A Troublesome Confrontation

Before everyone knew it, an entire month already passed since Lucien became their classmate.

Anastasia swears that it's quite an eventful month so far. It's as if she's finally living the high school that she used to dream about - having fun with the perfect friends, getting appropriately motivated in her study then earning good grades, and sitting beside her crush everyday.

Perhaps, the last one is the biggest change of them all. Then again, this is her first time gaining a romantic feeling on someone, though she's too much of a coward to say it out loud.

In every passing day, Anastasia gets to know Lucien more and even in a personal level.

It just happened that Cathleen, Dave and the two of them begin hanging out with one another more often than before. She isn't sure how it started but they just kind of clicked out of nowhere. Being seatmates probably made me them a lot closer.

"Oh, you're on cleaning duty, Anastasia?" Lucien asked with his head tilted, looking all ready to leave with their other two friends who kept bickering at the back of the classroom.

"Well, yeah. I am," Anastasia answered, a bit disappointed that she won't be able to walk out with them.

Today is the first day of the week, and unfortunately for her, she's on cleaning duty.

At this point, their other classmates are starting to leave the room little by little. The bell already rang minutes ago, dismissing classes.

"Hmm... Want me to wait for you, then?"

At Lucien's uncalled-for offer, her eyes widen in surprise while her heart seems to leap a little for a second. Anastasia knows how busy he is with his photoshoots these days, but he still goes ahead and offers to stay behind.

Before she can have a chance to blush all bashfully, though, some of the girls who are still in the classroom suddenly swerve their heads to her direction. That's when she jolts a little in nonplus, feeling their pointed, sharp gazes at her.

"Ughh... They're at it again with their childish jealousy..." Anastasia silently thought with a sigh.

At any day, she can't care less about what others have to say since she isn't really doing anything wrong here. She'll accept his offer as long as she knows that she isn't doing this to take advantage of anything or get ahead of anyone.

But then, Anastasia also knows that Lucien is busy today, which then eventually prompts her to kindly turn down the offer.

"I'm good, Lucien. You can go ahead with the others now. Thanks for asking," she finally answered after a brief pause, smiling reassuringly.

"Oh, alright then," he simply replied with a nod before turning around and waving her goodbye.

With that, Anastasia is left in the classroom along with a few others who are also on duty.

The clean-up doesn't usually take too long, but apparently, they still end up consuming more time than they expected. They finished in almost an hour, which was already near the dismissal time of all the after-school activities.

"Shoot! I'm supposed to go shopping for dinner tonight!"

At this minute, Anastasia is walking down the hallway a bit speedily, already in a haste.

It's still bright out, and the corridors are filled with the warm pool of reddish orange light. The afternoon is about to be over, and twilight is going to come soon.

Turning to the corner, Anastasia then suddenly found herself coming face to face with two girls, catching her off guard. Only then did she realize that the halls aren't really as soulless as she thought at first.

Judging by their tall height, they're probably her upperclassmen. Their faces also seem to be dripped in make-up, which kind of highlight a hint of maturity on their pretty profiles.

Not thinking much about their sudden appearance, Anastasia goes ahead and walks past them, but only to find one of them blocking her path out of nowhere.

This takes her aback and makes her look up to them in confusion. That's when she meets their pointed and scorching gazes - looking like a couple of lionesses that are about to pounce on their prey.

"Excuse me. I'm trying to get by?" she voiced out intrepidly, holding her ground.

"Who do you think you are, talking to us like that?"

At the very moment one of them sneers at her, the situation finally sinks in Anastasia's head - she can feel a brewing storm that's about to come along with this troublesome confrontation.