Don’t Drop The Ball (1)

Aika arrived at the main competition venue and saw a huge range of contestants. There were some groups, some duos, and even more people who were obviously alone.

On top of that, there was a clear divide among the groups based on wealth and status. There were several clusters of people who were either sucking up to rich young heirs or staring at them in envy.

One group stood out among all the rest with even the other rich heirs clustering around it and fawning over them. When she got closer, she was able to recognize one of the people there as Emma and felt hatred bubble up inside her.

Seeing Emma brought up everything she had learned about from Aria and she wanted to walk up to her and slap her. How could someone's own sister act like that towards them?

Sighing, Aika shook her head and turned away from the clusters of people to make her way to the registration desk. When she got there, the man working at it was busy adjusting his hair and clothes to notice that she was there.

After nearly a minute of waiting, Aika got impatient and called out, "Excuse me? I'm here to register for the Newpark Competition."

The man behind the desk sighed and put away his mirror and spoke still without looking at her once. "Obviously. What's your name and are you here as a group, duo, solo..?"

He was clearly beyond done with dealing with the dozens of contestants and looked like he was ready to just quit already. That being the case, Aika decided to make things easy for him and answer concisely. "Aika. Solo."

Obviously shocked, the man looked up and a small smile spread on his face. "Well then, Aika, I like you. Everyone else, and I mean everyone, has tried sucking up to me to get some kind of special treatment I'm not even able to give. I'm Ezekiel and personally, you already have my vote to win."

"Oh, thank you! I'm sorry everyone else is so annoying, they're probably just nervous though..." Aika returned his smile and waved goodbye before turning to leave.

After she left, Ezekiel marked down #100 with a check-mark on his sheet and stood up to finally leave the awful outside area. In the years it's been hosted, he's somehow always ended up with this awful task even though it's supposed to be randomly selected from Golden Star's staff.

Shortly after she left, an announcement rang out across the plaza and the doors at the front of the building all opened. "Attention everyone, the selection stage of the competition is about to begin, please enter through the front doors and receive a number. Attempting to trade numbers or positions in line with other contestants will result in immediate disqualification."

With the announcement made, all of the rich heirs rushed to the front of the line while the rest of the contestants willingly or unwillingly conceded the first spots to them. Once they had all found their spots in line the rest filed in behind them, some of them grumbling or complaining only to be shushed by someone next to them and told not to take the risk of angering someone who might be able to kick them out of their house or fire their parents.

At the very end of the line, Aika stood and watched in disdain as all the other rich kids abused their power to jump right to the front of the line and simply waited patiently. Either way she was going to be inside in air conditioning and compete to enter the competition eventually, so why rush?

Directly in front of her was a nervous looking boy who was extremely noticeable. The striking difference about him was that instead of appealing in terms of attractiveness, everything about him screamed cute. He had messy curly auburn hair, pale skin, a baby face and extremely bright green eyes.

Bored after standing in line for quite a while, Aika poked his shoulder and waved at him when he turned to face her.

"Why so nervous?"

"Because it's a huge competition for newbies and you only get to try to get in once? Why aren't you nervous?"

Before she was able to reply, the speaker came on once again like it had repeatedly done already. "Number 73, please come to the stage."

After the announcement, there was a small stir as the unassuming contestant shuffled up to the stage before everyone went back to what they were doing previously.

"Because? Either I'm good enough or I'm not, being nervous won't change anything for me now..."

When the boy got a weird look on his face, Aika laughed and looked him over again. She couldn't help but think that if this boy wasn't bad, she might just have to mention trying to recruit him to Aria. Starting with tons of talent and skill was always good, but they could always train him if he was even barely decent while looks and character are far harder to change.

"I'm Aika, what about you?"

The boy sighed and seemed to hesitate for a moment before finally speaking. "Zachary Clark."