I was disappointed to learn that Shika wasn't in my class.

Glancing around at the many unfamiliar faces of my new classmates, I didn't really find anything abnormal-looking about any of them. The only abnormal thing was the quiet tension in the air and how no one was really looking anybody in the eye.

Was the school just filled with anti-social misanthropists like me? 

"Yo, new student."

A voice called out from the desk next to me and I glanced over to see a spiky blond-haired boy leaning back on his chair and smirking at me.

I couldn't sense any ill intent coming from the guy and with nothing else better to do while waiting for the teacher to show up, I decided to humour him.

"Is this the part where I get picked on and extorted for being the new guy?" I said.

He chuckled, "Come on, man, do I look like that kind of asshole?"

I glanced him over, seeing his dyed blond hair and ear piercings, "Yeah, actually, you do." 

He crackled, not caring how quiet the rest of the classroom was, "Name's Kenji Sato."

"Eita Tagawa." I replied. 

I didn't say anything more and kept my eyes forward even though I knew he was harmless. My senses weren't always right and I was still suspicious about this school, but more than that and like I said, I'm just not much of a socialiser.  

"Actually, yesterday was my first day too," Kenji continued speaking despite my demeanour, "So, we're pretty much in the same boat, man."

At that moment, the teacher entered the classroom, saving me from an awkward conversation.

It was shortly after then that I was faced with my second disappointment of today -- the classes at Kurai were pretty much the same as the ones in regular school but with much more difficult content. 

Back in a normal school, I had breezed through exams with barely any studying done at all and still topped the school rankings. But here, I was just another sheep in the herd, a faceless nobody, just average.

It would had all been a humbling experience... if I cared about studying. 

Trying to not die of boredom, the longly awaited school bell finally sounded, and I packed up my things in a hurry and headed out for lunch. 

I couldn't wait to get out of there. One reason being, obviously, my lunch plans with Shika, but the other reason was to escape that suffocating atmosphere inside the classroom. It was strange to see a class that quiet where students not only did not talk to one another, but didn't even look each other in the eye. Well... with the exception of Kenji that is.

~x~

Arriving at the front of the dormitory building where I had agreed to meet with Shika, I stood to the side near the doors and waited.

Damn, I had ran out here so fast that I could see students barely getting out of their classes in other buildings. I hope I didn't seem too eager. 

With nothing to do, I took out my student handbook from my bag and re-read it in the hopes of finding a good spot to eat lunch with Shika. The school had a cafeteria that provided you with food, but I had seen other students bringing their lunch to eat outside around the campus.

I spent a minute looking at the map in the first page of the student handbook. Shika still wasn't here yet as I expected. I tried to pass time by flicking through to the other pages of the student handbook. 

I stopped at a page containing a dull-looking list of the school rules. 

[KURAI HIGH SCHOOL REGULATIONS]

[RULE #1: Students must remain on campus. Leaving campus will result in immediate expulsion.]

[RULE #2: Once within the campus, outside laws and regulations, besides the school rules, do not apply.]

[RULE #3: Students must attend class. Non-attendance will be punished accordingly.]

...

The list went on with nothing particularly unusual.

Yesterday in my room, I had already thoroughly read the entirety of the student handbook several times in order to try to find out more information about the school, but rule #2 always struck me here as odd and out of place. 

Presumably I thought that whoever wrote the school rules had intended for rule #2 to mean the school rules of other schools, or smart-ass kids that claim freedom of speech to curse at teachers, but I would had thought that they would had worded this sentence a little better.

Reading the rule as it is, it almost seems like the rule is saying that the laws of society don't apply once you step foot into this school which is absurd.

Are you telling me that we can get away with committing crime like theft, fraud, violence, or even murder here...?

"Move and you die."

I froze.

"Bang."

Something lightly touched the back of my head and I turned around to see Shika standing behind me, smiling teasingly, and looking as pretty as always. She had her index finger still up from when she tapped my head. 

"Um, sorry..." Shika's smile wavered, seeing my expression. "I just thought I would surprise you..."

"Y-you..." I said.

Then, I pretended the bullet had shot through my head, staggering backwards a little. "H-How could you, Shika...?! I thought we were partners...!"

She blinked at me for a second, then giggled, "Sorry, but I can't let the truth about the androids get out."

"No way," I feigned a look of shock, "You were an android too all along...!"

She laughed at my poor acting skills, "Eita, people don't talk after being shot in the head."

"Bah, you haven't watched enough movies." I shook my head. "Anyways, let's go grab some food."

"O-kay!" Shika nodded with her usual cute smile, then we started walking together to the cafeteria.

"Shika, there's some things I want to ask you about the scho..."

My words trailed off when I glanced next to me briefly and caught a really sad look disturbing Shika's face. 

"Uh... You okay...?" I asked.

Shika hesitated, biting her lower lip, "Um... Sorry that I was late, Eita..." 

"Huh?"

I blinked twice. I thought that there was something seriously upsetting her. I waited at most 3 minutes and it was mainly because I rushed over here on the second that the bell rung. "Don't worry about it, I didn't wait that long..."

"But, I shouldn't had made you wait..." Her violet eyes were downcast.

"Hey Shika, seriously, it's fine." 

Shika glanced up at me dejectedly, I didn't know what else to do so I forced a smile to show her that I wasn't upset at her. 

She stared at it for a bit, then gradually regained her composure, "Ahah, sorry, I guess I'm overreacting...!"

"It's fine!" I said, then tried a joke to cheer her up, "Although I'm now going to make sure I'm never late to meet you."

"I wouldn't mind if you were late to see me, Eita." Shika smiled.

Something about it was both cute and weird at the same time.

