"Anthony Magsaysay. Care to explain why you're disrupting my class?" The professor looked angry.
Even stopped his discussion, and crossed his arms.
"Sorry, sir. There was a bee, that landed on my shoulder." I said, apologetically.
"Get back to your seat." He said sternly.
I nodded and sat back down. The girl was now, looking pale.
They believed my excuse, but that also caused me to be seen as a laughingstock. Nothing's really working my way.
I felt like this school year will be a nightmare.
The bell rang, finally after a tensed moment in my History class.
Why do I still need history when I'm studying engineering?
But anyways, I let everyone leave first, since I don't have a class after this one. All the way to lunch.
When my classmates filed out one by one, I looked around one last time to make sure it was just me and the girl.
"I'm Anthony Magsaysay, how about you?" I offered a hand.
I deliberately placed myself where the shadow man was. It was eery, it felt so bad but I held it in.
"Sarah Estrera.... Anthony, can you see them too?" She asked as she took my hand and shook it slightly.
"Yes. I can. You too?"
Sarah nodded. Unable to look at the shadowman. So I stepped away from it and then faced it.
"Stop whatever you're doing. You're draining her." I shield Sarah, using my body.
"So you can truly see me. Your little friend insisted you can't. Wouldn't that be selfish of you? After he was covering up for you." The shadowman dropped his voice a bit lower.
Millien just shrugged it off, and shook his head.
"He can do whatever he wants. None of what I said matters if he admits it." Millien sighed, like I just did something disappointing.
I was grateful for what he did, but the system just gave me a task again. It comes first.
But I'm not that heartless. I found a cookie in the system's shop and bought it because it was gonna help me by a lot.
[COOKIE (10 PIECES): 100 POINTS PURCHASED.]
[DESCRIPTION: ANYONE EATING THIS FOR A LONG TIME WILL SHOW LOYALTY TOWARDS YOU.]
I handed one to Millien, and smirked.
I'm sorry Millien, but I need someone loyal to me in this damned world.
The little guy happily munched on it. Enjoying the treat calmly on my shoulder.
"Leave Sarah at once." I went back to the shadowman.
"No. She's got the energy I need. And the body I crave." It was shamelessly leaning towards Sarah, to the point of, sniffling her.
Despite the shadowman not having a face.
Sarah jumped away from where she was seated and stood behind me.
I extended one arm out of reflex.
Yes, I look so heroic. And the shadowman wasn't that scary at all. I still get those goosebumps, but I'm much better at handling them than before.
Getting exposed to Sharon and the rest firsthand was life changing in a way.
So the likes of the shadowman, are that scary anymore.
"Leave her alone." I repeated much more firmly now.
"Anthony....you can communicate with them?" Sarah asked trembling.
"I do. And it's after you. This entity's a pervert." I said bluntly.
Sarah instinctively hugged herself, covering her chest, like she knew what its after.
"Make me." The shadowman said laughing manically.
I took out the dagger from the system and wielded it.
Sarah was surprised as it materializes out of nowhere. Which was a mistake of mine. Got too confident about my dagger skills from the system that I took it out without consideration.
The shadowman saw the dagger and stepped back. The kill count from the tiyanaks was absorber by it, and it also level 3 now too.
"We're not done." It growled and disappeared.
I returned the dagger to the systems and looked at Sarah.
"About that...." I scratched my head, trying to find a way to make an excuse.
But thank God, Sarah was such and angel.
"You don't have to explain anything to me. I'm glad the shadowman's gone for now. I won't dig anything up. And won't ask about it. Thank you Anthony." She smiled at me.
Sarah's beautiful, I must say that. Because she truly is. She also have the curve that could make any guy stare.
Even an entity was drawn to her. She's just hiding it under her loose shirt and glasses.
"How about we have lunch?" I asked, smiling back.
"Lunch sounds good."
We stepped out of the classroom together, and headed towards the cafeteria. Sarah's taking up IT. And she'll be in a different building for her afternoon classes. We only shared minor subjects together.
As we headed inside the cafeteria, my right seatmate waved at us. Grinning at that.
I could see that this guy's quite carefree.
We walked towards him, and there were some of our classmates there too.
They're a group of five people.
"Hey, join us." He stood up and let Sarah took his seat.
"Thanks man. Canteen's packed." I said, sitting beside Sarah.
"No worries. What took you both so long though? And by the way, we haven't introduced ourselves properly. I'm Gino Uy, that's Lea, Tristan, Michael, and Jasmine."
I waved my hand and Sarah did too. We introduced ourselves and had a chat for a bit.
I only excused myself to buy some food for lunch, Sarah went with me since she didn't have any packed lunch too.
Gino followed behind us, just to tag along. He already had his lunch and just waiting for the next class.
"You're taking up engineering too Anthony?" He said, following us behind as we picked our dishes.
"Yeah, you too?"
Gino patted my back chuckling.
"We'll be classmates then. All the way this semester. Hopefully in the future too."
"I hope so."
Gino's positive aura was contagious. All through out lunch, even if his friends went first, he stayed with us.
We chatted about things, and got close just like that.
Even Sarah was laughing at his jokes, making her forget what happened earlier.
And just like that, even if my first day started out bad, it didn't end up wrong at all.
I gained friends.