Arts day was closer than ever before. Even though it was called Arts DAY, it was more like a week-long event. The school decided that they would do literary competitions beforehand so that the kids who participated in multiple programs would find it easy.

Thankappan and the aliens, who thought of enjoying this event, couldn't do so. Since it was the literary event first, the English teachers were asked to be the judges for literally every single competition in English, which turned out to be a pretty excruciating task.

The amount of crap that kids wrote infuriated them all. By crap, it doesn't mean grammatical errors or stuff like that. Some self-proclaimed "rebels" who liked to go against the rules, decided to put in weird-ass stuff just so that they could get back at the system.

These rebels didn't place their names though, since they were afraid of getting caught. However, finding them was a piece of cake for their not-so-normal teachers. Even though that was the case, they didn't want to spend their time looking for brats who thought that they were doing something good.

Anyway, the appearance of such shit posting entries caused much trouble for them. Someone wrote about an idle student when the topic was about an ideal student—although, in that one particular case, they thought that it was an honest mistake because the kid had written his name, detailing the harms of becoming an idle student.

However, this wasn't the case for those rebels though. Their usual topics were love letters to Mrs. Veronica, their hatred towards the principal and some even professed their love towards Rita.

Taro was amazed by reading this. "Wow!" He muttered.

"What happened?" Thankappan, the one sorting out the good entries from the shit posts, asked.

"Well, I never knew that Rita was this popular among students. I mean along with Mrs. Veronica, many students who said that they loved Rita." He replied, giving out a light chuckle. Kids who should be having their first crushes were straight-up professing their love towards someone. Taro found this situation amusing. He wondered if that was just the case of Keralites or if the entire planet was like that.

Thankappan sighed. "Of course she's famous among the students! Good behavior and looks, and moreover she's single. She's more capturable of a target than Mrs. Veronica who's married." He replied.

"Don't talk in otome game terms just because you're playing it recently for some odd reason. Calling her a capture target for students is plain weird." Taro spoke.

"Hmm, I guess I made the wrong choice of words. However, don't trash my choices like that. I play otome games because I like them. There's nothing wrong with a man liking something! It's his choice!" He argued.

"Sure, sure! I was just talking about the word choice. I apologize if I offended you in some manner." Taro bowed his head in apology.

"Apology accepted!" The MIB agent gave out a bright smile.

"Anyway, I guess you're right about Rita. However, I don't think these kids would think of her as someone approachable if they knew about her true nature. Just imagine. She'd be like this with everyone who gets close to her, right? It's plain creepy." Thinking about Rita clinging on him gave Taro chills.

"Dude, it's just before you!" All of them including the aliens thought almost simultaneously as he spoke. However, they knew Taro was aware of it but was denying it as if it's her usual behavior. So, they decided not to speak about it and cause a debate among themselves when this was the first time they got to hang out in school together like this. So, for the rest of the time, they just didn't talk about it and went on with their judging. It was a pretty pleasant experience, other than having to read some of the letters.

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Once the judging was over, the gang decided to do something fun. They decided to hand over the confessions for the concerned teachers to read. However, they decided that they would never give the principal those hatred letters they got. While confessions could be flattering, hate letters could have an adverse effect. They could see the principal going on a school-wide search to find the writer of the said letter to reprimand him.

When the time came around to hand those letters to the teachers, it was quickly decided without opposition that Taro would be the one giving them to Rita. While Taro thought that his friends were conspiring against him, it was just that they couldn't imagine facing the wrath of Rita if anyone except Taro gave them.

Rita; she was a peculiar character in their eyes. Although Taro was only able to see the helping and clingy side of her, the lads were also able to see an entirely different side. What Taro said back then was true. If the kids learn of her REAL behavior, no one would've even dared to write such love letters in her name.

..

It all happened a few weeks back. Taro was late to school that day because he was the last one to go to the toilet and the one before him, Gibli, took his sweet ass time. Taro didn't shower since he hated the sensation of it anywhere on his skin. Like he's fine drinking it, however just imagining it on his skin—we're going way off-topic.

Anyway, since he was the last and Shivani happened to go to the school a bit early that day, Thankappan betrayed his trust and continued with the coincidence routine.

It wasn't just Thankappan though. The aliens betrayed him as well. He expected at least Gibli to wait for him since he was the one who made him late, however even he turned his back.

The aliens thought of it as a light prank on the Wadorian since it was a planned event, however, they never thought that they would end up regretting that decision entirely.

When they reached school, they noticed that Rita was looking around for someone. Taro had previously talked about this, so they knew that the one she was searching for was Taro. Although they didn't understand why Taro wouldn't give a damn about Rita's advances, they never directly tried hooking up with her or something because that decision was something that Taro himself should take.

"Yo, Miss Rita! Waiting for someone?" Thankappan looked around and giggled as he asked.

"Well, yea. I was waiting for Taro. He—he took some notes from me yesterday. I wanted that back." She made an excuse on the spot.

"Hmm, but you're a math teacher though. Why would he need your notes?" Thankappan asked, tilting his head sideways. Rita, who realized her mistake, suddenly got all flustered. "Miss Rita. You should try giving out a better lie from now on." Thankappan laughed.

"Umm.." Rita blushed in embarrassment.

"You like Sadanandan, don't you?" Thankappan asked in an almost teasing tone.

"Huh? How did you know that?" Rita looked surprised.

"Oh, come on! We're not blind! Anyone who's near you two will instantly know about it." The MIB agent shrugged.

The embarrassment was something that Rita couldn't handle, so she hid her face with her hands as her whole face went pink. "I never knew that people knew of it." She spoke in a muffled voice. "Where is Sadanandan then?" She asked.

"Oh, we just played a prank on him-" Before Thankappan could complete the sentence, Rita interfered with it.

"You played a prank on him?" She asked. This time around, she was no longer blushing or hid her face behind her hands. She looked grim.

"Well—it was a harmless prank! Don't worry about it!" Thankappan automatically justified his side as he saw the grim face. It was as if Rita would kill him if he gave out a wrong answer.

"Harmless or not, you played a prank on him, right? How dare you do that?" She went on a full 360 on her behavior which weirded them out. It wasn't the same face that they usually saw.

"If you listen to our explanation-" Yet again, Thankappan tried saying something, however, was cut short by Rita.

"Do I look like I give a damn about your shitty explanation? Argh, I literally wanna kill you all! How could you do such a thing to that poor thing? He's so cute! How could you?" Rita looked at them in rage.

"Girl, you're treating a possible calamity disaster as a poor thing! I just can't!" Thankappan accidentally sighed as she was muttering something to herself.

"Hmm? You know what? For what you did to him, maybe I should just stab you all with a knife or something, huh? What do you think?" She spoke as she poked her finger into Thankappan's body as if re-enacting a stabbing scene.

Although they knew that this threat held no substance since they were trained individuals, the sudden intense atmosphere made them drop their guard as well. In that panic, Thankappan held on to the one thing he could gamble with. "You like Taro, right? How about we set you up with him? I mean, we could be your wingmen! How about it?" He asked.

"Hmm, interesting!" That day, the gang made a deal with the devil, unbeknownst to Taro.

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