Chapter 33: Making Friends
The next morning, I donned my uniform and left my dorm room at a relatively early hour. Considering yesterday was the entrance ceremony, today would officially be the first day of class. As I walked toward the school building, I spotted Luna in the sea of heads.
She was walking rather slowly, so I caught up to her rather easily. She didn’t even notice me walking beside her; her eyes were locked on the group of girls in front, chatting and laughing.
Ah, so this was the problem. She was worried about making friends, and her awkwardness was preventing that.
"You okay?" I decided to ask.
She turned to me with a startled expression.
"Liam! I didn’t see you there. Good morning!"
She instinctively began averting her eyes, probably embarrassed that I caught her.
"If you want to make friends, it’s probably best that you talk to them."
She shook her head.
"No, it’s fine. I just—"
"Good morning, you two!"
A loud voice called from behind. We turned to see a girl who was in our class.
It was the cheery girl from yesterday—Kiki, if I’m not mistaken. But why was she talking to us? No, I knew why; I saw her at the mall yesterday. She must have seen me with Amelia.
"G-good morning," Luna stammered out looking completely caught off guard.
"Hmm," she looked at us with an intriguing look. "The two of you are in my class, aren’t you?"
Of course, she already knew that we were. Her silly demeanor was nothing but an act. Everyone might have found it cute and charming, but to me, it seemed humiliating.
There was nothing funny about pretending to be stupid, and frankly, it was a little annoying. I would rather have her leave, but I knew that wouldn’t happen—she wanted something.
"What were your names again? I’m bad at remembering names."
Luna was quick to answer.
"It’s Luna; he’s Liam. It’s nice to meet you."
I didn’t know why Luna bowed her head, but she did. If she continued to behave shy and apologetic, it would only lead to her being used by girls like Kiki here.
"Oh, it’s nice to meet you, Luna! I’m Kiki. I’m sorry to disturb you both. So, you’re walking to school with your boyfriend, huh?" She teased, nudging Luna by the arm.
This was the first bait, and of course, Luna had to fall for it. Her face flushed red as she waved her hand frantically to deny it with every fraction of her being.
"Oh, no! He’s not my boyfriend! He wouldn’t... I mean... we’re just friends!"
Kiki had a playful smile on her face as Luna desperately tried to explain. Just like that, she managed to extract information from her.
She was more cunning than her innocent face implied. From the moment I laid eyes on her yesterday, my eye noticed something, and me being this close to her only confirmed my suspicion.
"Well, if that’s the case, would you mind if I walked to school with you guys? Pretty please!"
Since Luna was okay with it and I personally couldn’t care less, Kiki walked with us to the school building. I must admit, I didn’t like her questioning Luna, since she knew too much about me.
For starters, Luna is the only one who knows my hero name—something that I would like to keep secret, at least for now. During our walk to school, she continued questioning Luna under the guise of finding out more about her to make friends.
She tried asking me questions too as I walked, but I kept my answers short and simple, being careful not to reveal too much.
Even if it was a simple question like what my favorite color was, people like her always found a way to use things against you. I’d much rather she see me as just an uninteresting boy.
When we arrived at the classroom, I quickly took my seat and waited patiently until our homeroom teacher arrived. Yet again, it seemed she was running late. After about 15 minutes past the time she should’ve been here, she burst into the classroom, barely keeping from tripping over her own feet.
"I’m sorry for coming late; I had a matter I needed to attend to."
Just like us, the teachers also had their own dorms on campus, so if you thought about it, she really didn’t have any excuse to be late. She walked over and placed her bag on the desk while simultaneously picking up the remote for the smartboard.
After fiddling with the remote for a couple of seconds, the words ’Interclass Competition’ lit up on the board.
"There will be an interclass competition between the first-year classes. The event will take place next week. With this specific event, nothing will be at stake; its main purpose is to encourage students to work and support their own class."
So the school wasn’t completely clueless. They knew conflict would arise after separating the different factions into classes. I’m guessing this event is to show the students what they are in for and why cooperation is necessary.
It wouldn’t work. To get them to be loyal to their own class, you simply needed a more hands-on approach. Someone would have to step up and make it happen—preferably the leaders. Frankly, I don’t see this as a problem for the other classes.
If it came down to it, I know they would use violence to get their way. Unless Amelia decided to do the same, things were unlikely to change.
"For this event, each class will have three groups with three heroes per group. It will be a class versus class setup. I’ll get to which class you will face later. Think of this competition as a game of capturing the flag. We will make available five dungeons; each class will choose three dungeons they wish to enter. There will only be three flags, and they will be placed randomly inside a dungeon. It all depends on your choice if you end up with a dungeon that has a flag."
That means a class may choose a dungeon that doesn’t have any flags. It is also possible that a class chooses a dungeon and is the only class inside that dungeon since the number of dungeons to group were uneven.
"Now for the class you will face, class Qi will go up against class Wu Wei."
That’s Rafael’s class.