22 Graduation Day (2)

His appearance on the stage caused the shuffling of the crowd to die down and both the students and the parents looked up at him expectantly. It was an extremely rare moment for someone like him to have all these powerful people staring at him from below and looking up at him.

In truth, part of the reason he had decided to open Maple-leaf Academy in the first place was because he had no confidence in being able to succeed in business and be equal to all these people. So, after nearly a year of hesitation beforehand, he had set aside the rest of his life and opened the Academy.

Aria stood quietly by the side of the room, looking over at the people she called her family. Initially, she had wanted to walk over and sit with them but when she had caught sight of them laughing and talking happily she changed her mind.

Interacting with them was always painful for her, they all doted on her younger sister so much and believed her to be a gift from heaven and yet nothing she did ever made them happy. When she was younger, she always found herself longing to be spending time with them but now that she was back in B City and had the chance just the sight of them made her heart clench.

Now that the dean had walked out, she slowly made her way to her assigned seat with the rest of the scholarship students. They were granted separate seating at the front of the hall when they graduated to represent their academic achievements, but it was also because they were not allowed to invite their families.

Technically, Aria could of sat with her family farther back but felt that doing so would have gone poorly for her in front of an entire room full of current and future leaders of their respective fields.

"Hello everyone, and welcome to this year's Maple-leaf Academy graduation. First of all, I would like to thank you all for taking your time from your extremely busy schedules to attend our humble event. I would also like to honor our three top students."

After he spoke, whispers broke out among the parents who had not been informed of the test results. As all of the students were somewhat ashamed of doing so poorly in comparison, not a single student had told their parents the results.

Before he spoke again, Dean Maple took a sip of water from the glass on the podium and cleared his throat. "As many of you know, Maple-leaf academy traditionally only names the top student, but this year is a bit special. Our three top students, Aria Song, Emma Song, and Aika Suzuki have all received matching perfect scores on the final exams."

Some of the parents looked at their children and shook their heads while towards the back, both the Songs and the Suzukis congratulated their success and started planning celebrations mentally.

"I don't want to talk your ears off, so I'll do my best to make this short. Thank you for sending your children to our humble Maple-leaf Academy and giving us the opportunity to help shape the future leaders of the world."

After he finished his speech, each student was to be called up one by one based on the score they received on the test and receive their diplomas. The first student to be called was Aika, and she walked up to the stage gracefully with a small smile on her face. Her natural good looks were complimented by a white A-line dress that made her look like an elf gracing a group of unworthy humans with her time.

Following her was Aria who's appearance was almost the direct opposite of Aika's. Anybody would say that she looked just as stunning as Aika did, but it was of a different sort. She was wearing a pure black tea-length dress with beautiful lace flowers that complimented hair long black hair and pale skin perfectly. Combined with her smaller stature, she looked like a beautiful and adorable little devil that had come to devour them all.

If it could be said that Aika looked like an angel then Aria looked like a devil.

Following them was Emma in a red designer A-line dress from QL's latest collection, showing off both her wealth and her beauty.

After the 3 stunning honor students, the rest of the high ranking students were all there on scholarship and looked far more modest.

As usual, the Maple-leaf Academy turned into something of a fashion show after that as dozens of rich heirs and heiresses showed off their wealth and bodies.

Even though the school did everything they could to discourage the students from participating in the petty competition, they were unable to do much in the end. Unless they assigned a graduation uniform and survived all the angry student's backlash, there would always be at least 1 student who wanted to show off and no one wanted to be on the bottom.