Late Afterschool Lunch. (open)

It was something of a relief for the end-of-school bell to ring. Senior students Colin, Luke and Bellamy James had been released from their torment of having to present their latest Geography assignment. Thankfully the three of them seemed to have used their talents well to make their chosen subject – how mountain ranges often determine the borders of countries, come across with success. Luke with his research, Bellamy with his theatrics, and Colin with his determination to get through it all with a passing grade seemed to hit the happy medium.

It was also a show of just how used to the human world Colin’s digimon partners Luke and Bellamy were becoming. When they had met so many years ago, Colin had no idea that Luke could give a lecture about the importance of the Carpathian mountains in Eastern Europe, or how Bellamy would explain how the armies of Italy and Austria-Hungary had 12 matches at the Isonzo river in the First World War and almost every attempt was thwarted by the mountains. The both of them disguised as humans with their holosuits of course.

But that was now in the past, and all that was left was to await the feedback from their teacher, Lise Hamelin. The trio had something of a bond with her, mainly because they knew that she too was a partner to a digimon. Namely because he had hatched right in front of them a couple of years ago. Since then, there was a quiet agreement that even though she knew that Luke and Bellamy were digimon, she’d never report them or reject them from her classes, and in turn they would never turn her in for her Agumon Hakase partner Ark.

“Whew, mountains, am I right?” Bellamy breathed as they left the building onto the grounds. “Also man that’s made me hungry. Can we eat now, Luke? Now that we skipped lunch to rehearse all that?”

“Okay, okay, we will.” Luke answered with exasperation. “If you hadn’t slept in, you could’ve had a big breakfast like us so it wouldn’t be such a problem.”

“Bah, still don’t get why you take this stuff so seriously, Luke.” Bellamy replied. “Are you actually serious about goin’ to college in the human world?”

“I might be.” Luke replied, deciding to end that line of conversation. “So, where shall we eat?”

Colin surveyed the grounds. The picnic tables were mostly filled up by other students by now. “Maybe that one?” Colin suggested, pointing to the only table that had less than two people seated at it – currently occupied by a junior grader and a laptop. “We should ask first.”

“Eh, no problems.” Bellamy said. He walked over toward the younger student with a smile. “Heya. Do ya mind if me and my brothers sit here for a bit while we eat?” he asked.

Oh that was quite a great presentation. He have said to Luke and Bellamy of how that he have landed a job as a temp teacher in this school... through various means of course, considering that his degree was... uh, quite unnatural. But still, he managed to pull some strings and is now in this school... as the literature teacher. Oh he's also doubling as drama club advisor.

Walking trhough some waves of students that wishes to grab some grub before their club activity, a pale purple haired man with rather striking red eyes slowly approached a table with students of various ages... His focus however is on a certain trio....

"Mr. James," his clear voice would call out. "Oh who am I kidding, there are practically three James here... Hah, anyway, Bellamy, Luke, Colin. Left before your assignment got graded, right? Ms. Hamelin requested me to give you this," he handed over neatly clipped bunch of papers. "Along with your grades. That was quite a brilliant presentation, if I may say. Bellamy especially. Very on point humors."

The teacher's appearance... definitely doesn't look like your ordinary one. One could perhaps say that he's a foreigner. As a foreigner too he would assume his identity. "Lux Caldwell" is how he introduced himself.

"Ah, also good afternoon to you, Miss Isa. Still going to hang out for a while in the school ground?" he asked. He's not sure if she's part fo any club.

As for the temp teacher himself? Rather than looking like he's pressed for time (especially considering drama club should be in session right now), he instead pulled a chair and sat close to the rest, at another table that just opened up, casually taking out his boxed lunch.

“Cheers.” Colin said, sitting down at the other end of the table. Luke sat next to him, while Bellamy sat opposite, the holosuited Impmon quickly unpacking his lunch of a chicken, cheese and avocado roll and quickly got into the business of eating it.

“Here, better have this.” Luke said, taking out an unopened bottle of water, knowing his brother risked indigestion from eating at that speed. “Now then. With that done, what’s the plan for the rest of the day, Colin?”

As he sat down, Colin noticed something that resembled a digivice on the junior classman’s laptop, but decided it’d be best not to prise on that at this stage. “Well, thinking a trip to Terminus might be a good idea, payoff for our work today.” he suggested. Bellamy would have concurred, but with his mouth full, all he could do was give a thumbs up at the notion.

“Okay, I like that idea too.” Luke agreed. They were then approached by other fellow students. The first being a tall dark boy, then the next being two albino students. Luke looked around for a moment at the other tables, indeed it was such a nice day that the other benches were quickly filled up. “Ah, should be fine…” he said, hoping that their initial request to share the table with the junior classman wasn’t too inconvenient for him, he seemed fairly concentrated on his laptop.

