Enigma Nocturne

* * *

Part Three.


Monday morning. Jore lay in bed while his roommate dressed and headed off to class. He felt heavy, tired, numb, and anxious all at once. And on top of that, he was still extremely confused. Two days ago in the office, after he hugged Mr. Nairicks, he had stepped back, silently gathered his jacket and shirt, and left. There hadn’t been another summons from the Headmaster since, and Jore’s silence and absence from classes and lunch periods since kept his friends away, who thought that he had been beaten into a surrender of silence and needed some space. Seeing the most rebellious, fiery, and spunky guy in school so subdued had an impact on them, as well as on the majority of students in Jore’s grade.

There was a knock at his room door, and he said, “Come in,” his sore throat weakening his voice.
Jore’s sister stepped into the room and gave him a sad smile. “Hi, Jore… How are you feeling?”
“Hey, Sun. Thanks for visiting me.” Jore propped himself up on his elbows and motioned for his sister to sit down. “I think I’m getting better,” he answered, then coughed a little.
Sun made a scolding, worried face, and grabbed a water bottle from the mini fridge nearby and handed it to Jore, then sat on the edge of the bed near him. “You should rest more,” she said in a manner that reminded Jore of the way his mother would worry about him when he was little. “Don’t worry about your classes right now; you can get one of your friends to pick up the homework for you later.”
“Okay,” Jore said, smiling a little. “You’re always the nicest one, Sun. You always know what’s best.”
Sun smiled. “I don’t know what I’d do if I didn’t have you to fuss over.” Sun laughed a little, and Jore laughed and then coughed, taking a drink.
“I won’t try to worry you too much,” He said after a second. “And you should probably leave unless you want to get my cold!”
Sun smiled and got up. “Alright. Don’t go making yourself worse, okay?” She wagged a finger at him.
Jore nodded. “Okay. Thanks, Sun. Love you.”

Sun waved bye and shut the door gently.

* * *

A couple of days later, Jore was back in class. He was convinced that his not eating enough had brought on his sickness. His once-vivid recollections of the events that had occurred in the Headmaster’s office just a short week ago had since been denied by his memory, and had faded with his sickness. But during fourth-period, when one of the school secretary’s voices came over the intercom telling a Mr. Jordan Meili to report to the Headmaster’s office, Jore felt a chill run through him. He hadn’t resolved anything, just put off his fate by being sick. And now that he had to face Mr. Nairicks again, he realized he wasn’t ready.

Jore stood up from his desk without a word, and he slowly walked to the door of the classroom. A respectful silence fell over the students, and even the teacher, as they watched him leave.

Jore made his way through the school’s maze of hallways, towards the Headmaster’s office. His footsteps echoed ominously in the muted silence of between-class hallway escape, and he could hear his rapidly beating heart clearly. His breath caught in his throat as he neared the office doorway, and it was all he could do to keep walking towards his fear instead of turning right around and running to his dorm room to hide away again.

Jore leaned his forehead on the marble wall outside the Headmaster’s office, letting the solid, cold stone calm his nerves for a moment. It would be okay. He had gotten hurt before, as had hundreds of other students. It wasn’t anything, really. He should quit being a baby. He could handle pain.
As Jore thought these things, a steady stream of realization began to fill his mind: He wasn’t afraid of the pain he knew he would feel. And he wasn’t even afraid of being humiliated, or of revealing his personal thoughts to Mr. Nairicks’ emotionless inquiries. He wasn’t afraid of the facts… he was afraid of the uncertainty. The way Mr. Nairicks had treated him the last time he was in that office… and the way Jore himself had acted. He’d never felt that kind of strong confusion and foreign emotion before. What scared him the most was what he didn’t know.

Jore steeled himself and took a few deep breaths as he stepped towards the office door, and reached a hand out towards the handle.

Whoosh! A rushing gust of air caused by the sudden opening of the office door from within made Jore jump back in surprise, his nerves momentarily shot. He stumbled backward and landed on his backside on the hard tile floor, then froze for a moment, willing his adrenaline to ebb away. He swallowed, and then looked up slowly… into the Headmaster’s eyes. Mr. Nairicks was standing in the doorway, the unnatural darkness of the office looming behind him, and the soft light from a window in the hallway lighting up his steel-colored eyes. Jore shivered involuntarily.
“Oh, Mr. Meili, my apologies,” Mr. Nairicks said without a hint of emotion in his voice, as always.

“Uh, n-no, it was my fault, sir,” Jore stammered reflexively.
“How so?”
Jore thought for a moment. Actually, it wasn’t really his fault. It was an accident… or had the Headmaster been waiting for him? Had he known Jore was right outside when he pulled open the door?
“Uh… I…I don’t know, sir,” Jore said quietly. “Actually… I s-suppose it was an accident.”
“Very well,” Mr. Nairicks said with a small sigh, and reached out a hand to help Jore up, one of the strangest things Jore had ever seen the Headmaster do. Jore hesitated. He didn’t want to touch Mr. Nairicks’ hand! He knew how cold his hands were… from before, when… he…
“Ahem?” the Headmaster intoned. Jore flinched as he was forced to lean up and grasp the Headmaster’s hand. Amazingly, it wasn’t as cold as Jore thought it would be.

