13 Reconciling Before Switching Partners

Luke gestured me to sit down on the straw bed with his stormy ocean blue eyes. I sat down beside him as he opened his mouth, "I didn't raise you to act like this Rika. What were you thinking making your new partner kneel in the field for over six hours?"

"I don't know. He's the one who chose to kneel down for that long," I replied while turning my head away from his stabbing glares.

I wondered why Luke was acting like this. I clearly wasn't his partner for the next month and what was happening between Allan and I was clearly only between us.

'Plus, he raised me? Oh please, we're both in the same age! And I was mentally at least ten years older than him!' My anger started to swell up in my chest even further.

"The Allan that I know wouldn't kneel down in that field for no reason. What happened Rika?" Luke gave me a chance to explain what had happened.

I decided to confess everything as I determined I had nothing to lose, "It was because I refused to attend class today that Allan threatened me with his family name that he would forgive me if I went to class for the next two weeks."

Luke didn't look angry anymore, instead he was frozen in shock. "You decided to not attend class today?"

"Only today, I didn't say anything about tomorrow or the rest of the week," I honestly told him.

The room was silent for a moment while Luke tried to recollect his thoughts.

"Why? You know how much content we go through even if it's just a day," Luke couldn't understand.

"When I returned home, I realized what I was missing out on when I was spending all my time at school. Everyday at school, I was pressured into studying and constantly had to push myself to the brink to survive through this hell! But, I didn't even know it was hell to me because I got used to it! When I was at home during summer break, I got to play some video games while catching up with some 'books'. I finally got decent time to myself and I was free of expectations for once. I got time to do some shopping everyday and spent some time with my parents. I even had the time to get angry at myself when my parents tried to conceal their sad faces because they knew I would be spending only a week with them! Do you even know how I felt when I saw their faces back then?" I unintentionally yelled out.

"You're in the first district now. Your parents chose to send you to this school for your future. You know the more you slack off, the more you go to lower class schools and drop through the districts. Or else we wouldn't be studying this hard," Luke tried to reason with me.

"I know! It's because I know that I was going to rest for only today!" I yelled while tears ran down my face.

I was confronted with the cold hard truth that I ran away from.

'This world was very cruel to children. So cruel that a young ten year old was constantly thinking about the future from a much younger age than now,' I pitied myself and the people here.

"Then I hope you rest well while torturing your innocent partner that has nothing to do with this!" Luke said sarcastically.

Luke left the room as he shut the door behind him while looking disappointed in me.

'Maybe I was wrong with treating Allan this way because I wanted a good break even though it was only for a day. All that he asked me was to attend class for the reminder of the day and maybe I was being selfish with denying that one request.' I tried to convince myself after looking at Luke's great disappointment in me.

I walked back into the field behind my classroom to see Allan still kneeling down on the grass.

"I'm sorry" I attempted to pull him up.

Allan nodded while looking barely conscious as if he had forgiven me for 'my mistake'.

"Then should we head back to our room?" I ended up supporting him all the way back to our room as Allan toppled as soon as he got up.

I grabbed a light novel and ended up falling asleep without turning one page after I safely put him down on his bed.

I woke up early the next morning to get ready for school. I guessed old habits die hard. When I was almost finished changing into my uniform, Allan woke up as if yesterday's incident did not happen.

"Good morning!" I greeted Allan.

"Good morning!" Allan friendly replied back.

We were on good terms now as we walked towards the classroom together while the day resumed as normal. I talked to Ellen and Shelly during the break and studied hard during class as usual.

But, when I noticed Allan interacting with Alex with his bright laid back smile, I didn't dare to look at Luke that was right beside them as his disappointed face flashed across my mind.

I was surprised when Luke threw the bag into the garbage as I pulled out my bag of chips and started to open the bag during lunch time.

Luke ordered another set of foods for me on the tablet as he soon passed over the tray of food to me. When I worriedly looked over at Allan, I was relieved when Ellen shared some of her food with him.

I was glad Luke ordered another potion of food for me as I was getting sick of junk food. I decided to forgive him with throwing my chips away and accepted the tray of food.

I guessed that meant that Luke wasn't mad at me anymore as my favourite dishes was on the tray in front of me.

These peaceful days continued until an entire two weeks quickly passed by and the teacher announced we were going to switch partners again.

"It was nice being paired up with you Allan" I pulled out my hand to shake hands with him.

"While it wasn't exactly a pleasant situation, it was a unique experience." Allan shook my hand to commemorate our time together.

I didn't know why, but I was heard some soft hints of laugher from Ellen and Shelly from Allan's reply. I still wondered to this day what was so funny.

"I'm going to rearrange your partners again. Starting from today, Helena will be with Allan while Rika will be with Alex and Michelle will be with Luke. There's going to be another exam again to re-evaluate your points again tomorrow. So study hard and I'll see you tomorrow!" Daniel announced after we sat back down in our seats.

When I started to head back to the medieval-like room to pack up my stuff, Daniel stopped me claiming that my room wouldn't change. I watched Allan happily packed his stuff while moving to another room as Alex carefully brought his stuff inside with wary eyes.

Before I could hide my collection of lights novels and manga with my bad intuition coming towards me, my books were instantly burnt to ashes.

"Don't think I'll be as lenient as Allan was." Alex showed no signs of guilt from harming other people's private properties.

I dropped down to my knees from shock.

'My precious babies,' I scooped the ashes into my hands as I despaired over the parts I didn't read yet.

Even Luke wasn't this cruel. Luke would just confiscate it from me, he wouldn't burn them right in front of me.

Fortunately, the most of light novels I didn't read yet were still inside the box underneath my clothes and my secret stash of junk food remained inside the box as well.

I ignored Alex while he unpacked his stuff. I decided to go to sleep to convince myself it was all a dream and hugged one light novel that I placed inside my vest to comfort myself.

Just when I was about to fall asleep, Alex pulled out something that resembled a water gun from my previous life.

"What do you want?" I quickly sat up and asked before he could shoot me with the whatever was inside the gun.

"We need to start studying for the exams. I can't afford to get -100 000 points like you and Allan did. It would be a great humiliation to the Monete family. I was surprised that Allan was able to forgive you after sullying his family name!" Alex couldn't find what was wrong with his approach.

"Can we start studying one hour later? At this rate, I will put myself to sleep even though I want to get a good mark on the exam this time. Plus, I read a book in elementary school that people retain less information when they're in a state where they're about to fall asleep." I tried to negotiate with Alex as I needed time to mentally recover from my precious gems being burnt.

"It's ok. I'm sure after some constant encounters with water, you'll be wide awake!" Alex warned me as he dragged me with force to the study room

'Another characteristic that was similar to Luke,' I thought as Luke frequently dragged me to the study room for his intense study sessions.

Alex kept frowning as my skills weren't up to his expectations since I didn't do any reviewing for two weeks and only attended class. Apparently, I was in a worse situation than Alex thought I would be as he decided to extend the study session. However, I ended up falling asleep half-way through even though I was drenched from his water gun. I did end up sleeping late during the past several of days to finish my piles of light novels and manga I brought from the third district and it must have accumulated.

This was how I ended up with a really bad cold the next day. Alex couldn't wake me up no matter what methods he used while I fell asleep drenched in the study room.

Currently, Alex was busy pouring all his mana into my forehead to try to at least get rid of my dizziness before the exam started. Most of it was his fault anyways from not letting me take a one hour nap.

I decided to take the exam anyways as the school didn't have exceptions for deferring exams when you switched partners as it was an assignment itself. I didn't want to suffer from a lack of points again because I would be getting a zero if I didn't end up writing it.

Unfortunately, we soon ran out of time and had no choice but to write the exam. With the combination of my throbbing forehead and Alex's tired body from pouring most of mana inside my body we both heavily sighed after managing to finish the exam.

The results instantly projected onto the whiteboard.

[Helena and Allan: 87 000 points]

[Rika and Alex: - 110 000 points]

[Michelle and Luke: 110 000 points]

'-110 000 points. A new record! How fascinating!' I felt hot and dizzy while the room started to feel like it was spinning.

Alex stumbled onto the floor from shock while Allan didn't seem surprised as he tried to help Alex stand back up. However, the other five people, which included the teacher, had their jaws dropped to the floor again.

'This wasn't my fault this time,' I warned Alex with a short glare before I limped to the infirmary with the support of Shelly and Ellen.

In many ways, the infirmary was better than medieval-like room I was currently in. Shelly and Ellen carefully placed me down on the bed as I kept myself from throwing up. I was soon given congee by the doctor after she noticed my condition while she mentioned to rest well during the next couple of days.

At this point, the point system didn't apply to me since I was sick in bed unable to move. However, Alex was not exempt even though he was my pair.

I learned this in elementary school when I got sick while Luke was still fine. Luke had to work like a workaholic as he had to go out to earn enough points everyday (including my share) until I got better.

However, we were in a much better situation than what Alex and I was tangled up in. We had a stable amount of points that we had accumulated to help us out. But, Alex and I possessed minus points right now. It wasn't just something like -50 or -100 points, but -110 000 points.