I didn't have enough experience with girls to know whether her behaviour was normal or not. My 'experience' up to this point was pretty much 'hi' and 'how are you'. Anything further beyond had only contributed to my abhorring of the opposite sex.

Since I liked Shika, I decided to shake off the weird feeling inside my head.  

~x~

Unfortunately the spot on the map where I had wanted to eat lunch with Shika was already taken by a group of students, but Shika knew another place so I followed her to a remote corner of the school with no other students around. 

We were tucked away behind a school building, overlooking the mountain scenery outside the school fences. 

"Wow..." I said, staring out at the view, "I thought I memorised the school map already, but I didn't know a spot like this existed." 

"Well, the school map doesn't tell you everything." Shika said, sitting across from me. 

I glanced at her, "What do you mean?"

"The school actually has a lot of secret places, areas that aren't shown on the map in our student handbooks." Shika explained. "Basically, it's larger than you would think."

I mused over this newfound knowledge, "Interesting..." 

"Yep," Shika smiled, "We should go exploring one night!"

"Oho, an adventure?" I matched her enthusiasm, then asked in jest, "You're not scared of ghosts or monsters though, right?" 

"W-wah..." Shika laughed with a hint of anxiousness, "I never even thought of that, now I'm kind of scared..."

Not missing a beat, I bowed jokingly, "Not to worry, your shining knight in white armour is here."

"..."

"What else is a knight good for," I continued to jest, "if not to protect a damsel in distress?" 

A few more seconds of silence passed before I realised that Shika had stopped talking and I glanced up to see that her violet eyes were staring down fixedly at her food and a deep shade of red had caught onto her face. 

"Ahahahah, sorry sorry...!" I laughed hastily, "I was just joking around, Shika...!"

Damn, did I make her uncomfortable?

I cursed myself for my careless joke.  

"I-it's okay..." Shika said softly. 

An awkward silence passed between us as I stared down at the tray of food in front of me and pretended to be focused on eating. The cafeteria food was disappointingly bland, not much different from what they served at a regular school.

I'm so sick of eating grilled fish and rice. 

"Um, anyways," I glanced back up at Shika and tried to change the topic, "I wasn't sure about this when I met you, but, are you a first-year like me, Shika?"

"Yep...!" Shika smiled, "I joined Kurai a bit earlier than you though."

"Ah, I see. I wasn't sure because you looked a bit younger than me."

"I get that a lot," Shika laughed lightly, "I actually skipped 1 year ahead. I'm fifteen-years-old."

So, Shika was younger than me by 1 year. Maybe she's even smarter than me. 

I glanced around, surprised that we still haven't seen a single student around despite being here for a while now, "Do you always eat here, Shika?" I asked. "Nobody's ever around it seems."

"Yep," Shika nodded cheerfully, "That's why I like it. It's only ever just me here."

"You always eat alone?" I asked, surprised.

"Yup," Shika nodded again with a smile.

"What about your friends?"

Her smile faltered.

"I... I don't really have any friends..."

Crap, my question wasn't intended to make her feel bad. 

I just assumed that Shika was the type of girl to have plenty of friends based off her personality. I didn't expect a buoyant extrovert to have no friends. 

"People... don't like me..." Her eyes flickered downwards.

"C-come on..." I laughed. "That's just because Kurai is filled with unsociable nerds..."

"Even outside..." She whispered, "When I wasn't at Kurai... I never had any friends..."

"Hey, I never had any friends either...!"

Although in my case, it was justified since I actively made sure of that. 

Her violet eyes peered up at me from beneath her lashes and within them, I suddenly felt her loneliness. 

Without realising it, the distance between us closed, and her strawberry pink lips pursed open slightly, appearing so soft and alluring. Close enough now to feel her warm unsteady breath, she moved towards me, I leaned forward and our lips touched, brushing delicately. 

The kiss was short-lived though as a loud siren blared into existence out of nowhere, causing us to both jump and glance around in shock. 

~x~

"What the hell is that?!" I said, half-yelling, with my hands shielding my ears from the siren. 

Shika didn't respond, she started walking off ahead and I quickly followed after her. 

It definitely wasn't the school bell signalling the end of lunch. Perhaps an emergency alarm for a fire going off?

We were heading into the direction of the dormitory when the siren finally stopped and I breathed out a sigh of relief, thankful that I had not gone deaf, although my ears were still ringing.

"Hey--!"

A voice yelled out to me from the side and I glanced over to see a boy with spiky blond hair jogging over, waving at me. It was Kenji from my class. 

"Do you know what's going on?" Kenji called out, looking just as confused as me, "That loud-ass siren scared the crap out of me."

"I'm wondering the same thing myself," I replied, sensing no harm from him. "I thought it was a fire alarm, but it sounded way too loud for that."

"Ahahah, I know right." Kenji laughed, slowing down to a walk as he approached me, "Maybe it's--"

Before he could get another step closer, the sound of rapid footsteps came from my side and Kenji's eyes widened in shock as Shika jumped into the air, stabbing him in the side of the neck and tearing out his vocal cords. 

"--GUUUUWUGUUWUG"

A hoarse inhumane noise gurgled out of the gaping hole in Kenji's neck as he flailed wildly to get away from Shika but she wrenched her hand from his neck, stabbing relentlessly into his stomach, gorging out his intestines and organs.

Stab.

Stab.

Stab.

"What... what are you doing...?" I said, unable to even feel the hot blood and bits of organs that had splattered on me. 

Shika glanced up at me from where she sat in the midst of the deformed corpse that long ceased to be a living human, a knife in one of her petite hands.

"Um..." Shika blushed, but there was no way to tell underneath all the blood, "I... I'm protecting you..." 

...

Yeah, I'm screwed.