Fourth day of classes after the Winter Holyday, and we were back at sitting inside our homeroom teacher’s office. Like last time, she had her hands crossed in front of her face as she leaned forward and glared at us, deep in thought. What brought us here this time? It was me with my best spike ever while playing volleyball. It was just perfect, were it not for where the ball had landed.
The team consisted of me, Abby, Mathilda, and some other girl from class versus that girl—Vanessa, Abby keeps reminding me despite my lack of caring at all about it—and her group. As you can imagine, tensions were high between us, none wanting to lose the game. Even that other classmate got into it.
It was being a very tight match, Abby and Mathilda being the main players in my team while me and the other provided as best support as we possibly could.
“Babe, go for it!” Abby shouted as she passed the ball from the back to the front where I was. With such words of incentive, the fire that was burning in me got even more intense.
I didn’t just jump, I launched myself into space, time moving dizzyingly fast but somehow slow at the same time as I watched the ball arch through the air towards me. Looking straight at where I wanted it to go, all I could see was the face of Vanessa. It was like she knew I was going to score the victory point.
There was a thunderous slapping sound as I hit the ball, sending it hurling down towards their field.
I, however, focused too much on Vanessa’s face and, despite it never having been my attention, hit her square in the face, the ball ricocheting off her and glancing on someone else’s shin before leaving the field and granting us victory.
We didn’t get to celebrate though, as she fell on the floor, clutching her face and crying in pain as she rolled around.
“Wow, babe, that was...” Abby drifted as she tugged my shirt by the sleeve.
“I didn’t mean to!” I cried out then, and I cried out now that I was facing our homeroom teacher too.
“Yeah, I believe you,” she said with a sigh as she reclined on her chair. I talked to your PE teacher, and he said you’d never be able to do so even if you wanted it very hard, I heard her grumble under her breath.
For once, I was happy I was seen as that unathletic, but still, wasn’t that a bit too mean?
“I already told Vanessa that I was sorry, and I didn’t mean to hit her!”
“I know that, but her parents are saying her forehead and right eye are all purple from the ball. I also tried to explain that your bad blood has started from her feeling uncomfortable with having you two in the changing room, but they still want us to do something about you. They are demanding your suspension or expulsion. And by ‘you’, I mean, you Violet.”
It’ been a while since my blood had run so cold, but right now, it was like liquid ice under my skin. What saved me from spiralling into despair was a small, warm hand heating up my core again.
“Of course, the school doesn’t want that because of my dad,” Abby said.
Our teacher nodded, leaning over her table to get closer to us. “Honestly, I was trying to be as impartial as I should, but I’m getting fed up with always being put in this position and Vanessa and her parent’s complaints,” she whispered.
I took a long breath and pulled my chair closer to Abby’s, interlocking my fingers with her before asking what would happen next.
“...Next person who acts up gets suspended and any false accusations will get you an expulsion. How about it?”
That sounded far too extreme, but what else could we do? At least that way we’d have a safeguard without the teacher blatantly taking sides. I’d like to think that she trusted us enough to know we wouldn’t try to exploit the new rule.
Since we agreed to her terms and that was all we had to talk about, she sent us on our way home for the day.
“...It was a glorious smash you did though,” Mathilda said moments after we left the office, breaking the tension we were carrying from the meeting and causing us all to try and muffle our laughs in fear of our teacher hearing us. “Do you really think she’s all purple-faced?”
“Not even one bit. I don’t think I have the strength for that.”
“Are you sure about that?” Abby hummed. “I think Marcus might disagree with you.”
Mathilda got all over our case, wishing to know what Abby meant. Luckily, I was saved by the appearance of the boys and them asking Mathilda to give them the update.
“So, anyway,” Mathilda singsonged after she was done talking with the boys. “What was that about Marcus?”
“...Tsk.”
◊◊◊
Violet was out and would be a while until she came back, so I decided to start preparing dinner. Today, there would be a nice vegetable soup to start, and that’s what I’d be doing. But before that, I’d be getting my sister to give me a hand.
“Me? But I can’t cook,” she told me, her back all twisted so she could look at me from where she sat, one ear uncovered from her earphones.
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“Precisely. Wouldn’t it be nice to cook something and have Papa Stan compliment it?”
“Haah, ‘Papa Stan’ again?” she sighed as she looked back to her laptop. “Abby please, leave that be. It really isn’t like that.”
I laughed, remembering how much she was sounding like me last year and hopped to her, draping my arms around her neck.
“I said the same about Violet. We really are sisters.”
She glared at me from the corner of her eye, but seeing my unmoving smile mellowed her out. She sighed again and set aside her earphones before getting up.
“Fine, I’ll help, but it’s not because of him.”
“Right, right.”
“...You calling him ‘Papa’ also messes up my head,” she grumbled.
Wait, so I’m the one responsible for her reluctance in admitting it? Oh, boy, I hadn’t thought about it. I’d try to stop calling him that around her from now on.
“So? What am I supposed to do?” she asked once we got to the kitchen.
For starters, I’d ask her to wash the veggies. Nice, simple, and very important.
While preparing the board to do the chopping, I heard a familiar pop. Looking to what she was doing, I immediately faced the reality that my sister was a dumb-dumb regarding anything related with cookery.
“You don’t use detergent to wash them, running water is more than enough.”
