Vampire Days

Chapter 23: Tumor

Austin's phone is still unreachable. I've been waiting for any message or calls from him but his parents probably took his phones. So I hung around the study hall to read during my vacant hour, waiting for him to show up.

Even in our afternoon class together, still no Austin, and I'm starting to panic, my traitor brain churning every worst possible scenarios that his crazy parents might do. What if they transfer him to a different university? What if they leave the country?! I don't have a fucking passport!

Clifford, the buzzcut classmate and Lorenzo, the otaku guy with eyeglasses approached me when I arrived in the classroom. They looked like they've been waiting for me to arrive and quickly crowded around my seat when I sat down.

"'Ey, Magno, where's Austin?" Clifford asked excitedly. He's smiling giddily like he's glad to see me, which was weird because we're not that close.

I shrugged but my eyes involuntarily surveyed the whole class in case I just missed the tiny Austin. I'll even be relieved if it turned out that I became narrow-sighted because admittedly I've been too preoccupied with worry to really take interest in anything not related ro Austin.

"We have one morning class together but he's absent too," Lorenzo said, frowning. I didn't know that. But Austin doesn't tell me anything about his classmates and his own set of friends, if he had any. "Anyway, the uploader classmate you asked us about was Celestine Ocampo, that girl sitting by the window. Like a fucking protagonist. That should've been your seat."

"That window's always closed so what's the point?" Clifford said and his friend nodded in  agreement.

"Oh, about that," I said, remembering the agreement we had with these guys. It felt like a really long time. I glanced at the girl and remembered her immediately. The girl holding the puking girl's hair while talking to the phone. "Yeah, I think I saw her that night. It was my fault anyway."

"You're going to talk to her?"

"Nah, I don't think so. I've settled things with Austin."

"Oh, good," Lorenzo said with a glint in his otaku eyeglasses as he adjusted it with his middle finger. "It's cool that you're not petty."

I grinned and  took out my phone and stared at the guys.

"I strive to be a cool protagonist," I said, lowkey rolling with their private joke. "Do you have Dcash?"

They both laughed and slapped my shoulder. If they felt how cold my back was, they didn't even comment on it and of course I could never ask them about it.

"You don't have to take us so seriously, bro. Just treat us to burgers at the cafeteria, and we're solved," Lorenzo wriggled his eyebrows at me.

"Like, you can just owe us and then if we need your help then we can ask for a favor."

"Or you can wear the cosplay armor I made for the next KomiKom. We can go together and hang out on my booth."

"You have a booth set for KomiKom?!" I asked Lorenzo. He almost flew backwards from his seat in surprise of my sudden high tension moment.

"Holy shit, Magno, calm your tits man. You almost sent me transmigrating."

"I'm just surprised. It's fucking amazing. What do you do?"

"Just the usual stuff like drawing commission artworks and selling my doujinshis," Lorenzo murmured, slightly abashed and shifting his eyes to his notebook like a child stopping himself from getting too excited.

"You should see his works. Like, he's the boob god. He can draw boobs with his eyes closed and you wouldn't know what's real and what isn't."

"Stop it. Why are you bragging about my work?"