Ruz's. POV
The parking lot felt louder than usual that morning.
I leaned against the car, my arms crossed, watching students walk past while pretending not to stare at me. They were failing. Badly.
Beside me, Adrian adjusted his sleeve like nothing was happening, like half the school wasn't trying to process his new haircut while simultaneously pretending they hadn't watched him get dragged by his ear like a misbehaving toddler.
"…I am going to adopt your attitude today," he said.
I glanced at him. "Which one?"
"The one where you ignore everyone like they do not exist. The one where you look like you could kill someone and also not care."
I nodded slowly. "Good choice."
A pause.
Then, at the same time, both of us: "Yeah. Let's do this."
Liam stood a few steps behind us, his bag slung over his shoulder, his expression caught somewhere between hope and despair.
"…I am not included?" he asked.
"No," we said together.
He sighed, long and dramatic. "I need new friends."
Josh appeared out of nowhere, literally out of nowhere, like he had been hiding behind a car waiting for this exact moment.
"You already tried that," he said.
Liam looked offended. "…I am still trying."
We walked in together.
Calm. Unbothered. Like nothing had happened yesterday. Like we had not been dragged across the entire school by our ears. Like half the student body had not witnessed our public humiliation and filed it away as entertainment for the week.
The moment we crossed the gate, everything slowed.
Heads turned. Whispers started. The kind of whispers that were not actually whispers because everyone wanted everyone else to hear them.
"Oh..."
"Is that...."
"Wait....."
"THEY LOOK..."
I did not react. Adrian did not either. We kept walking, straight through the crowd, like we did not hear anything, like none of it mattered.
Liam leaned closer to me, his voice barely above a whisper.
"…They are staring," he said.
"I know," I said.
"…You are not reacting," he said.
"I am practicing," I said.
Josh added casually from my other side, "They are impressed."
Adrian smirked slightly. "They should be."
We passed a group of students. One of them whispered loudly, because subtlety was not a skill everyone possessed
"…That is the girl who got dragged yesterday."
Another replied, "…She looks more dangerous than yesterday. Like she has already planned something and is just waiting for the right moment."
"Look at Adrian," someone else added. "His new haircut makes him look handsome. Like he should be on a billboard somewhere."
"Both of them look so cool," another voice chimed in.
"That style suits them," someone concluded.
Accurate. Very accurate.
I kept walking. But inside, I was enjoying it. Just a little.
Okay, maybe more than a little.
When we reached the notice board near the main office, everything stopped.
Not because the board was interesting, it was the same beige bulletin board it had always been, covered in the same flyers and announcements that no one ever read. But today, there was something new.
A list.
The section reassignments.
We all crowded around it, pushing and shoving in ways that were probably against school rules but no one cared about that right now.
I scanned the list quickly.
Then stopped.
Read it again.
Then stared.
Section Z
Ruzelle Cruz
Enzo Villanueva
Marco Bautista
Liam made a sound like a dying animal. "No. No. NO."
I looked at the rest of the list.
Section E.
Liam Castillo
Adrian Cruz
Diego Luis Herrera
Rifat Reyes
Mira Garcia
Eren Lorenzo
Liam grabbed his head with both hands. His face was pale. His eyes were wide. He looked like someone had just told him there was no more food in the cafeteria.
"I AM IN SECTION E," he said, his voice cracking. "WITH ADRIAN RIFAT, DIEGO. PEOPLE WHO HAVE ACTUALLY BEEN IN FIGHTS. WHO KNOW HOW TO FIGHT. I HAVE ONLY BEEN IN ONE FIGHT, AND IT WAS BY ACCIDENT, AND I LOST."
Adrian patted his shoulder. "You will be fine."
"I WILL NOT BE FINE," Liam shouted. "I WILL BE TRAUMATIZED."
I turned back to the list. Section Z already had Zayn, Nika,Eren. Now they were adding me, Enzo, Marco.
