Skaters 101 (but without the skating)

More transfers? (quote Shoma)

"Pooh-san is upset today." Yuzuru stroked Pooh-san's head, rubbing him between the ears.

"Why?" Shoma rested his arms on the table, followed by his head. He was still puzzling over yesterday night's adventures and was not planning on letting anyone know about it sometime soon.

"Well-" Shoma never got to know the reason. The door to the classroom opened, and quick as a flash, Yuzuru stuffed Pooh under his desk, the yellow snout poking out the only sign of 'life' there. (so that Pooh could breathe).

"Class, I'm proud to say, that we have two new students joining our class today."

There were many whispers circulating the class.

"More transfers?" Shoma hissed.

"I know right," Evgenia rolled her eyes, "It's like we are in some generic teen fanfiction of figure skaters. Transfers spilling in left-right-up-down-center."

"What if it's a movie?" Shoma wonders and his deskmate shrugs, losing herself in the music once more.

Ms. Ito nodded towards the open door. "Peng Cheng, Jin Yang, you may enter."

A petite, small framed girl of Asian descent strode purposefully into the classroom, followed by a broad-shouldered male.

Shoma swiftly ducked behind Yuzuru, and for the first time, was grateful that Yuzuru's frame was taller than his, hence blocking the teacher's view of him.

The Yakuza - they had tracked him down!

Not wanting to be noticed, Shoma averted his gaze from the two newcomers.

As the two newcomers walked down the aisle to the desks provided for them, Shoma noticed that as the Yakuza guy, apparently, Jin Yang had exchanged a handshake with Boyang as he passed. A numb feeling spread through Shoma, was Boyang part of it as well?

Ms. Ito had already started her lesson. All Shoma could do for the moment was put away his thoughts of speculation and listen. Afterall, he sat near the back of the class, so he could keep a careful watch on the two.

~

Shoma felt tired.

After an exhausting two hours of observation, while paying attention to Ms. Ito, Shoma was ready to fall asleep.

He also managed to gain some insight on who the mysterious newcomers were.

Shoma had deduced that they were Chinese, from the chipped tone and musical accent of their voices. So that ruled out the idea of Yakuza. However, Shoma was still not convinced that they weren't part of a gang, at least, Yang, in particular. Maybe they were part of the Triads or something like that.

Shoma was also looking for any tattoos, or strange markings, or accessories, that would tie them to some gang or another. He found none, which again made him wonder if the two were really, legitimate students of the school.

Sleepily, he watched Ms. Ito leave the classroom, signaling the start of break. His eyelids slowly gave way.

But wait - what was this?

Boyang had shot over to the newcomers and was conversing rapidly with them in Mandarin. Shoma sighed. He couldn't understand them, but from the gestures and laughter, he concluded that Boyang seemed to know them quite well, and appeared to be quite close to them, Yang in particular. He was contemplating asking Boyang about them later, when a voice interrupted his thoughts.

"Boyang and Yang were middle-school mates. Cheng and Yang were supposed to arrive with Boyang but were detained because..." Here Vincent paused, and leaned forward, straining his ears to catch their words. "Um...a cat...was fighting with a...crocodile...no, two crocodiles...yeah and they stayed back to check that they weren't killing each other. Wait, Yanhan has a cat?"

"How did you know-" Shoma shrank away from Vincent, who was sitting behind him.

"You looked as if you wanted to know." Vincent shrugged and stood up, walking away to interrogate Yanhan about the said cat. As he walks away, Shoma overhears faint muttering from him. "That boy, how come he never mentioned the cat? Would've made good company for Snooki too..." Vincent tuts, and walks out the door, disappearing from Shoma's line of sight.

"No, how did you understand them...I thought you were from the States?"

~

A week had passed.

Shoma was in a calmer state of mind now, as they didn't seem to recognize him at all. Also, he was starting to doubt that they were actually part of a gang.

One of the reasons was that Shoma had noticed something new about them, running through the entire week.

Cheng seemed to dominate Yang in their relationship, whether friends as they claimed to be, or partners in crime.

It wasn't much at first really. When they first arrived, Shoma only noticed that Cheng appeared to ask many favors of Yang. He didn't even have to understand exactly what they were saying, for the motions were repeated. The routine went a little something like this.

Cheng would say something to Yang. In a nice tone, Shoma deduced.

Yang would sigh.

Cheng would repeat the same few words, reinforcing them with a stricter tone.

Yang would proceed to perform an action, maybe something like taking her drink bottle and leaving the class to fill it up.

It escalated quickly. Soon, all Cheng needed to do was snap her fingers and point at something. Or someone.

Like an obedient German Shepherd, Yang would do whatever Cheng wanted. Or at least, that was how it seemed to Shoma.

So this fact confounded Shoma. How could a female be in command in the Triads? He wasn't trying to be sexist or anything, but traditionally, the Yakuza didn't employ females, let alone establish them with some form of power or another. He supposed to would be the same with the Chinese Triads. So that idea was well and truly out of the window.

Another reason why, was because of a talk with Yuzuru, who tacitly accused him of judging people by their looks. He had tried to bring up the notion of the newcomers being part of a gang, when Yuzuru decided to lecture him all of a sudden, about judging a book by its cover.

Although Shoma had tried to tune out, some of Yuzuru's speech connected with him, and actually made sense. Such as the judging people by their looks part. Yuzuru had rebuked Shoma yesterday night (before he got seriously off topic, rambling on and on about how the Honey-tishoos were on discount the other day 'They were 10% off!', and how Pooh-san and him were very happy about that.) being so suspicious of everyone, which was quite true, Shoma thought as he reflected on his actions for the past term.

Either way, he was now in a relaxed state of mind, the thoughts of everyone in the world wishing to hurt him occurring less frequent.

He watched as Cheng turned around to chat with Maia and Gabrielle. Yang was in another corner of the class, laughing with Boyang and Patrick. They seemed to be more like ordinary junior college students, less like the criminals he had imagined initially.

Perhaps Yuzuru was right after all.

But it wouldn't hurt to keep them under watch for a little while longer.