The morning sun invaded the closed windows of San's apartment and swept over the calendar hanging on the opposite wall. Even the rays knew that the scene inside was more opportune than any other room on a Tuesday.
Three people stood in front of a brown box bed, clad in similar white shirts and colourful shorts, eyes fixated on the scene before them. Sereia had her hands folded against her chest and her foot tapped against the floor, hinting impatience and avoidance of the fact that she had her project submission class with Professor Wallace in approximately two hours. Aren, under similar circumstances, stood with her hands folded behind her head, chest puffed out and an anticipatory smirk gracing her face. San stood in between them, hands inside his shorts' pocket, feet spread, head a mess and constant yawns escaping his lips.
"Do you think he's dead?" Sereia questioned, staring unblinking at the body sprawled on San's bed.
"He better not be; I slept on the ground for the first time in my life not because a fucking corpse wanted bedrest," Aren scoffed, amusement not leaving her eyes.
San stepped over his bed, straddled the body and pressed a finger under its nose. Then, for further confirmation, he bent down and pressed his ear over the man's chest. "Very much alive," he concluded with a yawn before patting the body down, "Must be a strong dose he took," he pulled out the man's wallet and flipped it open. The girls huddled behind him, one hand on each shoulder, as they leaned forward to read the identity card San found in the wallet.
The information read: Nicholas Quinton, 28, Male, A-, Darring Street Villa 4, along with a phone number.
His picture had his thick brows in a frown, curly brown hair covered his forehead and thin lips were pressed in a line. His brown eyes stared dead back at them, screaming, 'no thoughts-head empty,' loud and clear.
"He told me that he was faking amnesia to avoid some mafia," Sereia remembered upon looking at the face in the identity card.
"What the fuck is up with this man…?" San grumbled before putting the ID back in. He shuffled around a few dollar bills to find something of significance but there was nothing else other than a driver's license. "He seems rich, who is he avoiding paying back?" San threw the wallet over Nicholas' chest and got off the bed.
Sereia gulped as San's words dawned onto him like a whiplash of realisation. "I know… right," she uttered, biting on her tongue. Currently, there was a thin line between her being a criminal or an innocent rich man's saviour.
"Eh, it'll be fine. We'll kick him as soon as he wakes up," Aren announced with a definitive nod of her strawberry blonde head.
"Yeah, let's focus on classes for now," San sighed and turned around to gather the bedspreads and blankets behind them. "Help me clean up and get rea—FUCK! REI, YOUR PROJECT?!" he screeched, a bedspread dropped back to the floor as he turned around with horror stuck on his face. All his morning sleepiness dissipated in an instant.
"I'll fail, chill out," Sereia brushed a hand in his face.
"No body is failing I got a pla—"
"FUCK! AREN, YOUR PROJECT?!" San interjected as his face darkened further, crease lines making him age ten years a minute.
"I have a plan!" Aren whacked his blonde head and gestured them to follow her out of the room. "Make breakfast and I'll tell," she said as she took a seat on a sofa beside an open window.
"Yes ma'am!" Sereia saluted and got behind the kitchen counter opposite to the sofa.
"I'll do the dishes," San sighed and walked towards the sink.
They arrived a good thirty minutes early and took a seat in the absolute middle row of Professor Wallace's class, upon Aren's orders. Aren took a seat in between the duo and knocked on a thick stack of papers reading, 'Communications Project File,' with the name Aren Vincent in bold.
"I got mine made by one of dad's men," she informed, flipping through the file which looked thicker than anybody else's in the class. "I heard they got Ellen DeGeneres at gunpoint to complete it. Meh, it's not like she had anything better to do," Aren shrugged and turned to Sereia, "That's a tip for later because your parents are powerful, remember to use it well. Don't roll your eyes at me! The tip for now is that you submit this," she pressed a finger over the thin project file Sereia had printed out yesterday, "And when you're done bettering your new project, you just replace it with your old one."
"Huh?" San frowned.
Sereia felt a hint of smile enveloping her lips after listening to Aren's suggestion.
"So, you mean, I submit a decoy for now and when I'm done with the new one I merely," she stopped speaking and used her hands instead. She knocked her index and middle finger on her desk in a show of a person walking, then she held onto two imaginary door knobs and acted to open an imaginary door where she made a show of peaking her head inside then carefully picking up one file from her left hand and replacing it with a file in her right hand.
Aren clapped at the theatrics as San banged a fist on his desk in protest.
"No, what the fuck! You cannot ste—"
Aren slapped a hand over San's mouth as a group of students walked inside. They paused to look at the trio awkwardly sitting in the middle of an empty classroom before taking the seats in front and continued their yammering.
Incapable of words, San used his glassy green eyes to glare at his friends instead. His blonde brows merged into a displeased frown and button nose flared up with unsaid words exiting his system through harsh exhales. San decided to give his friends the 'silent treatment' on occasion of committing deception not once, but twice, within the past twenty-four hours. He could get behind the ambiguity of 'Did they save a person or actually kidnap him?' but the two-fold model of conning their professor as if he were a middle schooler was where San drew the line. He'd rather be in jail than fail Communications 101, for heaven's sake.
"By the way," Sereia began as students began pooling inside, "Did someone die last night?" she asked, feigning nonchalance, as she twirled a raven strand of hair.
"No, heck," Aren chuckled, "Didn't you know they were fake guns?" she questioned with wide eyes as if every child had been given mandatory gun education but Sereia somehow missed it because she was a dweeb.
"…I did not?" Sereia scoffed, "How was I supposed to know? My parents aren—oh fuck!" Sereia reached out for Aren's head and ducked it on the table to gain San's attention, "Dude, my parents! I did not go home last night! They will kill me! With a real gun!" she wailed in exasperation.
"All well-deserved," San scrunched his nose and rolled his eyes.
Aren forced her head up and uttered, "Such kindness you folks give me."
Sereia brought her limbs back to herself and slouched until Professor Wallace walked in. Her parents allowed her to own a dorm only if she returned home every night, inarguably, and after a year of persistence Sereia finally failed to deliver. She might as well find a cliff high enough to jump off now that she was so courageous.
"Pass your projects to the person in front of you, Good Morning to all who are submitting," Professor Wallace beamed at the full attendance. "Good that all of you are here. Professor Mildred has a handful missing, poor her. I am so proud of each and every one of you who is here today," he raised his hands to honour his students with slow claps.
A happy Professor Wallace led to a happy day because each and every student in their class knew that a displeased Professor Wallace was a one-way trip down to hell.
Sereia remembered the first assignment submission they had with Professor Wallace.
The class had been half empty and a handful of present students were also begging for extensions. Professor Mildred found the moment opportune enough to walk past the class without saying anything but three, "Tsk Tsk Tsk,"s which had been fuelling Professor Wallace for the rest of the year. He threatened to flunk the whole class even if a single soul was absent without permission; he hunted down the problem kids and allegedly beat them up for doing drugs instead of Communicating; he planned elaborate class activities and excursions to earn a higher enrolment rate than Computer Science and English Literature combined.
Skipping his class meant making enemies with almost half of Quinton Hill University and no one wanted that. Surprisingly though, Professor Wallace was popular enough to not be reported for undertaking such extreme methods of dispensing education.
Sereia was passed a pile of projects and she slotted hers on top of it before passing the pile to the girl in front. After a moment of hustle and bustle the class fell into silence again.
"You may begin presenting now, Adelaide Ambrose, please attach your presentation to the projector," Professor Wallace gestured the girl to come forward, "And while she does that, there are a few announcements. Those who are lacking in credits, please stand up."