Night Before Friday

07. School

I know that horrible little red girl did suggest that Aya go to school with me. But I really didn't expect that she would take care of it.

Today Agnia came to my house again, bringing Aya her school uniform and supplies. Of course it wasn't free, I owe that girl ten million.

Not only did she prepare all that, she even took care of all the administration so that Aya could enter my school.

I shouldn't have been surprised, considering her status as a supernatural being who coexisted with humans.

At first Aya refused to meet Agnia, after what happened yesterday. But Agnia forced me to meet Aya, and somehow Aya wanted to cooperate with Agnia. Even so, I could feel an overwhelming aura of hatred in her.

Talking about school, it means talking about my boring life before I met Aya.

I hated socializing, which was why I sat at the very back along with the troubled kids who had grown tired of dealing with me.

Although my grades weren't that bad, I didn't pay much attention to the teacher in class either. I preferred to rest my head boredly while looking at the window, hoping that there was a giant banyan tree with a long-haired kuntilanak girl staring at me silently.

And I still couldn't believe that she who I was always daydreaming about would be in the same class as me!

At home I didn't have any special hobbies, so I chose to study at home to pass my free time. After going through such a boring lonely life, I felt lucky to have been met with Aya.

Today, I felt something different. Even though I was sitting in the back seat as usual, I couldn't sit still. My body sat stiff and tense in my seat, my eyes couldn't stop staring at the closed classroom door.

Two hours of class had passed, and my fierce math teacher had almost finished his lesson. The middle-aged male teacher managed to explain the negation formula without a single index finger asking any more questions.

The last moments are always tense, even now. The door to my classroom was knocked by a female counseling teacher with glasses, the same female teacher who had quoted me yesterday to get me to come to Old Man Slamet's place.

The counseling teacher's name is Tiara, and she is currently having a conversation with Mr. Saswana, my math teacher. Shortly after Ms. Tiara entered, she came with a girl with long black hair.

My heart was beating fast, pumping blood into my veins. Meanwhile, cold sweat ran down my palms. No matter how hard I tried to calm down, my body still tried to revolt.

The girl immediately attracted the attention of my classmates. Even Andra, who was usually asleep, was now more excited than my class leader Rina.

Ms. Tiara introduced the girl as a transfer student. Although a transfer student in the middle of a semester like this seemed strange, no one noticed.

The boys in my class were already bored with the girls in my class who were too diligent and difficult to play with. That's why the presence of a transfer student was a godsend for them.

I may hate to admit it, but that demon girl really did her job perfectly.

Aya really looks like a high school girl with an high-class aura.

"Then Aya, please introduce yourself..."

The girl nodded to Ms. Tiara, her long hair that fell to her calves looked elegant. Her innocent face with bangs and a pair of black eyes was very cute.

Plus Aya was now wearing a loose white uniform and also a gray skirt that extended to her ankles. All the combinations really showed a graceful girl. The figure I wanted to see from the usually shy and innocent Aya.

"My name is Aya...

Aya Nathania, I was born and lived a few years in Kalimantan and then moved to Java.

For now I live with my cousin, Aji Saputra..."

Aya deliberately stopped her words, she wanted to see my friends' reactions, as well as mine. Their reactions were exactly as I thought, some of them looked at me casually, some of them smiled while looking at me, and some of them looked enviously at me.

None of them had anything to worry about. To me, it was all natural, because some of them knew that I was living alone for a few weeks until my parents came back.

"Um... Any questions everyone?"

Most of the boys and some girls held up their fingers. They asked about the reason for Aya's move, date of birth, hobbies, and so on.

Although Aya looked clumsy and awkward, I was grateful that she could pass all the questions with ease.

Agnia may have tried to train Aya who should have difficulty communicating with people, but it seemed impossible for her to arrange the place where Aya usually sat.

Because even though the seat next to me was empty, Mr. Saswana preferred to place Aya next to Rina, the class president, who sat at the front.

Aya silently looked at me smiling in the back seat and could do nothing but pray.