It was even colder.


“Welcome, Jordan. Sit down,” Mr. Nairicks said calmly, and he motioned for Jore to step into the room and take a seat. Jore did as he was told, and he heard the door being shut, and the familiar click of its lock behind him. He stared at the ground, letting his long black bangs hide his face. He sensed Mr. Nairicks sit silently in the chair behind the desk, then open and close a drawer that now held the key to the office. Jore could feel the Headmaster’s eyes trained on him. “Well.” Mr. Nairicks began. “It’s nice to see you again, Mr. Meili.”

Jore swallowed back a lump in his throat. The Headmaster was talking to him like an old friend… like these meetings were lovely little tea parties and times to make small talk and chat about the pleasantries of life.
“N-nice to see you again too, sir,” Jore said, his own words making him shudder with the vastness of their falsehood.
“Indeed,” the Headmaster said softly, his voice carrying an almost imperceptible hint of laughter in it.

In the incredibly awkward silence that followed, Jore tried to think of other things. School, homework, the weekend coming up, his friends… anything… But none of it mattered in this situation; his memories seemed pale and unimportant faced with the reality of the now.

He was locked in Mr. Nairicks room, and he had no idea what to expect.

“Come here, won’t you?” the Headmaster commanded softly, patting the edge of his desk just like he had before. Jore got up shakily, and silently moved to sit on the edge of the desk, his hands curled into tight, nervous fists resting on his lap. “Take off your jacket,” came the next predictable command. Jore’s hands shook uncontrollably as he uncurled his fists and unbuttoned his jacket, and then slowly slipped it off. He set it on the desk near him and then went back to staring at the floor in the dusty, shadowy silence that was anything but peaceful.

Jore heard Mr. Nairicks open and close a drawer in his desk, and he felt all of his old fears coming back. He expected something stinging and sharp to slice into him at any second, and he braced himself for pain.

But nothing happened. No letter openers or needles pierced his flesh, no smack of a paddle was felt or heard, and the Headmaster’s icy hands didn’t attempt to caress Jore’s back. For what seemed like an endless expanse of minutes, there was silence filled with Jore’s prickling fear and anticipatory uncertainty. His heart beat ever faster, his breath became short and irregular, and his whole body visibly shook.

“Something wrong, Mr. Meili?” Mr. Nairicks’ soft voice gained sharp substance and cut through Jore’s mind ten times more painfully than one of his imaginary knives.

“I… I… I…” Jore stammered, not trusting his voice any further; the burning lump in his throat was choking off his last bit of resolve. He swallowed it, then said softly, “I’m… scared,” his voice crackling.

Mr. Nairicks made his trademark thoughtful humming noise. “Of what, Mr. Meili?” he asked, although he already knew the answer, better than even Jore himself.

Jore gripped the edge of the desk hard, his whole body tense. “I’m… scared… of you, sir,” he admitted. And his mind suddenly raced with the gravity of what he had just done… he had admitted his true feelings to his greatest fear. He no longer had any element of advantage over the one thing he was trying not to complicate: his deepest emotions towards the Headmaster. Now that he confessed his secret horror, it was undeniably clear in his own mind, and it shook him to his core.

A few moments passed, then Jore heard the Headmaster stand up from his chair and walk over to stand right in front of him. Jore was now sitting hunched over, his eyes shut as tight as he could make them, his arms gripping the edge of the desk desperately, and the Headmaster was as calm and collected as always, his steel eyes gazing down emotionlessly at Jore’s stiff form.

“Why is that?” Mr. Nairicks asked, silently bending down on one knee to be at Jore’s eye level.

Jore opened his eyes as he felt the light touch of the Headmaster’s icy hand on his shoulder, which was now protected only by a thin layer of white formal shirt. He swallowed, flinching, and then looked upwards through his black bangs, and met the Headmaster’s eyes, now only a few inches away from his. Jore’s mouth opened slightly in a soundless gasp of terror, and his eyes widened even more as the Headmaster’s other pale hand lifted itself up and tucked Jore’s bangs back behind his ears neatly, then came to rest on his other shoulder. Jore was paralyzed by the Headmaster’s eyes, and he wouldn’t have been surprised if the Headmaster could hear his pounding heartbeat, or feel the cold chills racing through his body.

Suddenly, but also extremely slowly, the Headmaster rose above him and his firm grip on both of Jore’s shoulders pushed him back, and then Jore’s back was flat on the desk. One of the Headmaster’s knees slowly nudged between Jore’s legs and pushed him onto the desk even more. His eyes never stopped piercing into Jore’s.

Jore’s mind was frozen, but his body was on fire with adrenaline and was in an agonizingly constant fight-or-flight state. But he couldn’t escape in any way; the Headmaster’s amazingly powerful grip on his shoulders and the knee between his legs had him pinned on the desk, and Mr. Nairick’s sharp, unblinking steel eyes seemed to be stabbing into his soul relentlessly.

The Headmaster’s face moved closer. The icy hands on Jore’s shoulders pushed him down more painfully, and then he finally felt his mind grow dark and shut down as Mr. Nairicks’ ice-cold lips met his.



* * *