Tiger & Dragon: Take a Step Forward

Tuesday, February 10th (Question)

Shaze Lem walked into his classroom, keeping his mundane attitude as he breezed through the everyday school hours. It wasn't that he was bored or anything, but to him, something felt missing. He wasn't dumb but his 70-80 grades on average made him question if he wasn't pushing himself enough. Despite his Asian-American status, he never felt too much pressure from his parents. They were mostly supportive of him, and to him, his mom was more like the dragon to his dad's tiger. As Shaze walked into the classroom, he guessed he got the best of both worlds from his parents, his mom's relaxed and easygoing attitude with his dad's semi-strict, supporting, and honest perspective of life. He was just grateful they raised him and thought about motivating himself a bit more as proof their efforts didn't go to waste.

The sun shined on his melotone face, blinding his eyes. His legs caught the burden of a nearby desk and tripped until his face and white polo shirt landed onto someone's leg. They grabbed and pulled him up by the arm before he could drop to the floor. When he regained his balance he saw his friend, Alpha Pine, in her cheerleading attire, a 5'6 towering over him. Her pale flesh contrasted with the smirk she had on her face for seeing.

"Still clumsy as ever, what would you ever do without me?"

"Thanks for the save, Alpha. Hey, you try seeing through the flash."

She unveils her mirror case. "At least you're not alone, right Brock?"

Brock Talbon, the third member of their trio, blocking the light reflecting off her mirror with his football. He was only about an inch taller than Alpha but was much bulkier compared to both of them.

"Shaddup, I could've had a concussion."

"The only way you'd get a concussion is through actually putting in the effort to win a game for once."

"Bite me, maybe we'd do better if your team was actually good at cheering."

"Excuse me? You couldn't even score if the other team was blind!"

Shaze watched the two of them bickering as usual. He was going to butt in and tell the two to relax but they'd probably snapped at him and elected to avoid the conversation. Then he overheard a group of their other classmates talking in class.

"Did you hear about that too", he asked about the two of them.

"What, you mean like some random classmate going missing?"

"Yeah, don't you think that's a bit concerning?"

"I mean yeah but as long as they're not dead, it should be fine right?"

Shaze quiets his ears silently eavesdropping on the other kids in their class discussing it. He placed a textbook around them and leaned in closer to avoid them noticing.

"Apparently someone found blood. I don't want to take my chances with this one."

Alpha gulped. "Whose?"

"I dunno, allegedly this happened yesterday after school. Did you two hear anything after practice?"

Alpha and Brock thought about it but had no answer.

"Maybe it happened even later in the night?"

"Well the school doesn't exactly lock up the place. If you stay back, you can get out, but getting in is much harder."

Shaze thought about something. "For now, I guess the reasonable thing to do is make sure everyone from our class is here." His mom always taught him to be calm and never be afraid to express his concerns while his dad warned him to take charge of the situation at hand if need be.

"Why, you think someone in here could be?"

"Either that or someone could've been taken too. Maybe we could find out who?"