Zei hadn't stopped talking since they left the hallway.
"…and then you know what, I turned around and realized my bag was gone. Gone. Like—poof. Just vanished!"
Hana walked beside him, her fingers laced behind her back as she half-listened, her eyes casually sweeping over the bleak hallway walls, already stained from dampness and fingerprints.
"And I'm telling you, I was about to panic when I saw this scrawny kid—maybe eight or nine, okay?—running away with it like he was in some spy movie. I shouted, but the brat ran. Like full sprint."
"Uh huh," Hana mumbled, more focused on the crowd thinning near the cafeteria.
"So obviously I chased him. And then he ducked into the old maintenance shaft. The nerve. And when I finally caught him, the kid bit me. Bit. Look!"
He shoved his hand up at her, proudly displaying a faint red mark on the side of his palm like a war wound.
"Can you believe it? I mean, sure, he probably hasn't eaten in days but still—biting?! What am I, jerky?!"
