Under The Veil of Night

"I think my habit of coming to school earlier has been passed down to you two," Kanae joked.

Alice grinned. "This is the only peaceful time."

Because the majority of the students in their class were boys, they were usually very noisy. Previously, the number of girls still around one third, but after a group of girls was being kicked out, their number decreased significantly. Including Kanae’s little group, there were only 10 girls inside the classroom.

The other class situation was also similar because the majority of the students were boys. Although their number of girls were still more than Class 1-A, they were still nothing in comparison with the boys.

This was extremely common because Nolen School C was the school with the least security. The students here could be categorized as those who were smart but poor, those who were rich but not too smart, and those who have an ambiguous background. These three were the most commonly seen type of students in this school.

"The end term is near, we can’t talk as much as usual today," Alice reminded them.

Misae groaned. "I tell you, don’t remind me of them. They are my biggest enemy in the class."

Kanae laughed. "You will have to face them sooner or later."

Misae passed a glare towards Kanae. The three of them talked for a long time before the teacher came, which made the students turned their attention back to the teacher.

Taking her book out, Misae focused her mind to the lesson, determined fully focused on her study. She didn’t want to embarrass herself any further with a low score.

However, things didn’t seem to go on her way.

CRASH!

The sound of glass breaking and student screaming suddenly appeared, disturbing the peace they had instantly. The teacher hurriedly told them to stay calm as they checked what happened on the first floor. The classroom for first year class 1-A and 1-C was on the second floor, so they hadn’t heard about anything.

Kanae looked towards the window. Her seat was by the window because her sight of sleeping usually caused the other student to feel annoyed, so she was located at the side with Misae beside her. Outside the window, Kanae could see a lot of people fighting.

Her brow creased. They were clearly very unfortunate for incidents to happen one by one in succession. There won’t be any peaceful day anymore.

"How is the situation?" Misae asked nervously.

Alice also peered toward the glass, but she didn’t dare to get any closer. This time, the sound seemed louder and more vicious compared with before. She was afraid that mishap might happen if she tried to peek.

"It seemed there is an attack towards the school, and it ends up in a brawl. Many of the students participate in the fight," Kanae said calmly.

She didn’t really feel surprised over the matter since this school was indeed full of people like that, who would choose to join the fight. At the first attack, they didn’t come out because the guns, now that the other parties only use some ordinary weapon, they dare to move forward.

The situation should have gone better if only the students didn’t participate in the fight. Now the guards were having a tough situation to handle them and a few warning shots could be heard. The student of the first year should have been safe on the second floor... or not.

Kanae’s eyes watched the movement outside carefully. There were some people throwing stones to the window, breaking them. One of the stones was aimed right to their classroom.

"Get down!"

CRASH!

The sound of glass breaking was sounded right from beside Misae. Her eyes widened with shock as she found herself being pushed down by Kanae. In front of her were the broken glass and her best friend’s hand covering her eyes.

"Don’t look."

"Ka...Kanae, are you alright?" Misae voice trembled. She didn’t even see it coming, and all she knew was that her eye was covered by a small yet rough hand. In that instant, fear seeped deep into her mind and she was terribly scared for losing her friend. She knew that she was not hurt because there was no pain, but what about Kanae?

"Yes, I am."

Kanae had seen that stone thrown to the second floor, but she couldn’t possibly do anything to prevent it from breaking the glass. Because of that, she instead chose to protect her friend and warned others.

"Alice, are you alright?" she turned her head to the side.

When Alice heard Kanae’s warning, she immediately hid her head under the table. Her head popped out when she heard Kanae’s call.

"I’m good."

Kanae heaved a sigh of relief. Her eyes swept across the classroom. The rest of the students were in a panic. Running away from the class, they quickly went as another stone crashed into the other window. Kanae put her hand down from Misae eyes.

"Let’s find somewhere safe."

With her trembling feet, Misae managed to get up. With Kanae holding her hand, she pulled her away from the classroom. Alice followed from behind as they headed towards the Student Council room.

"We can stay here, there is only a small window here and only the President and Vice-President have the key," Kanae locked the door again.

Misae sat on her chair and put her hand on the table. Her hand was shaking hard, but she still did her best to not cry. Kanae walked to the small window and took a chair to look from that place because of her lacking in height. Looking outside, she could see that the brawl was still in the middle with no sign of them being peaceful soon.

"Kanae, did you get wounded?" protecting her like that, what did she think of herself?

Kanae shook her head. "I’m not wounded at all. The glass pieces didn’t come to my way."

Alice immediately looked towards Kanae’s back. It sounded impossible, yet it was also the truth as she saw that Kanae’s was barely wounded. There seemed to be some scratches, but those were barely negligible.

Misae looked down again, feeling rather guilty.

"You shouldn’t have protected me like that."

Kanae smiled. "How can I do that? You’re my best friend."

As she looked towards Kanae’s smile, Misae recalled the time when she and Alice were behind Kanae and a vase fell in front of them. Knowing Kanae, she knew that Kanae should have some reaction and move, but she didn’t do that and stood firmly. That was obviously her way of protecting them. And now, it was Kanae who protected the two of them by covering for her and warned Alice.

Tears welled up on her eyes. She felt that she was too lucky to have a friend like Kanae, yet at the same time, she felt that she was the useless one. She kept on bothering her friends and got caught up in some useless matter. As she looked at Kanae, a determination was born inside her mind.

She wanted to be strong just like her best friend. She didn’t want to rely on Kanae for the rest of her life.