Josh was already in Section Z. He appeared beside me, looking at the list over my shoulder.
"Section Z," he said. "The 'special' section. The 'problematic' section. The 'do not mess with them' section."
"Perfect," I said.
We reached the classroom.
Section Z was at the end of the hall, past the science labs.The door was heavier than the others.
I pushed the door open.
Silence.
Then reactions.
Nika stood up halfway from her chair, her mouth falling open. "WOAH."
Mira leaned back in her seat, her eyes scanning us like she was analyzing a character in a book, looking for hidden depths and secret motivations.
"…Character development," she said.
Zayn looked at me.
He simply observed, the way he always did, his eyes moving across my double slid cut eyebrow, the new energy I was carrying.
Then he said, "…It suits you."
Simple. Direct. Not a compliment, exactly. Just a statement of fact. An observation delivered without emotion but somehow still landing like one.
Josh walked in behind me, grinning. "Killer look," he said.
The room did not feel like a classroom.
It felt like controlled chaos.
People were talking not whispering, not murmuring, but actually talking. Laughter erupted from one corner. Someone was throwing a crumpled paper at someone else. A girl near the window was doing something on her phone that was definitely not school-related.
But somehow, despite the noise, despite the chaos, despite the complete disregard for every rule that classrooms were supposed to follow
It was working.
People were getting things done. Notebooks were open. Assignments were being completed. The chaos was not destructive; it was functional. It was organized in a way that did not look organized but absolutely was.
I took a seat near the window. Josh sat beside me. Zayn sat across from me, The balance was strange Section Z originals mixed with new arrivals.
The teacher walked in a few minutes later.
Silence did not happen immediately. It had to be forced.
"Enough," the teacher said.
That one word worked. Everyone settled. Mostly. There was still some shuffling, some whispering, some last minute adjustments that probably should have been done before class started.
The teacher looked at us. One by one. Slow. Measured. Like he was memorizing faces,deciding who would cause problems and who would quietly sit in the corner and not be noticed.
"…So," he said. "You are the new additions."
No one replied. Good. Talking was not required yet.
He continued, "I am aware of yesterday's incident."
Josh whispered "everyone awared".
I kicked his chair. "Quiet," I said.
"In this section," the teacher continued, "we do not repeat mistakes."
A pause.
"We improve them."
That got attention. Even mine.
He crossed his arms, leaning against the front of his desk like he had all the time in the world and nothing to prove to anyone.
"You are here because you can handle pressure," he said. "Or because you caused it.
A few students smirked. Including me.
He looked directly at us the new arrivals.
"Section Z has rules," he said.
No one believed that. Section Z did not look like it had rules. Section Z looked like it had suggestions, and even the suggestions were optional.
"But more importantly," he added, his voice lowering slightly, "it has consequences."
Silence. Real silence. Even the paper-throwers stopped throwing paper.
"For now," he said, "sit. Observe. Adapt. And be alert. Today onward, you are being observed by every teacher in this school. If we find any allegiance, any complaints against you, you will be suspended. Or expelled."
He let that sink in.
"So do whatever you want. But be alert. And do not get caught. And most importantly finish whatever you start. Out of the school. Not on these grounds. Not on my watch."
And just like class started with warnings, consequences, rules etc.
Worst timing for any meaningful conversation, but the best energy for chaos.
The cafeteria filled up quickly, noise levels rising with every passing second until it was almost impossible to hear yourself think. Trays clattered. Chairs scraped. Voices overlapped into a wall of sound that should have been overwhelming but was somehow just background music.
Section Z did not walk to their usual tables.
They arrived.
Together. Loud. Unbothered. Like they owned the cafeteria and everyone else was just borrowing space.
Liam sat down and dropped his tray dramatically, the contents sliding around dangerously.
"Why am I in a separate class?" he demanded. " Why am I trapped with criminals?"
Josh nodded. "You are not alone. Your friends are also there."
