credits: DemigodXXIII

credits: LeiiPandaTabi

Dara’s POV

I sighed heavily while standing in front of the class, waiting for the professor to finish telling the tragic tale of Bridge Rose University’s abrupt closure which is the reason why a block of transfer students are here in InterSAT.

It is quite obvious that nobody is listening to him since the entire class is busily gawking at me as if they’re expecting me to burst into a holy light and possibly cure all sickness. I have an idea why they’re acting this way – Jiro.

Gangs? I didn’t know Jiro is in a gang until today when I overheard the other students talking about it. Well, I don’t know a lot about him in the first place because he seldom tells me anything. And I don’t have the right to ask since he’s not my boyfriend nor my relative. He’s just...err…someone whom my deceased father helped one rainy night years ago and someone who promised my father that he will protect me. Why he made that stupid promise and why he’s taking it seriously is beyond me. He once said that he owes a lot to my father; he did not elaborate after that. All I know is that ever since my dad passed away a year ago, Jiro has been constantly checking on me and has been a regular visitor in my house – sitting on my balcony silently while smoking a cigarette.

Perhaps he’s just sympathizing with me since we’re both orphans... I don’t know. Producing fire by the power of my mind is probably easier than understanding the elusive Jiro Montecillo. One would expect that the two of us should be good friends by now but unfortunately, we’re not. I tried to befriend him, and I’m still trying, but he’s just too detached with everyone.

“Miss Ramirez?”

“Huh?” I turned around at the source of the voice and saw the professor looking at me quizzically.

“Please introduce yourself”, he said. The noise inside the classroom increased in volume as my classmates began yelling their questions at me simultaneously. Questions about my relationship with Jiro. Is he that famous in InterSAT?

“Hello”, I started and cleared my throat. “I’m Dara Ramirez.”

***

As soon as the class bell rang, Dara bolted out of the room to avoid the bazillion of questions being thrown at her by her classmates. Everyone is still curious as to who she is because of what Jiro did a while ago. She was walking along the hallway looking for her next class when someone suddenly draped an arm on her shoulder, startling her.

“HELLO!!!!” Dara whipped her head sideward and saw a girl with long straight hair and with a playful smile.

“I’m Namee Cheng, a Creative Writing and Literature student just like you! We have almost the same classes so you’ll be seeing a lot of me”, she beamed at her, her cheeks pushing up and her tiny eyes squinting.

“Hi”, Dara said timidly and smiled back. “Uhm, I’m looking for the Audio Visual Room for my next class, Social Studies.”

“The class is canceled so just follow me.”

“Where are we going?” Dara asked while frowning. Namee is dragging her towards the dark corner of the hallway and she is fairly certain that her body will never be found after she kills her there.

“An InterSAT student needs to know all the gangs in school”, Namee replied simply.

***

DARA’s POV

I can feel the mother of all headaches threatening to split my skull open as I try to understand the quantum physics behind InterSAT gangs. Namee is making it sound like we have the entire black society here in our school and Jiro is the strongest of them all. ‘Feared by thousands, respected by many.’ I mean, seriously? This entire thing just shoots up to a