Chapter 20 - Stuffy Suit

Chapter 20 - Stuffy Suit

‘It’s okay, at least you can use it as cover.’ Nova, knowing that I hate the heat inside the suit, assured me.

Today was Lucas’s birthday, the actual date of his birth, December 6th.

‘I’d still have to wear this the whole night.’ I said to myself whilst walking towards the bathroom.

I changed into my red panda costume and went back to our booth immediately. Julia handed me the fliers I was supposed to hand out while acting cute and taking pictures with kids.

I was given the task to walk around the school ground, only on the first floor and outside, and try to encourage people to visit the prison booth.

The booth works like this: One student would be inside the announcement room announcing a variety of description, from clothing, to facial features. Once a set of 3 descriptions were announced the other students of year 11 would walk around and “arrest” civilians.

They had a few rules to follow- Don’t arrest the person if they are unwilling, Don’t arrest children/ elders/ pregnant women/ disabled people, Don’t arrest students busy with their booth, and finally, don’t arrest students in your own booth.

‘On the bright side, you don’t have to run around looking for people.’ Nova said while floating in front of me.

‘Yeah, but I sweat more than them.’ I replied back. Although I don’t have to run around and search for people, I’d still be cooking inside this suit.

All I have to do is stand in the same spot, act cute, walk around, and move to the other spot, act cute, and repeat. I have 5 locations to stand on and once I finished one rotation I can rest for half ten minutes and do the cycle again.

Julia told me that I’d rotate with Richard after dinner time. Richard writes down the list and collects money at the table together with Natalie.

“Can’t I just stay here with Natalie? I don’t want to go around inside a hot suit.” Richard was dreadful when he received the same Red panda suit but in a bigger size than mine. It was only decided this week that someone would rotate with me.

Ashley was the third person who would rotate with Richard after he finished giving out part of his fliers.

Although he was against leaving the table, (probably because he wants to stay with the girl he simps for) he soon just accepted the suit because of Julia’s glare.

“I don’t know if it’s just me or has the class rep changed?” Ashley, who was right next to me said. Yvonne and Ashley weren’t particularly close, they’ve known each other since kindergarten but because of Yvonne’s bratty personality, Ashley doesn’t want to get close with her. That’s why when she talked to me in her own accord, it confused me and Nova.

‘She talked to us, didn’t she?’ Nova was staring at her confused. Yvonne’s reputation is the kind where most people in their right minds won’t approach her, she’s a villain and a cannon-fodder at that.

“Not just you.” I said after a long pause. I looked at Ashley with confusion as well whilst agreeing with what she had said.

‘She was affected as well?’ Nova eyed Julia from a distance and thought by himself again.

‘The butterfly effect, we humans call it that.’ I said to Nova.

‘It’s when one small change can cause a large impact.’ I continued and explained. In this case, the small changes in the events have affected the characters personality.

Nova and I have talked about it last week. Our interference with Yvonne’s body have caused changes in the events of the novel. Nova has anticipated some changes regarding the flow of the story, but not to the point that it would change the characters.

‘Well, you could also call it the domino effect.’ It’s where one events causes a chain effect; one change in Yvonne’s character caused a change in the events and in turn, also changed the characters.

“Now-now, go to your posts.” Julia finally told the three of us mascots to go around. There were three people that were decided to become mascots, it was supposed to be only me but thankfully, there were other people who would suffer with me (kekw).

We went out and stood in our areas. When I was approaching the garden area, I could see the school gates from afar..

“Holy shiiiiittt.” I whispered to myself when I saw how much people were already there. It was like the Berlin wall opening.

‘How much people did you write?’ I turned my heavy mascot head towards Nova that was floating beside me. I asked him how much people he wrote in the novel.

‘Hehe…just 20 thousand or so.’ Just? “JUST” 20 thousand? Why?! It’s not that I’m scared of a big crowd of people, I stayed in N*w y*rk city for a year. I’m used to a lot of people but this was worse than the XXX epidemic when I was in my 4rd year as a professional working in the hospital.

‘Tell me it’s twenty thousand in TOTAL of three days.’ I stared at Nova in disbelief.

‘Yeah, it gets more crowded as the day goes by.’ This reality is a jumble of different cultures in one story. On one side we have the Korean culture of bowing down and using terms like Noona, Hyung, Oppa, and Unnie, and on the hand we have the Japanese culture of Bunkasai.

(Bunkasai- cultural festival)

The crowd soon flowed in like a wave and crowded the pathways. We all started our work when people approached and I began giving away fliers. Most of them took a flier or two but there were the others that just ignored me and continued towards the other booths. I was standing on my spot and after giving dozens of fliers, it was time to walk towards my next spot.

For the next few hours, my time went like that. Giving out fliers, walking towards my next spot, acting cute, and giving out fliers once again. It wasn’t long before my rotation finishes. I finished giving away a stack of fliers as well so I was able to go to the bathroom to change into a black top and rid myself of sweat.

