Alex stood at the front of the student council's office, situated at the top floor of the academy building. He had already bid farewell to Bella, who returned to her own class, as she was not a part of the student council and did not have the liberty to miss her lessons the way student council members did.
He had changed into a spare set of academy uniform and thoroughly washed his face and hair that had been drenched in food earlier. It had taken quite a lot of effort and scrubbing to clean all of the stain from his face and hair. He still felt anger bubbling inside him. He had thoroughly underestimated how bad he was looking until he saw himself in the mirror, and it was only after seeing it for himself that he finally understood why the students had been holding back their laughter so desperately when they had looked at his face. It was all because of Eldric throwing food at him, and because of that, he held a deep and burning anger toward him for all the embarrassment it had caused Alex.
With a long, steadying breath, trying to calm himself and shaking the thoughts away, Alex entered the student council office.
He was welcomed by a sight entirely unexpected for something like a student council office. Two students, both boys, were wrestling with each other in one corner of the room, snatching at each other's ties and shirt collars, making each other choke for breath while giggling uncontrollably and bouncing about on the sofa as if they had not a single care in the world.
In the opposite corner, there was a small table with chairs neatly arranged around it, at which a girl sat quietly, sipping her tea with an air of practiced calm, and beside her sat Princess Eva, who kept glancing at Alex with a look of quiet worry.
And directly in front of Alex stood Eldric and Nack, their hands clasped behind their backs, positioned before the student council president who was seated behind his desk with one leg crossed over the other, his face resting in his palm, his brow twitching slightly with every burst of noise those two boys on the sofa produced.
"Alex, stand beside Eldric and Nack," the student council president said, and the words drew Alex's attention fully toward him.
Alex nodded and moved to stand beside Eldric and Nack, though he made sure to keep enough distance between himself and them. He wanted nothing more than to smash them both across the face, but he knew he was not nearly strong enough for that, and even if he were, this was hardly the right place to act on such impulses as such he was in front of the student council.
Alex noticed that Eldric had also changed into a fresh spare uniform and had cleaned himself so thoroughly and meticulously that no one would ever believe food had been poured over his head at all. His black hair looked as though it had just come out of a warm shower, every strand sitting perfectly in place.
The president turned his gaze to the side. "Boys, stop your nonsense for a moment," he said, and the two who had been tearing at each other on the sofa immediately froze, exchanged a small shared giggle between themselves, and then, like well-trained children responding to a firm parent, turned toward the president and properly seated themselves without another word.
Alex was genuinely taken aback by such a swift and total change in their behavior. Those two boys seemed to fear the president so deeply and so completely that a single quiet order from him had been enough to settle them down without so much as a protest.
Noticing that the two boys were now looking at him with keen and curious eyes, Alex quickly turned his gaze back toward the president, who had his eyes fixed toward Alex and Eldric.
"I trust you all know the reason you have been called here," the student council president said, and moved his dark eyes slowly across Nack, then Eldric, before finally settling on Alex, which caused Alex to drop his head slightly lower without meaning to.
"Do any of you have anything to say on this matter before I present the conclusion we have arrived at?" the president said, and then waited, letting the silence stretch as he gave Alex and the others the space to speak.
Alex did not miss the opportunity. He wanted nothing more in that moment than to see Eldric and his lackey Nack punished as severely as possible, so severely that they would never again dare to even think about directing anything of the sort toward him.
"President, they were the ones who started all of this," Alex said quickly, the words coming out in a rush before Eldric or anyone else could interrupt or shut him down. "Nack choked me by the throat right there in the classroom, and Eldric brought his people with him just to bully me, and he even kicked my chair out from under me while I was sitting there peacefully, minding my own business."
Alex's voice had begun to tremble toward the end of it, the frustration he had been pressing down all this while finally cracking through the surface. He wanted to leap across the floor at Eldric and Nack right that very moment and beat them senseless, to hit them again and again without stopping until they were begging him or bleeding from their noses or both.
"Is that correct?" the president asked.
Alex nodded his head furiously.
The president moved his eyes toward Eldric and Nack, both of whom had their heads dropped down by this point, no longer meeting the president's gaze and staring instead at the floor beneath their feet.
"Eldric. Nack," the president's voice turned sharp and cold. "Tell me, is what he said true, or is Alex lying to me?"
Alex wanted badly to tell the president that he was telling the truth and that there was absolutely no reason in the world he would come here and lie, but he stopped himself, since the president was directing that particular question at Eldric and Nack and not at him. Besides that, the president's voice had shifted into something dangerous, something with the cutting quality of ice, and Alex feared that opening his mouth now would only cause things to backfire against him.
"N-no, he is ly-" Before Nack could finish the sentence, Eldric reached over and pressed his hand firmly over Nack's mouth, cutting off whatever words were forming there.
"I am asking whether this is true or false," the president said once more, and this time the desk in front of him seemed to tremble from his voice alone. Alex felt his heart begin beating faster inside his chest, and his hands, clasped tightly behind his back, had begun to sweat.
"We are sorry," Eldric said, not giving Nack a single chance to say anything further as he pulled his hand away from the other boy's mouth and offered the apology quickly, decisively, before Nack could blurt out something that would make everything worse.
"Does that mean it is true, then," the president said, and it was not entirely a question.
"We are sorry, and we will not repeat our mistakes," Eldric said again.
"I am asking you a very simple question," the president said, his voice steady and unhurried and all the more frightening for it, and even the bookshelves nearby seemed to shake under his voice. "Tell me yes or no. Did you bully Alex first, or did you not."
Eldric stood perfectly still, like a statue, and said nothing at all.
Then what could only be described as something like the weight of an entire ceiling collapsing upon them, Eldric and Nack were forced down to their knees. They dropped instantly, as though a great invisible wall had come crashing down on top of them all at once. There was no gradual resistance, no slow crumbling, it happened in a single instant, their bodies trembling visibly, their hands pressed flat against the floor and barely managing to keep their faces from kissing the stone beneath them.
"Tell me, student Eldric and student Nack," the president said, his face still resting calmly against his palm, his elbow on the arm of his chair, his eyes observing the two kneeling boys with the distant and indifferent look of a man regarding insects rather than the sons of noble houses. "Yes or no. Because if I do not hear an answer from you shortly, I may find myself having to resort to other means entirely."
***
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