I simply smile, and Emmie also doesn't linger on the topic.
"Many missed you at the club too. Def-Art, I mean."
I am not surprised, but I raise an eyebrow and smile teasingly.
"Elijah too?"
Emmie can't help but pause despite her happy momentum. Her smile freezes, then her lips twitches and she turns away with a pout that almost looked like a scowl.
"Pfft!"
I hold back my laughter, by this is indeed the closest I have come to having a chest clear from any gloom and depression in the last weeks. Emmie turns back to glare at me, then looks away with a snort that seems to assure me that she won't talk to me anymore.
I let out another muffled laughter, then work to restrain myself and placate her. Letting go of her hand, I bring mine to the side of her abdomen and softly tickle her with a smile.
"Alright, I won't talk about him anymore, even though you are the one who brought him up first. Come on, don't be upset. If you keep pouting like that, you might just touch the board with your lips."
"Pfft!"
Emmie's mask of anger broke, and she stifles a laughter, before she glares at me.
"Even though I am not as good as you in biology, you can't fool me. Moreover, I brought up Elijah months ago, how can you hold onto that grudge until now? You are being so petty!"
My smile uncontrollably grows wider, ignoring the waves filled with curiosity raised by our interactions that has that subtle feeling beyond simple friendship. Some transform into surprised realization, then understanding, sighs, disgust, or disdain, amidst other less noticeable reactions.
However, after everything that happened, I only pause slightly, then pretend nothing worth it intruded my mind. I smile at Emmie and speak:
"I intend to join a club too, this term."
"Oh?"
Emmie immediately loses the drive to continue being upset, and looks at me.
"What club do you want to join? Do you want to join a team too?"
The teams the school has for participating in competitions have their members selected from the clubs, though the time spent in the club doesn't matter, only the skill level, and the dedication.
I have already thought about those questions, so I open my mouth with a smile:
"I…"
"Good morning, class!"
The teacher comes in like a gust of wind, and his bright and energetic voice silences the racket inside the classroom.
I stops speaking too, and glances up at the history teacher. The latter is so sprite that the holidays can be concluded to have obviously been quite enjoyable. The happy glow makes me envious for a moment. Usually, shouldn't it be us youngsters who enjoyed the vacations more while the adults barely manage to get some leisure and come out just a little less tired and depressed by life?
But now things seem to have been reversed. I glance at Emmie, let out a smile, then stop entertaining superfluous thoughts.
"Open your textbooks, everyone. I won't ask how you are taking the restart of the classes, and I won't ask you to look forward to the boring history lesson you are about to start the term with. However, you will still have to go through with it with me, so, let's try to channel some positive energy, alright?"
I smile. I actually quite like this teacher. Unlike the chemistry one from some time ago, I can feel the love for history that is left unhidden, and the enthusiasm not only during the classes, but even the thoughts that fly out along with the informative words.
I close my extracurricular book and take out the history book, an action Emmie also does, with a silent grumble that shows less love for the history class than me.
"Now, before we went our separate ways last term, we talked about the last war, and how the present division of the world came about. But as I already told you at the start of the year, we will not continue with that topic, but will instead go back in time, even further back than the last global war. And we will be talking about something else, another war too."
Pausing for a moment for the words to linger, the class goes on, now in a silent and more focused environment. Maybe it is the smiling but solemn tone, maybe it is the subject itself, sure to be tragic, but still, intense and soul-stirring.
"War… This is something that has always characterized our civilization. I can't say it has always characterized our planet, because before humans, before civilization, civilizations, fights have only been for what was needed, nothing less, but also nothing more. Not unlike humans. The theory of the dark forest, you must have heard of it, right? Even in entertainment books now, it has become quite prevalent. You might think it is bloody enough, dark enough, but I don't think it is insidious enough to cover the behavior of humans."
The room turns tense now, everyone hooked on the source of the only sound inside. And it comes again, with a meaningful smile:
"Humans were spread around the planet. We will not talk about the ultimate origin of the race, nor the way it got distributed all over the world. But even as big as the world is, it is only so big. It has never been big enough to allow everyone to live in isolation, to allow every civilization to develop on its own, without ever interacting with others. And that is what happened. The dark forest, right? Everyone is a hunter prowling around with a rifle ready, right? But that is a darkness only reserved for when the discrimination is heavy enough, when the barrier for communication is thick enough, when the threat is urgent enough, and when the desire to win, to dominate, or simply to survive, is overpowering enough, with nothing to dampen it, whether rationality, despair, or simply, weakness, sheer weakness."
A pause, then a deep smile later, the thick tension is shattered.
"Well, I'm digressing. Coming back to the subject, humans always started with curiosity. Because everyone has four limbs, everyone walks on two limbs, everyone has ten fingers above and the same number below. Because, at the end of the day, everyone looked human. So, curiosity, at first, but not peace. Never peace."
The just resolved tension comes back with the low, dramatic voice. And I'm feeling it too.
**** *** ****
A/N: Hi, everyone!
We are in the second Volume of the book already. I have planned to end the early stage of Max's life soon, of course, not too soon, and not without some explosion. I have not planned an university life for the story, but a life after that, unless you have some ideas, some comments, for which I am all ears for them.
And that is also why I am writing this, to get feedbacks. That is not only the source of my motivation to keep writing, even though sometimes I get too busy or I lose the spark of inspiration, but also, it is a source of valuable mirrors to bounce back some ideas, to understand how you see the story, how you like it, and how you would like it. After all, I can't be the only one to enjoy it, can I?
So, don't hesitate to leave some reviews, whether praises or 'CONSTRUCTIVE' critics. Leave comments, like the book, collect it and all. The better the data, the more beautiful it is, and the more beautiful it is, the happier and more motivated I will be.
And finally, don't hesitate to reach out to me on discord. I think I left that link in the synopsis. If I didn't, leave a comment and I will rectify the mistake.
At last, try my other books, if not the ones you feel are too slow in updating, then at least those I have finished. I think I did a not so bad job with them and you might take a liking.
See you there!!!