The group of girls return to their shared room. Wen Chou is the first to speak up. “So, Newbie, did you leave it in the pink backpack or the pink suitcase?” She points between the two items lying next to Qu Yi’s bed.

  Qu Yi frowns, “Um...” She had sorted her stuff extremely specifically. Of course, that was when she was a boy, and that was when her stuff wasn’t in pink baggage. “I think it was the backpack?” Wen Chou nods as she heads towards it, picking it up.

  Yan Liang looks to the two items. “I’d say it looks like you like the color pink.” She smiles to Qu Yi.

  Qu Yi blushes and holds up her hands defensively, “U-Uh, I actually don’t.”

  Yan Liang’s smile swaps in favor of confusion. “Huh?” She looks between the two pink belongings then back to Qu Yi. “Why’d you pick pink then?”

  Qu Yi’s heart begins beating faster. Quickly she starts thinking of a way to pass off the situation. “U-Uh, actually, m-my mom got them for me.”

  Yan Liang covers her mouth and chuckles, looking away, trying to hide it, “Qu Yi, I don’t mean any offense, but I think I was right when I said you are quite a mother’s girl. Between helping you with your hair in the morning and now this, you must have a really good relationship with your mom!”

  Qu Yi blushes. While true, her mother is the only one who raised her for seven years, in this context it just sits wrong with her.

  Yan Liang’s face shifts to worry sensing Qu Yi’s discomfort. “I-I don’t mean it’s a bad thing! Really! It’s cute! And you’re so brave to come here. It must have been really hard for you.” Yan Liang smiles at her, “I just really respect how strong you are to come here despite depending on her for so much.”

  “Strong? Is that what you’d call it?” The word stuck in her mind. She thinks it was selfish of her, leaving her mom alone after the two had depended on each other emotionally for a long time. For what? To escape some bullying that would have only lasted another 4 years tops? The idea of her being selfish didn’t leave her, but her mom seemed really excited for her to have this opportunity. Of course, all this was back when she was “Quin Ton.”

  “Wen Chou!” The exclamation breaks her thinking process. She looks to see Yan Liang standing next to Wen Chou with the back of her fists on her hips. “You can’t look through a girl’s backpack without asking!”

  Wen Chou is standing in front of the pink backpack, its top zipped open. “I was just looking for her phone.” She grumbles, “I thought that was the point of coming here?”

  Yan Liang leans over. “Yes, but you should ask Qu Yi’s permission first!” She turns her eyes to look to Qu Yi.

  Qu Yi smiles as she puts her hand up, trying to calm the situation. “It’s fine, really. I’m the one who got lost in thought.” She approaches the two. “It should be in here somewhere…”

  Meanwhile, Yan Gang is taking the stairs up the Eastern Dormitory. The stairs are carpeted with a red and black design, two meters in width, allowing for ease of access for the many students we have in each dormitory. Yan Gang always takes the stairs. She sees it as good practice for her legs. While she loves to pretend to be some kind of hero, Gongsun Zan’s class is actually well known for their track and field expertise, and she doesn’t want to fall behind. Yan Gang starts to look at Qu Yi’s new phone in her hand as she slows down. The urge to peek at the contents begins filling her body. Of course, I should have seen something like this coming, but I have a very good excuse. I didn’t care.

  “So, this is going to be Qu Yi’s phone,” She mutters to herself. “As a hero, I must resist the temptation to snoop!” She holds her fist up triumphantly. “Quite easy for me, as an Orange Magical Girl.” She poses suddenly, as a student passing by raises her eyebrow at the scene. Yan Gang continues up the stairs. After another flight, she slows down to look at the phone again. “But what if Yuan Shao is planning something… evil?!” She gasps, then begins shaking her head. “No, no, no! Even if adversaries are planning for evil, I cannot let myself be corrupted by ill actions! No snooping!”

  Three more flights to go. After another, she slows down on cue, “But… with me and Qu Yi not in the same class… how do I know she isn’t going to be corrupted by the evil of Yuan Shao? Perhaps her influence is already in her phone?” She shakes her head rapidly again. “No! Qu Yi is already as good as gone! She is hanging out with those two…” She thinks of Yan Liang and Wen Chou and her face shifts to frustration. “Those two are probably already brainwashing her, so who cares if this has bad influence in it!”

  Two more flights to go, and another time of talking to herself. “But Qu Yi seemed so nice earlier, when I rescued her from the yellow scarves! She seemed like she wanted to be my friend. And even when I confronted her in the hall, she seemed like she was not being mean.” She looks at the phone in her hand. “But I can’t just look at someone’s phone! I’m no villain!”

  The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  One more flight to go. I think you can gather what happens on the way. “Wait, but what if this is A TRAP!? What if the phone is going to blow up when you turn it on!?”

  … What? Now how does she get to that thought? No, I’m not going to blow up a student and if I did, it certainly wouldn’t be our anchor to reality. It would be Devil Child or Corrupt Baby, not that I’m planning to blow either of them up mind you.

  “I should probably just make sure it won’t blow up Qu Yi. Yeah, I’ll turn it on, then turn it off!” Yan Gang looks down at the smart phone and presses the button to start it. After a quick loading screen, it presents an empty home page. “Well, I guess that solves that. No explosion.” Her eyes quickly notice the “Contacts” icon. Her finger creeps toward it very slowly. She shakes her head quickly again. “No! What am I doing? There’s no bomb so I must deliver it now, like a true hero!”

