Sani's POV
,,A Step Ahead’’ is your future, they said. ,,That school’s been supporting our family for generations and you’re our only hope to repay the countless favors they’ve done for us.’’ – Thinking back to it now, they must have known about everything when they forced me to attend this school over the one all of my childhood friends had decided to go to. I was struggling to find out what the words they said to me that day meant. I mean, in my eyes the only thing that this school was contributing to was the build-up of my loneliness and stress which ultimately led to anxiety. Though now that the picture’s become clear the situation itself hasn’t gotten any better. I was genuinely amazed and extremely happy about the fact that my insomnia hadn’t decided to kick in last week, since we had around 7 tests planned throughout it, but surprise! It’s back in action, only took it one ,,detention class’’ to reawaken. Oh well, can’t be helped. I took my 69th look at the clock this night with great desperation and sighed but eventually decided that it’s probably better to be early to school than waste time. I quickly got out of bed and put on my bone white jeans as well as the navy blue shirt which served as the uniform of all students of ,,A Step Ahead’’ which happened to fit perfectly with my onyx black leather jacket and slowly made my way to the school.
After a 5 minute walk to my school I met Aqua chilling at the door leading to the main hallway. I went up to greet her and noticed that she seemed tired as well. She genuinely looked like she was about to fall asleep.
,,You look exhausted.’’ – I told her as I took a step closer. Her light brown cinnamon eyes met my waving hand.
,,Yeah, well … I couldn’t sleep well last night.’’ – she responded.
,,Me neither. Wanna get coffee? I can barely move my limbs at this point.’’ – I suggested.
,,Uh, I don’t know if that’s a good idea. Caffeine is unhealthy. We’re 16, you know.’’ – she mentioned with an unapproving expression.
,,Well, did I ask? I’m going anyway, you can come if you want.’’ – I exclaimed. She didn’t respond nor move but I figured I’d drag her along anyway because I felt like she’d fall asleep on the spot if I ditched her, not because I enjoyed her company or anything.
,,Oh come on! The coffee vending machine is literally like 10 steps away from here.’’ – I said as I pointed toward it. She proceeded to not show any sign of interest which wasn’t helping my stress levels at all.
,,If you can’t wake yourself up I’ll do it for you.’’ – I said with a sinister smile.
Aqua’s POV
These words triggered my PTSD big time. I’d rather not get electrocuted to the point where my entire body is numb, just like that one time.
,,I’m awake!’’ – I had to stop myself from screaming.
,,Oh. Well that’s no fun.’’ – he said as his wicked grin faded away, which helped me let out a deep breath filled with relief. He then proceeded to drag me all the way to the coffee vending machine that was peacefully sitting just around the corner. I silently stared at Sani as he pressed a button on the top right which resulted in coffee spraying down from the machine into a cup, he had placed below it. As I was silently watching in awe this magnificent, angelic liquid dropping down in this light gray cup that was conveniently placed right in front of me, I realized that my throat was actually quite dry. Like, really dry. I don’t think I’d drunk anything in the past 24 hours purely out of stress. I couldn’t help myself so as soon as the machine had finished pouring the last drop of coffee, I swiftly snatched the cup and chugged it without any hesitation whatsoever. I threw a quick wary glance at Sani, who I was most definitely expecting to be giving me the death stare, to see his jaw dropping. I started giggling and decided to play it off and try to stall for long enough for help to arrive. And by that I mean I was literally just hoping that someone would come and interrupt so I wouldn’t get shocked to bits.
,,Listen, coffee’s bad for you. – I said with a nervous smile after I’d finished annihilating the drink – I’m truly just doing you a favor here. It’s for your own good.’’ – I continued.
,,Aqua.’’ – he cut me off.
,,We can talk this out-‘’ – I said and almost immediately shut up in order to try and prepare for a counterattack since I noticed his lilac eyes sparkle menacingly. That was when I heard a familiar voice ask:
,,What are you two doing here so early in the morning?’’
I turned around to see Professor Aki standing behind me with her judging teal eyes, her dirty blonde hair as well as her chocolate brown jeans along with her steel gray suit jacket which she was absolutely rocking by the way. Never seen any other professors actually have a fashion sense in my life. I remembered that it’s probably best to ignore the professor’s outfit and focus on the fact that Sani is legitimately about to murder me. The thought of that single-handedly made me consider lunging towards Aki and using her as a cover. As different ideas of my escape route were rushing through my head, Aki decided to spare me the trouble I’d gotten into simply by saying:
,,Well, it doesn’t matter. The others will probably be here soon too, let’s wait for them in the classroom.’’ – she noted and it didn’t take much to be able to tell from the look on her face that she meant business.
As we started walking after her and the palpable tension in the air slowly began fading away, I decided to try my luck at teasing Sani who was right next to me and seemed to be extremely unhappy I didn’t contribute to raising his body count.
,,I’m never drinking coffee again. That tasted absolutely disgusting, you should have gotten tea instead.’’ – I mumbled, trying to contain my laugh. You’d think that I would feel at least slightly threatened, since the whole fiasco happened minutes, if not seconds ago but I was simply unbothered. The aroma of Professor Aki’s perfume that indicated she was moving with us served as my security blanket since I was confident Sani wouldn’t dare make a move with a witness nearby because of his status. He ended up ignoring my jest but I’m sure he had flinched deep down and was itching to shut me up for good. The thought of that made me smile. I wanted time to stop, I wanted to be able to relive this moment forever. I didn’t want the story to progress because I knew there would be violence and bloodshed up ahead. I just wanted to lead a life of light-heartedness and irresponsibility where I could just enjoy being with my friends and family and not worry about having to fight and protect humanity from some weirdos that decided it’d be cool to kill people that weren’t born with any powers.
All possibilities of that reality shattered when we opened the door to the classroom.