Their attention was then drawn by another individual. Colin and his partners looked up in surprise as Lux approached. By now the three of them knew it was their friend Hikaru the Dorumon, but they had no inclination to call out his disguise. Apparently Lise had graded their presentation early and she had sent him out to give their results.

“Awesome! Thanks, Hik-” Bellamy had to disguise his mistake as a hiccup, quickly taking a swig of water before continuing. “Thanks, Lux-sensei. There, Luke, see how your brutal study regime resulted…”

Luke eagerly saw the assessment paper and was delighted. “See what we can do when we work on things sensibly?” he asked, making sure Colin and Bellamy saw the clear ‘A’ grade. “And this is thanks to the three of us, not just me you know.”

“Yeah, yeah…” Bellamy said, taking another bite of his roll. “Heh. Feels good though. Finally getting an A.”

“Good, we’re getting to understand each other, finally.” Luke said, putting the paper in his bag. “Also how are things going, Lux-sensei?” he asked, curiously.

Then the last seat at the table was occupied by what appeared to be a middle student with… interesting hair. “Ah, heya, Yuji-kun.” Colin said in a friendly voice so to keep the atmosphere of the table positive. “Colin, Luke and Bellamy James, we’re brothers so, same last name… as the norm…” he finished a little awkwardly. Even though he had his partners at his side all these years, there was still vestiges of awkwardness left over in his demeanor that came from being a boy raised in the USA and emigrating to Japan at 11. Sometimes the habits he had learned as a boy just couldn’t land right when spoken in Japanese.

LJ sat down next to Rai before rummaging in his bag pulling out probably one of the largest bento boxes in existence. He looked out over the rest of the people his gaze stopping briefly on the teen that called himself Yuji. Why was he getting a feeling he had met this guy before? He was once again hating his partial amnesia since if he met Yuji one would think hair like that would be hard to forget. Deciding to let it go chalking it up to being another mystery for another time he listened as everyone began introducing themselves. The one chowing on his food sounded as if he nearly called a teacher something else. Looking at the rest of the group he sensed that they were definitely digimon but didn't say anything about it not knowing if Rai knew anything about digimon till he saw the digivice. Interesting.

Deciding not to be rude he said "I'm Lothar Junior Anderson or LJ for short." He then glanced at the brothers before he said "Sounds like you had better luck in your class today than I did. I just got out of math after falling asleep in class." Movement on Rai's computer screen caught LJ's attention as he began to eat watching what looked like some email setup of some kind on the screen. 'That kind of looks like a bento box. How odd.' LJ thought as he quietly ate while watching the screen noting Rai was ready to close the monitor.

There is a certain sort of poise when the teacher opened his bento box. Almost like someone who exaggerate their movements to convey something... that's when perhaps people might notice that there are some students that paid careful look on how the teacher do it. Drama club students perhaps? However, contrary to how he opened his lunchbox, the way he hold his chopsticks were more of a subdued movement. Carefully, gently, the chopsticks sliced through a piece of marinated grilled salmon. Lux then moved the piece of fish to a small mouthful mound of rice, and together...

happyily partake on it. Delectable it was, at least judging from his expression. But like this it's almost like he's ignoring people for sure. Thankfully he quickly returned to reality.

"How things are going? Hmmm... Well I say it's pretty good. I have discovered that my method of teaching is quite different from the previous teacher. The teacher currently on break had a teaching method that are more... let's say, like a director, while in my case..."

"Lux-sensei!"

A group of student approached with paper on hand. The teacher took and read it, letting out some thoughtful hums at times. "...Oho. So is that what you think about my act from before?"

"Yes, we believe this is your intention."

"Hmmm, let's see. It's true that by acting like how I did back then, it would quickly sets me as 'an important character' due to my "look at me" angle of presentation. You see this a lot in Kabuki. The protagonist tends to dress very fancily, with full on fierce make up. But indeed it was a trick on how if you're dressed all the same, or very "normal" for one: exaggerating your movements."

The students nodded while taking notes.

"...Now, the problem is, it's not all of it, my dears. As you might have seen I was questioned before. Yet I did not answer immediately and instead focused on my meal. You might think that this is "taunting" perhaps? Or, on another angle, that I am "ignoring them". The latter is not wrong when it comes to acting like this. The former is plausible but perhaps a bit of a stretch, unless I make it more obvious. If my debut on stage was rather new, by immediately joining the conversation and continuing the flow, you might will think me as an "important, but side character". By doing this, I depict myself as a "key character". However, of course the dowside is the mood could change. The natural reaction is either anger, confusion, or perhaps... "ah, this is the key trait of this character, so it was normal". I need help from other actors to establish this, however. Was that to your satisfactory?"

