Chapter 67: Let Go (Part 1)

On the way to the fields where the students gathered, Milo noticed Layla’s shoulders hanging looser than usual.

If anything, the anticipation of the final exam, with only two days left before the expedition, should have set her body as stiff as a board.

Was she... sleepy?

"Are you... sleepy?"

"..."

Since the girl didn’t answer, he lengthened his stride to take a look at her face. Her eyes tilted toward the ground, lips resting in a line that was neither a smile nor a frown.

Anyone showing up tired had already lost. Sleepy was arguably worse!

Milo hopped forward and placed his foot in her way.

"Watch your step!"

"Wha—?"

Her shin collided with his, pink coils thrown forward. At last, her eyes spiked awake.

With Friday’s martial arts manual as his guide, he seized her wrist and pulled himself closer.

"Page twenty," he exclaimed. "Watch your wrists, too!"

Reacting way faster than he had expected, Layla ducked low and turned her smaller size into leverage beneath his arm.

"You made the one mistake it warned you against!"

The sky swung under his shoes.

Because the flower he meant to give her occupied his left pocket, he rolled his shoulder to the right and struck the grass.

Whump!

"Gosh," Layla said. "You went over like a coat."

"That’s the manual’s counter working."

"That’s you weighing nothing. I’ve been feeding you for a week..." She pushed the coils out of her face, eyes settling on the arm he had tucked against his chest. "You landed funny, though. Picture had you on the left."

Any honest answer led to his pocket, so Milo snuck a leg behind her heels.

"Well... in the picture, it was also game over for me!"

He swept her feet out and pulled his torso up, swinging her down to the grass in his place.

Riding his momentum back onto her feet, the girl dashed out of his reach.

"Okay, pause!" she gasped. "We need to get to—"

His palms had seized her wrists all over again.

"Sleepy is something I can fix!"

By the third fall, they had spectators.

While he succeeded in not crushing the flower’s pocket under his own body, it cost him every exchange. A friendly spar, as he had first imagined it, should’ve also kept the manual shut past page twenty!

Previously, the boy who got his shoes stolen by a girl had been a risk. Now, the boy she folds on the way to the Field exam was happening one fall at a time, in front of people who would likely compete against him next.

"Again," she said, bouncing on her toes.

"We’ll be late."

"You started this!"

Her hand closed on his sleeve. Milo hooked an arm around her waist, but she turned her hip in rather than out.

They stumbled down together.

"Uaaah!"

She landed on him laughing, an elbow in his stomach and her hair in his mouth.

"That was not in the book at all!"

"There are many books out there."

SCREEEEEECH!

The whistle shrieked ahead.

This time, it was Henry who had his arm high up.

Every other student had taken a seat at the white line. Since there was no clear division by class, the pair joined the row from the side.

"Welcome, everyone," the man began. "Instructor Cald is running late, so I will be supervising the first section of this examination."

Next to him, the instructor in the blue sweatband who had taken the students’ times on Thursday stretched his legs before exchanging a nod and jogging off into the field.

"First, all of you will participate in a run," Henry continued. "But you will be doing so on all fours. It w—"

"On all fours?!"

The field fell silent after Maigh’s shout.

"What the hell’s that supposed to examine?"

Mutters and nods spread among the students.

Considering how harsh Grace had been about disruptions during the Studies exam, Milo could wish Maigh no more than plain luck.

After all, how the students did was up to them. Lack of compliance, lack of points. That simple.

Milo had no points to spare. With a geography section beyond saving and two omens scratched out of the dirt, today was his last chance to steer himself away from a clerk’s desk.

Would he end up that much worse than Layla? She had dug up seven. If the scores split them too far apart, Sunday’s lists would send her out with one group and him with whichever collected the leftovers.

In the meantime, the girl fished out an elastic band and swept her hair back into one ponytail.

"This run will stretch over the first kilometer toward the Turning land," Henry said. "After you reach the finish line, you are free to stand up and continue to the middle on foot."

"Meaningless," Maigh barked. "You guys think we’re some sort of dogs?"

"Any attempt at sabotage will be penalized. Any attempt to pull ahead by standing up or running will also be penalized."

"I’m talking to you, Instructor!"

"ON YOUR MARKS!"

The man did not seem to have any more patience stored.

The rebellion froze, and the whole row sank onto hands and knees, prepared to mimic a dog just to win. In the end, no one here really cared how it looked.

For Milo, this kind of competition at least meant he wouldn’t be injuring his toes a second time. Survey’s two-kilometer run had already done that to him, and the pain the gravel put him through had never paid off.

So why were his shoes still rattling with pebbles?

He gritted his teeth.

"Get set!"

Eventually, he had to dump the stones somewhere. As Cald had taught him, however, danger could come at any time, whether he expected it or not.

Some might call it paranoia. Precautions was the more accurate word.

SCREEEECH!

Dry stalks bit into his palms from the first reach, the same sting his feet had learned on the day Layla took his shoes.

Knees and elbows surged past on both sides. For all their muttering, plenty of students made convincing dogs, and the view ahead soon consisted of shoe soles flashing up at him in pairs.

Layla’s ponytail was nowhere in it. The pink had dropped out of the corner of his eye within the first few lunges and had not come back.

The grass thinned.

Where the turf broke into rougher patches, the leaders churned it into a dust that drifted back down the line.

Coff!

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⋆˚࿔ Coming right up: "Let Go (Part 2: Finale)" ... ⤵︎ [!]