"They are not my friends," Liam said, pointing at Adrian. "They are criminals. Actual criminals. People who have been in actual fights."
Adrian said, "We can hear you."
"Good," Liam said. "I want you to hear. I want you to know how upset I am. This is like someone snatched my favorite toy and threw it into a volcano."
Nika sat across from me, still staring at my eyebrow. She had been staring at it since I walked into Section Z, and she had not stopped since.
"…I am not over your eyebrow," she said.
"It is intentional," I said.
"It is dangerous," she said.
"Same thing," I said.
Mira added calmly, from somewhere to my left, "It changes your face structure. It makes you look like someone who has survived something."
I blinked. "…That sounds serious."
"It is," she said.
Zayn sat beside Enzo, not saying much, but his presence was enough.
Chaos erupted around us.
Food stealing. Arguments. Random shouting.
"Who took my fries.."
"Not me."
"It was you..."
"Prove it..."
"That is my drink....."
"Not anymore.."
I reached for something on my tray a piece of bread,
Adrian took it first.
I looked at him. "…Really?"
He smirked. "Consistency."
I grabbed his drink instead. "Adaptation."
Josh laughed from across the table. "This is why I joined this team. The chaos. The food theft. The complete lack of boundaries."
Liam pointed at all of us with a french fry. "…You are all a problem. Every single one of you. Individually and collectively."
"Yes," we said.
Across the cafeteria, the Velvet Girls sat separately.
Not together. Not as a group. Not even close to each other.
Selene was at one table, alone, picking at her food like she had forgotten how to enjoy it. Bianca was at another table, staring at her phone, not talking to anyone. Clarisse and Danica were scattered across the room, each surrounded by different people, each pretending they did not notice the others.
Liam noticed too. "They cannot talk to each other," he said. "They cannot walk together as a group. They cannot even sit beside each other during lunch. The head teacher banned their group entirely."
A pause.
"It is really sad," he added.
Another pause.
"Whatever," Aira said. "They deserved it."
I did not disagree.
It started small.
Like everything does.
Enzo said something to Josh. Josh replied. Nika added something unnecessary. Adrian joined because Adrian could not help himself. Now it was chaos not violent chaos,
Someone threw a napkin. Someone pushed a chair. Liam stood up and shouted, "NO WE ARE NOT DOING THIS AGAIN"
Too late.
I leaned back in my chair, watching. Not stopping it. Not starting it. Just enjoying it.
Zayn glanced at me. "…You are not joining?"
I tilted my head slightly. "…Do I need to?"
He looked back at the chaos at Enzo and Josh arguing about something that did not matter, at Nika stealing food from Mira's tray, at Adrian and Marco engaged in some kind of staring contest that neither of them would win.
"…No," he said.
Good.
Because honestly this felt normal.
By the end of lunch, nothing was broken.
Technically.
No one had been dragged across the cafeteria. No teachers had been called. No announcements had been made. And somehow, despite everything, despite the noise and the chaos and the complete disregard for proper lunchroom behavior we were all still laughing.
I leaned back in my chair, looked around the table.
This section,Section Z, the "problematic" section, the "special" section, the "do not mess with them" section was chaos. Uncontrolled. Unpredictable. The kind of chaos that could go anywhere at any moment, that could turn into laughter or fighting or both.
And yet
It fit.
Perfectly.
I glanced at Adrian across the table. He nodded once. No words. But understood.
Then I looked at the rest of them. Josh, with his careful observations and his quick smiles. Nika, with her sharp tongue and her even sharper instincts. Mira, quiet and strange and always seeing more than she let on. Aira, still healing but still standing. Zayn, watching everything, saying nothing, understanding everything.
And Liam, somehow, still here, still surviving, still complaining.
All different. All loud. All dangerous in their own way.
And for the first time
I did not feel like I had to hold back.
A small smile formed on my face.
"…This might be interesting," I said.
And knowing my life
Interesting never stayed simple.