The Presents

"you weren't dating before?" people asked us.

"Well, it just wasn't official," Rose said confidently. She was more open now than half an hour ago.

"so, which one of you confessed first?" someone asked. {Wait, none of us did.}

We both looked at each other, looking for answers. {alright, I'll handle this}

"I asked her out," I answered. it wasn't a lie at least.

"We all saw you do that." Tom interrupted, "I want to know who confessed first." {asshole}

"I think we should leave that matter, for their privacy." It was the same guy I had insulted a few days ago. {sorry for that day man, I'll buy you something as an apology.}

"Yeah, come to think of it, I wanted to ask you the same question." Tom redirected his question. Before I could hear his answer, Rose pulled me out from the crowd. We headed to the terrace with no stops, to avoid people. She held the bed from the gift shop with one hand and me with the other. After coming to a stop, she pulled out a box from the bag and threw it at me.

"Are you gonna put this on, or should I do it myself?" she asked.

I opened the box, and it had the locket I had bought for her. When I held it in my hand, Rose moved her hair to the side. as I was putting on the necklace, I felt a huge urge. After I let go of the necklace, I just hugged her from behind.

"I really love you." words slowly poured out of my mouth, all while Rose was trying to figure out what was happening.

"Why are you saying this now?" she asked, comparatively calmer than usual.

"cause I felt like it." I let go of her, and she turned to me. Now that I could see her face, I suddenly felt my face get red.

"Now, my turn." she showed a bracelet, "give me your arm." She put it on my arm, and then stood beside me. We silently looked at the night sky, the light breeze felt soothing. I heard a noise, it seemed like someone was dragging their feet.

"shut up. let them be." I heard a faint voice, it was coming from the direction of the staircase. I looked at Rose, she had heard them as well, and she had something in her mind. she pulled my arm down, and whispered into my ear, "Stay like this for a few seconds." She stayed like that for two seconds, then jumped back a little, smiling widely.

As confused as I was, I got the rough idea after hearing a few muffled shrieks. {so that's what she was telling me to do?} I estimated that our faces must not be clear from the place the crowd was gathered.

I touched my face and looked at Rose. "It would be better if it was on the lips, you know," I said loudly and gave her a wink. she caught on, and slowly approached me.

"Alright, this is enough." Robert came through the door. "time to go back to your rooms. separate rooms." she said.

At this point, Rose started giggling. She gave me a high-five and we left to get dinner. Tom and Sarah joined us and we kind of laughed all the way to our rooms.

"good night." rose said as we parted ways to our rooms.

I took a shower and sat down to eat dinner. As I was finishing up, my phone rang. I picked it up, "hello, ray here."

"WHAT THE HELL RAY!?" a familiar voice echoed out of the phone.

***

"How did you manage to stay so calm?" Sarah asked Rose, after they parted ways with Ray and Tom, they were on the way to their rooms. Rose was quiet the entire time they had dinner together.

"See you tomorrow," Sarah said as she was leaving Rose's room. After locking the door of her room, Rose collapsed in her bed. The day was tiring for her, many things were going through her head.

"He took away my chance to say it." she mumbled with her face stuffed on the pillow. When the classmates asked who confessed first, she wanted it to be herself. she felt both jealousy and a sense of relief from all the things that happened today. unbeknownst to her, Ray also felt the same way.

***

"yeah yeah, whatever. I am coming back tomorrow anyway, we'll talk when I get there." I put down the phone and sorted all the trash. today was exhausting, so much happened.

The next morning, I went to exercise. The sky was clouded, there was just light but no sun. {too bad, I wanted to see the sunrise.} Soon after I started working out, it started raining, so I rushed down as fast as I could. When I reached my room, Tom came out of his. He looked too sleepy to be walking out of the room.

"Morning tom." I greeted him.

"what?" He forced his eyes open. "Ray? what time is it?" he worked out a sentence through a yawn.

"around seven. Did you sleep well? you look like shit."

"kinda." he yawned again. I had to force myself not to yawn. "I need to shower, see you in ten minutes." he said and closed his door.

I took a shower and went down to get breakfast after packing my bag. It was getting cold, so I took out my hoodie and trousers. We were free to wear anything today, as the bus was arriving before noon.

***

It was raining when Rose got out of her room. Last night, she and Sarah were up late and chatting. She did get enough sleep but still felt tired. She wondered if the things that happened yesterday were going to change anything. heading to the common room, she met up with Sarah and went with her to get breakfast. They saw Ray while searching for tables. He was with Tom, who was sleeping on the table.

***

"Hey, Ray." Rose greeted me. She and Sarah arrived while I was trying to keep Tom awake.

