Bubble Gum Kisses
CHAPTER 50

**Kapittel 50** ***Vanessa***

**When I first read Sun Tzu's Art of War,** I closed the book dumbfounded, thinking that it was just a load of bull explaining in different creative ways with motivating quotes on how to avoid war. It was not a manual on how to proceed with war. Sure, the inspirational messages were encouraging and good. But the entire context? A load of bull. That was what's in my opinion.

A reviewer once said that it was all about avoiding war by using diplomacy. Warfare was the last resort, and it should be planned strategically so that no casualties and liabilities will be involved. I might be academically smart, but I didn't have the wits to win without fighting. I wasn't good at formulating strategies. Unfortunately, on my end, war had started, and it was far from over. Surely, if Sun Tzu was looking at me from up above right now, he'd doing a facepalm since I've been attempting to win a war that I had been partaking in and started as well. According to the book, going to battle was another way of admitting loss. If we follow that ideology, I was admitting loss, but with class at least. Since the incident with the grasshopper, which I started, an unaired bullying contest between us two sparked. As payback for the chalk prank, I ordered a restaurant's entire menu under his name, requested it delivered to his classroom, and said that it'd be paid in cash. His vendetta was quick, the next morning, men suddenly barged into my classroom, introducing themselves to be from some event services, and danced in front of the class while singing me happy birthday. It ended up pretty badly on my part since my teacher reprimanded me for disrupting his class.

He knew I hated leaving a bad impression on my teachers, so I had to repay the deed. I stole his soap while he was in practice, and changed it with bloody soap. It didn't take a while to spread in school that the entire soccer team freaked out in the gym bathroom because Friso left the shower all red and bloody. With the genius of my friends Seandhe and Harley and the assistance of my only two friends in school, I made all the soccer balls explode that Friso kicked during practice. It didn't end there. He added hot sauce to my drink while I was going to the bathroom on lunch break. Of course, I retaliated by throwing a realistic fake cockroach on his tray. It almost initiated a food fight since he accidentally threw his food on his teammates who immediately retaliated, thinking it was a game. Thankfully, deputies from the discipline committee were present and de-escalated the situation.

"I wonder what surprise you got in store for me today." I was startled when a thick, cumbersome arm suddenly hung around my shoulder, pulling all its weight on me. I immediately turned and came in face-to-face with the relentless fiend for the nth time.

God, what a great way to ruin my morning.

"Get off me," I grunted. I grudgingly removed his arm from me, smacking his back. Seeing his face always triggered my fight-or-flight response. And I was a wingless bird.

He scoffed, retaining his conceited smirk, and began to walk away with his usual long strides. My lips lifted in satisfaction as I watched the piece of paper having the phrase written: "I still pee on my bed." pasted on his broad back flapping in the air.

There were more unthinkable events that happened in the long span of my stay in Trinity Knight, and my days were getting more and more eventful as they passed by. The pranks went hardcore too that it got to the point I pre-ordered a large bucket of slime in preparation. I was determined to teach the devil spawn a lesson, however, Friso didn't seem to care or got tired of it. Rather, he seemed to have been enjoying it. It made me tedious as some time went on, but my rouse returned when taunted.

I was still the campus' enemy of the state, but things weren't that much hostile anymore. There were even others who started who showed support for me, particularly, the troublemakers ever since my prank war with Friso happened. But of course, his fangirls would never get over me. But I could handle them, so far.

I kept my mischiefs on the line, but sometimes, they'd go overboard because of Friso's reactions. It sometimes scared me, but I became more of a risk-taker. At first, I was worried about getting called by guidance again since it was going out of hand. But I once heard gossipmongers hushedly talk that Friso had been keeping the discipline committee quiet about it. So why not use the privilege and make fun of him to the fullest?

"I know that today's a good day for most or some of you. Unfortunately, I might have to break it since this final semester's preliminaries are about to start after next week." The Philosophy teacher, Mrs. Birmingham's announcement earned a series of different levels of groans from the class.

"Today, I will give you all 5 minutes to make a skit," the groans went on again, but this time, louder. "This will be graded as a project for the preliminaries. Which, according to your grading basis in this subject, will consist of 25% of your grade," she continued, shutting everyone up.

All of a sudden, the mundane air cleared, and the oxygen seemed to become fuel for fire. I couldn't see it, but I could feel that everyone was burning with motivation. I, too, was determined to get a high score from this simple skit. Midterms and Finals were both 30% of the grade, which was the highest. Having a high score on a project output, which was 25%, being the second highest consistency would be a big help.

"All right. Now reserve your questions for later, I'll be announcing your groups now. Take note of your groupmates." She raised her clipboard, pushing her eyeglasses up the bridge of her nose. "Let's start with Group A..." she trailed off and began segregating us into groups.

I lounged my back flat on the backrest, doing simple pen-spinning tricks with my pen. It'd take a bit of a while before getting called, I might as well entertain myself a bit.

"de Vries, you're late." Looks like the villain had arrived.

"Got caught up in a meeting. Sorry."

"It's already the second semester. Work on your tardiness, please."

"Working on it." To what extent could he be so rude to the teachers just because his dad was the school's largest shareholder? It surprised me sometimes that Mr. Mosbey could sometimes make fun of him in class without getting fired. Fuck, I cussed when I heard his footsteps coming closer to my spot. I forgot he always sat beside me. I ground my teeth when the scent of the irate axe cologne mixed with androstenone went from faint to strong when he took his seat next to mine.

Once again, he wrapped his arm around my shoulder. I kept mum, ignoring him but his hand suddenly grabbed on my shoulder. With brute force, he maneuvered me into turning in his direction, compelling me to face him. "Looks like we'll be having a group work. I look forward to cooperating with you."

"Dream on." I rolled my eyes.

"Group D, we have Naybe, Hamamoto, Willis, de Vries, and... Hatherne." To hell.

"Oh no, I guess it's not a dream anymore." He chuckled beside me, inviting my anger to surge. Calm down, Vanessa. We're calm. We're calm. We. Are. Calm. Crack!

"Watch with the grip. You might break a pen... or two," someone's pleasantly cool voice said. I looked up and saw Alexie Hamamoto looking at us with an amused smile. She was one of the people who weren't antagonistic with me. In fact, I like her enough since she was amiable with me.

"Too late for that," Friso retorted, still laughing, causing me to give him a side-eye in annoyance.

"Ooh, I guess that's what they call a bombastic, criminally offensive side-eye," she guffawed, her amusement seeming to increase. But I could care less right now. "Don't be so hard on her, Drew." She ran to his side to nudge him. Okay, looks like she was pretty much amiable with everyone.

"Please, she's the one being hard on me."

"Haha, like a wife ma-"

"Hamamoto, what are you doing?" our quietly uptight instructor asked.

"Uh... meeting with my groupmates?"

"Right... everyone, go and meet with your groupmates in a circle." Mrs. Birmingham had no choice but to proceed in letting us go in groups now instead of rebuking her. We followed as instructed as our other two groupmates came. "Also, de Vries. Take that paper off your back. We don't want to know about you peeing on your bed," she said nonchalantly before turning her back.

**

Thank you for reading Bubble Gum Kisses! To keep up with my work, future works, and endless frustrations on my social media accounts:

https://twitter.org/RiosMorpheus

https://instagram.org/riosmorpheus

tiktok.org/@riosmorpheus

**