Mind Reader - β

Chapter 15 - New Day

I woke up with a start, breathing hard. I could still feel and hear the many ways I perished in my nightmares. With so many lethal people in class, there were way too many different manners for me to meet my end, each more original than the last. My body was drenched in cold sweat and felt very unpleasant.

After calming down a little, I scanned the apartment to find out that everyone else was sleeping. Checking the time, it was still 5 a.m. I wanted to take a shower and clean the sweat but knew that it was a bad idea. Not only passing through the living room right now would be prone to misunderstandings, but basic communal lives in apartments also dictated that waking the whole family by having a shower so early in the morning wasn't the best way to begin a pleasant day.

I had no choice but to wait until later. I passed the time by idly playing on my phone. Around one hour and a half later, the rest of the household woke up one by one. I exited my room to check on Aginaci. Her long hair was a mess and she looked sleepy. Still, her expression was a lot more relaxed than yesterday.

"Did you sleep well?"

"Yes. It was very warm and comfortable."

("Is it how the lords sleep? And it wasn't even a normal bed.")

She eyed my bed from the door's opening.

"That's good."

I smiled and went to the bathroom to take another shower since the sweat felt gross.

("He's bathing two times per day? How extravagant. I was lucky when I could find enough clean water to rub myself clean every other day. I need to learn more about what's normal here.")

This made me stop and turn back to her.

"We still have some time before we need to go to school. Let me boot the computer for you."

She nodded happily and I headed back to the bathroom when she was settled. After I was done a few minutes later, I had to ask her to leave the room for a moment while I put on some clothes.

("He doesn't like his body to be seen? How strange.")

Some more time after this, Elodie rushed into my room. She remembered me throwing her out the previous day and had a vengeful expression on but came to a stop when she saw Aginaci.

"Oh my gosh, your hair! You can't go to school like this! Come, I'll brush it for you."

She took her without even considering she could receive a no. After that, I could hear them in my sister's room, with her commenting about Aginaci.

"Your hair is too dry! What conditioner do you use? You must take better care of it."

"You're too skinny! Are you even eating correctly? You need some more flesh on your bones to emphasize your forms."

"Your skin is too rough! What moisturizer are you using?"

"This is terrible! What were you even thinking about? Sigh, come, I'll do it for you."

Instead of staying in the room, they also went to the bathroom. There, they took a shower and Elodie applied all her care products on Aginaci. The poor girl was completely helpless against my energetic sister and she barely managed to get a word out here and there through the whole process. As for my sister, she enjoyed herself quite a lot. She felt like she had gotten a sister, or perhaps a human-sized doll. Both were a lot more interesting than a brother, that was for sure.

The result wasn't bad, though. After some more hair brushing, both girls looked clean and neat. Aginaci's long hair was now straightened on her back, a little glossier than before. Even her complexion looked healthier. It was no wonder women spent fortunes on these products.

We ate breakfast with the whole family plus one guest. She enjoyed everything that entered her mouth and ended up overeating. With yesterday's food and today's breakfast, she wasn't used to eating so much. Her stomach was an organ that was ready to handle starvation at any time and wasn't used to process so much intake. The result was that she got a stomach ache after the meal. My mother gave her some medicine and she was put to rest on the sofa for a few minutes.

Fortunately, she got better soon enough. She put on some clothes from my mother while her previous attire went to the laundry. She was even handed a bag and some school supplies. We were now ready to go. It was time to try and survive one more day in the classroom of hell.

After fifteen minutes of walking, we were there. I was still very apprehensive about the place, especially because I knew the other students would be there. My only comfort was Aginaci's presence.

'I don't think I could do this without you, Aginaci. Please give me strength.'

We entered our classroom and more than half of the other residents were already present. Most of them stared at me weirdly when they recognized me.

("That's the crazy guy from yesterday. I wonder if he sensed anything about me to panic that much.")

("Oh, he's back. What's he going to show us today, I wonder.")

("Trash.")

("Did I fail to restrain my aura yesterday? Or he is more perceptive than most?")

("Did he come together with that girl?")

As expected, opinions about me varied a lot. Quite a few of them were worried that I understood something about them.

'Sorry, freaks. It's not just something. It's everything.'

Maybe I shouldn't think about them so generally, however. A few of them weren't bad people and were the ones I wanted to become friends with. I should organize them into separate categories.

'Deadly, deadly, very deadly, one shot kill, high scale danger, absolute annihilation, very deadly, deadly. Well, okay. For the current me, it's all the same. Getting on the bad side of most of these people means death. The only difference is how much of the surroundings goes away together with me.'