"I know this is short notice, but today, we have a new transfer student joining us today. She doesn't have a uniform since it's her first day of school, but she's still one of our students. Let's have her introduce herself," the teacher drawled. His eyes were half-lidded as if he had just rolled out of bed, and his suit seemed to have never been in contact with an iron. It had more creases and folds than a pug.
His dark hair lay flat and oily to his head, and lathered over his face was a thick layer of grease. Had he not washed before coming here?
"Rem Oaks," Joan said, standing at the front of the class. Her eyes scanned over the room, trying not to stare at the same spot for too long.
Countless pairs of disinterested eyes stared up at her, seemingly uninterested in someone with average looks. Secretly, Joan feared someone would recognize her body was six years too old to be in high school.
"You'll sit there in front of Navier. Navier, stand up," the teacher drawled, unenergetically.
Navier immediately rose from his seat, pushing his chair back. The chair's metal legs screeched against the concrete floors, causing a symphony of snickers and giggles to erupt at Navier's flushed face.
Joan nodded in approval and made her way to the seat in the corner near the window. Ah, how stereotypical, she thought to herself. She narrowly missed a quick-moving leg attempting to trip her and a stray hand wanting to pinch her butt.
She seated herself in the open spot right in front of Navier, who busied himself in the workbook lying before him.
Ah, what a total nerd. No wonder he got into Tsinghua.
Navier was a boy who stood out amongst his peers. His large, doe eyes hid behind a pair of glasses on the verge of collapse. Tape messily connected the bridge and multiple spots on the glass's arm and hung loosely on his face. His figure was stick-thin, a clear by-product of malnourishment.
Angry, red pimples dotted his skin in mountain ranges, and his skin was paperwhite, gripping each joint in his body as tightly as it could.
By contrast, most of his peers were muscular and much taller, likely from all the roughhousing.
Joan stared out the window as the teacher drew on about sines and cosines and something about midterms, which Joan had no clue about. What were midterms? Had her old highschool had them? She couldn't quite remember.
A bell abruptly rang, and Joan flinched in her seat.
"Have a nice lunch," the teacher happily said as he rushed to clean up his podium and get out the door.
Joan stayed grounded in her seat, unsure of what to do in this unfamiliar situation. A few girls cast her friendly glances, wondering whether to approach her and introduce themselves, but Joan's hard stare quickly warned them otherwise.
Glancing around, she saw a group of three well-built boys making their way toward Navier.
Ah, they must be his friends, Joan thought.
The three boys towered over their peers and had inconspicuous piercing around their lips and eyebrows. Their black uniforms hugged their muscular figures, making them look more like hitmen than high school students.
All they needed now was a briefcase and a pair of sunglasses.
The boy at the head of the group leaned down and whispered in Navier's ear. He paled and nodded before the mysterious boy straightened himself and headed out the door with his cronies following closely behind.
"So, PK, where's my money?" she whispered and lowered her head, pretending to study this mysterious workbook. Diagrams of squiggly lines and circles sat on the page, but she had no clue what they meant.
"PK?"
"Project: Kill… PK… Yeah?"
"I suppose." PK rolled over her workbook. "You haven't met Navier, though. Mission incomplete."
"What?" Joan grip on her wooden pencil tightened.
"You have yet to introduce yourself to him."
Joan's eyebrows kissed as a disapproving frown spread. She turned around, intending to introduce herself to Navier, but he rose from his seat and scurried out the door as she did.
His feet shuffled against the floor, and he reminded Joan of a terrified mouse.
"Hey, he kind of looks like you," Joan chuckled to PK.
"Oh, ho? We're both smart, yes? Why thank you for the compliment."
"Not what I meant," Joan grumbled.
The image of those three boys suddenly flashed in Joan's head, and a lousy feeling spread throughout her gut. Navier was the type of boy to be bullied.
Unconsciously, Joan stood from her seat and hastily followed Navier out the door.
"Hey, where are you going?" PK asked.
"Wherever he's going," Joan nodded at the boy in front of her.
Navier took a sharp left as he exited the classroom and nearly ran down the hall, narrowly dodging the other students.
What's he doing? Playing real-life Subway Surfers?
With ease, Joan silently tailed him. Her boots landed stealthily on the concrete floors, not making a whisper of a sound.
Navier abruptly made another sharp left, turning into the… boy's bathroom.
He must've needed to really use the restroom.
"Ah, so he was just going to the bathroom," Joan said to herself, ignoring the curious stares. She stuck out quite a bit without a uniform, but she had no option. At the moment, she was too broke to fork out the 20 dollars it cost.
"Don't tell me you're going to use the restroom with him. Let me tell you, that's not how you build a healthy relationship," PK shook his head, ears twitching.
"What do you know?" Joan snapped. "Have you been in a healthy relationship."
"I learned it from the internet."
Joan raised her eyebrows. This rat had more personality than all the scientists in the intelligence unit combined.
Just as Joan turned around to head back to class, a sob piqued her interest. She straightened herself, focusing on what she was hearing.
A shaky "Here! I got it!" was followed by a thud similar to the sound the punching bag made whenever Joan hit it. A groan. Then a laugh.
The picture painted itself in her head. Without a second thought, she turned back around a rushed into the boy's bathroom.
"Hey, hey, hey! Were you serious about using the bathroom with him? Did you forget what I just told you?! Hey, don't ignore me."
Joan ignored PK's incessant blabbering and entered the boy's bathroom. The scene stayed true to the one painted in her head.
The boy, who she presumed to be the leader, fisted Navier's hair as he devilishly smiled down at the scrawny boy's kneeling figure. Navier wrapped his head around his middle as tears streamed down his face.
"Ho, what's a rat doing in here? Come to play?" one of the cronies leaning against a bathroom stall cooed.
The other boy cackled, his goose-like honk echoed throughout the bathroom. His open mouth revealed a full set of yellow, tar-caked teeth. "She looks decent enough."
The leader released Navier's hair and strode towards Joan with a wicked grin on his face. "Rem Oaks was it?" he grinned, cupping Joan's chin with his right hand.
He squeezed, causing her lips and cheeks to puff out. "Aww, how cute," he cooed.
Before he had the chance to make another move, Joan lightly punched his gut. The leader stumbled back into his cronies, coughing, and grunting.
"Bitch!" he cursed. Wiping the edges of his mouth, he rushed toward Joan. Scowling, he raised his fist, preparing to disfigure her face.
With ease, Joan captured his fist and sent an uppercut to his jaw. His teeth knocked into each other with an unmistakable click, and his head violently snapped backward.
"Didn't your mother teach you not to hit a woman?" she remarked, violently ripped out the piercing on his lower lip.
He fell to his knees in pain, and Joan fisted his hair the same way he did to Navier.
A guttural scream escaped his parted lips, as blood streamed out of the gash like a waterfall. "What are you standing there for?" he shrieked to the two shocked boys behind him. "Do something, you pricks!"
With their leader's harsh reprimand, the two boys snapped out of their daze and came rushing toward Joan.
She immediately ripped off the boot on her foot and swung it at the two bulls at a terrifying speed.
Pa! Pa!
Two slaps echoed in succession as the boys stumbled back, clutching their throbbing cheeks in pain.
Without pause, Joan kicked the leader squarely between his legs and let go of his hair, and he slumped to the floor.
"Three on one? That's not very nice." Joan nudged the collapsed boy's face with her foot. The leader's two cronies whimpered in response.
Ah, Joan reveled in their fear. She couldn't help but crave more.