during a sleepover at ramshackle dorm, the freshmen decide to look around and see if they can dig up something one of the past residents might've left behind.
they end up finding a journal left 50 years ago by a former pomefiore student, who was obsessed with knowing what people thought of him, and so invented a curse that would give him an injury everytime someone insulted him. unfortunately, he also laced his journal with this curse as well to get back at anybody who was trying to snoop through his things, making the freshmen the next victims.
it'd be bad enough in regular high-school; it's even worse in night raven college.
ace and deuce never noticed how many insults they wind up taking from their upperclassmen. the worst part is that they know they don't mean to be cruel-- but everytime cater or riddle implies that deuce is stupid, or riddle takes everything ace does as immature or short-sighted, or trey lets this happen without a word, ace and deuce wince as their windpipes close up and invisible hands strangle the air out of them. it's all they can do to hide the fact that they can't breathe anymore as they stand in front of their housewarden.
jack knows leona, ruggie, and the rest of savanaclaw aren't exactly the nicest to him, thinking he's too idealistic or too ambitious. but it's a little different when every single slight causes his mouth to fill with blood, as if one of his fangs have been ripped out. he spends more time in the bathrooms, buying cleaning supplies to clean up the blood, trying to decide if he should start wearing a face mask, and figuring out how to hide this than he does pretty much anything else now.
epel braces himself for what's to come when he goes back to pomefiore. he knows vil means well in his criticism, but that's a lot harder to remember when every single instance of vil insulting his way of speaking, his hair, his handwriting, his walk, the things he likes to eat, the things he likes to do, and the things he cares about is met with crippling headaches, dizzy spells, and stomach pain, almost like he were poisoned. but he's been drilled in the art of being perfect even when he's in pain, so he just smiles, stands up straight, and bares it everytime.
ortho gets off... relatively easy. idia would rather delete all of his save files on all of his consoles than knowingly insult his younger brother. but sometimes, when idia ignores ortho advice or when idia is visibly uncomfortable with ortho desires, ortho swears he can feel his cooling fans shut off and his cpu begin to burn.
sebek won't say he has it bad, but he won't say that this scenario is ideal, either. he already knows lilia, malleus, and even sometimes silver look down on him and don't take him seriously; but it's a completely different thing for it to be forever engraved onto his skin in the form of lichtenberg scars crawling up his arms. he makes doubly sure never to wear short sleeves and not go anywhere without gloves.
yuu already knew being a magicless prefect who was basically the headmage's lapdog was doing them no favors in the pr department, but they never truly recognized how much they were putting up with until their skin begins to literally splinter and crack whenever somebody says "magicless prefect" like it's some kind of slur.
the first-years do their best to hide their injuries as much as is possible with their limited resources. they pull together their allowances to buy cleaning supplies and medication. they cover for each other whenever somebody needs to step out of the room to hide their winces and muffled cries of pain. they do their best to support each other and look for a cure without alerting their upperclassmen.
(the absolute last thing they want is to seem weak in front of people they respect and want to be respected by so much.)
