Since Innu had volunteered to inform the others, it was time for Gary to initiate his plan. Right now, the high school boy was waiting for the right moment to talk to Xin. First, he had to catch up to her, and she had a bit of a head start.

While following Xin, he started to find something a little strange. It was the fact that she wasn’t heading out towards the school’s front gate. Instead, she was heading towards the backside of the school. The more he thought about it, the worse the feeling in his stomach was getting.

Eventually, she went past the school field where they would hold track and do sports, and she headed straight to the back fence. There was a fence that went around the whole school, and in certain areas there would be a door once in a while in the fence.

Gary had stayed quite far behind, because the two of them were the only ones going towards the back of the school. He felt like it would be strange if she spotted him, worried that she might mistake him for some type of stalker.

Still, he had come this far, so it seemed stupid to turn around now. He assumed that she might head to some type of main street from the back. In that case, he might still pretend that it was a coincidence that they met. After going through one of the fence doors, Xin carried on and went through some trees on the other side.

Meanwhile, Gary ran across going through the fence door after her and quickly hid behind one of the trees. His eyesight and sense of smell allowed him to keep an eye on her.

‘Nice going, Gary, hiding behind a tree… why would anyone ever think of you as a stalker?’ The high school boy’s brain chastised himself. Looking ahead, he could see that there was a car park behind the school.

The area they were in was close to multiple giant trash containers, just one of the ‘perks’ one had to accept when living in a Tier-3 town, and they had been set up in a very strange way. They had blocked off certain car packing places, almost as if they were blocking the way to the shops that were placed there.

‘Now what are the chances she’s just come here to enjoy the scenery?’ Gary thought, as he carefully kept watch, curious for her reason to go there.

——

“Come on!” Xin shouted frustrated, tapping her foot impatiently as if she was in a rush. “I followed your stupid note. I came here alone, so just tell me what you want. Just give me back my stuff, and I’ll be out of here.”

Earlier in the day, after Xin had been called to the teacher’s lounge to be introduced to her new ‘job’ as class representative, she had come back, only to find her school bag missing. It wasn’t just that, someone had cleared out her school locker, including the special kit that she would use for karate as well.

Although it wasn’t really much trouble for her to just get a new bag and clothes again, it was a pain. At the same time, it didn’t take a genius to figure out who was behind all of this, as well as why. Xin found it hard to believe that Tiffany would actually care about such a stupid thing.

Instead of the class diva, a total of four young adults came out from around the bins. They didn’t look friendly, and at a glance one could tell exactly who they were. Each of them wore a different item of clothing with one very prominent colour, red.

Even Xin seemed to be a little taken aback as her calm demeanour was gone.

‘I was expecting her to be with her goons, maybe some people from our school, but other gang members?’

“Thank you for confirming that you are the one we were looking for.” One of the men said he was sleeveless and had two large caterpillar-like eyebrows.

“Why would you do her bidding? Who cares, if she sent you, then I guess I won’t have to feel so bad about hurting you.” Xin was the first one to make a move, as she got in a fighting stance, and hopped forward, so she was within her range.

Immediately, throwing out her leg, she kicked the bushy eyebrowed gang member in the head. Seeing this, the other colour gang members rushed in, and Xin attempted to kick one charging at her in the stomach as well, sideways with her other foot.

Unfortunately, the man’s reaction was good, and he was able to catch onto it just in time, but it looked like Xin was expecting this much. Feeling that he held onto her foot, she spun her body around to kick the man in the head once again.

Before she could deal her kick, a green haired teenager came out of nowhere, and planted a heavy fist right into the person’s head. It was a strong hit that chucked his body quite far to the point he had hit the metal trash container and fallen to the floor.

When Xin went to look at the others who were with them in the attack, she could see that the other two had been knocked out as well.

‘Did he do all of this, but how? I saw his skill. Sure he was resilient but to take them out so quickly. He must have beaten them all with one hit.’

“Come on, let’s get out of here, clearly they don’t have your stuff.” Gary hurried her, as he turned around and the two of them headed back towards the school. Eventually they reached the main school building and the two of them took a second to try to figure out what had just happened.

“Thanks for your help back there.” It was the first thing Xin said to Gary to show him that she appreciated his help. “What were you even doing back there? You must have been watching me for a while, if you heard about my missing ‘stuff’.”

Right now. Xin was suspicious of everyone that was trying to get close to her. Could it be that for once Tiffany was innocent and that this boy had set up everything? Given his green hair, maybe he’s one of their members, and he had asked his buddies to create this scenario, so he could swoop in and play hero? She wouldn’t put it past him since she hardly knew him.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to pry.” Gary apologised, rubbing the back of his head. He saw no way of lying his way out of this one, at least not without making it sound too weird. As such, he thought the truth would actually be the best option here. “I was actually going to… ermm… ask you about that duel from before.”

“Last time you said that… you would go on a date with me… if I could beat you in a match… and… well, I’ve been kinda working out…” Gary stammered, his face turning beet red, and judging by Xin’s face, she hadn’t quite expected this type of explanation.

“Oh, okay. Sure, I’ll go on a date with you.” Xin replied.

******

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