Chapter 2: Chapter 1:
It was definitely a chilly spring day, he could tell. He walked down the empty streets, admiring the cold air through his dark-velvet scarf. The sun had only been visible as streaks piercing through the early-grey clouds that swarmed over Hong Kong that morning. Jin was glad he decided to wear his navy-blue coat and long-pants today.
His footsteps echoed from his polished, black dress shoes through the vast, yet choked alleyway that led towards the main road. The steel slide-down doors rattled as the wind battered on them for entry. The electricity wires above him displayed an array of rainbows as shirts and towels shook in the wind.
"Phew.", he let out another breath that fogged up and floated away peacefully into the dark clouds. His wrist-watch read 6:25AM. "I should be on time.", he muttered to himself as he swept his messy black bangs away from his eyes with one hand and threw his school bag over his shoulder with the other. The further he walked, the livelier Hong Kong greeted him. First, a chubby, brown cat would intercept his path, forcing him to lean in and scratch it under its chin. Then, shop owners raised their metal doors and greeted him with a smile. He waved back. When he got to the main road, cars and mopeds roared past in what seemed like packs of tamed beasts, harassing a few girls' skirts as they walked by on the narrow sidewalk.
Jin smirked a bit at the thought and pushed himself onto the usual sidewalk he had walked on for the past 2 years. He was a third-year student this year, in Zhang-He Senior Middle School, just on the outskirts of Kowloon City. It was a rather new school, originally built in 2008 as a rather luxurious institute. God knows how hard he had to study in middle school just to enroll here.
As he approached a stoplight, he pulled out his phone. He was standing near a group of middle school girls that looked 13 or 14. They seemed to be laughing about something on one of the girls' phones. As he glanced at the girls, one of them seemed to notice and immediately looked back down at the phone the other girls were laughing at. "What the-? Damn… Am I really that unattractive?"
As he pondered to himself, another girl's scream for help rang out from up the street, from where he previously just came from. He turned around to see what was happening. It sounded like it was just past the group of middle school girls, but he couldn't see anything. He looked around to see everyone else's expressions, but no one seemed particularly flustered or bothered to react. "Huh. I guess that's normal…", he thought as the light turned green. He turned and braced himself to walk over the crosswalk like everyone else, until something solid slammed into him from behind.
He gasped as his wind got knocked out of him and he collapsed stomach-first onto the edge of the sidewalk. "Watch it-", he started to curse as reality cut him off. "Someone please stop him! He stole my bag!", a girl cried out. It was the same voice from earlier. He looked up to see an older-looking man, a bit scrawny, pushing past the crowd crossing the street and towards the other side of the road. Still gasping for air, he got up and looked around. If no one was watching earlier, they surely were watching now. He turned to see a girl with brown hair with sparkling hazel eyes scanning off somewhere into the distance trying to locate her bag. His eyes trailed off to her lips, lightly touched with pink lipstick, her small round chin, and her fragile neck. She was wearing the same school uniform as him, a navy-blue overcoat whose sleeves went down to her fingers with a tuck white blouse into a pair of navy-blue short-skirts. "Please, anyone!" The girl was visibly upset and was looking around at everyone who had stopped moving in confusion. "Please!", she turned and looked directly at Jin, as if pleading with her gentle hazel gaze. "Retrieve my bag!"
Something struck inside of him. His chest was clenched as if this was something he felt he absolutely had to do. As adrenaline swept through his body, he turned and started running in the direction the thief had gone. "How much time did I spend getting back up? Where could he have gone? Was I too late? What if he's with a larger group? Should I call the police?" As he pushed past the bystanders on the narrow sidewalk, he spotted a man who appeared to have rushed grooming and a brown hoodie. He was carrying a girl's navy-blue school bag. It had to be hers. "He's not that bigger than me. I can take him!" Jin braced for impact as he aligned himself to run straight into the thief and tackle him. Or so he thought. By the time he caught up with the thief, he was forced to slow down as two security officers pinned the thief down and threw handcuffs on him. When they were finished, one of the officers stood up and noticed him, out of breath. "Oh. This must be yours.", he said as he handed over the bag. "Thank you very much!", Jin managed to bark out as he gasped further for air.
He watched as the officers sat the man inside a small whie van and drove off, red sirens still blaring. He stood and gazed at the bag in a sense of peace until he heard a girl running up to him from behind. "You… You got my bag..!, he heard her say. He turned around to see the same girl breathing hard and gazing up at him, like a small bunny. "Uh… Yeah, here you go." He handed her the bag and she grabbed it tightly with both of her hands. "Thank you very much!", she smiled at him while clutching the bag against her chest. The two stared at each other in silence. After she caught her breath, the girl came to her senses and blushed in embarrassment. "Oh! I should probably introduce myself huh?" She gave off this cute short laugh that he found attractive. He smiled. "My name's Mei Xieng. Thank you for getting my bag back!" Her eyes shone bright as she looked up at him with admiration. "Oh, don't worry about it! I didn't really do anything. I'm Jin Yu." He gave her this awkward smile of which she found funny. "Oh! You have the same uniform as me. Do you go to Zhang-He Institute?", Jin noticed earlier, but didn't have the time to say anything. He nodded in response. "Y-Yeah." He hated that he stuttered. But she didn't really seem to mind. "Really? That's a relief! I usually walk to school alone, so I don't really know anyone until I go into class.", she said. "Oh, really?", Jin replied. "No wonder why she was attacked.", he thought. It was dangerous for anyone to walk by themselves around this area, a girl no less. "Would you like to walk to school together?", she asked. It caught him by surprise, but Jin knew better than to show his flustered emotions. "Y-Yeah, sounds good!" His voice went up an octave higher than usual. He noticed this happens quite often around people he finds attractive.
"Okay, let's go then! We're gonna be late!" Jin looked at his wrist-watch. 7:32. "Hurry!", the girl yelled at him. When he looked up, she was already almost at the next light. "I'm coming!", he yelled out as he rushed after her. He was late that morning, and the teacher told him to tell the entire class why. "I slept in.", he said. "There was no way they would believe my story.", he thought. "And if they did, they'd know how useless I was." After a session of laughter, he was seated and the first period began.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone