"Woah, we are in the same class then. What a coincidence. And when I just called you, why didn't you come immediately?"
Airi got a bit confused thinking about why she should have answered immediately and asked her. "Why should I? I wasn't even done with taking a seat."
The response she got made her flabbergasted for a second. Soon she laughed out loud. "Ahaha, you are a bit sharp with your tongue, aren't you? I don't recall seeing you before, you aren't from our middle school? Well, whatever, I kind of like your personality. Name?"
Airi sized up the girl in front of her, being all smug-faced, from head to toe. More or less, most of the students in that classroom had the same kind of boastful superior look plastered on their faces.
"It's Airi Arne. And yeah, I am not from Sandra Middle…"
"Pffft!" the girl burst out into laughter as if she heard something extremely funny. The way she was finding it hard to control her laughter, Airi couldn't get what was that much funny in anything she said.
"Ahaha, oh my, Airi you said? As in, some kind of Japanese name? Oh, my God!" She raised her voice to grab everyone's attention in the classroom towards her, "Attention please everyone. Guess what we got this year, another Japanese alien, hahaha!"
All of a sudden, almost the entire classroom started laughing loudly. It felt like the hysterical laughter of that girl contaminated the air around her and caught everyone else. Although amidst them there were some students who seemed annoyed, and they kept quiet and continued to do whatever they were doing as if they couldn't care less.
The girl who started all of this patted her chest hard to control the unending laughter bubbling up from her insides. "So, what's with this Japanese name huh? Are you also an animation geek and some kind of nerdish fellows, like that dumb one over there?"
She pointed towards the door of the room, and when Airi looked back towards it, she saw the girl who got bullied just a while ago outside of the school building.
"Hey, Sayuri, guess what! We got another weirdo like you with us. Congratulations, now you got a partner to goof around." With that, the class burst out in another wave of laughter.
And the girl named Sayuri silently came into the classroom, and walked up to a seat at the end of the room, putting her head down all the way up there.
'Woah! She is even bullied by these kinds of small fries…'
Airi's temper rose so high that she felt like her blood boiling, and rising to her head. The only thing she could never tolerate was to appear weak. No matter who that was, herself or any other, she couldn't control her temper and ended up being harsh to them every time, with the fact of her talking bitter and being straightforward.
And the situation right now made one thing clear to her, that is, if she doesn't say anything right now, the Airi who leads her life peacefully and being a strong one up until now, despite having a bad temper, will be tagged as someone timid and weak all through her high school life, just like that pathetic one in that corner, Sayuri.
She had to speak up, no matter what.
With the surging rage desperately trying to break free on the surface, Airi hit hard on the nearby desk with her hand. The loud bang on the finely crafted wooden desk was so loud that the entire class turned their attention to her, enveloping into a pin drop silence.
Airi moved a step ahead towards the girl she was talking to, closing the distance between them. As the distance ended up into a few inches, Airi had to look down to meet her eyes, as the girl was a lot shorter than her. Airi's 170cm height sure gave her that advantage to overpower that rude arrogant girl in seconds. If gaze could do any harm, the girl sure would've turned into a sieve, with multiple holes in her face. Airi gave her that much dark and intense gaze. The darkness in her eyes made the girl shiver in her place.
"First of all, my name belongs to a language of a country, which has, of course, a significant meaning to it. I never thought someone of a prestigious and elite school wouldn't even have this basic common sense in them, to respect a country and its language, tsk tsk." Airi emphasized the word 'common sense' deliberately, to make the girl feel ashamed of herself.
"Second, having a Japanese name doesn't mean that the person might be an animation 'GEEK' or something. And the last one, being studious or, what did you say? Nerdish right? So being a nerd isn't a bad thing if you know that you have to study to be strong enough to overpower, instead of", Airi pointed out that girls' oddly sparkly hair accessories, "Putting on weird combinations in an educational place, to make you look like rebellious or gang leader, something like that. You look dumber than anyone present here."
This time Airi heard some light chuckles, and she was sure that those belonged to the classmates who just minded their own business a while ago, not laughing at her.
Airi then noticed the name pin on her chest pocket. She snatched it open, causing the hook of it to break. "So, Miss… Maria Sinclair, is it? Next time, talk only if you have anything decent to say. Otherwise, don't waste your words. Those are limited resources you know? Because bird brains can't hold much in it."
With that said, Airi threw the pin towards Maria, which didn't hit her face for an inch, flying past her. She turned back to the classroom looking at her, with a bit awestruck and a bit of anger on their faces. "So yeah, I have landed into aliens' territory, because in my middle school, there used to be only humans who read there, not some bunch of pathetic weirdos, boot lickers," and then she looked at the person sitting in a corner with a guilty depressed look on her, "and losers."
And with that, Airi made it clear who was strong and who had the upper hands on the very first day.
Just then, the bell rang, and everyone took their seat. Soon after, the lady teacher came to the classroom.
"Good morning, lovely students," she greeted all of the students while keeping her papers she brought with her on the table beside her. "As of today, you all are going to start a new journey, which would lead to the maturity of your body and soul. Many of you know me as I have been your P.E. teacher in middle school as well. And some of you are some lovely flowers, which we have picked from other gardens only for ourselves. Of course, we are being a little selfish here, and with that in mind, the new students, could you please come up to the dais to introduce yourselves?"
After the teacher called upon the new students, ten students together with Airi went up in front of the classroom. Three of them were those classmates who were in support of Airi during the commotion that happened just a while ago. When the teacher asked everyones' name one by one, Airi gave attention to theirs when their turn came.
The one with curly medium hair was Emma, another one was a girl with beautiful golden hazel eyes, and a mole on her upper lips, her name was Hazel. And the last one was a boy who had smooth, chestnut dark brown hair, parted in the middle. His name was Dew, and he was of the same height as Airi, and with a really skinny figure.
Airi memorized the three of them in her mind, making a mental note of befriending them after the classes.
When all the other nine students were done with their introductions, it was Airi's turn. The teacher looked at her and said with a cheerful and friendly look on her face, "We got here a pretty classmate, right? My my, you look so adorable! What's your name?"
Airi gave back an equally friendly look towards the teacher, "Ma'am, I think everyone present here knows me already, thanks to my classmate Maria Sinclair. She welcomed me rather cordially just before you came to the classroom."
The teachers' expression changed into a confused and surprised look as she listened to Airi. Airi's sudden statement with the sweet, innocent look on her face made everyone gasp in shock. They could never guess she would do something like this. They couldn't figure out how the girl in front of them could innocently state about the whole thing, while acting all cutesy, without even actually disclosing the incident. It was hard to believe that the girl who was naively standing there for the introductions is the same girl who just now gave Maria a clean defeat.
Students started whispering to their nearby classmates, and soon these whispers turned into loud murmurs.
*THUD*
"Silence students!" the teacher made a loud thud noise on the table with the wooden duster in her hand, to make them stop.
"Miss. Maria Sinclair, STAND UP!" She voiced out so loud, even Airi jumped on her place.
Maria immediately stood up erect from her seat in response to her call.
"What did you do this time, Maria? Would you like to confess about it?" The teacher tried her best not to show her anger on the very first day, moreover in front of her new students. But her patience always crosses her limit whenever it's about Maria. Her voice rose so high that it got clear to all of the students present there that she's indeed a P.E. teacher, despite her being all bubbly and flowery just a while ago.