He felt sick, as he knelt in the pool of water, his shoulders shaking faintly. He…he had just lost? No, something had gone wrong here, terribly wrong. He had played his cards the way he had to get into Obelisk Blue…but he had just lost! To a Ra Yellow! He felt sick, and he stood up on shaking legs. He barely heard anything anyone said to him, and he was aware that he was snapping out remarks, but he didn't even know what he was saying. He didn't care.
When he got back to his room, he felt winded. His head was spinning, and everything was tilting wildly. He hated fighting the urge to cry – it wasn't the Princeton way. But here he was, leaning back into the pillows on his bed, his eyes brimming with tears that he would never let fall.
As he looked at the pill bottle in his hand, he realized how white the bottle was – how pure. How scientifically perfect the pills inside that bottle were: that they had been perfect by the shaping and molding of human hands, to make a uniform whole, a neat little pill.
That was what his brother's wanted. They wanted him to be the next Princeton family pill, the next pill that would go into a bottle with a net worth of seventeen million dollars, and three beautiful faces. The bottle was mocking him – hiding those perfect little pills within it's plastic shell, as though he wasn't worthy of seeing their human-brought-about perfection.
With a scream, he threw the pill bottle across the room, watching as it shattered a mirror, destroying the image that he held of himself.
The next morning he woke without realizing that he had even fallen asleep. He woke in time for a leisurely shower, and to make sure that his cell-phone was charged. He combed his hair into the flawless spikes that he knew it was meant to be held in, a shape that he refused to let it get out of.
He stalked down the hall to his class, already in a foul mood. "Tea! A foot massage! Now!" He demanded in a loud, rather showy voice. No one responded – what? That had never happened before…
A new Obelisk was walking towards him, telling him that this was his seat…and Chazz was protesting, pointing to where his name should have been on the plaque in front of the chair. But it was gone, just another smooth white surface like that pill bottle. Was everything just a shell, nowadays? He demanded that Dr. Crowler explain that this was his seat, that he belonged to sit up here, but…
Laughter ran all around the room, catching everyone like an infectious wild-fire. He sprinted out, eyes squeezed shut. He felt so childish, running to his room, his bloodless face even more drained in humiliation. He sat for the whole day, cradled in his window-seat, looking out to sea. The ferry went back and forth, bringing supplies.
The water was so pure, and it was choppy. It was never, ever smooth. Not at all like those pill bottles. And the decision then hit him. It was obvious, really. He would go and gouge out the shell of himself, texturize himself. He would become the greatest duelist, far away from his brothers, from his so called friends, the friends that had laughed when he was demoted…he would show them all!
He left by the dead of night, with only a slight bag over his shoulder. "No more ridicule for Chazz Princeton…" He said, standing on the dock, looking back at the school. "And when I get back, you're all going to wish that you had never looked down on me. Because I will never, ever look up to you again. This school will just be a tiny foot-note in the great history that's going to be me…" He spat, seeing his family's yacht coming towards him.
And that was the end of Chazz Princeton, smooth and pale and seemingly simple, but hiding a plethora of flaws. Oh, no. He was going to come back wearing his flaws and his perfections on his chest like a war badge.