“I haven’t sweat like this for so long.” I said to myself as Nova helped me cleanup. The last time I sweated this much was way back in my fellowship years. The doctor I worked under was very strict and moody.

‘You’re nice and clean!’ Nova said as he held the perfume up and spritz a couple of times. I checked my phone and checked the time.

‘We have a ten minute break then we go to the booth.’ It was already 7’ thirty and I’ve been going around the school for almost two hours. I was definitely exhausted since Yvonne’s body wasn’t really the “athletic type”.

I checked Yvonne’s body mass index (BMI) and I got a score of 16.23, she’s too malnourished! She has never exercised in her life and from the looks of it, she does a lot of different diets every week which doesn’t really supply much nutrients to a growing teen like her.

Yvonne originally weighed only 47 kilograms and stood at 5 feet and 7 inches. An average weight of a 17 year old was between 50 kg to 56 kg. From her weight, I could easily tell that she was starving herself; I could feel the symptoms as well since I’m in her body. I would often feel dizzy and light headed.

‘Hmm, when is Yvonne’s birthday?’ Since I thinking deeply of Yvonne, I suddenly remembered that it was her birthday. I don’t know the exact date and had wanted to ask Nova about it for a long time. I seem to always forget to ask him about Yvonne’s age, Is my memory becoming worse?

‘December 25th.’ Nova said whilst looking around and staring at food displayed by the other booths.

“So it was on Christmas.” I said to myself as I pulled out a protein bar inside my bag and opened it. This was the cheapest thing I can find in the snack booth I bought from earlier.

When we approached the Prison booth, we could already see a couple of people inside the jail cells and a long line of people waiting to bail out their partners.

The prison booth occurs every three hours and closes at 11 PM; We can see Richard walking away from the booth table and Natalie opening the cell and letting out a person after receiving a donation.

“I really need your help. I couldn’t sort out this list of who paid for donations and I couldn’t list down the names that fast.” Natalie was in a full blown panic when I arrived. She told me that she couldn’t keep track of who donated to get released and who got out by waiting.

She was trying to write it down and type it at the same time, the table was a whole mess as well.

“*Sigh* Let me have a look.” Natalie gave me a stack of papers as I sat on the chair next to her.

‘How the f*ck can you mess this up?’ There has only been 56 people so far, and that’s under two hours.

‘I used to give out medical prescriptions double this within an hour.’ I thought to myself as I started organizing the papers scattered on the table. I told Natalie to arrange the papers in order whilst I talk to the other people waiting in line.

“Hello there, 1 dollar for bailing one person.” I faced the long line of people and started writing the names of the people bailed out and putting the money in the box.

“What’s the purpose of the prison booth anyway? Ya’ll already come from rich families why do we gotta pay for shit?” There was a woman who looked to be in her 40’s infuriated with the program.

“It’s a campaign with a purpose of attracting attention towards wrongfully convicted individuals suffering the punishment they did not deserve, failure of justice.” I explained the purpose of the campaign to the woman.

“Why don’t you and your posh parents pay for it then? What’s that got to do with us? Wow, you are all greedy! You already have so much money and yet you still squeeze us of ours!?” I don’t know what’s up with this woman, she must have some personal struggles of her own so I considered her.

“Ms. This is a school fundraising festival. I’m sure that you’ve at least done a check on the event before attending it correct? The school heads have put the list of activities on the website. Now if you don’t have the intention of spending money here you might as well just go back home.” I spoke politely and looked at her with a blank face.

The woman ended up paying anyway to bail out her 19 year old son. It went smoothly right after that; Natalie managed to list down the messy list she did whilst I lock in new prisoners and take out those who waited / were bailed.

“Wah~ I couldn’t believe you handled it like that. How can that woman be so prejudiced?” Natalie complained as we took our break and walked around looking at the other booths. From the looks of it, she was a little nervous and frightened by the encounter with the woman.

“She was so mean~” Natalie pouted unconsciously and assured me right after.

“Don’t worry, I’ll try my best to keep you away from mean and rude people.” She was determined by what she said and would stick around me.

We soon found a nice booth made by the juniors; it was a cat café. They’re fundraising for homeless people who got sick from food poisoning. They would provide the food and medical fees.

“Welcome~” A student wearing cat ears welcomed us.

Natalie smiled at the students as we were led inside towards a two-person table. Natalie and I sat down and looked at the hand-written menu handed to us. There were a variety of food and what caught my attention was the sweets category.

‘OmO Demi~ Get me a macaron!!!’ I could hear Nova suddenly appearing out of nowhere and standing right in front of the menu. If it was sweets we’re talking about, Nova and I are sure in for it.

I finished picking out the food I was getting when I saw someone familiar from my peripheral vision.

‘Why the…’