My Life is Not a Manga, or maybe...

Harem Scarem: 032

My "date" with Paula was preying on my mind all weekend, but Monday and school rolled around with absolutely no regard for my state of mind.

The first half of the day was unremarkable. I was evidently back in Samantha's good graces for some reason, so Japanese was annoying. Maybe trouncing me at croquet Saturday was cathartic or something. She did eventually leave me alone in favor of a group activity with Jewel and Amaya, at least, and they evidently invited her to lunch because she never showed up at our usual table.

Lunch was normal, though Jill was in a bit of a weird mood, alternating between surprisingly moody silences (for her) and hyperactivity (which was pretty par for the course).

The trouble didn't kick off until P.E. The weather was just starting to take a dive into fall temperatures, so Mr. Peterson had us outside playing soccer while we still could. Rather than form two full teams and have a third of the class sit out, we had two games going, each with two teams of seven.

My team was up against Jill's, and we were losing badly. Partly because Jill was such a monster, but also because her team lucked into two of the kids in the class who regularly played soccer, including their goalie. We just couldn't get a shot past him.

In any case, things weren't looking so good for us, and I was admittedly spacing out a bit waiting for the ball to come back across the field to where I was playing offense. Unsurprisingly, it was spending a lot of time in the vicinity of our goal. As a result I didn't see what happened, but when Mr. Patterson started blowing his whistle and jogged onto the field it got my attention.

Down near our goal was a jumble of bodies. It looked like there'd been some massive collision. Out of curiosity, I ambled that way to see better.

As the pile-up sorted itself out, Jill extricated herself from the very middle and limped over to Mr. Patterson. He consulted with her for a couple seconds, looked around, and spotted me loitering nearby.

"Xavier!" he barked. "You're a midfielder, right? Help Jill over to the nurse's office to get her bandaged up, will you?"

I dithered, my desire to get out of the game warring with my honesty over the fact that I wasn't a midfielder paired with my trepidation over visiting the nurse's office with a harem member. Unfortunately, Jill limped over just as I was opening my mouth to point out I was offense. She had quite the bloody knee.

"Come on, Xavier," she said, and though I turned to Mr. Patterson he was already moving away, shouting at the rest of the players to get back in position. I guess I'd see how this went; I was curious what was going on with Jill, and this did give me an excuse to talk to her. When the nurse was inevitably mysteriously out, though, I was going to high-tail it out of there.

# # #

"Mr. Etsitty!" called Jill as we entered the office. A second or two of silence passed. "Huh, he's not here? Strange."

Color me shocked. I don't know what it is Japanese school nurses are doing all day, but at least according to most manga it certainly isn't spending any time in their offices taking care of students (outside of the series in which the school nurse is part of the romantic chart or serving as fan service eye candy, that is). Come to think of it, Mr. Etsitty was pretty big and a guy; no wonder he was nowhere to be seen. Even if this were the type of manga where the nurse could be expected to make an appearance, he matched absolutely none of the right demographics.

"Well, it's just a scrape. I don't think Mr. Etsitty will mind if I help myself to the bandages and antibacterial cream." Jill made her way to a stool near the back counter and sat down. "Would you mind getting out the first aid supplies, Xavier? I'm a bit bloody at the moment." She'd been keeping pressure on her knee with her hand to keep from bleeding all over the hallway, so I didn't doubt that was an accurate description. She hadn't really needed me, but she'd certainly looked awkward shuffling down the hall with one hand clapped to her knee.