“Really?” she asked with a raised eyebrow but still putting the dish soap flask back to its place. “What are we even washing doing it that way?”
I quoted what Violet had taught me when I first started to her. It prevented getting some nasty food infections, and even if she wasn’t planning on eating the peel, she should still wash it because when cutting it off, she’ll be introducing the outside bacteria to the interior.
When it was time to teach her how to cut stuff, I must admit, having Violet teaching her would have been easier. With Violet being left-handed, she stayed in front of me at first for me to mimic her since it was like watching myself in the mirror and allowed me a clear view of what she was doing. Still, we managed, and Violet was back when we had all the ingredients in the pot.
“Are we three cooking together?” she asked.
My answer was to hand Violet her apron with a smile. Sophie on the other hand asked if she wouldn’t be more of a hindrance.
“Not at all? I mean, you two already got the soup going, if you take care of the rice, Abby the vegetables and me the meat, we’ll be done in no time, even if we have to give you directions.”
“Hehe, I told her she should practice so she’d be praised by... your dad.”
“Abby!” my sister cried out.
“That so? Then, I should teach her how to prepare meat as he likes it,” my Violet said, sounding like she was only half-aware of our conversation as she stored away the groceries.
“Huh?”
“...Hmm? Don’t you like him?” Violet asked, finally looking at Sophie eye to eye.
“N-no, I...”
My sister knew it was pointless to deny it. She knew Violet could see right through her because her expressions were basically the same as mine. We are sisters, after all. That, and the fact they are also very similar personality-wise.
“...I’m sorry... I don’t want to replace your mother or anything... and I’m still not sure if I like him that way.”
“Hmm, I’m ok with that,” Violet hummed as she rolled her sleeves to get them out of the way of her work. “Whether you decide to pursue him or not, it’s up to you. Just know that... well, you won’t hear complaints from me.”
“...Just like that?”
“...I know how it feels like to not have someone important to the person you love to not approve of you, so I won’t do the same.”
“...”
“...”
Those were her honest thoughts, but quite frankly, I felt a bit angry at Violet for telling that to my sister. It was such a petty thing to say.
“Ah! S-sorry, I didn’t mean it like that! It's not that I’m mad at you or anything,” she said once she realised what came out of her mouth. “I just wanted to make it clear!”
“it’s ok, I... I deserved that. And thanks for being far more understanding than I was with you two.”
I understood what she meant, but I still thought that, deep down, she was still holding a bit of a grudge against my sister.
Humph, I suppose she’ll get over it now that she vented it out.
And it’s not like I didn’t know the difference between Violet being malicious and just being dummy-honest. This had been the latter, without me needing think about it for a second.
“...Honey, switch places with Sophie so I can teach her better.”
The two didn’t talk about it for the rest of the time we spent in the kitchen, nor after that. That conversation was only brought up after we retreated into our room for the night when she sat on the bed and apologised me for having said that to Sophie and admitting she had no idea where that came from.
“People keep saying I’m a nice girl and a good person, but it’s in moments like these that I wonder if any of that is true.”
Those final words caught me off-guard. Violet, a bad person? What that something she thought about often?
“I wouldn’t say often, but I do think about it sometimes, yeah.”
It sure sounded like that. Her voice carried the weight and sorrow with which she speaks any time she shares something that has been on her mind for a while.
“Do you think good people are good all the time?” I asked as I sat across her lap.
“Not all the time, but... I sometimes feel like me being good is just me being self-serving.”
I knew well what she meant. I felt like that when my love for her was one-sided. Or appeared to be? Anyway, what she told me was very familiar. Honestly, I think that line of thought was that of someone who was genuinely good. She was painfully aware of her flaws and that made her doubt herself. Way I see it, being good always ends up being self-serving. “I help because I like helping,” is a line most people think about when asked what a good person would say. In reality, shouldn’t it be “I help because it’s what’s morally correct, even if I don’t like it nor the consequences”? And as an example, I pointed out the way she sacrificed her wellbeing to come help me in my darkest time. If that wasn’t a proof of her being a good person, what else could it be.
“That’s different.”
“Why?”
“Because I love you.”
“But did you know that at the time? Wasn’t I just a friend back then in a very risky scenario for you? Didn’t you get punched and still went after me? Wouldn’t it have been easier and safer to just forget about me?”
“I don’t know about the last question, but... Yeah.”
"Didn't you also feel bad for hurting Vanessa on accident despite of how nasty she is towards us?"
"...I still kinda do..."
“...Then?” I asked, grabbing her face and making her lock eyes with me.
“...I guess I kinda am... a good person.”
“Pfft, hehe. Good, good. Now, don’t let it go over your head, silly,” I joked before kissing her. “And would I be this in love with you if you weren’t?”
“...You could also like bad girls,” she joked, starting to show a little smirk.
“Pfft, ah-haha! Ok, fair.”
I don’t think Violet questioning herself over whether she’s good or bad is exactly a bad thing overall. I think it’d be far worse if she was self-assured of her goodness. Like that woman that birthed me. She was a good example of someone who always sees themselves in the moral high ground. Those are the really twisted ones.
Not my Violet though. No, she’s flawed like any human and too critical of herself at times, but a better person there is not. Not in my eyes anyway, and that’s what matters to me.