"Morning, have a seat." I said as I shook Tom to wake him up.

"man, I can't feel enough energy to do anything. let me sleep." Tom complained. His food was on the table, but he wasn't even trying to look at it.

"did you not get enough sleep?" Rose asked him.

"Ask Sarah, she and I were talking last night." he dozed off again. This time, instead of waking him up, I looked at Sarah.

***

Ray was looking at Sarah as if asking her to explain. I kept her up late yesterday, but she even talked with tom after that. {should I tell him?} I looked at Sarah, her eyes asking me for help. I decided to tell him at least the basics.

"Ray, lend me your ear. I need to tell you something." I pulled him closer.

***

As Rose pulled away, I saw Sarah looking at us awkwardly. The news was surprising and I had a lot of questions to ask her, but now was not the time.

"Hey, wake up." I shook Tom, "your food is getting cold."

Tom slowly ate whatever he had without opening his eyes. He slowly got enough energy as he ate. "What time is it?" he asked.

"It's nine-thirty."

Most of our class was gathered in the common room, eating and talking. We were told not to leave the hotel today, as we were scheduled to leave early. Robert got here around ten. Tom looked at Robert, they had eye contact for a solid ten seconds before Tom smiled at Robert. that smile reminded me of Rita. It was the same kind of smile that Rita gave me when I was talking about roses.

"Did something happen between Robert and you?" I asked Tom.

"Yeah, kinda. last night," he leaned in and we followed, "I saw uncle rob getting out of isabella's room. I didn't think much of it, but he made it into a big deal. I think he wants me to keep quiet about it. After I am done talking, just look at him and smile."

I turned to Robert and tried to imitate Rita's smile. as I saw his face get twisted, I got an idea of how Rita must have felt. {this feels good.}

"I think that is enough." Rose blocked my vision. "Let him be, focus on your food."

"I don't wanna eat. feed it to me."

"oh god, I wake up, and the first thing I see is these two flirting," Tom commented.

"shut up. you-" I was stopped by rose, who stuffed bread in my mouth. I kept quiet and continued eating.

"Sarah, Rose, Ray, and Tom," Isabella called us out after we had finished eating. "Come to my room, I need to ask about something." {shit}

As we silently stood there, Isabella took out a few brown paper bags and handed them to each of us. her face was straight, but our eyes seemed to wander around. Tom opened his bag without any fear, looked at the contents, and took a deep breath.

"don't worry, we are not going to tell anyone." he said with an assuring smile. "our talk is over, I think."

Isabella nodded in response. We left the room, except for Isabella of course. We had no idea about the contents of the bags, so I decided to open mine. it had a book, it had a hard leather cover with different small transparent jewels on corners and the spine.

"That looks cool." Tom looked at my book. "So you got the same one?"

"What do you mean?" Rose asked and started opening her bag, and Sarah followed the suit.

"They picked up these books for us to make us shut up. they are probably useful to us." Tom explained, pulling out his book.

We all had the same book. everything was the same, including the fact that none were opening.

"Is this some kind of joke?" I asked others.

"Nah, you just need to use mana," Tom said and touched the spine of the book. the stones started glowing yellow. it spread to the stones in the corners. Then he flipped the book open. some pages came up along with the cover, but it didn't bother tom.

"Look, these are the things I can do and how to do them." he flipped as many pages as he could, "about up to this part."

I did the same with my book. the crystals turned black, but still seemed like they were glowing, it just felt weird. When I opened the book, most pages got lumped together. it was divided into sections. {welp, that's weird.}

It was similar to Rose's book. Her book also had pages that got lumped together, but quite unlike mine, her crystals were pure white. Sarah's pages were glowing bright crimson, but the number of pages that she could open was very low.

"Guess, that's the limit," Sarah said, her eyes low.

"Hey, don't get down. This is for the things you need to learn for now. more pages will open once you complete this much." Tom tried to cheer her up.

"Guess I still have much to learn," Rose said.

"I can help you with that," I suggested it.

"stop getting so flirty every chance you get." Tom gruntled.

"That wasn't flirting." Rose exploded, "what's with you getting like this since yesterday? what if someone actually starts hitting on you?"

"as if," Tom replied, somewhat proud.

As I was trying to calm them down, Robert appeared in front of us. He looked ready to leave, while we were bickering in the hallway.

"Stop arguing and get moving. The bus will be here in ten minutes." He stopped the fight and sent us to get our bags. We then proceeded to silently board the bus. and thus our journey began.

{or so I thought}

"Kids, seems like we will be late." Robert finally said. we were stuck in traffic for a while, and it was still raining.