An Uncalled-for Rescue

"Those freakin' little...!" Anastasia bolted out exasperatedly as she slammed the door of the closet.

As soon as there are no more footsteps echoing through the hall, her perturbation and panic double. That only means she's all on her own now - inside that dark closet at an empty hallway where her only companion is the eternally stretching silence.

Even then, Anastasia decided not to give up so early. In an attempt to get out of there, she keeps screaming for help and scuffling the knob to open the door. She kicks and punch the metal surface from time to time, which is kind of her way to release some steam as well.

For the next minutes to come, that's all she ever does. But even then, everything she does only turns out to be futile in the end.

"Ughh... If only I didn't drop my school bag there, I could've called for help easily..." Anastasia groaned frustratedly before slamming her forehead on the door, an enervated and downcast expression splattered across her face.

"This is the first kind of bullying I ever experienced in my entire life, and who would've thought that it's all because of a boy?"

Anastasia slumps and heaves an exhausted sigh at this, thinking that jealousy can indeed be such a scary thing. She used to believe that scenes like this only happen in movies and drama, but now that she experienced it for real, she found it even more displeasing and horrific than she expected.

Seconds into immersing herself at this train of thoughts, Anastasia then suddenly comes up with a realization that makes her shake her head furiously.

"No, don't blame it on Lucien! He has nothing to do with this!"

She shouldn't have worded out the cause to be her friend himself. It's not his fault at all. Besides, she's already aware that popular personalities do get these types of fans and supporters from time to time.

"And I don't really feel like telling him about this incident. Knowing how much of an innocent cinnamon roll he is, he'll probably feel bad and guilty even though he did nothing wrong."

Instead of thinking too much about the downside of this situation, Anastasia just decided to pull herself together once more and gather all her strength. Before the sun goes down, she really needs to get out of this place.

With that in mind, she took a deep breath before raising her foot and stretching it out to strike one powerful kick.

"Kyaaa...!!!"

Right then, though, Anastasia ends up screeching and falling forward the moment the door of the closet opens out of nowhere. Her arms flail about everywhere as she tries to regain her balance and keep herself from eventually dropping face first on the ground.

"Huh?! Anastasia?!"

Hearing a familiar voice call out her name, Anastasia finds more strength and willpower to not lose footing. With that, she finally stands upright again. She then looks up to the person who opened the door.

That's when a bespectacled guy with unkempt dark blue hair and sapphire orbs comes into view, catching her off guard.

Anastasia immediately recognized him as her nerdy-looking classmate who never had enough time to groom his hair - or at least, that's how everyone else in class saw him. Now that she's staring at him this up close, though, she can see how handsome he actually looks all this time.

"Lemuel?!"