The next day, they met in front of Alina's house. "Morning." Linda greeted as the twins staggered in front of her. Alina was standing beside her, nursing a slight headache, while smirking at Korū, who was obviously not doing very well.
Korū was, unfortunately but not surprisingly, having a fairly bad hangover. Both of the twins looked slightly stunned, and there was nothing to do with the drinks yesterday.
"What's wrong?" Linda asked, obviously picking up on their mood.
"Our mother and uncle," Hikari breathed, "Just. Stabbed. Our. Grandfather."
Alina choked. "What? Why?" with Linda looking equally confused.
"They hate him," Korū responded, his voice lacking its usual sharpness. "He's also Kaito oji-san's dad, but they have different mothers."
"They've been avoiding Ojii-san since the fight over land," Hikari continued. "They said they didn't wanna see him again, but he turned up at our doorstep this morning to look for Kaito oji-san. And then he made it worse by slapping my mom because she didn't let him in."
"So where is he now and what is he doing?" Alina asked, as they all started to head to school.
"Probably on his way home." Korū growled. "Alone."
They spent the rest of the journey to school in silence, each of them deep in their own thoughts. As they entered the school, they realised that there were people pointing at them, whispering.
"They're probably talking about yesterday's fight." Linda said, watching Alina look around warily.
"Whatcha looking at, bastards?!" Korū snarled. Hikari gave her brother a slightly annoyed glance, though she knew it was probably the hangover that was making him more short-tempered.
Alina gave a chuckle, and they made their way to their lockers. Because they were transfers, Hikari, Korū and Alina had their lockers side by side, while Linda's was, fortunately, only a short distance away. As they approached their lockers, they caught sight of six figures crowded around them, attracting curious and intimidated glances from passing students.
"What the hell do you lot want?" Korū hissed. "Do you want to end up as beaten up as those three bastards yesterday?"
Cole snorted. "No, we realised we never actually introduced ourselves. I'm Cole."
"I'm Liam."
"I'm Cayne."
"Cerys." She said, grudgingly.
"Jan."
"Lory."
"Okay, sure. Can we open our lockers now?" Alina asked, annoyed.
"Tch." Korū pushed roughly past them, tugging his locker open.
Liam rolled his eyes, "Okay, okay, no need to be so rude."
"Guys, move. We need to get to class." Alina said. "Now that you're done introducing yourselves, leave us alone."
"Says the bastard who threatened to make our lives hell," Korū said, a menacing edge to his voice.
"Hey, hey, I didn't say anything." Liam said indignantly, moving out of the way.
Alina snorted, "Yeah, but he sure did," jabbing her thumb in Cole's direction. She then slammed open her locker, causing the door to hit Cayne.
She smiled at him sweetly. "Oops." He grumbled a little, but Alina may or may not have caught the muttered, grudging words "You're not bad, if I were honest."
Linda grinned from a few lockers away, undisturbed by the six people pestering her friends like bees to a flower, except with three dangerous flowers and six bees that had no stingers.
Hikari glanced at Cole's broken wrist. "Does it hurt?" she questioned, a nearly undetectable hint of mockery in her voice. Anyone who didn't know her well would think she was actually genuinely concerned.
"Not anymore." Cole answered smugly, causing Alina to gag. She slammed her locker close and turned to him. "Would you need help with that?"
"Wait, Alina, hold on," Hikari cut in. She lowered her voice so the humans couldn't hear. "We should let the Alpha-to-be have some pride, ya know? He's higher ranked, after all." She turned to her brother. "Right, Korū?"
"Yeah, yeah, what fuckin ever." Korū shut his locker, and walked away, a glint of polished silver gleaming from within the folds of his jacket for a moment. That was about as subtle as his warnings would ever get.
Alina chuckled. Fortunately, Cerys and her friends had stalked off earlier. Linda made her way to them, and the three girls went to catch up with Korū, leaving the other three jerks behind, standing awkwardly.
Just before they rounded the corner to their classroom, Hikari turned around, caught the jerks' eyes, smiled, and flipped them off.
Linda dragged her away before she could catch their reaction. "Don't you think they're a little weird? Why the hell would they show up at our lockers just to introduce themselves?"
Alina shook her head. "The real question is, how did they even know where our lockers are? That's creepy." She turned to Hikari, using a bad impersonation of Cole, "Yo… hey. I just got my wrist broken. Would you care to tell me where the new kids' lockers are, so that I can camp in front of them with my buddies to introduce ourselves tomorrow?"
"It's alright," Hikari grinned. "We'll just beat the crap outta them if we have to. Again."
"Yeah, and if they still don't get the message after that," Korū added, "I'll use poisoned kunai and no one's gonna stop me."
Linda shook her head in faux disappointment as they entered the classroom.
"Yeah, then I'll shoot you if you actually kill someone with those things," Hikari threatened. "You're not the only one who brings weapons to school."
Alina sniggered. "I'd pay to watch that happen."
"Done it before, I can do it again," both Hikari and Korū said at the same time.
Alina gave a laugh while Linda ignored them, walking to their seats instead.
Korū slumped into his seat, already mentally exhausted even though the lesson hadn't even started.