Monika hesitated for a moment before she knocked on Florian's door. Maybe it wasn't right to meddle with his affairs after all. Much to the chagrin of her consciousness boredom won over the conflict and so she proceeded. After knocking she heard some things tumble over and Florian cursing. He then seemed to stomp towards the door and practically ripped it open. He didn't look particularly pleased. Upon seeing Monika he let out a short sigh and asked “What is it?” “Well, you see, I was just wondering if everything was ok with you since…” “Since what”, he interrupted her and raised an eyebrow questioningly. Monika blushed and avoided his gaze. She went on to stammer “To be honest I don't know, but you seemed to act kinda strange and I was thinking you weren't quite being really completely honest earlier at dinner and so I thought I might ask if… if there was anything going on?” Florian didn't say anything for a while, but Monika noticed him breathing in deeply. He was most likely considering how to answer to that. She hadn't been completely wrong with her suspicion after all, Monika thought to herself with no lack of joy. Florian coughed briefly and looked back into his room to say “I'm just… really busy right now, so I might just be stressed out, alright?” He looked her in the face again and went on “So really, don't worry about it.” Monika didn't answer. She intensely studied his face for any clues on what he might be hiding. Feeling that all that could be said had been said, Florian sent her off with “I need to get back to work” and closed the door in front of her face.
Monika remained in front of the closed door for a while, puzzling about what might really be going on. She knew she shouldn't press Florian too much, he would get tired and angry rather quickly when she did. Still, their confrontation left her with more questions than it had provided her with new information. What was he really busy with anyway? His grades were good, so school shouldn't be the problem, right? Unable to make whether rhyme nor reason out of this, her body mechanically moved her into her room and laid her down on her bed while she remained lost in thought. After a while her thoughts trailed off into imagining various stories that had less and less relevance to her brother or anything grounded in reality. Monika lounged about her bed for some time before her mind somehow returned back to school. Suddenly she knew what she could spend her time doing. Monika got up, dug out her agenda and went on to start on homework for the next week so she would have that out of her way already.
Oblivious to the passage of time, Monika worked on her maths exercises until she was interrupted by her mother, who came to tell her that it was time to go to bed. Monika blinked and asked how late it was. “It's 10 'o clock, my dear. Tomorrow's another school day so you'll have to get up early.” “It's this late already?” Monika gasped. Anja left her room with an amused smile on her lips. Monika frantically tried to clean up her mess; she didn't want to get to bed too late or she wouldn't be able to keep an eye open in the morning at all. Luckily, tidiness and order weren't of a very high priority to her, so she was quickly done by putting things down wherever they seemed to fit best.
Lying in her bed with the familiar moonlight faintly illuminating her room, Monika thought back on all that had happened today. Things didn't seem quite right to her, there were too many events that felt out of place. She hoped that this was all just a coincidence and not some kind of ill omen that would unfold into a series of problems. Her thoughts kept on going back to the beard stubble in the sink and with a last amusing image of Florian with a full beard on her mind she fell asleep.
Luckily for Monika her fears were unprecedented. This day would simply remain in her memory as ‘one peculiar day’ and nothing more. Of course she couldn't know that all of the strange events she observed merely had the coincidence of taking place on the same day. Had she known that Florian was in a hurry that day to meet his secret girlfriend, had she been aware that Mr Joost had received news of his wife being involved in an accident just before the lesson, and had Mr Zaugg's memory not been too spotty to tell his class about his absence, this day would have been yet another normal winter day. Monika did find out about all of these things in the coming days, but her initial impression remained so she would remember this day well for a long time.
Written by shinmera