Hoping that everything would be alright.

######

That day I really didn't expect this to happen. Everything for me happened too fast, somehow, I was now among a group of sentient beings called humans.

The human girl beside me was Rina, a sweet girl wearing round glasses with black hair in two pigtails. She invited me to get acquainted a few minutes ago, telling me things I didn't understand about lessons or whatever. There was nothing I could do but smile while giving her a small nod to make her think I was listening.

To me, all of this feels too soon. All this time Aji was the only human I knew, no one else. That's why, suddenly being forced to mingle with this many humans felt so annoying and nauseating to me.

That demon girl tricked me, this morning she came to my room, wearing that tacky Javanese traditional outfit. I tried to make her leave by throwing the glass of water that Aji had placed on the small table beside my bed.

But she showed off her powers as usual, making the water in the glass defy gravity and return it to its original place.

She engaged me in conversation, saying something about trying to blend in with humans. But I remained silent and ignored her, until she threatened to kill Aji and transfer ownership of the Nail to her grandfather.

For me, Aji's death was not a big deal, because so far the relationship between us was just like master and servant. If it was because of the Nail that I might have run away from this place, I don't care about becoming human or whatever, I can restore my memory without having to become human.

But unfortunately, the part of transferring the possession of the nail was really a big problem for me.

Because apparently, that demon girl's old man was a terrible person, and certainly worse than Aji.

I let out a long breath...

With such a terrifying threat, I was finally forced to be here, mingling with humans with thousands of strict rules from that Demon, so that my cover wouldn't be blown.

For this first time, I was forced to hide my annoyance. Constantly showing a fake smile, while pretending to pay attention to someone named teacher in front of the class.

However, my annoyance slowly began to turn into fear.

After all this time locked up in solitude, I was now forced to face my real fear.

The crowd...

In this crowd, I felt my real fear. The feeling of feeling different from others, alienated, and also losing confidence.

All those feelings blended together, becoming a nightmare that was more terrifying than my solitude had ever been.

In my eyes now, all the humans around me were nothing but strangers to me.

I could only feel Aji's warm aura behind my body, the intangible aura of everyone in the class other than Aji was like something foreign and frightening to me.

I didn't recognize any of them, were they enemies? Or friends? Do they like me, or do they hate me?

My body was trembling, if only I could sweat it would have been cold sweat running down my palms by now.

It's bad, if I continue like this, I will inevitably have to depend on Aji.

I shouldn't depend on anyone, I've been used to living alone and never depending on anyone, and I never wanted to try it.

To me, the idea of mingling with humans isn't a bad thing, but if it's done suddenly, and without this kind of preparation, I'll definitely have a hard time handling it.

But even so, I feel familiar with this kind of atmosphere...

It's as if a part of me is enjoying all this...

"How's Aya? Can you do it?"

Rina's voice broke my reverie, I turned my face to look at her while putting on an innocent face of confusion. In my eyes, the human girl looked very sweet, her sincere smile felt pure from her heart.

Rina is the class president of this class, in other words, she is the leader of this place. Her appearance as class president to me was quite convincing. She has peaceful eyes behind her round glasses, shoulder-length black hair with a friendly face that can get along with anyone.

"I'll lend you my notes, I've summarized them to make it easier to understand"

My eyes were accidentally drawn to the green-bound notebook in front of Rina. The white sheets of paper inside had been written by her with lines of writing about today's lesson. The blue scribbles indicated important things to remember, and the yellow lines under some of the writings meant material that would appear in the exam.

That's what was written on the back cover of Rina's book. She pointed it out silently, after the teacher at the front of the class cleared her throat at our conversation.

I didn't know much about exams, but it seemed to be something important in school.

My vision suddenly felt blurry, I closed my eyes for a moment, then blinked them a few times. My vision returned to normal, but this time a buzzing sound was heard in my head.

"Aya... Why is your face so pale?"

Rina's voice rose and fell between the indistinct buzzing in my ears and head. Then, my vision blurred again, as did my consciousness.