“Rock-paper-scissors,” Ryou huffed, holding out a fist, “since we tied.”

Reya sighed. She hated hand games, they were so immature. She reluctantly held out her first.

“Rock. Paper. Scissors…” Reya held out an open palm, and Ryou held out two fingers. They did two more goes, and she sighed with frustration as Ryou stole the last point.

No! I lost…

“Ha! Serves you right,” he smirks, as if he’d forgotten that they actually tied the basketball game, and he only won the bet because of an immature hand game.

Reya rolled her eyes at him and slumped down on the court. At least I managed to prove I could tie at basketball with this guy. The crowd starts to disperse as the bell goes for class. Ryou walked up to her triumphantly and looked down at her, a mischievous grin plastered on his face.

“Ready to be my little slave?” He says, clearly savouring every word. Reya didn’t give him a reaction to his words, but instead shot him a cold stare.

“An errand-girl and a slave… are two very different things, for your information.”

“Oh, they’re the same thing for me,” he knelt down, and jabbed his finger onto her forehead, “they’re. Both. Completely. Useless.”

She grabbed his index finger and bent it backwards, causing him to yelp in surprise.

“You touch me again, I’ll snap every one of your pretty little fingers off and hang them around this school for display,” she said coldly, giving him a threatening stare.

He scoffed, definitely not taking her seriously. Ryou didn’t seem to believe her, so Reya bent his finger back even more. He yelped again, louder this time, then winced and nodded, trying not to show the pain on his face.

“No touching. Got it,” he wheezed, rubbing his knuckles in pain and, to her, satisfying shock. Reya gave him a long, hard look, before standing up and leaving the cursed basketball court behind.

She may have lost the bet, but news of Ryou’s new rival spread throughout the school like wildfire. It was already common news that Reya Aki, the new girl, rose to the top of her grade in less than a week, but the fact that she’d gone neck-to-neck with one of the few best basketball players at Hikari Academy was something else. It soon exploded throughout the entirety of Sakura City, the news falling like fresh rain into every school in the area- like cold, wet rain after a long drought.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

Her popularity skyrocketed from there on; with random students from different grades coming up to her and questioning her, boys challenging her to arm wrestles, basketball games, and math tests.

Reya turned them all down, however. She had only made a bet with Ryou to prove to him, and probably the whole school, that she belonged here. And she’d succeeded.

“Reya Aki. I hereby declare that your attendance at Hikari Academy will be permanent. You are now an official student. Congratulations, Ms. Aki. You clearly exceeded my expectations.”

The headmaster handed her a silver name tag and an ID, his old face wrinkled with pride. Reya gave him one of her rare smiles as she clipped it on, slipping the card into her pocket.

“And I assure you, headmaster: I will continue to blow your expectations of me to the clouds.”

Ray Han, her cold, poker-faced roommate was probably the only one who didn’t pay attention to her. They were in the same class, however he pretended that her existence was irrelevant.

She’d stopped asking about where he went every night, and what happened to his arm that day. The boy had been coming back with bruises almost every day after that, but she’d chosen to pay no mind to it.

Reya had asked him about chores, but of course, that emotionless man didn’t give her a straight answer.

“We do our own chores. You make a mess, you clean it. You cook for yourself, you clean for yourself. I normally eat out anyway.”

Reya was on her bed on a call with Serein one night, when her friend pointed something out.

“Are you sure there’s nothing to suspect him of, apart from the injury from that day?”

Reya paused, and stopped fiddling with her sleeves for a second. Her eyes wandered over to her conspiracy board, which she’d pinned a new image with the caption, ‘Ray Han… burn mark.’ She’d added a sketch of the mark she’d seen, and she looked at it now, the yellow sticky note drawing her in.

“The book,” she said suddenly. It was as if a lightbulb had illuminated her dark mind. Serein gave her a confused look. Reya turned back to her laptop and grabbed at the screen, as if attempting to strangle her friend through the camera, “the book!”

Serein stopped brushing her hair and stared at her like she was delusional, placing her hairbrush on the table in a precarious manner.

Reya stood up and began to pace the room, stopping every few seconds at her conspiracy board.

“The day I walked into the dorm, Ray was on the sofa with a book on his face. When I picked it up, he awoke and got really aggressive. I haven’t seen the book since that day- it must be in his room!”

She stopped pacing and jumped back on the bed, glaring at her friend. Serein gave her a weird look, before saying,

“What was the title of the book?”

Reya froze, her heartbeat immediately quickening. Her throat suddenly went dry.

“‘Epiphany of Five Souls,’” she said slowly, her eyes widening. She watched as Serein typed the title into one of her computers.

“It’s not in my database?” She frowned, each click of her mouse making Reya realise just what exactly she had been missing.

“Of course, it isn’t… because it hasn’t been published yet.”