Xue Yan did not have a great night.

She spent most of her time in bed tossing, turning, and screaming into her pillow.

The phrase ‘can I touch your eyes?’ followed by awkward, high-pitched laughter was her brain’s newest favorite way to torment her.

It would have been fine-- it would have been a little okay if the next day was the Saturday she thought it was.

It was not.

“You look tired.”

The voice of James, one of the guys in class.

Whenever someone said ‘you look tired,’ what they really meant was: ‘you look absolutely hideous.’

She did. She had to rush out of the house to make it to class-- and she made it just before the first period bell. So naturally, after that class was done, she thought it would be okay to rest her head.

Shay lifted her face off her desk, glaring up at the bluest blue of James’ eyes.

“Try again, sir,” she said.

“Sorry, Lady President,” James smiled awkwardly, “I’ve just never seen you come in late before.”

“Almost late,” Shay said with a pout-- “and I’m only human. Even I make mistakes.”

“Almost late. Still, there’s a first time for everything,” James said. “But if there’s anything you wanna talk about, I’ll always make time for you.”

Shay took a breath, exhaling out of her nostrils (with an unintentional grunt.)

James was her desk neighbor, blonde, blue-eyed, and popular gossip-topic. If the girls in class made up individual nations, they’d fight bloody wars debating the merits of glasses versus no-glasses.

And James’ face would be blown up on every banner of the glasses faction.

He was really nice and helped out on the Student Council from time to time... and he was probably the only male student she interacted with on a regular basis.

--which wasn’t often.

(Also, Andy didn’t count.)

At school, Shay mostly kept to herself.

She had a lot of reasons to stay socially isolated.

She was always busy... with Student Council work or studying or rushing home to prepare dinner on time.

Then, of course, if she were to open up to more people, the topic of her home life would inevitably come up.

But the biggest reason was probably--

““”Good morning, Shay!!”””

A trio of girls greeted her in unison.

Shay smiled politely and waved back, “Good morning.”

The girls returned bright smiles as they walked back to their seats.

Shay sighed-- mentally, anyway. Her exasperation was best kept to herself. She had a certain reputation... one that she’d crafted for herself, partly on accident.

‘The Student Council President is always busy.’

Sometimes it leaned toward ‘she’s such an inspiration.’

Sometimes it sounded more like ‘she’s kinda a bitch.’

Either way, most everyone generally left her alone... which led to what she only recently realized was an inability to talk to people without spouting off cringeworthy lines.

‘Did it hurt when you fell from hEaVeN??’

Remembering that, Shay died a little more inside...

She looked down at the floor beside her desk. The golden snake pin... she’d pinned it to the strap of her bookbag.

Meeting her mysterious knight wasn’t a dream. She had physical, undeniable proof that they met.

--undeniable proof that she embarrassed herself with every. single. word. that came out of her mouth.

She let her head smack right back down on her desk.

“Shay?” James said.

Shay popped back up, remembering where she was.

She narrowed her eyes, “Don’t tell anyone you saw that just now.”

James chuckled, smiling wide. He had dimples. That... was kinda nice.

“So you have a cute side,” James said. “I had a feeling you did.”

Shay crossed her arms. She was pretty sure she was being insulted, but she knew better than to try and defend herself.

She’d lost all confidence in her ability to speak words that meant exactly what she wanted them to mean.

--”Hey, hey, did you hear about what happened to Andy?”

--”No? What did you hear?”

Her classmates were gossiping-- the girls that greeted her earlier.

Andy...

That guy was a bit of a creep, but he had a good reputation. He was smart, too-- his grades in class were second only to hers.

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

She preferred to think of him as an academic rival, so it was natural that she was interested in any gossip surrounding him.

--”I have on good word that he’s in the hospital right now.”

--”Why are you being all secretive about the source. You got it from Aki, didn’t you?”

--”Well, yeah, but that’s beside the point. Aki was saying he got into a big accident. Broke his leg and got stitches on his face.”

The two other girls moaned in worry. They were probably Andy fangirls. There were a lot of girls in class like that.

As for Shay, she steepled her fingers and kept her feelings hidden. If Andy was going to miss a few days of school, there was no way his grades were going to recover. Muhuhahaha~!

Her spot at the top of the class was secure for the rest of the semester.

Whatever injuries he had, he’d get fixed up by the best medical practitioners money could buy.

--and by both regular doctors and old, traditional Chinese grandpas.

Andy belonged to the very prestigious, very wealthy Zhang family. He probably got hurt doing rich-boy things... riding a horse or something.

