"And with that, it is my pleasure to welcome the new students as well as the returning students to Blue Forest High School. May the time you'll spend here be both enlightening and fulfilling."

The principal, a man in grey suit with a receding hairline finished his speech followed by a round of applause that started slow before picking up speed until it filled the entire hall. For some, it was merely appreciation for a job well done. For some, it was simply what was expected of them. For some, it was nothing more than the feeling of thankfulness that the long speech had finally ended. For others, like Carl, they were simply following suit, having slept for the duration of the entire speech.

"Does he always talk that long?” Carl asked Maya when they sat down for lunch break in the canteen.

“The principal? Yeah, all the time. I usually did my homework while waiting for him to finish,” Maya answered as she took tiny bites of the tuna sandwich in her hand. The extra mayonnaise that she asked from the kitchen staff flowed out of the part that she bit. Seeing the mayonnaise threatening to make a mess of her hands, her tongue flicked out to stop the flow, creating a scene that made all the boys who looked at the scene go red in the face.

This was not lost on Carl. Despite being his sister, Carl acknowledged that Maya was a beautiful girl. She had an oval, well-sculpted face that was clean and fair, soft like the most expensive silk. Her breasts, which he knew was her pride, reminded him of the magazine pinup models that his friend Joe showed him a few times in the past. Unlike those models, he knew that Maya didn't go under the knife, because their family wouldn't be able to afford a boob job for Maya, not that they would agree to it.

As for the rest of her body, he liked how tiny and tight her waist was, either as a result of her hula hooping or her daily jog with their mother. Then there was her curvy, soft and bouncy butt, and he was an authority of it because he had touched it before, last year. As for her legs, they were long and lean, which he assumed was from her daily jog.

"Carl?" Maya's voice brought him back to the real world,

Carl cleared his throat as he said, “He must’ve memorized the whole text. I didn’t see him referring to a single piece of paper during his speech.”

“He was ad-libbing, you know. You didn’t notice he repeated the same points several times? He probably forgot he had already brought up those points earlier.”

More mayonnaise flowed out of the sandwich, down Maya's finger and ended on her hand. In response, she also licked her fingers, all the way to the back of her hand. Carl knew she did this at home, but he didn't think she'd do this at school too. Maya might be a pretty girl, but she was certainly a very messy person. Even her room was messier than his, at least the few times he went inside. He bet her admirers would cry tears of blood if they realized that Maya was not a perfect girl by any standard.

“Sorry for not listening. I’m not an honour student like you.”

She bit the sandwich twice more, causing more mayonnaise to leak out. “Well, it’s a new school and a new life, so why don’t you start a new – YOU THERE! PUT THAT TRAY AT THE TRAY STACK BEFORE YOU LEAVE!”

Carl rubbed his right ear lightly at her sudden yell. “Actually, why are you even eating with me? Don’t you have friends?”

“What are you saying? Can’t a big sister look after her little brother? Besides, being seen with me is a status symbol, you know? You’ll be a popular guy if people know you have a sister like me.” Maya said as she wiped the mayonnaise off her lips with her handkerchief.

“I don’t think that’s going to happen,” he argued.

“I’m the school idol, you know!”

He brought a spoonful of fried rice to his mouth, chewed it thrice before saying, “Actually, I’m more worried that I will never get a girlfriend if you continue to stick around me.”

“It’s not like I’m stopping them from coming close.”

“No, but you glared at them as if they were trash. Not many girls can take that kind of harassment.”

“Fufufu, this is the difference between winners and losers, Carl. A winner will never back down from a mere glare. Those cowards, if they can’t handle my glare, they can just stand behind a pillar and watch from afar like good little stalkers," Maya said as she made a smug face.

“I beg you, please stop.”

“Ahahaha!”

Carl sighed as he took another spoonful of fried rice into his mouth and – “Ow!”

“What?” Maya asked.

He spat the offending object inside his mouth on the table. It was a circular metalic object shining a dull metallic sheen. Covered in pieces of half chewed rice, soggy vegetables and some unknown meat, he thought it looked suspiciously like a ring. Scraping the food covering it with his spoon, he confirmed that it was indeed a ring, and he thought it was utterly disgusting.

Maya, looking strangely excited poked the ring a little bit with her forefinger. Then she picked up the ring and looked at in under the light before exclaiming, “Hey, this looks like gold!”

