Marionette Omakes (NOT FOR NEW READERS)

Supplement Chapter #1.3 - Astonish

With the exception of the usually mute Rat-kun, every other classmate of Karma's were obnoxiously loud, chattering brightly about what they got for Christmas, their first trip to the temple for the new year, amongst other things that just bored him half to death.

Even with his parents home, they didn't do anything like that at all.

'Good morning everyone!' Their homeroom teacher greeted as she walked in brightly just after the chime for start of first period. 'Have you all had a wonderful two weeks break? Did you get what you wanted from Santa this year?'

Karma scoffed distastefully at the woman's excessive amount of cheer as he dropped himself into his seat behind Rat-kun.

He planned to prank her later in order to wipe that excessive cheer right off her face, and spent the whole time the woman was taking attendance planning what she was going to do.

'Good, everyone is here.' The woman announced as she tucked attendance away, a painfully bright smile across her face. 'First of all, this coming Friday we, along with classes B and C are going on a field trip to the Aquarium.'

The aquarium, huh?

Karma turned his gaze upon the snowy cityscape outside as he tuned out the energetic woman proceeding to hand out papers.

In truth going to the aquarium didn't interest him in the slightest for a class trip.

It was boring, and he'd already been last year.

'We will be going to look at all of the ocean life from around the world, and you will be dividing into groups to make posters.' The teacher explained as she finished handing out papers to everyone in class, a particular spring in her step as she moved back to the classroom. 'So, since our class has thirty students exactly, I would like you to divide into groups of three to work on this project together.'

Immediately, the bulk of his classmates obeyed without hesitation, rising to their feet to go and approach their friends within the classroom.

And all the while, Karma just stared out the window, though he did notice that Rat-kun made no movement, either.

She just sat without movement, just as she always did.

And so, after a few minutes the groups had been decided, more or less. He and Rat-kun were assigned in the same group, just like every other group project that took place ever since she'd transferred in, and their third person was one of the boys from class, one who was more friends with students from class B, if Karma recalled correctly.

The only name Karma knew the kid by was Ito, nothing else.

Needless to say, Ito wasn't pleased to be grouped up with Karma and the unresponsive Rat-kun, though he didn't argue the grouping, either.

Classes were tailored to this stupid field trip coming up from then on, everything from different fish, sharks, whales, even coral and certain ocean plants. And all the while, Karma planned how he was going to torment this obnoxiously cheerful woman into being a bit more reasonable with her energy.

There were a few times that he'd thought he'd caught the smallest hints of movement from Rat-kun, though he did nothing more than glance at her. When he'd look at her, it felt very much like he'd imagined the tiny glimpse of movement out of the ordinary, though he did notice something else from the little he could see of her face.

If it was even possible, Rat-kun actually looked a little pale – The thought in itself was rather ironic considering her complexion have her blend in with snow.

And so, the days leading up to the field trip wore away with little notice.

He'd pranked that teacher by putting covering the underside of her desk with honey the very second day, earning him relief from her painfully enthusiastic attitude for at least one day.