but I couldn’t afford to lose any more time.

“Wha-” The mastermind girl wanted to say something but one girl just untied my ropes like it was no big deal.

“Well, took you long enough.” I sighed.

“Can’t leave a junior on his own, now can I?” Selene had come to my rescue. She was still in her nightgown, and from the looks, she just woke up. Meaning, we were still in the dorms. “And girls, maybe you should consider, that he was strong enough to fight Eve equally, and not end up severely injured with Blaze.” She flashed a smile to the girls and they flinched a little.

The way these girls feared Selene, made me question their status. Was I being held down all this time by first years? Because now that I thought about it, Eve was a second year and people who’d respect would be first years. Just the thought made me want to sigh.

“Though I did want to talk about what you pulled yesterday.” I stretched a little.

“Oh yeah,” she didn’t even look at me. “I’ll take you to Eve.” I guess this was her way of making up.

“Preposterous! What are you doing?” The mastermind ponytails really hated me no doubt.

Selene ignored the girls, I did too. And now that I was free, they stayed a fair distance from me. They still glared though.

***

“Open up!”

KNOCK! KNOCK!

I might have gone a little overboard with the knocking. It was safe to say, I was a little pissed.

“Hmm? What happened?” Eve opened the door with a yawn, rubbing her eyes all the while.

“I got kidnapped, what else?” I glared behind me. There were a bunch of girls peeking through the corner of the corridor. It just irked me that these girls were still here.

Selene had gone back to sleep a long while ago after showing me Eve’s room. I was still glad though.

And apparently, my first hypothesis came alive. Meaning, girls really were cleaner than guys, at least in this dorm.

“Oh yeah, I forgot, I had followers.” Eve yawned again.

“Just how many things did you forgot to tell me?” I mumbled. “Anyway, where’s Elsa?”

“I think I forgot to tell you that I’m single and perfectly available.” She winked and flashed a seductive grin. It came out a little bland with all the yawning though. And that drool and bed hair didn’t add anything to the seductiveness either.

“Uh-Huh. Oh yeah, my roommate said he had a crush on you, I’d be sure to relay the info to him.”

She glared at me for a minute and sighed. “She’s sleeping over there.” Now that I looked inside, the room was pretty big: bigger than mine. And it was also just a single room. Meaning she was alone. And the bed was pretty big too. Though Elsa was pretty much taking over the whole bed. “And who’s this Helio guy? She kept mumbling his name as she squeezed the life out of me the whole night.”

I never told Eve my surname. And I was glad for once. But I also felt sorry for her. My sister was a restless sleeper. She’d kick, punch and squeeze a hell lot, in her sleep. She was a little devil through and through.

But I was glad Eve had done nothing to her. Maybe I was too quick to jump to conclusions. I was always like this when it came to my family.

“Well, that’s good and all. But I’ve to send her back. I didn’t have the luxury to ask her anything as it was already pretty late, but I plan to send her back before class starts.” I was speaking aloud. I didn’t want to, it just happened subconsciously.

“Really?” Eve sighed. “Well, that’s up to you two I guess.” She stood aside from the door as if to say, ‘go right in’. And I did just that.

It was a little jarring to enter a room this fancy and dyed in pink, but it sure didn’t stop me. And I kept my guard up, all the while. But boy was this room fancy. Marg had told me about how she was a noble and stuff. I didn’t know what rank their father was, but honestly, these guys must have been filthy rich. And things seemed in order too. Maybe Eve liked to keep things clean?

I didn’t yell, and I didn’t shout. I just rubbed her nose a little. Elsa had a very sensitive nose. It didn’t take even a minute before she started sneezing and it also didn’t take her long to notice that I was the one making her sneeze like that.

“Helio?”

“SHHH!” I shushed her before Eve could hear. I looked back and Eve was just scrolling through her Holo, so all was good, for now. “I’m going by Jintel, so don’t.”

She rolled her eyes and yawned like crazy. “What?”

“I’ll see you off. I’ve got classes and I think you have some too, right?”

She was still in middle school and her exams weren’t that far away, so she couldn’t afford to skip classes at this time.

She didn’t look happy, not one bit. “Fine.”

She was pretty far from home. I still didn’t know how she got here and she sure wasn’t going to tell me.

“By the way, how do you plan on getting off the island?” But I had to ask. I too had responsibilities after all.

“I’ll just ask Marg.” She sobbed.