“lt looks like unclean practice!" Carl growled as he took a large swig of his apple juice, gargling it loudly to wash the imagined germ in his mouth and throat, "Urgh, I can’t believe I’ve just eaten someone else’s finger grime...”

Maya brought the ring with rice and food matter still covering its surface to eye level. She checked the surface of the plain-looking golden ring, wiping away the pieces of rice on its surface with her fingers to see if there was any inscription on the surface. Not finding anything of note, she dropped it into Carl’s bowl of soup.

“Do you mind?” Carl said as he watched Maya clean the gold ring with her fingers in his chicken soup.

“Not at all,” Maya said while rubbing the surface of the ring using the oily soup as if it was detergent.

“Well, I do! That’s my soup you’re washing that dirty ring in!”

“Oh don’t worry about it too much,” Maya said as she licked her fingers, wet with soup before licking the oily gold ring.

“Maya, that used to be on someone else’s finger,” Carl remarked while finding her actions strangely erotic.

“Finder’s keepers,” Maya said while pulling Carl’s left hand and putting the ring around Carl’s ring finger.

Hehe, this feels like an engagement.

“What engagement?” Carl asked after Maya secured the ring around Carl’s finger.

“Huh? What are you talking about?”

“You just said something about an engagement.”

“No I did not!”

“You did!”

“I DID NOT!” Maya yelled with her face flushed red.

“Okay, okay, you did not. Let’s just put it aside for now. Anyway, don’t you think we should return this? It’s probably something valuable to that person.”

Valuable or not, Carl really didn't want to wear someone else's ring. Germs aside, it felt disgusting. Not disgusting because of the germs, though he would admit it contributed to the gross factor, but disgusting because it was still sticky with the chicken soup.

“I don’t see a name anywhere. How would we know who’s the owner?”

Carl thought she was right. If there was nothing written on it, then there would be no way to tell who owned it. He suppose he could just hand it over to the kitchen staff, but he thought there would also be people who would claim the ring despite it not being theirs. Regardless of the percentage of gold, a gold ring would still be made of gold, even if only partially. Even if the percentage of gold was low, it would still be valuable.

While he was thinking about it, he heard a low rumble around him. Apparently it wasn't he alone who heard it, Maya also heard it and was looking around to determine what it was. Not only Carl and Maya, the other students had also stopped eating and looked around with nervous looks on their faces.

Carl had heard this sound before, back when he joined the police cadets on a training camp at the nearby air force base. It sounded a lot like the sound of jet fighters taking off. However, there couldn't have been any jet fighters taking off so close to the school, with it being surrounded by thick tropical forest.

The overhead light swung dangerously, his apple juice spilled its content on the table as their world suddenly shook. The glass windows shattered, one of the water pipes burst open and the students who were eating just moments before screamed in terror as everything around them moved and crashed. The lights went dark before the green emergency lights turned on, showing the exits from the cafeteria.

Carl!

He heard a familiar scream near him. He knew that voice. It was Maya's voice, but in the chaos of the earthquake and all the screams around him, he couldn't tell where it came from. His heart shook, beating rapidly, probably as violently as the shaking under his feet.

"Maya, where are you?!"

Carl!

He reached his hand out to the other side of the table, trying to find Maya in the darkness. But his hand touched nothing other the dust falling from the ceiling. Maya was not in her seat.

Carl!

Maya's voice could be heard clearly among the screams of students trying to escape. He felt as if she was right beside him, but she was not there. He would've touched her if she was, but he could not. His hands couldn't reach her.

"Maya! I'm here!" Carl shouted, but the worry of her not hearing his voice filled his heart.

Even worse worry was that she was injured and with the world still shaking, there would be no help for her. He called for her again and again, but her voice no longer replied his calls. Despite the earthquake shaking his body and the sound of something falling to the floor not far to his left, he managed to take out his small torch light, a little something he kept connected to his key chain for emergencies.

Carl, where are you? Help me! I'm scared. Where are you?!

This time he could hear her. He shone his light at her direction and finally managed to find her. She was squatting on the floor with her hands covering her ears as she closed her eyes amidst the chaos around her. Carl crossed the distance with difficulty, his hands holding on to the tables and chairs for support for fear of falling and injuring himself.

When he finally reached her, he wrapped his arms around her, feeling her small body shook at the contact. He comforted her with his voice, caressed her with his hands on her back and on her head, and kissed her on the forehead as he assured her that everything would be alright. He dragged her under a table, believing even a table would be better as protection than nothing at all.

They embraced each other until the world finally stopped shaking.