Under The Veil of Night

"Is it time for lunch break?" Kanae yawned and asked.

Misae nodded her head. "If you don’t hurry, they will run out of the free food for the students."

"I’ll go, wait a moment."

The three of them went to the canteen. Alice intentionally bought more food so she could share with Kanae. Looking at her seemingly always hungry friend, she wondered just how big her stomach was.

"I guess you’re looking like a boy more like this," Misae teased.

The boys usually ate more food compared with the girls. Although there were some exceptions, that was the most common for them.

"Stop comparing me with boys," Kanae rolled her eyes.

Misae and Alice giggled when they received Kanae’s response. Before they could talk about anything else, they heard a commotion coming from outside. Screams and yelling followed soon after the loud commotion began.

"What’s that?" Misae turned her head to the door.

"It’s better if we stay here. I don’t think any of us want to get involved in them."

From the sounds, it was pretty obvious that there were people fighting. Although they didn’t know who was fighting, neither one of them wanted to get involved. With such a loud commotion, the teacher would surely come to separate them. There was no need for them to personally walk and got involved.

Misae nodded her head in agreement. "This kind of commotion happens once a month at the very least. There’s no need for us to get involved."

"I don’t think we can do anything too," Alice added timidly.

"Yeah, this is why I have to work harder to become stronger in the martial art class," Misae said resolutely.

Kanae looked towards her best friend and grinned. "Let’s see if you still can hold up that promise tomorrow."

Inside every school in this city, there would be martial art class. This class was important to teach students who didn’t have a wealthy background the way to defend themselves. Although some students may have their own experience on the street, they still attended the class for further enhancing their knowledge.

However, the backside would be the students turned slightly arrogant. Some of them would choose to trade fist with each other just for some slight argument. Although many of them tried to not get into conflict, some of them were unable to restrain themselves.

Friday was the day for martial arts training in this school. The first year got the lesson on the very first in the morning.

Misae grinned. "Well, maybe tomorrow I will forget about this."

"..."

Knowing that Misae was indeed unable to train too much, Kanae didn’t pursue the matter further. She looked to the side; the commotion has started to die down.

"Sometimes it’s quite scary to think that the people around us might be the member of a gang, clan, or the others," Misae remarked.

Alice looked back. "I think it’s quite normal?

"Yeah," Misae scratched the back of her head. She knew that the possibility of having friends from those parts of the city was there. Still, it didn’t make her feel any better.

"If you think logically, only a portion of students belong to them. You’ll need extraordinary luck if you want to be friends with them."

Most of the gangs’ members were already adults. Trying to find those who were still young were definitely difficult. Not to mention that living two lives were definitely hard.

Alice nodded her head slightly. "You really need extraordinary luck."

"I never say that I want to be friends with them," Misae rolled her eyes. "I’m rather afraid that I’ll get dragged into their world."

The lives of those people were dangerous, and many of them didn’t have long to live because of their experience. Misae definitely wanted to live longer, so she couldn’t stand the thought of having her life in danger every time. That would make her very scared.

Kanae patted her friend’s hand. "Even if you’re their friends, you can always leave them when you learn about the truth."

Misae knew about that, but she would be the one feeling bad if she did that. After all, she knew very well that if she got close with them, it would be hard for her to get away.

"Let’s return to class, the commotion has died down," Kanae pointed to the door.

The other two nodded their head.

The rest of the class was barely memorable because Misae found her mind kept on being distracted by the conversation she had in the canteen. Somehow, she felt bad mentioning about it since it was very common for people to have different backgrounds. After all, they would definitely not mention those when they first met with each other.

When the class finished, she turned her head to Alice. "I guess I shouldn’t have mention about that before. It makes the atmosphere awkward."

"Its fine," Alice smiled sweetly. Her doll-like appearance was enhanced greatly when she acted that way. "Everyone has their own thoughts, so I’m glad that you share them with us."

"Right," Misae nodded her head. "Let’s hang out sometimes in the future. I have to go home early today or my father is going to berate me."

"Okay."

The three of them made the promise to go out someday and separated themselves. Alice has to go home early too, so Kanae chose to go straight to her workplace.

When she was walking in the corridor, she heard some commotion. The next thing she knew, the door in front of her was opened and a boy was flung outside.

’Is this the era of flying boys?’

Kanae quickly looked towards the label in front of the door. This was an infirmary, right? Why were they throwing the students out?

"That’s hurt."

The boy scratched his head that was knocked to the wall grumpily. He was clearly pissed for being thrown out from the room. His messy appearance and bed hair made Kanae certain that this boy was sleeping inside the infirmary room just now.

The two of them met each other eyes and the boy opened his mouth first.

"Oh, hello there, sorry I’m blocking your way."

Kanae shook her head. "Are you alright?"

"Yeah, this is not the first time that doctor throw me out," the boy answered in an annoyed tone. "He’ll not allow non-sickly person to sleep when there are patients."

"Infirmary is the place for the sick."

"I know," the boy stood up and cleaned his clothes. "Oh yeah, I’m called Tommy here."

"You can call me Kanae."

"See you later then, Kanae. I’m going to search for other places to sleep," Tommy scratched his head as he yawned.

Kanae looked towards the boy’s back for a moment before walking again. That was surprising to see him being thrown out just like that.