FIXated

The next day came in a flash after Feyline checked the attendance of classroom 2-C during the homeroom session and made a few announcements for upcoming events on the Academy grounds. Then, after a few minutes, the signal for the next class sounded in the corridors. Immediately, students stood up from their seats in unison and began exiting the classrooms, their voices booming across the rooms and into the halls from excitement.

Raphael took a deep breath as he got up while clutching the notebook in his arms. His gaze darted to the seat in front of him. Once again, it was empty.

She’s not here again…Where could she be at this time? He wondered, but in the end, he knew nothing about her. Thinking it would be the same outcome as yesterday, he dismissed it.

He stood up from his seat and headed out of the room like everyone else.

The next session would be elective class: Photography. It would be his second time attending this class. Although he didn’t mind having no acquaintances in there, he felt nervous.

“It’s just an hour or so. It will pass quickly.” He muttered to himself.

As soon as he arrived in Classroom 310, located on the third floor of the Northern Wing, he found students already gathered in a circle, confronting a student situated in the middle of the group. Upon passing by, Raphael took a glimpse at them— their voices and expressions mixed with frustration, agitation, and bewilderment as his pace slowed down to overhear their conversation.

“Hey, weren’t you responsible for submitting the photos in the Academy’s collage showcase tomorrow?”

“A-ah yeah… about that—”

“Ugh. Of course I know that! What happened? Why did the Journalism club say you lost it?”

“W-what? I-I did not lose them. I-It was not my fault!”

“Gosh. That took me a while to get those photos, and you just lost them. This is why I cannot trust you to handle stuff.”

“N-no. It was not me, I swear!” She took a deep breath. “It’s Sylvia. She took them… “

“What?! Why would they do that?”

“N-no clue, but they were looking …for something?”

“Unbelievable. Those bitches got nothing to do but stir trouble.” One of the female students concluded with a huff. “Then, go ahead and get more photos. We don’t want to be embarrassed in front of the Academy without a submission!”

“Y-yes! I-I will get more, I promise!”

“Gosh, don’t let Natalie find out about this. It’s utter embarrassment, ugh!”

Once the group dispersed with frustrated sighs, they returned to their seats from the other side of the room. Raphael continued his steps, thinking about what had occurred as he headed towards his seat from the next two rows at the front of the room.

Nothing but trouble, huh?

While still deep in his thoughts, a memory flashed in his mind as he recalled one of Sylvia’s crew holding a few boxes in her arms—were those the photos they mentioned?

That would also explain why Sylvia held that photograph in her hand. Why on earth would they take those? It does not make any sense.

“Raphie-didi!”

A familiar voice called him. Before he could turn around, a pair of arms decorated in outrageously colored bangles and bracelets with pink manicured polish suddenly wrapped him in an embrace from behind, catching him off guard.

“W-what? Emma—let go.”

He pried her hands off him, trying to escape, but she clung tighter, squeezing him hard. Then, she peeked from his side with a pout on her face, and her pinkish contacts glimmering against the light, looking at him like puppy eyes.

“Aren’t you happy to see me?”

“Not at all,” Raphael replied bluntly. “Let go, please.”

“Bummer. I was even excited to see you.” She groaned before finally releasing him.

Raphael exhaled a sigh of relief as he took a seat. “Well, that’s unfortunate because I am not.”

“Hmph. I hate you, didi!” She threw several punches at his arm in a childish tantrum, though it did not hurt him as much as he expected. Before she could send another flurry of attacks, Raphael caught her by the wrists.

“Hey, hey. Stop. What’s that for?”

“That’s for being mean to me!”

Raphael furrowed his brows while staring at her in confusion. He still held her tight as she struggled, writhing in frustration but was unable to escape and just puffed her cheeks. She was acting like a brat, the annoying one for sure. So, what? Why should he do as she pleased?

“A-ah, excuse me.”

A student approached them from the front, hiding her face behind a sheet of paper as she spoke in a soft-spoken, shy voice. Instinctively, Raphael released his grip over Emma to a void of confusion as he turned his gaze to the student standing in front of them.

It was the student who had been confronted and accused a few moments ago. She did not strike him as anyone familiar in Raphael’s mind. She appeared to be like any other student in the class, wearing the standard uniform of the Academy and a pair of round glasses that glinted against the light upon pushing them back with her fingers.

She cleared her throat before continuing. “D-do you have anything to contribute to the photo collage showcase?”

“Photo collage— hmph. Don’t ask me. It’s not my business.” Emma rolled her eyes as she looked it away.

