Chapter 8
Ashford Hostel, Tuesday 9:30 PM
After the evening devotion, Lucas, Edwin, Daniel, Marvin, and David could be seen chatting in David's corner, which was also Liam's corner since both of them were bunkmates.
"Don't you get tired of lying!" Lucas said to Daniel, causing everyone present to laugh.
Daniel had just said something about his father leaping over a parked SUV when he was running. The lie was so unbelievable that it was even funny.
"You're the same person who still said your father is Denzel's lawyer!" Marvin said, causing Daniel to quickly deny.
"No, it was David who said that, not me!"
"I swear, out of both of you, I can't even tell who's the worst liar!" Marvin said while locking the window since the cold was getting too much.
Just then, someone stood in front of the corner, hesitating to speak up.
"Who's that?" Lucas was the first to spot the person, but it was too dark to see their face.
"It's me, Mason!" the person said with a low voice, still standing outside the corner.
"So what happened? Do you see your mate here?" Edwin asked, visibly running out of patience.
"Sorry, please, where is Senior Liam?" Mason asked with a low voice. He still didn't understand why the question was bothering him so much.
"Why are you asking? Who's looking for him?" Lucas asked, refusing to answer a random question from a junior.
"No, it's just… I haven't seen him since yesterday, and I just thought I should ask," Mason replied.
This time, it was obvious the seniors were quite confused about his interest in Liam's whereabouts.
"Wait, what the fuck is that question about? Is Liam the only person you haven't seen since yesterday? Or do you want to report something to him? He's not the one acting for HP—it's Edwin and Desmond!" Marvin said.
It seemed some people were still misunderstanding the fact that Liam had been acting for the house prefect.
"What happened? What do you want to report?" Edwin asked.
Mason simply shook his head, saying he didn't want to report anything. He quickly lied to escape the situation, as he knew it would be weird to continue like that.
"No, he asked me to give him something before, and I haven't seen him, so I wanted to give it to him," Mason said.
Daniel immediately stood up from David's locker and walked toward Mason.
"What is it?" Daniel asked, speculating it could be provision or money.
"It's provision!" Mason lied again.
Lucas couldn't help but laugh. "You, of all people—you came by yourself to come and give somebody something with your own initiative? You stingy bastard!" Lucas said the last part as a playful taunt, but it carried the full weight of what he wanted to say.
"No, I promised him, that's why!" Mason replied.
This time, David answered his first question. "My bunkmate went home, so give me what you wanted to give him!"
The rest of them laughed, as they knew he wanted to take it for himself.
"Senior please I cannot, I'll give it to him when he comes back," Mason said. He had only said that as a lie—it wasn't necessarily true.
"Wait, where are you going? So you have provision? Go and bring something for us!" Daniel said.
Marvin immediately interrupted. "Leave him, let him go. His provisions are likely with his brother anyway. Besides, he's going to give the excuse that it's his last things he wanted to give to Liam!" Marvin said, waving Mason off.
"Thank you, senior!" Mason said, turning back to leave.
Meanwhile, Lucas started to laugh a low laugh. "I swear, I didn't want to say anything when a junior student was here, but I swear, when Marvin was talking, at least one liter of his spit entered my face!"
Lucas said this, causing the rest of them to burst into laughter—even holding their ribs in pain.
It was one of Marvin's weak points, especially when it came to a roasting battle between him and someone. He had rather big lips, and maybe because of that, sometimes a few droplets of spit escaped his mouth. That was one of the things he was obviously taunted with.
"Funny beast!" Marvin said, trying to emphasize that his joke wasn't funny.
"What the fuck—another one!" Lucas said, wiping his face and indicating that when Marvin said "funny beast," another wave of spit splash had fallen on him.
"Aqua Man!" Daniel said, while the rest of them laughed—well, except Marvin.
"That's right! He actually said his name meant 'friend of the seas.' Perhaps it's his superpower!" David said from his upper bunk, bursting into laughter.
To be honest, if one listened closely under the laughter of those present, they could hear several junior students laughing from their own beds.
"Out of everyone here, you know that you're the one most likely to cry if you're being teased, and yet you'll still want to contribute—with your broken teeth!" Marvin said.
Everybody said in unison: "Not funny!"
"Don't anger him before he floods this hostel with his spit!" Lucas said, causing the rest of them to laugh uncontrollably.
Even Daniel had mistakenly hit his head on the iron frame of the bunk due to laughing, making it even funnier.
At that moment, Marvin was visibly boiling to the point he was even stuttering when trying to roast back.
"The day I realized he truly had big lips was when he was drinking water from a cup. Like, what the fuck—his lips were covering the entire cup!" Daniel said, this time adding a lie.
Marvin stood up to leave.
"Y'all be annoying someone. You think it's funny!" Marvin said, attempting to leave while still trying to find his slippers.
"What are you trying to say? Don't you tease people? It's part of life, bro. Today is just not your lucky day!" David said.
Daniel added, "Swim away! Actually, you might sink—you know you're fat!"
"I swear, Marvin always leaves the hostel every night, and when I spied on him, he was freaking swimming inside the gutter—from hill to valley! Son of the seas!" Lucas lied, hailing him at the end.
But at this point, Marvin had already left.
Everyone present continued to taunt him and laugh uncontrollably for like five minutes.
"I think we should end here. It's almost lights out, and if Senior Joseph sees us making noise by this time, he might be angry!" Edwin said.
After all, he was acting for the post of house prefect, so it was only natural he'd be the one to voice it out.
"But come to think of it, Lucas, you're a bitch, you know that? I'm sure you lied at the beginning. You're the one that started this chaos!" Daniel added with a choking laugh.
"I started it, Did I ask you to follow? Besides, it's Mason you should blame. If not for him, perhaps we would have still been talking about Daniel and David—who's the worst liar!"