Tuesday morning alone proved to be a far quieter school day for Xin than Monday. A big reason for this was the absence of Gary and Tom. She didn’t know why, but ever since the two friends had shown up at the Karate club, the transfer girl had started to pay more attention towards them.

Turning her head, she stared at their two empty seats.

‘I heard that the green haired boy got excluded for fighting with Steven, but what about his friend? Is it just some coincidence that he’s also missing or has he decided to skip classes, so the two of them can hang out?’

As she wondered about the reason, she felt a certain group of girls whispering things about her, no doubt spreading some nasty rumours, as they were staring daggers at her.

‘Right, I should probably worry about my own problems first. Why is it so hard to find that one opportunity to apologise and clear things up between us? Just when did she convince the entire class to avoid talking to me as if had the plague?’

Ever since Xin had accidentally thrown Tiffany into Gary’s puke, she had tried to apologise. Last week, she had failed to make any progress. The transfer girl had sincerely hoped that after the weekend, the queen bee might have forgiven her or at least shown herself more willing to listen to reason, but she had no such luck.

Yesterday, Tiffany’s two goons had gotten in the way each and every time, not even letting her speak with their ringleader. It had gotten to the point that the new girl had wanted to just beat them up, to get through them. The only reason she hadn’t done so was because Xin feared that it would only escalate her situation.

When the bell signalled their lunch break, Xin planned to catch Tiffany on the way to the canteen, to finally settle things between them. Following her down the hallway though, she eventually encountered someone else who was walking through the halls with a bandage over his head.

“Steven?! Is that you?” Xin called out to her clubmate. The karateka seemed pretty zoned out, so she wanted to make sure he was okay. “Is your head alright? I heard what happened. What made that guy attack you like that?”

Based on the few interactions she had with Gary, he hadn’t seemed like the type of person to just attack someone for no reason. Then again, she hadn’t exactly expected to find him challenging their Karate club either. Still, unlike Gary, Xin felt like she knew more about Steven and his character.

It wouldn’t surprise her to learn that he had felt embarrassed about the loss and had decided to fight him again, only this time without any gear on. Of course, the amount of force Gary had used was undoubtedly excessive.

Steven looked at Xin for a few seconds and just brushed her off, walking past her. Although part of him knew that it wasn’t her fault, another part blamed her for what he had gone through yesterday.

“He can have you..” Steven mumbled as he walked away.

His words were annoying, and she was about to push Steven for more answers, yet it just so happened that she saw Tiffany enter the toilet... on her own!

‘Wait, are those other two not with her?’ Xin rushed to the toilet, finally getting the chance she had been waiting for!

Opening the door... a trash can landed on her head.

Xin didn’t understand what had happened. One moment, she had followed behind her classmate, the next she was covered from head to toe in banana peels, dirty food and other garbage. The girl immediately took it off, throwing it to the side, only to see Tiffany pointing at her, laughing with her two friends who had already been inside.

“Hahah, well I can safely say this is far worse than you throwing me in that puke, but it's not enough. This is just the start. You humiliated me in front of everyone, so you have to pay for this!”

The next second, Xin picked up the trash can from the ground. Walking to one of the two goons, she swung at over her head, causing the girl to fall to the floor accidently bite her lip.

Seeing this, the other goon stepped back, and fell down on her butt. Before Tiffany could react, Xin was already heading straight for her. With her forearm, Xin pushed her back until the queen bee was against the wall, and her forearm pressed against her neck.

“ENOUGH! I have had it with you. I’ve been barely here for a week and you’ve done nothing but torture me for something I did to you on accident!” Xin shouted. “Ever since, I’ve been trying to apologise to you, but you’ve made it abundantly clear that you don’t want me to. What's wrong with you? Are you on some sort of power trip or something?”

It was then that Xin saw a smile on Tiffany’s face, a reaction she hadn’t expected.

“You screwed up.” Tiffany declared. “As the Mayor’s daughter, I bet you thought you were pretty safe. Truth be told, I actually planned to keep this between the two of us. Pay you back for another week or so, before I would eventually leave you alone, but now you laid your hands on me...”

With this threat, Xin wanted to finish her off here. She was ready to use one of her powerful kicks, but the words of her father rang through her head, and she decided to let go, leaving the toilet.

Slamming the door behind her, it had caught the attention of a few students. Another noticeable thing was the strange smell and some items that were still stuck on her clothing.

‘Things never seem to change around here.’ Kai mused, walking through the hallway, staring at his phone. Frankly, he enjoyed observing his fellow students and their problems, but he had just received a text from an important person.

[Thank you for helping me out the other day! I seriously don’t know who would do something like this, but I’m just glad you knew the right people who could get rid of the problem. Anyway I owe you a big favour.]

Innu had called him in the middle of the night, to inform Kai that a human limb in the shape of an arm had been left outside his apartment. Panicked and not knowing what to do, he had called Kai to see if he could do anything. To his surprise, his fellow gang member had been easily able to fix his problem with a simple phone call. The fighter hadn’t asked any questions and had simply done as instructed.

‘Just what is going on for both Gary and Innu to receive human flesh in front of their doors? This isn’t something the Underdogs would do. Could it have been a rival gang trying to scare them? … No, that doesn’t make any sense. We’re barely a gang and even if those guys from Eton High found out that we’ll be fighting them in the tag team tournament, they would simply try and beat them up. Whoever did that must have wanted to leave a message to the two of them. In that case, what exactly do the two of them have in common to receive such a thing?’ Kai racked his brain.

****

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