“Oh.” For a second there I was dumbfounded. Was it Marg who brought her here? Oh no, what if she did this every now and then? What if Elsa came over all the time? You gotta be kidding me! “You’re not going to come over-“

“I don’t have any important classes tomorrow, so I’ll come by again.” Elsa was smiling rather radiantly.

It felt like the world came crashing down. “And where do you plan on staying?”

“Here. Sis gave me permission.” She pointed at Eve.

“SIS?” I glared at Eve. This was her doing, no doubt.

I hated these siblings.

Eve hid her hands behind her and looked away. “I mean, if she wants to stay-” Why the hell was she being bashful?

“Isn’t that against the rules? I mean-“

“I’m pretty sure you can even have se- Ahem! You get the point.” She was about to say something very outrageous in front of Elsa but she didn’t. But I also didn’t like where this was going.

“I heard that this academy was free or something. But this is just outrageous. I mean, she doesn’t even go here, you know.” Besides, I couldn’t just leave her with Eve anyway. I mean, Eve was a good senior but I saw her fight with Marg. I didn’t know what kind of relationship Eve and Marg had, but I couldn’t help but feel a little dangerous vibe from Eve. Besides, her followers could have always pulled something even if she hadn’t. Meaning, leaving Elsa here for long periods of time was a no go.

“You don’t want me?” Elsa looked at me with pleading eyes. Water sizzled in the air.

“NO, you moron. I meant, you being here would complicate things. And didn’t I say, you can visit only once a month. And didn’t you already agreed?”

“But-“

“NO butts! You agreed. And you know I hate liars.” Maybe I was just changing the subjects. But at this point, I didn’t really have a choice.

She sobbed again. “Alright.”

I did feel bad but this was for the best. The less I had to worry about the better.

She got down and went to the bathroom. She was still in the dress she came with yesterday. I guess she didn’t have anything to wear for bed.

With a sigh I went to the door. I needed a jog.

“Take a look at this.” Eve held her Holo at me.

“The chivalrous junior or a foolish one?” I couldn’t believe what I just read. There was another article about me. It covered stuff from the fight on the first day and yesterday’s along with my hunt with Marg and Clyde.

I didn’t read the rest and I just sighed, making my way out. With all the troublesome things, I even forgot to study these past two days. I didn’t have time to worry about these things.

“Bye, Bye, He-Li-O,” Eve blew in on my neck. I jumped a little.

“You heard?” I asked, a little flabbergasted.

She gave me a solid PR grin and I knew, my life just got even shittier.

***

“And as I said, don’t come back in less than a month.” I knew I was being hard to Elsa, but she should have known that I wouldn’t be with her forever. She was fourteen and she had to know how real life worked.

“Alright.” She didn’t look at me, she didn’t look at Marg. She just stood, looking at the ground.

We were in Marg’s room. Eve was behind the door: She refused to come in.

“Ready?” Marg said.

“Yeah,” Elsa said. She was genuinely sad.

I’m going to regret this.

With a sigh I opened my mouth. “You know, next month I’ll enter a lightsaber tournament, why don’t you come to see me play?” I really didn’t want to say it, but I had to dig my grave, just this once.

“You mean it?” Elsa still sulked.

“Yup.” I grinned. I did not want to.

She smiled back and lifted up her hand, closed her eyes. And a second later, disappeared.

Marg came back a minute later.

Better get back to the dorm, I guess.

“Later.”

I turned to leave.

“Since when?” Marg asked.

“What?”

“Since when did you two?” She held her Holo against me. I really needed to buy one.

‘My sweet junior came to wake me up, first thing in the morning. Is this true love?’ After reading the title, I really felt like crawling to a hole. It even had a picture of me and Eve taken this morning.

Why the hell was Eve sharing weird stuff like this on her social media!? Now I had another thing to worry about.

When did she?

She probably took the picture when she showed me her Holo.

“Misunderstanding.” I didn’t know if Marg would believe me or not, but I didn’t have any reason to convince her either. Actually, I didn’t have any reason to worry about this anyway. No matter how I thought about it, it was just a personal post of one person, there was no way this could affect my life, right?

I was just consoling myself and running from reality, that much I was aware of.

“I see.” That’s all Marg said. Strangely she seemed a little disheartened.

I bade Marg bye. I couldn’t find Eve anymore in the dorm, not in her room, and not anywhere else?

But on my way to the dorm, I met a mob. A mob of Eve followers: and they all just cursed me verbally. They had headbands and long signboards declaring their love for Eve and how Eve was supposed to be free from all men and just cherished like some sort of deity.

Even Merin was in there. Wasn’t he supposed to be asleep?

And more importantly, did I end up in another reality?