I noticed her strong red shade of lipstick smeared across his lips, which reeked of sunflower oil. I chuckled as she finished taking my vitals with her thermometer.

She scowled at my chuckle and almost shoved some pills down my throat.

I swallowed the water she offered and yelped when she near pushed me off the bed and out the door. I felt a sudden gust of wind from the door slamming behind my back.

Now what. I scratched my head and glanced about the corridor I was standing in.

The only source of light was from the ceiling lamps making a central row towards the Fire Exit at one end and gunmetal door with the words 'Utility Closet' stamped onto its surface.

The weathered door behind me was at the center of the corridor. The way facing me was a flight of stairs that spiralled up the floor above.

I saw Ryoko's cousin, Ryuu, stomping his way down the stairs towards me. If he didn't open his mouth, I would have mistaken him for an all round tough guy in a suit. I sighed when I realised I couldn't hear the sound of his foot steps.

_"Stupid youth. Sound does not go into ears alone, hmm?"_ Shuso's voice from my memories resurfaced to my mind.

I closed my eyes. My ears began ringing again as I concentrated on the old monk's words and Ryuu's approaching footfalls.

Dum, dum, dum...

I felt the pattern drum on the floor, and vibrations go up my legs.

The air felt warmer where he walked and colder where he didn't. The breeze and vibrations stopped. A warmth from heavy breathing touched my cheeks. I opened my eyes to Ryuu standing before me.

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He was wearing a blue tweed suit with leather patches sewn to the elbows of his jacket. It actually made him look respectable. Especially when his blond hair was completely slicked back off his face.

The stench of moth b.a.l.l.s and camphor lingered about his suit. It made me wonder on how often he wore it. Regardless, I could easily mistake him for an uncouth teacher as depicted in Velvet Rose newspaper books.

He gestured for me to follow him.

I trailed his lead up the polished wooden stairs that sent tiny vibrations to my legs upon each step. I figured the stairs were hollow in-between.

Aside from feeling, no sound pa.s.sed through my ears. This wasn't the first time.

Memories of being sick with fever back at Gat s.h.i.+em resurfaced.

A redback spider had bitten my leg when I had toiled the soil around the small glen. I was very young, so the poison had spread fast and caused a dangerous fever that had me bed ridden for weeks. During my recovery, I wasn't able to hear anything. So, Bulldog and Shuso had taught my brothers and I to speak in sign language. On the fear that if I shouldn't recover my hearing, this was the only way we could talk with each other. Back then, I did recover. The skill became useful to us with the elderly deaf monks. One other skill Shuso had taught only me was to hear through absolute silence using my other senses. Fortunately, some skills my body never forgot.

We reached the first floor, similar to the last, but with windows running in rows on either side of the corridor.

One row of windows was joined by doors to rooms, which allowed an outsider to peek inside and see the students seated at angled desks (two to a desk) facing a blackboard on a wall and a person standing before them.

The opposite window row overlooked a vista of a central courtyard, the main wrought iron gates beyond the path that linked the courtyard and gate area, and the picturesque lane of maple trees running a procession towards the white-box mansion barely visible in the distance.

So, this was how the students knew of our fight with Aidoneus. They had a perfect line of sight to it.

Ryuu tapped my shoulder.

I continued to follow his lead past these rooms and up another flight of polished wooden stairs, along another corridor of rooms, up some more stairs until eventually we reached a top after going up six flights in total.

The corridor we entered was different. It held a handful of polished redwood doors and only one side of windows, which faced out to the square central courtyard nestled within a building enclosure.

Ryuu opened the dark wood door at the end.