Chapter 95: School’s Construct

During class, right after the first teaching period wrapped up, Mark sipped loudly from a Gammy smoothie can, the kind of exaggerated, hollow slurping sound unmistakably associated with a drink running on empty.

A merry, satisfied expression sat fixed across his face as he kept pulling at whatever remained trickling through the straw. The can had already tilted considerably in his grip, and the faint, bubbling sputter rising from its bottom made it painfully obvious there was barely anything left inside. Still, Mark seemed thoroughly determined to wring out every last drop rather than admit his drink had officially run its course.

The repeated sucking sound pulled the attention of a few nearby students who weren’t already caught up in side conversations, Hermione most of all, seated directly beside him. She raised an eyebrow at his behavior, clearly trying her best to tolerate the noise, though her patience finally snapped. In one quick motion, she snatched the can right out of his hand, holding it well out of his reach.

"Don’t worry, we’ll grab more during break after class. You’re distracting both my work and half the people sitting around us, acting like some whiny toddler," she said, gesturing toward her open textbook before glancing meaningfully at a cluster of students seated in the third column beside their row. Several of them shot Mark sharp, visibly annoyed looks, clearly irritated by the repeated noise that had already derailed their concentration more than once.

Mark let out a light sigh, scratching the back of his head.

"Yeah, sorry, I just couldn’t help myself with this one. Honestly, the single greatest drink on the planet. Have you even tried one yet? Seriously, you need to, then you’ll finally get it."

Hermione dropped the empty smoothie can beneath Mark’s desk before shrugging lightly. She glanced briefly down at the textbook open in front of her before meeting his eyes again.

"I actually did try one recently, for the record. It’s genuinely good, moderate sweetness, a nice natural tang, solid flavor coming through from the Gammy fruit itself," she said with a touch of pride.

Mark gave her a long, lingering look.

"Wait, are you seriously just listing off the ingredients again? What is this, some kind of homework assignment? Come on, there’s something way deeper going on here than just the base materials. There’s an actual recipe behind it, something that makes the whole thing feel genuinely magical whenever you drink it."

He spoke as though revealing some closely guarded secret about the drink, rather than casually chatting about a fruit smoothie. The sheer conviction in his voice left Hermione staring at him for a beat longer than she probably meant to.

"Is this seriously coming from that kids’ show, the one about the magic chef who cooks up dishes with secret core recipes that make every child’s dream feel magical and surreal?" Hermione scoffed, clearly skeptical. "And for the record, I’m not a dude, dweeb."

"Guess that makes you a doofus, then," Mark said with a crooked, satisfied smile.

Hermione only rolled her eyes before turning her full attention back to her textbook. She rested one hand beside the open page and resumed reading, apparently deciding that defending the mysterious, supposedly magical qualities of Gammy smoothies simply wasn’t worth sacrificing what little study time she had left before class resumed.

The classroom gradually settled into that familiar mix of quiet study and low murmured conversation. A handful of students were already laying out materials for the upcoming test, while others still lingered on discussion from the earlier lesson. Pages turned softly throughout the room, pens scratched steadily across paper, and chairs occasionally scraped the floor whenever someone shifted position.

Right then, Olivia stepped into the classroom and made her way straight to the lectern, pausing briefly to smooth down her skirt. A boy in the front row leaned toward his neighbor, whispering under his breath.

"What’s the deal with her always tugging her skirt down like that? If it bugs her so much, she could just get a different one."

The girl beside him shot him a sharp, scowling look before hissing quietly in response.

"None of your business, you freaking pervert. Don’t make me rat you out this early in the morning."

That warning was enough to make the boy straighten up instantly, facing forward with a slightly chastened expression. Though he still shot her one more disapproving glance, he wisely decided not to push the conversation any further. The girl turned her attention back toward the front of the room, acting as though the exchange had never happened at all.

Olivia adjusted her outfit one final time before turning to address the class directly.

"May I have everyone’s attention, please!"

Her voice cut sharply through the remaining chatter, instantly quieting the scattered conversations around the room. Students still whispering fell silent almost immediately, while others closed whatever unrelated books they’d been flipping through, redirecting their full attention toward Olivia.

"We were originally scheduled to begin with a formal attendance call, as instructed directly by the headmaster’s office ahead of this week’s testing period, but that’s being pushed to tomorrow instead, due to time constraints today."

The moment she said that, Victor shot a quick glance toward Jack’s conspicuously empty seat, letting out a relieved sigh.

The sight of that empty chair served as a small, welcome reminder that, at least for today, one reliable source of chaos wasn’t around to complicate things further. He leaned back slightly, allowing himself a brief moment of relief before refocusing on Olivia up front.

Mia walked into the classroom right around then, heading straight for her seat beside Victor without saying a single word. Her expression didn’t quite match her usual demeanor. Something about it read subtly different, more restrained, harder to read than normal, enough to leave Victor briefly curious.

He glanced her way for a moment.

Still, he decided against asking anything.

None of the other students seemed to pay her late arrival any real mind either, Olivia included, who didn’t so much as glance her way while continuing to address the class. The entire atmosphere carried on smoothly, almost as though Mia had walked in right on time. 𝑓𝑟ℯℴ𝓂

Mark’s eyes, though, swept carefully across the room with a hard, calculating focus as his mind quietly processed everything unfolding around him.

He clocked the empty seat, Mia’s late entrance, Olivia’s complete lack of reaction, the total absence of any reprimand whatsoever. None of those individual details seemed particularly significant on their own, but stacked together, they confirmed something he’d already quietly suspected for a while now.

Mark understood this pattern all too well by now.

The school loved claiming it operated under consistent fairness and equal treatment across its entire student body, yet that clearly wasn’t holding true here. If the situation had involved literally anyone else, especially someone like him, things would almost certainly have played out very differently.

There would likely have been an ugly confrontation, extra detention tacked on, or some fresh mark added to his already growing disciplinary record.

He knew that firsthand, from direct experience.

For someone in his position, simple lateness alone could easily get twisted into a clear violation of school rules. Teachers had a way of turning an innocent mistake into supposed evidence of some larger, ongoing pattern of misconduct. And yet, right here, right now, that exact same standard apparently didn’t apply to certain students, the ones who somehow seemed functionally immune to even minor rule breaking or classroom infractions.

This was precisely the part of the school Mark genuinely despised.

It was also something he’d repeatedly tried raising whenever the opportunity presented itself. He’d even gone so far as to drop multiple written reports directly into the school’s suggestion box, hoping someone in actual authority might eventually notice and properly investigate the clear unfairness he believed was quietly playing out.

Yet nothing ever seemed to change.

No visible response.

No clear follow up.

No real sign anyone in charge had even bothered taking his complaints seriously in the first place.

That realization irritated him more than he cared to openly admit.

He stared toward the front of the classroom for a long moment, his expression settling into something considerably more serious.

This was simply how things operated around here, apparently.

If that was genuinely the institution’s intended approach, then Mark had absolutely no interest in blindly following along with whatever hollow, selectively applied version of equality and justice the school claimed to uphold on paper. If fairness only existed as official policy, applied inconsistently whenever convenient, then he’d rather carve out his own path entirely than keep placing his trust in a system that clearly didn’t deserve it.