"Yes, Sensei!"

"Great! Now, pray return to your self study."

The holosuited Digimon smiled at his old friend. "...And that's how I teach. Sorry to use that moment as an example, Luke."

So this one... is perhaps a Digimon too huh. "Oh, I see. Then Miss Isa, do tell Dan that I said hi. His help was very much appreciated, and I plan to return the favor threefold."

As for Rai though? Lux was interested in his action. Yes, he saw Digivice, yes, he saw the screen... now the question is how would he hide that in case something unwanted happened? Regardless...

"Hmmm, by the way, do any of you have any sort of juicy rumors of any kind? I'm not talking about some students relationship or like that, but like an urban legends that just popped out recently, or perhaps any students that might act differently out of sudden... There should be those kinds of rumor circulating, no?"

Colin noted that the younger student, Rai Ryuichi as he mentioned, seemed to be quite awkward about all the others at the table now and seemed to be quickly packing up his things to move away from them. Colin understood that fully, there had been a time where he just wanted to be left alone and would do the same if he felt too overwhelmed. But those days had passed, and he had grown in his own way, so he wouldn’t ask him to stay if he didn’t want to. Still, there was the matter of that gadget that Colin suspected was a digivice. But, well, it wasn’t his business to pry into everyone at school who had one. ...Actually it was, given his position as a deputy leader of AEGIS, but, eh, he felt like when he was at school, he was on break from that.

Upon talk of their presentation, another person at the table congratulated them, who introduced himself as Quin Roche.

“Cheers, Quin-kun” Bellamy said in response. “You’ve got a few years left here, right? If you do, my advice is take up Geography. Ya learn so much more about the hu-” he had to pause here as Luke nudged him. He pretended to cough and took another drink of water before continuing. “Ack- sorry, I mean, learn so much more about the world in that than you’d think.”

Roche noted that they obviously stood out as not from around here. Colin at first thought he was referring to his looks, he did rather look more Caucasian than most others present, then he realized what he did wrong when Yuji pointed out he addressed him as ‘Yuji-kun’ without being prior introduced.

“Well, you introduced yourself as Yuji, so…” Colin began, then realized where he went wrong. “Oh, crap, I did that thing again with surnames again, didn’t I?”

“Heh, yep, you should keep a check on that, Colin.” Bellamy chuckled.

“It just… I don’t understand it sometimes.” Colin went on. “Like what do they say when they address the three of us? “James-Senpai, James-Senpai, James-Senpai”? It sounds like something if you say in front of a mirror then the three of us appear at once.”

“Better not mention something like that in front of the occult club, or we’ll be teleporting all over Shibuya.” Luke quipped, grinning. Colin shook it off, then turned back to Roche.

“Ah… I guess how I’ve dealt with it is to apologize and play ignorance a lot.” he admitted. “Sometimes it can hurt if you bump into someone with no patience for you, but most times people can be helpful if you genuinely don’t know how to say or understand something.”

After the introductions were made, the trio paid attention to the substitute teacher Lux. He was about to answer when they were joined by drama class students, who seemed to query him about Kabuki characters. They listened with interest. Kabuki theater was something the three of them rather liked about Japan, and they were keen on spreading it to the digital world as a means of entertainment.

At the end, the trio paused.

“...did you get any of that?” Bellamy muttered to Luke and Colin.

“Yeah, I got it. Finish off your roll, Bells.” Luke replied to his brother. He turned back to Lux. “That’s pretty swell, sensei. I think I might have learned a bit from that talk too.”

Lux then asked if they heard any juicy rumours. Colin understood to some degree what he was asking, and for a degree of discretion. Yet he was also eager to tell him news of something he and his elder sister Sophie were keen on doing at AEGIS. To assist digimon that had ended up in the human world by providing them a place to live if they wished.

Colin glanced at first Bellamy, then Luke, then settled on an answer that would hopefully be not too weird for fellow students, but might mean something for those of them in the know about digimon (he suspected it wasn’t only them as such at the table).

“I’ve heard of something, sensei.” he began, carefully. “I heard that there’s a difficult season approaching. And in such a season where stuff like storms happen, creatures of all sorts meet together in places to seek shelter. Well, I heard that a group called AEGIS want to make something of a shelter for them.”

Immediately, Luke took his cue to make this seem like a casual human conversation. “Ohh, like a pet shelter?” he asked. “That’s a relief, so many of them suffer when left on their own on the streets…”

Bellamy would have probably added something that might have made things better or worse, but his mouth was full.