"Good day, Crystal. How is your result?"
Uggh. There you go, the voice that she wanted to avoid the most right now. Her ears twitch in annoyance. The corridor that was already crowded and warm suddenly felt 1000x worse than before. Why must he pop-up suddenly right now? She wished this guy could wait for another 5 minutes, or at least until she left the corridor so they didn't have to meet.
Wasn't it obvious enough? The results were so big pasted on the board. It was not hard to see whose name on top of the charts. She wished it was hers, but sadly it was not. For Six-knows how many times, she lost again from that four-eyed guy. Like, seriously, she studied non-stop for this stupid mock-exams with only one goal in her mind: snatching the top rank from her rival. But guess what? She failed again. Crystal Minerva, the prodigy from Tenebrae, lost AGAIN from a certain someone she met in Insomnia. Minerva family decided to move to Insomnia about two years ago, and ever since then she was always number two. Oh, how she missed being number one.
"Do you really have to ask that?" She groaned. Honestly, she didn't want to answer that, but her pride can't let it go. It might just sounds like a normal small-talk question for normal people. For her? It sounds totally like an insult. She must retaliate, "Congratulations Ignis Scientia, our future royal advisor, you scored big again!" Her voice filled with heavy tone of sarcasm.
The taller teen raised an eyebrow, "Come now, you don't need to behave like that," He understood why Crystal acted the way she was right now. Two years of the same treatment from this pale young lady was enough for him to get it. Well, he was always an observant person after all. "These are just mock exams, I believe we still have some time to study for the main exams. Perhaps we could study together?" Well, Ignis was 1001% sure she would say no. But asking one more time wouldn't hurt anyone, right?
'Mock-exams, not a real one.' Duh, you don't say. Of course she was aware of that! Deep inside, she knew that this mock exams were actually very close to the real deal, she also knew that she did fine, even if these were to be taken as a real result, she would be able to enroll to every single high school in Insomnia. What annoyed her was that no matter how hard she studied, no matter how confident she was when she did the exam, she was sort of cursed to be number two. She could only pray that it wasn't for eternity.
"Thanks, but not thanks." This was not the first time the boy offers to study with her. Not a bad idea, just that her pride got the better of her. Real exams were scheduled two months for now. She was sure as hell that she could win in this exam without his help.
"I believe we are done here." She had enough of this conversation, its not healthy for her mental state right now, a little bit too steamy for her already exploding mind, "Good day, sir." Again, being sarcastic. Just like that She left the corridor, leaving the confused young man alone, staring at her back with a frown.
Her mood was ruined for the whole day. She started good this morning, quite excited with the results, hoping she can win this time. Who knew that she ended up swallowing another disappointment again.
Her foot steps were heavy, she finally reached her home. Home sweet home. Yeah right. Her home was dark, she was alone. Her parents were not home as usual. They were always busy. After all, the main reason why they moved to Insomnia was for work. It was expected to have them working most of the time. It was okay, Crystal was already used to it. Her parents were also the main motivation for her to be number one. Being number one was always the easiest way to get their attention. Now you get it why being the top was sooo important for her?
She put down her bag, slowly head to the dining room. Eating alone again. She took out the dinner she bought on the way home, turned on the TV and started eating. The food taste bland in her tongue even though it was Mother & Child Rice Bowl, her favorite food. The stupid results really did affect her in every way today.
Her green eyes were not paying attention to what the TV was airing until she saw a rather familiar face at a glance. Ignis Scientia, they were showing some kind of royal meetings on TV and Ignis was sitting there, joining the meeting. Crystal choked a little on her dinner from the vision. Understandable, who can expect a 3rd year junior high school student to sit down with a group of politician, discussing the future of their kingdom together? Seriously? And with all those interesting activities that Ignis have done, where the hell he managed to get the time to study?! This pissed the young Minerva off.
"You better be focus on your study, boy. I will not be second forever." Turned off the TV, she finished up her dinner and off to her study room. She got a lot of catching up to do.