Page 59 of Teaching the Kot'oll Coach

I shake my head at myself.

I’m just fooling myself. If I were good at spotting that, I wouldn’t be here. Seeing that I’m not good at that, maybe I should keep my distance from everyone, including him. That’s if he even cares that much about me.

“Ossa... I do envy you.”

He stands and puts his hands on my hand that’s holding the container of the lasagna. He peeks and watches my food. I don’t understand this cat.

“You know you can’t... Are you trying to say that if I were a cat, I can’t be having lasagna? Maybe you have a point.”

I still don’t understand cats. Sometimes, he acts as if he understands me, but sometimes... It’s just cats being cats, after all.

Telke...

I still miss him. There’s warmth in my stomach when I think about it. But I don’t know what I should think about that. Maybe my gut feeling has been broken and that’s why I ended up in this situation...

“Ossa, do you like Telke?”

He meows again. He hops off my lap and heads to the door, patting the door frame with his forelegs.

I tilt my head to the side as I watch him. He’s not a dog and won’t be asking for a walk. So... what’s he doing there other than that spot being where Telke left his shoes when he was here?

I rub my temple and sigh. What’s wrong with me? Asking Ossa about important things is like asking a coin before I toss it, as if that’ll change a thing and as if a coin can understand me and tell me the right thing to do. I really should know better than that.

But at the same time... how bad would it be if I gave Telke and me a chance, if that’s even something he remotely wants?

I miss his hugs and his grins. So...

Chapter 26

Winnie

I take a breath as I push the door of the staff room open to get inside. Given the time of the day, Telke should be there. I don’t think it will be a good idea to talk to him about what happened here, yet...

Maybe I should stay in the library until the day is over before I look for him, but at the same time, I don’t want him to think that I’m trying to dodge him. I don’t mean to.

It was a long night of rolling around and planning what to tell him. He might be a nice guy, but I can’t take the risk.

What if something goes wrong again?

I’ll need another life to recover from that, which I don’t have. Ossa’s the one with nine lives, not me. I’m just a human trying to survive the world.

The staff room is humming with lazy energy when the bell hasn’t rung and everyone’s trying to treasure the moment of tranquility before the clock will shove us all to the kids and a busy day ahead.

I turn a corner to a shadow in front of me. I halt just in time. I think something has to change when it feels like I keep running into beings and almost bumping into them.

Corners at the corridors to be damned.

“Um... Good morning, Winnie.”

I nod. “Morning, Jackel.”

He smiles. “Happy to see you here. Hope you had a nice night’s sleep.”

“I tried my best.” I chuckle. Jackel is a nice guy. Most of the beings who I met here are nice and pleasant to work with.

Jackel peeks in the direction of our row of seats. He is probably tall enough to see past the partition boards. I’m not, and I don’t like that. The school should make the partitions transparent, so I don’t keep running into others, even though that would defeat the purpose of partitions.

He says, “Telke’s back from morning training a bit earlier.”

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