Chapter 98: Jack’s absence

School finally let out with the ringing of the final dismissal bell.

The entire atmosphere shifted the instant it rang.

Students eagerly packed up their belongings, pouring out of their classrooms in loud, excited clusters, their voices filling the corridors with scattered conversation and good natured complaints about the day’s lessons and tests. Some compared answers, others grumbled about particularly tricky questions, while plenty had already moved on entirely, chattering about weekend plans the second they stepped outside.

The corridors grew increasingly crowded as students streamed toward the exits.

Still, a handful of students had unfinished business left to settle first.

Rather than heading home with everyone else, they found themselves redirected straight toward detention instead.

Their expressions ranged somewhere between pure annoyance and complete exhaustion.

Several had already spent the entire day buried under tests and assignments, and now faced yet another stretch confined to a classroom under strict disciplinary watch.

The familiar, pale shape of Rakolowo’s ghost summon soon drifted into view.

The specter floated steadily around the room like some ever vigilant watchman, gliding from one side to the other, silently observing the gathered students. Its ghostly form moved without a sound through the air, occasionally hovering behind someone for several long seconds before drifting onward toward another corner.

The detention class had noticeably grown in size.

That much was obvious just from the sheer number of filled seats scattered around the room.

The combined weight of accumulated offenses from the recent stretch of tests and assignments had clearly swept another sizable batch of students into Rakolowo’s class this time around.

Mark sat among them, wearing an expression of total, resigned exhaustion.

Glancing around, he spotted Victor and Roman seated nearby.

Jack, though, was nowhere to be found.

Mark raised an eyebrow slightly at the absence.

He wondered briefly where Jack might have gone, though the thought didn’t linger too long in his mind. If Jack was simply being his usual self and had skipped today’s detention on purpose, Mark almost hoped it would tack on some extra length to his existing sentence.

That felt like exactly the kind of consequence Jack probably deserved.

Rakolowo eventually settled into position at the front of the room.

He surveyed the gathered students with his usual sleepy, almost lifeless expression before clearing his throat.

"Alright, let’s get the song going. We’re short on time today, unless you’d all rather sit here until well past dark."

A chorus of grumbled complaints immediately rippled through the room.

Rakolowo paused briefly.

"Sounds more like it’ll be you lot keeping us here that long," he muttered quietly to himself.

The students caught enough of that remark to understand their complaints weren’t exactly landing with him.

Then the familiar detention anthem kicked off.

"Detention Class is a reforming program, not a punishment, and during so, one must follow each rule there. No loitering, no side talks, no shouting, no blinking, no playing, no littering, no assaulting, no lying, correct answers to questions, no stealing, no fighting."

The singsong chant rang out across the classroom in a flat, bored, entirely forced tone.

Several students recited it without a shred of enthusiasm.

Others barely moved their lips at all.

Mark simply mouthed along, eyes drifting idly around the room.

The words had become familiar enough by now that he barely needed to think about them. The monotonous rhythm, paired with Rakolowo’s perpetually sleepy delivery, only made the entire room feel heavier.

Mark’s gaze drifted toward the seats where only Victor and Roman sat, Jack’s spot sitting conspicuously empty beside them.

His eyes lingered there a moment.

He figured Jack was simply being a jerk, skipping out on today’s session, and some part of him genuinely wouldn’t mind seeing extra time tacked onto Jack’s remaining sentence as a result.

After all, dodging detention shouldn’t mean dodging the actual punishment entirely.

Mark’s attention eventually drifted back toward Rakolowo.

The teacher’s slow, droning voice continued filling the room, and that familiar wave of stupor began creeping steadily back over Mark.

He couldn’t quite hold out against it.

His eyelids grew heavier.

His body sank gradually against the chair, thoughts drifting toward some comfortable, impossibly fluffy pillow capable of swallowing him whole and hiding him entirely from the world.

He wanted nothing more than to just fall asleep right there.

Unfortunately, he knew far better than to actually try that in Rakolowo’s classroom.

The ghost summon was still watching.

And the teacher himself had earned a real reputation for catching exactly the students who thought they’d slipped past his notice.

Mark forced himself to stay alert.

His eyes drifted toward Victor.

Victor sat staring fixedly at the empty seat where Jack should have been.

Somehow, Victor found himself wishing he’d actually told Jack to skip this miserable, unbearable class entirely. He almost wished he’d brought it up before the weekend had even ended.

But underneath that passing thought sat something closer to genuine concern.

He hadn’t actually seen Jack since the weekend wrapped up.

At first, Victor had simply assumed Jack was off doing his own thing, same as always. Jack had never exactly been the type who felt obligated to explain his whereabouts to anyone.

But the longer that absence stretched on, the stranger it started to feel.

Mia, apparently, had already started noticing the same thing.

Victor’s eyes stayed locked on that empty seat for several more seconds.

He wondered exactly where Jack actually was.

Whether he’d simply skipped detention outright.

Whether he was deliberately avoiding the class.

Or whether something else entirely had happened to him.

That thought quietly erased whatever relief Victor had initially felt about Jack’s absence.

Roman noticed the shift in Victor’s expression.

He raised an eyebrow before following Victor’s gaze toward the same empty seat.

For a moment, he simply stared at it.

Then it clicked.

Jack really hadn’t shown up.

His absence had been so quiet, so easy to overlook, that Roman had only just caught on.

The delayed realization struck him in a strange, unsettling way.

Earlier, he’d genuinely wished he could skip this boring class entirely himself. He’d even caught himself thinking how much easier everything would’ve been if he’d never bothered showing up at all.

But now, staring at Jack’s silent, empty seat sitting among them, that same wishful thinking felt entirely different somehow.

Roman’s expression turned faintly bitter.

He glanced back toward the empty chair once more.

Something about it genuinely bothered him.

Jack had always been the kind of person whose presence was nearly impossible to ignore for long. Even on the rare occasions he wasn’t talking, stirring up trouble, or mocking someone nearby, his presence still tended to fill up some corner of whatever room he was in.

Now there was just an empty chair.

No voice.

No laughter.

No sarcastic remarks cutting through the silence.

Nothing at all.

Detention carried on steadily around them, Rakolowo’s voice droning through the stale classroom air, the ghost summon continuing its slow, silent patrol overhead.

But for Victor and Roman, that single empty seat had become genuinely difficult to simply look past.

Mark caught sight of their expressions from across the room.

He didn’t say anything.

For once, the usual, familiar annoyance of sitting through detention wasn’t the only thing occupying anyone’s mind.

Something about Jack’s absence felt distinctly off.

And none of them had the slightest idea why, not yet.

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