The silence grew heavy.
No one moved. Several gazes jumped from the sphere to Sora's hand, waiting for some delayed reaction that never came.
"Huh...?"
Sora tilted his head slightly, studying the crystal from a different angle. His brows drew together slowly. He pressed his palm a little closer, as if the contact hadn't been enough.
Nothing happened.
Then a laugh shattered the tension.
"Hahaha... are you an idiot or what?"
Ethan pressed a hand to his forehead, doubling over slightly as he laughed without holding back.
"Did you forget how to channel your spiritual energy, or what?"
His voice pulled others along with it. First two, then several more, like a chain reaction.
Sora didn't pull his hand away right away. He stared at the crystal a moment longer, waiting for a delayed reaction.
Nothing.
He withdrew his hand slowly.
Olivia took a step toward him. Her expression had shifted; the smile from earlier was gone.
"Sora... is something wrong?" she said, her voice lower and softer.
Sora shook his head, though the gesture came out unsteady.
"I... don't understand," he murmured, staring at his own hand. "I channeled my energy the right way."
His fingers closed and opened once, as if searching for some fault.
His pulse hammered at his temples. He could feel his heartbeat in his chest, uneven, picking up speed. The classroom felt like it was closing in. The voices around him came through muffled.
Was this real? Was it some kind of nightmare?
Sora knew perfectly well how to control his spiritual flow. He had trained hundreds of times, more than any other student in the entire school.
His flow wasn't the problem. Something else was.
"Could it be that... he doesn't have a class?"
The voice came from the second row, a hesitant whisper. An idea that hadn't crossed many minds, because it was so rare for something like that to happen.
Ethan's head snapped up.
"Hahaha! Seriously?"
His smile stretched wide as he turned to look at Sora, eyes full of something ugly.
"This is priceless..." he said, shaking his head. "When we made that bet I actually took it seriously. Your father, monster that he was, at least had strength going for him... but clearly you didn't even inherit that."
The class joined in.
"He doesn't have a class? Is that even possible? Ha!"
"Karma's real, I guess. Hahaha."
"He deserves it..."
More comments piled on, merging into a tide that threatened to swallow Sora whole.
He clenched his fists until his knuckles went white. His arms stayed rigid at his sides.
There was anger in his chest, but more than that, disappointment. Something close to despair.
Sora could still hear Ethan's voice from a few days back, leaning against the courtyard wall, speaking loud enough for everyone around to hear, that remark about how his mother must have slept her way into her job, because no company in their right mind would hire the wife of a terrorist.
Sora had made him swear that if his class came out higher than Ethan's, those words would be taken back. But now the situation had gone far past that.
It wasn't just the bet he had lost. It was his future.
"That's enough," Olivia cut in, stepping forward and placing herself slightly between Sora and the rest of the class.
"Stop being so cruel. Sora is going through something difficult right now."
The murmuring died down slowly. A few stray laughs slipped out before it went quiet entirely.
Olivia looked at Sora carefully. Her eyes moved over his posture, his tense hands, the stiffness in his shoulders.
Sora didn't raise his head.
He kept his gaze fixed on the floor for a long moment. Then he swallowed and barely lifted his chin, fighting the urge to cry.
He wouldn't give them the satisfaction of seeing him like that. He would leave with whatever dignity he had left.
"Miss Olivia..." he said, his voice quiet, breaking on the last syllable. "Can I go home early today?"
Olivia held his gaze for a moment. She hesitated, but didn't press for any explanation.
"Yes... you can go."
Sora responded with a small nod. He turned on his heel and started toward the door, without even stopping to pick up his bag.
Nothing mattered anymore.