Under the Veil of Night

'Master Rudy is merciless,' Kanae felt her body ache all over when she went to school the next day. Master Rudy was annoyed that she often had to go places and skipped training. Because of that, he increased the intensity of the training by severalfold.

Although she acted like nothing was wrong in front of Laura, she decided to skip class. After walking Laura to the classroom, she headed to the infirmary.

"Hello, Miss Kanae, are you sick?" Shiro asked gently as usual. This was the front that he put up as the infirmary doctor, which was, in Tommy's opinion, his ploy to get high school girls to confess to him.

Kanae smiled wryly. "I'm just too tired. Let me borrow the bed."

Shiro nodded. "Do you need me to give you a checkup?"

"I guess so."

Shiro took a seat near Kanae as he pulled up the long sleeve to reveal her arm. Hidden beneath the sleeve was a completely bruised arm. Seeing the patches of blue and purple all over the place, Shiro frowned. What kind of training was she doing?

Kanae stayed silent as Shiro applied ointment to her arms. It was not as painful as it seemed because she already developed high pain tolerance after having trained for so long. The ghastly appearance just looked rather scary to other people.

SHRIEK!

"Demonic doctor, I want to borrow the bed agai–," Tommy stopped midway when he saw Kanae was there. His eyes were glued to her bruised arms. Seeing how frightening they looked, he felt like exploding.

"Who…"

"It's from practice, Tommy. Don't overreact," Shiro warned before Tommy could burst out. His chin pointed to the nearby shelf. There was a hidden listening device there. Whoever it was, that person wanted to monitor the situation of the entire school.

Tommy frowned and walked to the shelf. He saw the device and quickly took out some plasters from a nearby cabinet. With light movements, he covered the device with a few plasters before securing the ends to the back. With the plasters covering the microphone, the sound would be distorted, so it would be harder for the person on the other end to hear their conversation.

"Is this good enough?" Tommy asked.

Shiro sighed. "You're just going to make them pay more attention, you stinky brat."

"What should I do then, demonic doctor? I don't want them to hear us fighting here!"

Kanae facepalmed as she unrolled her sleeves back down. These two were always arguing with each other. This made her wonder if they could ever get along. Thankfully, they worked together rather well when it came to their group's operations.

"I want to sleep. I barely had any sleep last night," Kanae climbed onto the farthest bed from the door. Master Rudy trained her for double the usual time, making her unable to rest even when she wanted to.

"Sleep well, Kanae. This time you're not allowed to sleep here," Shiro informed Tommy.

Tommy rolled his eyes. "Why? You annoying doctor!"

"Be respectful to the teacher."

"You're not a teacher!"

The two went on and on for the next few minutes until the bell rang. Tommy was kicked out of the infirmary by the doctor as he closed the door tightly. After getting rid of Tommy, Shiro returned to his desk to do his own work.

Time passed swiftly.

"Misae, you're not with Kanae? It's rare to see you two not together," Neo asked during their lunch break.

Misae swallowed her food before answering. "Kanae is not feeling well today, so she's sleeping in the infirmary."

"I see, thank you," Mike smiled. He quickly turned around to chase after Kevin. Being worried about Kanae, this man paid no attention to anything else as he headed to the infirmary.

Neo followed with complicated feelings. Right now, he wished for Kevin to stay away from that girl. If she knew about that incident and came to hate Kevin, wouldn't the pain become much harder to bear?

Kevin quickly opened the door to the infirmary. He saw the doctor sitting leisurely near the window.

Shiro turned around. "Is there anything wrong, Student Kevin?"

"Is Kanae here?"

"She's sleeping over there," Shiro pointed to the farthest bed.

Kevin's gaze wandered to Kanae for a moment. He was relieved to know that she was there. Unfortunately, the curtain didn't allow him to see Kanae. Well, it was good in a sense. At least, those guys wouldn't be able to see her sleeping face.

"Is she alright?"

Shiro couldn't say that she was tired because of training, could he? If he said that, the next thing he knows would be that he gets admitted into the hospital for the same reason. The other two guys would never let him off if he told other people the real reason.

"She's just tired, so she needs more sleep. There's no need to worry too much," Shiro answered.

Kevin nodded. He walked towards the bed and opened the curtain slowly. Seeing the peacefully sleeping visage of Kanae on the bed, a smile made its way to the corner of his lips. At least, she was breathing normally.

Shiro watched the gentle expression on Kevin's face. He immediately understood what was going on. Well, it couldn't be helped. Having stayed by Kanae's side for such a long time, he knew very well that Kanae had a lot of attractive qualities. However, he would never harbor such feelings for her. He didn't want to be sued for chasing after a minor.

"Doctor, can you not tell this to anyone?" Neo asked in a low tone.

"My lips are sealed," Shiro answered calmly. "I'll return back to my work. Please don't bother me."

Neo nodded. His eyes drifted back to Kevin as he walked closer to them. Moving the curtain a bit, he saw Kevin taking out his laptop as he sat down on the chair near Kanae. From his expression, it was clear that he wanted to stay there until Kanae wakes up.

'Boss, you're totally into her, aren't you?'

As he watched the gentle expression on Kevin's face that hadn't surfaced for a long time, he gave up on telling him to stay away from Kanae. His boss was simply too stubborn. Besides, if Kanae didn't reciprocate his feelings, she would surely stay away from him.

Wait, what about Kanae? At this time Neo finally realized that he had only been paying attention to Kevin that he didn't know about Kanae. If she also felt the same way, it might be harder for her to face the past.

He retreated from the curtain.. Whatever happens, he would just prepare himself for it.