Submission (#5607) Approved

The group of kittoms—lucky or unlucky—enough to assist in the small classroom in a little preparatory academy in Kyendi had initially dismissed the idea of a guest as trite and boring.  Guests came to give lectures, of sorts, then depart in a confusing blur that the kittoms only enjoyed as a much-desired break from usual classroom activities.  But it wasn’t the guests themselves that were the source of intrigue and excitement, but the ability to stop pretending to care about their classroom assigned tasks and lessons.

So, when their dedicated and poorly paid teacher announced a guest, the kittoms’ buzz of excitement was merely for the gift of inconsistency, the break in routine, a different voice, and a different face.  No one much cared who the guest was, what they did, or where they came from.  What they cared about was the newness, the break, the thought of no more math for a day, probably.

All the kittoms were gingerly crammed into a classroom of sorts – low tables lay before each group of curious eyes laden with all sorts of knick-knacks that were likely dragged out of the nearest bargain bin, yard sale, or trader.  The items varied widely.  On the heavy table before Suzaku he could see chipped tea cups, yellowed or dusty figurines in all sorts of conditions, several worn out stuffed animals, a series of sticks both of the functional variety like chopsticks and what honestly looked like dry twigs picked out from the ground that very morning, old water-logged books or journals, several sheaths of assorted paper products, old and chipped porcelain pottery, and so on.  An overwhelming menagerie of the meanest junk this side of town.  Everything on the table looked one good tremor away from delivering some terrific acoustics sure to deafen the poor kittoms and teachers now seemingly stuck in the room.

Suzaku turned to look at the table directly next to him, taking the opportunity to inspect the objects.  Confirming to himself that they were of a similar sort – a marvelous array of junk that seemed mostly ready for the dumpster.  Was it some trite lesson on recycling? 

It was as he ruminated on the thought that the door burst open, and the room was inundated with gasps and drawn breaths.  Surprised, Suzaku turned to look and found himself dumbfounded by what, on first impression, seemed like a grown elnin trying too hard on the dark goth prince vampire decadence cosplay.  Suzaku was left mute and unhearing at the thought this clown was somehow their pseudo-teacher until the excited rumble of his classmates finally penetrated his disbelief.  Words were thrown around that made him eye the elnin with something like suspicion: royal, king, Laurent.  His thoughts stuttered and stopped around those words, tumbling over themselves in his head as his mind denied him the obvious solution to the puzzle.

Because of course it was Laurent, the Stygian King himself, that now stood in front of the classroom with his magnificent leather cape fluttering in a wind no one else felt.  Of course.  That made total sense, yes?  An elnin royal, in a classroom full of kittoms and junk.  Shouldn’t he be fighting daevas or something?  How did this guy have the time?  Surely he was needed somewhere?

“… I’m excited to present our guest, the Stygian King himself, Laurent!  As we have studied in class—” Best Suzaku tune that out.  He was too busy utilizing all of his current deceptively low brainpower into trying to puzzle out how an elnin royal happen to find the time and sense of abject irresponsibility to show up into a classroom of stupid kits and the line of logic that would lead any elnin, never mind a royal one to waste any second of their valuable time to be stared at by a clowder of open-mouthed small brained babies who just a moment ago where pushing each other aside to make it into a classroom for a guest speaker in order to avoid doing simple math.

“… and as such, Laurent will be helping our kittoms reach balanced energy levels by…”

Suzaku blinked, forced himself to focus if only for the bragging rights.  Who else could say they were sharing oxygen with one of the few royal elnins in existence?  What did one even do in such a situation?  Fix their hair?  Sharpen their swords?  Declare war on the denizens of the nether realms?  It couldn’t be as simple as stand there, gaping at the royal, surrounded by junk, as their teacher blathered on about resonance and energy and balance and somethingsomethingdon’tcare.

When Laurent put his gothic little paws under the table edge and upturned the whole thing over in a magnificent cacophony of pottery, clay, and glass, Suzaku suddenly realized that nothing else mattered besides the fact that he was given the go-ahead to wreck as much as possible.  And even before the kittoms were indicated to unleash their most creative smashing skills, Suzaku had already picked up the nearest water-logged tome and started tearing away pages with gleeful abandon.  What ensued was predictable in its chaotic nature; as the kittoms proceeded to tear, rend, crash, smash, and wreck the classroom.  The destruction did not only extend to the objects the teachers had so carefully collected before them, no – a kittom jumped up and down on the table until the legs splintered and cracked, another climbed the curtains and ripped them to shreds with his claws, another kittom ran into a wall and knocked herself out into blissful unconsciousness.  In the chaos, the teachers lost track of individual kittoms and simply rushed to stop as many injuries as possible, leaving the proud royal utterly unattended.

Utterly vulnerable.

The perfect target.

And who could blame Suzaku for finding the perfect object – a nice aerodynamic journal of questionable integrity, with a perfectly functional rubber band holding it together – and throwing it as hard as possible at the back of the royal’s head as he looked away?

And the suspension only added to the bragging points.  Suzaku was sure that was one guest speaker who would think better of wasting his time with the youth.