A rocky beginning

Ji-ho felt the sting of a slap the moment she came to her senses as Ava Robinson.

"F***," she cursed in surprise, touching the reddened skin on her cheek. Her memories of the day showed her a clear picture of what was going on. Ava had been sold to space pirates in her second year. This was her first year, three months into starting classes at Starfield Academy. Ava was currently in the mess hall, surrounded by a crowd of girls from class who had come to bully her. The girl who had just slapped her was Mischa Garde, the prettiest and smartest student in their year.

Ji-ho took one look at her smug face and returned the slap with twice the intensity. Mischa's shocked face was priceless but the expressions of the girls who had come with her were even more satisfying. A few seniors smirked from their tables when they saw the mouse finally fighting back. A place like this had its hierarchy within every student year, and it was up to the students themselves to prove their strength to their classmates.

Clutching her slapped face, Mischa stared daggers at the good for nothing who had dared to hit her.

"Ava Robinson! Are you insane?!" one of Mischa's friends asked her with shock.

"Yes," Ji-ho gloomily answered. "I will slap everyone who blocks my path so get out of my way and let me get some dinner." Recalling the ungodly amount of trouble that Iris and Dan-bi had caused, Ji-ho decided to shut down the bullies hard when the iron was still hot. She wasn't going to rely on the reaper as she had done before. Keeping this in mind, Ji-ho switched her mental gears and slipped into a cold personality; an easy feat for an actress of her calibre.

"Stop right there!" Mischa snarled when Ji-ho swept past her. The bully grabbed her arm and yanked her back only to receive a punch on the nose. "Fuck ugh!" Mischa screamed as she lunged at Ji-ho. The two of them were a tangle of limbs on the floor. Though Ji-ho had taken self-defence training, Mischa herself was no slouch. Contrary to the crowd's expectations, Ava came out on top with sheer tenacity and the cruel ferocity of a cornered animal. Mischa's face was pressed to the floor as Ji-ho sat atop her, nose bleeding from the hit that the bully had landed on her nose.

"geroff me-!!!"

Dinner was forgotten and a huge crowd had gathered around them, cheering on the two fighting first-year girls. Demi, the prefect of house Gemini pushed through the crowd to break up the fight that had gone too far.

"Ladies, that's enough," Ji-ho heard the annoyed voice of a senior. She glanced up and saw an attractive silver-haired girl sending her a raised brow. Demi was a fair prefect who had often helped Ava when she saw her being bullied. "Ava, it's nice to see you've found a spine but I won't have you two disrupt dinner for everyone. Break it up or I send the both of you on a five-kilometre run right now."

"Yes, prefect," Ji-ho responded and got off Mischa. Her nose had stopped bleeding but it felt clogged and stuffy. She ignored the looks of curiosity and pushed through the crowd to go grab some dinner.

"You had that coming, Garde," she heard Demi tell Mischa.

______

Back inside her shared room, Ji-ho opened up her books to check her familiarity with the study material. To her intense relief, Ava's knowledge hadn't disappeared. The complex formulae and theories made perfect sense to Ji-ho. Being somewhat of a nerd herself, she eagerly sat down to study, and that was how her roommate found her.

"Robinson," her roommate, