12 A New Side of Allan

Allan abruptly sat up when he woke up, "Please tell me it was a dream. It was an illusion, right? You failing every exam and balancing out to - 100 000 points!"

I harrumphed from Allan's blunt words.

'I passed one subject you know!' I complained inside my head. It was impressive enough with the high difficulty levels to get those marks when I didn't study for them.

"Nope, it wasn't a dream, but I have some food in this room that I snuck from home so we won't have to starve," I tried cheer him up.

I grabbed his shoulders when Allan wobbled as if he was about to faint again.

"- 100 000 points," Allan kept muttering repeatedly like a madman.

I sighed as I did understand it was going to be hard to go back to having at least zero points. It was almost a repeat of when I first entered elementary school.

After I took my first exam in elementary school, I got one 40, some 50s and 60s. This made the points of Luke and I to balance out as -30 000. Basically, it was a less extreme version of now. But, even back then, it was hard to recover to back to zero points. From what I remembered, it took us almost three months to get it back to a stable surplus of points above zero.

But this time, I wasn't going to spend two weeks trying to recover the impossible.

"Well at least you have some free time to play around! You know that it's absolutely impossible to recover -100 000 points in two weeks anyways no matter what we do. So we can lay back and relax for the next two weeks!" I smiled while listing all the things we could do during our free time.

I stopped trying to cheer him up when I heard loud grumbles from both of our stomachs.

"I have some cup noodles," I showed Allan that we wouldn't have to starve.

I scooped some water from the community well right outside our room with a wooden pail. Once I poured the water into a safe metal pot, I put my arms out to boiled it with my mana.

Allan frowned as I poured the water into the cup noodles and passed to him when they were about done.

"You know the noodles will get soggy soon," I told him when he was reluctant to take a bite.

Allan reluctantly took a bite of the cup ramen. I hid my shock when his bites got bigger and faster as he gobbled everything up within five minutes! I wondered how he was able to tolerate his hunger pangs with the clean empty bowl of noodles in front of me.

Before I could try to cheer up Allan after finishing my own bowl, he dejectedly went back to his bed with his poor blanket covering his face.

'Was it that much of a big deal?' I thought as everything would reset after two weeks.

I grabbed the light novel that was on my straw bed and resumed reading since Allan appeared traumatized and depressed about the -100 000 points.

"It's all a dream when I wake up, I will forget this nightmare," Allan crazily repeatedly muttered in his sleep to try convince himself that it was a bad dream.

When the muttering started to get louder, I created a sound barrier to peacefully read my light novel with a snap of my fingers.

Maybe that was why I slept longer than I usually did as I spent most of the peaceful night to binge read when I couldn't do that with Luke around.

The next day, I found an empty bed next to my bed. I wondered what time it was as Allan was nowhere to be seen. When I looked at the time in the marble, I was shocked to find that it was already 2PM.

'I guess I slept in.' I yawned as I stretched my arms.

Since I already skipped almost half of my classes, I decided to stay inside the room instead of attending the rest of my classes as I lazily stared at the ceiling.

Unfortunately, Allan softly opened the door while I was winning the staring contest with the ceiling.

"I came to wake you up Rika!" Allan stopped when he noticed I was already awake.

"I'm already awake!" I yelled back.

"Then you should get ready for the next class," Allan noticed I was in my pyjamas.

"I'll just skip the rest of the classes for today." I continued my staring contest with the ceiling.

Allan abruptly opened my closet as he searched for a clean uniform.

"You should really get going Rika," Allan warned me while holding a hanger with my uniform in front of me.

"I don't feel like going today," I whined while pouting.

I did feel sorry towards Allan, but I didn't feel like I would have to put the effort in as I usually did during the next two weeks. I needed a vacation or I knew I would soon burnout due to the high stress from the constant intense studying.

Plus, I knew that this was my only chance to read my stock of light novels anyways and I wasn't stupid enough to throw it out. Since Luke wasn't there to guilt me into going, I didn't want to waste my freedom to go to classes.

Allan's amber eyes started to glow from anger with an eerie smile plastered all over his face while holding my uniform. I knew this wasn't good news as I started to back away to eventually break into a run to run away from our room in my pyjamas.

I knew I had a bad habit of running away from things ever since I was young in my former life.

'Bad Rika!' I thought as I knew I should have properly explained to Allan why I didn't feel like going to class today.

I sprinted towards the back exit of the school where there was a teleportation gate. I desperately tapped on random buttons as the teleportation didn't light up as it was supposed to since I didn't know how to use it.

I screamed when Allan caught up to me as he still held my uniform as I didn't notice him running after me.

Allan grabbed onto my wrist to stop me from running away while trying to catch his breath.

"This is not what it seems," I tried to calm him down.

However, Allan didn't appear to be listening as he yelled, "Change! Before I get madder than I am now!"

"I can't change here though," I whispered while reading the mood.

Allan and I ended up walking back to our rooms again as Allan didn't loosen his grip on my wrist.

I quickly got changed under Allan's pressuring stares as he dragged me to class once I finished putting on my dress shoes.

My wavy red hair and Allan's navy blue hair looked like a mess when we interrupted the teacher in the middle of her lesson.

"You're back." The teacher read the mood before ushering her concerns.

"I think we should have a talk." Allan came up to me once class was finished.

He grabbed my hand and pulled me to the field behind the classroom while the others were still packing their stuff to get a sense of privacy.

"I know that you don't care if you miss class or get more minus points, but I care. It reflects back bad on me that I have a partner who misbehaves even though it's only for two weeks." Allan explained.

"So what? So what you care? What are you going to do about it?" I didn't like Allan looking down on me.

I already had enough with slowly losing my freedom from Luke. But this was where I drew the line. I grew up in a culture where there were clear lines between respecting those that were older. I knew I was being brutal to Allan since we were technically the same age in this life, but I didn't care.

I wasn't going to be obediently under his thumb just for the sake of being his 'partner'.

"You weren't like this with Luke," Allan complained.

'Gosh!' I thought while my impression of Allan that liked to laze around with Ellen's constant complaints about him was shattered.

"Well if that's all you wanted to ask, I'm going back to the classroom to finish packing up my stuff and go back to our room." I coldly answered.

If he had asked me nicely, I would have studied with him, but those thoughts vanished once he painted me as a troublesome child to look after.

Allan tightly grabbed onto my hand, " What should I do to get you to at least attend class?"

I tilted my head in confusion as I never mentioned that I wouldn't attend class at all.

However, Allan kneeled down onto the floor while he suddenly started to beg, "I don't know why you're behaving this way, but please stop. I'll do anything to make you at least attend class. I got really flustered this morning when you wouldn't wake up when I tried waking you up for almost an hour. So I attended class alone to get asked by everyone where you were. If that wasn't enough, I got asked by every teacher who came into the room where you were and got scolded many times for not bringing you to class. I'd be lying to say I wasn't upset about the -100 000 points, but as long you attend class, I'll be willing to overlook that one blunder as the representative of the Krista family. So please at least attend class!"

I coldly shook off his hand while he both threatened and begged me at the same time. I walked back to the classroom while not giving him an answer with anger boiling in my chest.

His arrogant attitude that would overlook my so-called blunder made me madder than before. I knew every one of my classmates considered acting accordingly to their family names were important, but it was no excuse to shame someone due to it.

I was never going to act like the cookie-cutter as others expected them me as part of the inner circle of the elites who attended the school. I was going to act like me.

I got stopped by Ellen when I was about to leave the classroom, "Aren't you being way too harsh Rika?"

"Nope. I'm helping you by letting Allan taste a bit of his own medicine," I shook my head after remembering Allan's subtle integrated threats.

"Rika~ You don't have to go this far for me though. Thanks for caring though." Ellen tried to convince me to listen to Allan.

I didn't blame Ellen as she didn't hear about the conversation between Allan and I. If she did, I knew even she would disagree with him.

"No, Ellen you're way too nice! I'll just do this for a couple of more days and I'll stop!" I playfully winked.

I chose to keep my conversation between Allan and I a secret with my last goodwill towards him.

Ellen reluctantly got out of my way while looking concerned with my sudden bad mood as I icily started to walk towards my room.

When I got to my room to finish reading the rest of my light novel, I wondered why it wasn't so fun anymore. The plot didn't seem to be going anywhere while the junk food that I was eating started to lose its taste. The memory of Allan suddenly kneeling down on the ground panged my heart even though I knew it was his fault. This was when I heard some voices outside the door.

"I saw Allan kneeling outside on the field even though it's been over four hours!" One voice said.

"That long? When I saw him outside, only two hours has passed!" Another voice whispered.

"I wondered what happened." The first voice answered back.

Maybe it was the book that was boring, I tried to convince myself. I switched to another book, while someone knocked on the door.

I learned in kindergarten that no one could open the door to the room if the owner of the room wasn't the pair itself. I waited for the person outside to introduce themselves as I knew it wasn't Allan knocking on the door.

"I know that you're inside Rika. Let me in or you won't know what will happen to you next month." Luke subtly warned me without asking what had really happened.

I ignored Luke's threats as I flipped another page in the light novel. I was disappointed in Luke as he chose to believe in Allan rather than his partner. I wondered if this book was boring as well as I began to pick up a new book.

As I flipped another page, I wondered if I really seemed that unreliable to him as we grew up together in school.

I began to get thirsty after the books that I finished started to pile up to reach the height of my bed. I opened the door to get myself some water from the well as I forget about Luke's presence.

I quickly tried to close the door when I saw Luke's initial expressionless face, but Luke had already barged into the room.

"What were you thinking Rika?" Luke showed hints of anger and disappointment while grabbing onto my shoulders.

"Nothing much." I started to shrink back when I saw myself reflected back from Luke's genuinely stormy blue eyes.