The school ended without much incident, to the girl’s relief. The school was relatively safe, but she had heard about some schools having incidents with the newly awakened Neo-humans. Some were bullied students, and they lashed out when they awakened. When the heroes arrived, half the school had already been slaughtered. If something like that were to happen at this school, that silly hero-addicted Esmeralda would also involve herself. At that time, things would be too troublesome. The teen felt a headache just by thinking about that scenario.
She suddenly felt a large hand grabbing her shoulder while she was about to walk toward the gate to meet with Esmeralda. She looked behind her shoulder and found someone she recognized from the morning. He was a friend of that guy who confessed to her in the morning. She just looked at him impassively, questioning what he was doing with her gaze. The man seemingly faltered under her gaze before steadying himself and glaring at her.
“Listen here you bitch. What you did this morning is cruel. Come with me and apologize to my friend, he has been depressed since the morning because of your words,” the man ordered, looking dead into her eyes.
‘How troublesome, can I not go? I should just not go,’ the girl thought inside her head quietly. She looked at the man.
“No,” she replied. If anything, this just made the man angrier.
“Come with me while I am being reasonable. I didn’t even ask you to date him, just to apologize to him. Have some basic human decency,” the man replied with an irritated tone. Unfortunately for him, the girl isn’t a human, so what he said was lost on her. Alas, what he said was too reasonable for the girl to refuse outright. So, she pondered about this carefully before deciding that Esmeralda was more important than this random dude and said, “no”.
“Now, if you excuse me, I have a date,” she said and ran off. The man was taken by surprise as he didn’t think she would do something like that, but he instinctively tried to grab her, however, he instead tripped and fell by “accident” and by the time he got his bearings, the girl was long gone. He left out a long-suffering sigh and swore that he would get back at her for this.
The girl was already at the school gate in no time. Their school was the best in the city, and it was pretty clean, to say the least, but if one were to point out the most unique feature of the school, it would be the school gate. This gate was famous for having to be rebuilt almost every year. It was a well-known trouble magnet and was broken in more than one way. From a drunk student hitting it with a car to a random meteorite falling on it. It had made more than its fair share of appearances on the news. Owing to that, the school gate was perhaps the most pristine thing in the entire school. At the front of the gate, there was a beautiful girl standing while crossing her hands. Her beautiful face carried a pair of ferocious gazes which scared those who wished to talk to her. When she saw the girl, she let out a bright smile.
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“Have you been waiting for long?” the girl asked.
“No, no, I just got here too. Let’s go,” Esmeralda replied and tugged her backpack, raring to go.
The girl just shrugged and followed the energetic girl’s lead. She didn’t know where they would go for today’s date. Esmeralda always seemed to have something new every time they went on a date. It made the dates more interesting. Esmeralda grabbed her and took her through Clover’s city’s busy streets until she finally stopped at a dingy place. A signboard with a target and someone shooting at it was placed up the top of the place. It said “Blazing Shooting Range”.
“I found this place while I was patrolling. I thought about taking you here since you obviously need some protection,” she said while pulling the girl inside the range. The owner was a nice guy, and they settled everything quickly. Soon, she was holding a gun, looking at the target painted in front of her.
“Have you used a gun before?” The owner asked.
“Yes,” the teen answered. Well, even if she hadn’t, she would know how to use all the tools she had gazed upon. As if to prove the owner, the teen fired her gun rapidly, hitting every target dead centre. The owner let out an impressed whistle.
“Well, that’s impressive. Okay, you do you, try not to damage the guns, and if you need me for everything I will be at the front,” he said and left the girl and wide-eyed Esmeralda alone.
“Wow. I didn’t know you know how to use a gun before,” Esmeralda said, still feeling a little out.
“Well, that didn’t come up in our conversations after all,” the teen answered.
Esmeralda’s expression turned sombre as she said, “Now that I think about it, I didn’t know much about you, huh? Please, can you tell me what happened 5 years ago?”
The teen's hands which were fiddling with the gun stopped.
“I am sorry, I can’t,” like that, the conversation stopped with an awkward tension in the air.
________________________________________________________________________
Back home,
The teen sighed as she watched the retreating back of her best friend. She wanted to talk to her, of course. But what happened back then, the sort of things she did. She didn’t want to remember. Things were confusing then, and she hadn’t gone through the Blooming Ceremony yet. So, all things considered, she was weak. Very weak. And that weakness cost her. Her friendship, her life, her love. The teen sighed and decided not to think about that anymore. It was all in the past anyway, and what happened had happened. She looked at the pocket watch in her palm, The Cronus Driver, a powerful tool capable of controlling the time. Then again, she sighed and put the tool away. Some rules were there for a reason, after all. She should just focus on what she has currently rather than on the past.
The teen started her usual routine under the distant sounds of police sirens and explosions. Clover city was lively tonight, too. Just in the corner of her eyes, through her window, she saw a figure clad in darkness, watching her. The corner of her lip raised slightly. Maybe she should also have some fun again. After all, many interesting things were happening all around.