  She makes it to her floor, but as she turns down the hall, her mind keeps thinking of the “contacts” icon. “I must know!” She quickly screams and presses the contacts icon on the screen suddenly. To her surprise, only three names sat on the list. “Mom, Grandma, Grandpa.” She stares at the three for a while. “Wait.” She blinks at the names. “There’s no friends? No phone numbers from anyone?” She frowns. “I guess maybe she was actually the lonely girl I thought she was when I rescued her?”

  Yan Gang thinks for a while in silence. “Maybe she’s actually not going to be so bad?” Yan Gang folds her arms. “But I can’t just apologize! As a hero I need my pride. But how can I show I’m not that upset with her being in that class? A hero shouldn’t hold petty grudges after all.” She smiles as she gets an idea. She presses the part of the screen that says, “add contact.” She puts her phone number in. “There.” She smiles to herself. “That will do.” She approaches Qu Yi’s room, number 513, and knocks on the door.

  Qu Yi is just finishing looking in her backpack with no sign of the phone. “I know I put it in here.” This was false. She knows she put it in her old backpack after she texted her mom yesterday. This is one that was less suspicious concocted by Yu Ji, more feminine products.

  Wen Chou sighs, hearing the knock at the door, “I hope it’s not Yuan Shao again. I don’t need to be escorted to class just because I was late nine times in a row.”

  Yan Liang responds while peeking over the shoulder of Qu Yi. “I think that’s exactly what you need.”

  Wen Chou opens the door to see Yan Gang. “Oh, weird girl.”

  Yan Gang frowns and stamps her right foot. “It’s not ‘weird girl!’ It’s Yan Gang! And I have something for Qu Yi.” Qu Yi perks up and turns around hearing what is supposed to be her name. She to heads to the door.

  Wen Chou frowns, looking unamused she leans her arm on the doorway “Going to call her an enemy or something again?”

  Yan Gang shakes her head and looks down. “Look, I may have overreacted upon the news that she would be in Yuan Shao’s class.”

  “And you called Liang a ‘rich spoiled snob.” Wen Chou raises her eyebrow unconvinced. “While funny, it wasn’t true.”

  Yan Gang averts her eyes. “Look, I may have… let personal vendetta get in the way of treating you two right. And, that wasn’t very hero like of me.”

  At this point Qu Yi is at the doorway. “Hi Yan Gang,” She smiles at her.

  Yan Gang looks at her, then looks down ashamed. “So, I may have judged your class too harshly. I suppose if someone as nice as you can be in it, then, the class might have more nice people than I thought.”

  Qu Yi blushes at being called nice. “Um, it’s not really a problem. I kind of found it a little funny. I was just more worried about you.”

  Yan Gang blushes slightly as her eyes peek up. “You, were worried about me?”

  Qu Yi nods. “Well, yeah. You were nice enough to come talk to me yesterday when those three girls were acting strange to me.”

  Yan Gang’s posture returns to normal. Her blush becomes more visible as she scratches the back of her head. “W-Well! That’s what heroes are supposed to do!”

  “So, you said you have something for me?”

  “Oh! Right.” Yan Gang holds out Qu Yi’s new phone to her. “Mr. Lei told me to give this to you. Said it was your ‘new phone.’”

  Qu Yi blinks looking at it. It is a touch screen smart phone, something she isn’t used to. “Wow… one of these without buttons?” The phone Qu Yi used to have was an old flip phone, so getting a large upgrade like this comes as a shock to her.

  Wen Chou smiles, “From the sound of that, I guess you had one of those super old ones!”

  Yan Liang, who had joined the group at the door at this point, smiles. “Oh! We need to share our numbers with you!”

  Wen Chou grins widely. “I won’t need to! I’m going to keep an eye on Newbie all the time! She won’t need to call me. I’ll be there!”

  “Hey!” Yan Liang frowns in response turning to Wen Chou, “That’s not fair. What if she wants to hang out with someone else like me?” She blinks and looks to Qu Yi. “Of course, only if you want to.”

  Qu Yi lets out a shy smile, looking between her two roommates. “I’d like to get more than just family phone numbers in my phone for once.”

  Yan Gang folds her arms. “Well, I already took care of that! You don’t have to worry about that anymore!”

  Qu Yi looks up to her with a look of confusion. “Huh?”

  Yan Gang jumps up/ “Ah! It’s not like I peeked in it or anything! Um, anyway later neighbors!” She quickly bolts to the left into her room next door.

  Yan Liang blinks a few times, looking out the doorway where Yan Gang went. “So, apparently Yan Gang is our next-door neighbor.”

  Wen Chou’s mind went back to this morning about the bathroom incident. “Well, this morning makes too much sense now.”

  “Huh?” Yan Liang looks toward her with a confused expression.

  “Ha, never mind.” Wen Chou smiles to Yan Liang as she chuckles to herself.

  “Wait, what’s so funny?”

  “Nothing!”

  The two continue to prattle on with each other while Qu Yi still stands in the doorway.

  Qu Yi wonders what Yan Gang meant before she ran off. She begins looking through her phone and presses the contacts icon on the screen. She notices four contacts, one that she doesn’t recognize.

  “Mom, Grandma, Grandpa, Rival.”