“I-It’s for an important cause—”

“Nuh-uh. Not my problem!” Emma cut her off. “Do your business elsewhere.”

“Hey, wait—I guess I can contribute some.” Raphael volunteered. “So, what do I have to do?”

“Ah, Great!” An ecstatic smile appeared on her face upon hearing him. Then, she presented the paper to him. “Here…. Just fill this …and uh, send the pictures in the email below.”

“Sure. That’s not a problem.” Raphael gratefully took it and signed up as instructed, filling out the form with the necessary details — name, class and section, and other contact information in the clean sheet. At the bottom, an email address was written for submission.

“O-okay. Just send them over right now. I-I’ll go get more contributions.” She excused herself, taking a small bow before muttering under her breath. “T-thank you.”

Raphael smiled. “Oh, sure, sure. No worries.”

When the student left to solicit more contributions, Raphael pulled out his phone from his pocket and quickly went through his gallery. There were not many photos inside, except for a few scenic views from the courtyard grounds, the picturesque stillness of the moonlight, and the quiet moments along the corridors and in the garden during the early morning hours.

“Hmm~ Raphie-didi. Did not know you would help anyone like that.” Emma expressed with a mischievous smile. “I like that.”

“It’s nothing. Just thought she needed it.”

“It would be nice to have a caring boyfie like you, Raphie.”

Once she said those words, he felt her hands crawling into his arms as she clung to him again, tracing her fingers against his veins and caressing the bumps on his muscles.

“Emma, not right now. I am busy.”

“Please let me stay like this for the meantime, didi. Pretty please?”

Raphael heaved a sigh before responding to her. “Fine.”

There was no point in convincing her to stop when she would continue to do so. He would rather ignore her than have another argument or be involved in another tantrum. It was the least of his worries at the moment as he resumed his attention to his phone to finish submitting his contributions.

He selected some photos from his first assessment for submission. These should be enough, right? What else should I add?

When he scrolled past those pictures, an image of a sandwich with its fillings gushing out between the toasted bun appeared from the next row. Despite looking appetizing, it reminded him of nothing but that incident.

Ah… sandwich.

He stared at it for a while, pressing his thumb against the screen in contemplation. Should he even send this? But what if they knew about it?

Raphael hesitated, thinking deeply about his thoughts.

Calm down. You’re overthinking.

It’s just a sandwich…nothing more.

Upon reaching a decision, he included the image in the selection and attached it to the email address stated on the form. He did not hesitate any longer and pressed the button.

The message had been sent.

---

Dinner service had ended not too long ago in the Academy’s dormitory housing. Students had either loitered in the central hall to chat with their friends from the opposite wing or had decided to stay in their rooms for bedtime.

In a quiet, dark corner of the dormitory’s corridors, the soft hum of a vending machine filled the silence while emitting a faint greenish-blue glow against the shadow of the darkness. A set of buttons began beeping upon being pressed into the machine’s keypad.

Creak! Bzzt!

The machine groaned and vibrated when activated, as it began to dispense the selected item from the array of snacks and candies with a twist of the knob. A deep, soft thud came from the compartment below where the items dropped from the chute.

A figure wearing a loose gray hooded jacket stood in front before hunching over with one knee on the ground and stuffing his arms into the hatch for the snacks dispensed from the machine. When footsteps echoed in the distance, approaching in confident strides before stopping a few inches away, the figure remained motionless with a bag of chips in hand.

“Ah~ there you are.”

Upon taking a glimpse of the figure standing beside, strikingly bright flaming locks fluttered in the air as she flicked her hair to the side, screaming nothing but danger at sight.

It was no other than the infamous Sylvia Macaulay.

She continued. “I may need your services once again. You don’t mind, do you?”

“Not at all.” The hooded figure huffed. “But like always… I need a down payment.”

“Of course… I’ll be paying in full.” Sylvia held out her hand, a zip-lock bag containing a single object: a memory SD card. “I believe this contains Flipper’s collection. Would these suffice?”

Without further words, the figure’s long, slender fingers immediately swiped the bag from her hands as if to scrutinize and assess the card thoroughly before finally plugging it into a special reader device attached to the phone. It began loading and reading its contents before rows of folders and files appeared on screen, with several names of female students in the Academy, each containing upskirt and voyeuristic photos.

A smile curved out from its lips in satisfaction. “Good. This will do.”

Upon seeing the satisfied reaction on its face, Sylvia grinned in amusement as she bent herself forward to whisper. “Now, I want you to take care of something for me.”

“What will that be?”

“Tomorrow. I’ll call you. Understand?”

“Understood.”