Dai and William

Mr. Dante, who had been observing the surroundings, noticed that I was staring at him.
I was still dazed by what I had just seen, gazing toward Mr. Dante.
Shuut...
Something flew straight toward the head of the student with the red aura, but strangely, nothing happened to him. He rubbed his chest as if the flying object almost hit him. Oddly enough, no one else seemed to notice—except me, the two students with strange auras, and Mr. Dante, who appeared to be the direction from which the object came.
Mr. Dante’s face, which had looked lazy all morning, suddenly changed completely—he now looked serious and quite intimidating. His eyes were fixed on the student sitting in front of me.
“Dai,” Mr. Dante called out loudly.
His voice broke the silence of the classroom, where everyone had been focused on their test.
Suddenly, all eyes turned toward me—because Dai, the student with the red aura, sat right in front of me. He stayed silent, his face lowered, looking like he regretted something… or maybe he was just too scared to look at Mr. Dante, who now looked very angry.
But it seemed I was quite lucky with what had just happened—because I got to see Vienna’s innocent face turn toward me.
Suddenly, the whole class burst into laughter, because apparently, Dai was known for getting caught cheating during tests.
Amid the laughter, the chubby student next to me said, “Dai… Dai.”
“William, you too,” said Mr. Dante in a quiet but still intimidating tone.
This time, I also joined in on the laughter.
During the noise, Mr. Dante’s voice rang out again, bringing everyone back to focus:“You have five minutes left.”Everyone went silent and returned to their tests.
During those last five minutes, I was too busy trying to process what had just happened. I had never seen anyone in my village emit auras like I had just witnessed.
“Ahem… ahem. Please turn in your answer sheets,” Mr. Dante said again, breaking the silence, now back to his lazy expression.
I immediately stood and grabbed my paper, but before I could move, Dai stopped me.
“Give me your answer sheet!” he said with a slightly intimidating tone.
Seeing no one around us paying attention, I handed him my paper.
Turns out we didn’t have to walk up and hand our papers to the teacher—just pass them to the person in front, and the front row would collect and deliver them to the teacher’s desk. Well, in my old school, we didn’t have that many students, so we just handed our papers directly to the teacher.
“Jovi, bring these up,” —Mr. Dante lifted the answer sheets and put them back down—“Dai and William, come along too,” he said while walking out of the class.
I didn’t even do anything—why am I going with these two cheaters?
“Jovv, wait up, I’m still scared of getting yelled at again,” Dai said, blocking my path as I was about to follow Mr. Dante.
“Yeah, I’m not ready either. Because of that idiot Dai, I got caught too,” said William with a gloomy face.
You guys are the idiots—why do I have to wait for you?
But before I could respond, Dai stood up, called William, and walked off—leaving me behind.
What a jerk! He made me wait, then ditched me!
I quickly grabbed the answer sheets and rushed to catch up with them.
On the way, I noticed their auras had vanished—but I ignored it. Maybe it’s just normal for students in the city. Before I knew it, we had reached the teachers’ office.
Dai and William entered first, and I followed. Inside the room were four desks, one on each side, and a large fish tank in the center on top of a table.
“We’re sorry, Mr. Dante. We promise we won’t do it again,” Dai said nervously, avoiding eye contact.
“Every test, you two always cheat—and every time, you say you won’t do it again,” Mr. Dante replied with a deep sigh.
I wasn’t really listening to the scolding—I was more interested in a white arowana fish swimming in the tank.
I walked over to observe it more closely, but just as I was getting curious, Mr. Dante called out, “Jovi.”I turned toward him immediately, still wondering about that fish.
“After school, join Hector, Vienna, Dai, and William,” Mr. Dante said, handing me a book.
“What’s this book?” I asked, taking it from him.
“That book marks you as a student,” Mr. Dante replied—surprising both Dai and William.
“So Jovi is one of us too!” William blurted out.
I didn’t know what was going on, so I just nodded at William.
Dai put his arm around my shoulder with a big smile, and we walked out of the teachers’ room together.
Even though I was still confused about everything that just happened, I was especially curious about the heavy book with the sword symbol that Mr. Dante had just given me.
“What kind of magic can you use, Jovi?” asked Dai, still holding onto me.
Whack!
A blow landed on Dai’s head, cutting off our conversation.
“You know we’re not supposed to talk about that in public, right?” William said after hitting him.
I just laughed—still not understanding what they meant.
Dai laughed too, scratching the bump on his head from the hit.
“Then let’s just talk about this after school,” Dai said, now also putting his arm around William.
As we walked back to class, Dai bombarded me with random questions like, “Where do you live? Who do you live with? What’s your favorite food?”—until we got back to our seats.
Luckily, Vienna came over and rescued me by calling my name and running up to me a little.
“Do you want to exchange numbers?” she asked, handing me a blank piece of paper.
I took the paper and looked for my pen.
“Where’s my pen? I swear I left it on my desk!” I said, eyeing Dai suspiciously.
“What? It’s in your pocket,” Dai replied, grinning weirdly.
I pulled it out and began writing my number.“Here’s my number,” I said, handing the paper back to Vienna. She took it and returned to her seat.But why didn’t she just bring her phone instead of writing it on paper?
The next lesson went smoothly, and time passed quickly. Finally, the school bell rang.
Ding… Ding… Ding…
It was 11:45 PM—time to go home, since today was Friday.
After saying goodbye to the teacher, I went to find Vienna and told her what Mr. Dante had said earlier. Then, I followed the others.