Oh. The tennis team was royally screwed without their captain and star player.

“Hey, Shay,” James said. “Didn’t you go somewhere with Andy yesterday?”

“Tch, what?” Shay scoffed, “No way. Why would I go anywhere with that guy?”

“Oh...” James frowned, “I... guess, maybe it wasn’t you.”

She and Andy had a cordial relationship, but not nearly enough that she would accept his invitation to go anywhere-- not without good reason.

And it wasn’t like she had the money to spend going to--

Shay winced as a spike of pain rattled her head. Then, just as quickly... the headache went away.

Weird.

The bell rang, signaling the start of the next class.

Shay was looking forward to it. She was tired of thinking about herself and all the ways she’d screwed up in the past 24 hours. And the next class was English Lit, taught by her favorite teacher.

#Lit.: Short for literature.

So it was time to just sit... relax... and reinforce her kNowLedGe.

...

Shay didn’t remember SHIT.

It made no sense.

She always made a point to study all of the next week’s classes during the weekend.

It’s not like she did anything on the weekend! She didn’t go out and-- and do whatever high school kids did!

Once the block of classes ended, she grabbed her English book and flipped through the pages.

She’d only studied... the chapters from last week?

She wanted to hold her head and cry-- but she restrained herself.

It was Tuesday.

The last day she remembered... was last week, Friday.

She’d lost three whole days, somehow!

She furrowed her brows, thinking back. The mysterious man rescued her after she passed out, (or that was what she assumed, and, honestly, he was too hot to be a kidnapper. And that was the only truth she was going to accept.)

But did that mean... she was zonked out for three whole days?

The clothes in the hamper needed to be washed imMediately.

The classroom was buzzing with conversations, people milling about, ready to go home or to after-class activities.

Shay was part of the go-home club, herself. She had to cook dinner, to do her laundry, to frantically study so she could get between two and four hours of sleep~

She put her bag on her desk and started putting her things away--

She stopped.

She stared.

There were tiny red splotches on her bag.

Blood?

She could get that right out with a little bit of vinegar.

--but why was there blood on her bag?

“Yan Xue,” a rough voice called. “I need to talk to you.”

Shay looked up to see Edward Luo standing over her desk, his spiky hair artificially increasing his height by at least three inches.

He was on the tennis team-- and he was one of Andy’s... minions.

They’ve never spoken before... so what could he want?

“Eddy, right?” she said, hugging her bag against her chest, “What’s up?

“Just Ed,” he said. “I’ll keep this short. Do you know what happened to Andy?”

Shay pursed her lips.

She did... but only because she overheard some gossip. And the way Ed stood at her desk with an intimidating gaze made her hesitate in answering.

He slammed his palms on the desk, making her heart jump up into her throat.

“Does this have anything to do with the Song family?”

“N-n-no, of course not!” Shay said, her voice a bit too high-pitched to match her carefully curated image.

“Hey. Why don’t you pick on someone your own size?”

James Price: her kind-hearted savior.

James walked up to Ed, his bag artfully slung over one arm, and he stared into his eyes, his glasses gleaming from the ceiling lights.

He was almost cool.

Almost.

“...Did you really say that just now, Price?” Ed asked.

“I did,” James said. “Leave her alone.”

Ed rolled his eyes, “Who talks like that, man? ‘PiCk on soMeoNe yoUr oWwwn size.’ You watch too many fucking movies.”

James tried to look to Shay, but she looked down at her bookbag.

As much of a prick was Ed was being, she agreed. Cool movie lines didn’t have the same effect in real life.

--not that she was qualified to criticize another human being for spouting off dumb cliches in actual conversation.

“Forget it,” Ed said. He frowned at Shay before turning and walking off.

“What was that about?” James asked.

“I... I dunno,” Shay said, shouldering her bag as she stood up. She kept her arm over it to hide the blood splotches from anyone that might see.

She’d lost three days of her memory.

...Maybe she did go somewhere with Andy yesterday.

But... even if something happened to her, the Song family wouldn’t do anything about it.

An old martial arts family like the Songs would absolutely do something if their honor was questioned. But... she was so loosely related to them, she was pretty sure that didn’t apply to her.

It’d been years since she last saw Grandpa Wei...

She waved a quick goodbye to James and she walked out of the classroom.

Something was going on-- something confusing and disorienting.

The mysterious man. The lost memories. The potentially incriminating spots on her bag that... had the tiniest possibility of being Andy’s blood.

Her heart beat with something like excitement... but the cold, clammy feeling in her fingers warned her that she was dealing with something way over her head.