Turning up to my morning classes, I was both tired and restless. Last night I couldn't sleep for hours, and when I finally did fall asleep it was a sleep filled with nightmares. Junius seven was exploding again and there was nothing I could do except watch. I shook the image from my head.
Walking down the corridor, I entered the room on the right for my first class of today, which once again was Advanced Combat Training. In this lesson, we were only doing firearm training, not hand to hand combat. Considering how pissed off I had made Yzak last time in this class, I prayed that I wasn't paired with him again. Anyone in the class would have been preferable to getting him again. Almost falling asleep where I stood, I straightened when I heard my name, followed by the name Shani Andras.
Shani was another kid I'd never really got to know, but it wasn't because I disliked him, rather that he seemed to dislike anyone who wasn't him and his small group of friends. He showed no respect to instructors either; he scoffed whenever he received advice and rolled his eyes whenever someone spoke to him. And whenever I saw him fight, I always got the sense that he was holding back, unwilling to show all his skill, which I found weird in a place like ZAFT. If you asked me, he was just kind of strange. There was something off about him that I couldn't quite put my finger on.
Our assignment was to time each other on how long it took the other to take apart and reassemble a standard issue handgun. Having particular expertise with firearms thanks to my early morning trainings, I knew I'd have no trouble with this. Nicol however, I thought, might find this kinda hard. I looked over at him and realised he'd been partnered with Dearka. Poor guy.
Turning my attention back to the gun in front of me, Shani timed me while I took it apart and reassembled it. When he showed me my time, I was happy to see that it was a new record for me. We swapped places and Shani took up the gun. I wondered how much of his vision was obscured by his mess of mint green hair that completely covered one of his eyes. As I fiddled with the stopwatch I saw him glance around, as if checking to make sure that none of the instructors were watching, and he smiled slowly when he was sure that none of them were. When I said go, he took apart and reassembled the weapon faster than anyone I've ever seen. I was shocked when I saw his time. I thought I had been fast, but he had just smashed my record.
"Where did you learn to do that?" I asked incredulously.
He shrugged. "I could handle a gun before I could walk. It's just the way I was brought up." he replied, with the same mischievous smile.
When the instructor came around and asked each of us for our best times, I told him mine, which didn't seem nearly as impressive now. When the time came for Shani to say his time, the number he gave was completely different to the one on the stopwatch. It was much lower. I was confused as to why Shani wouldn't take credit for his skills. I jogged to catch up with him as we left the classroom for the next period.
"Hey, Shani," I said as I caught up with him, "I want to ask you something. Back there, why didn't you tell him your real score?" Shani laughed as if I'd said something funny but didn't answer. Standing at the door were his two closest friends, Clotho, a short kid with bright red hair and blue eyes, and Orga, a tall gangly blond kid who always had a weird half-smile on his face. I never saw him hanging out with anyone else.
Shani turned to me before we reached the door. "Sometimes, blending in to the middle is the best thing you can do," he answered finally. "No one notices the middle. Showing skill in something can make you stand out." He began walking away from me but then added over his shoulder, "And standing out can make you a target." He laughed, and then he and his friends walked off into the crowded corridor of students in ZAFT uniform.
"Wait!" I called. I wanted to ask what he meant by that, but he was already gone, disappeared into the mass of students. Perfectly blended into the crowd.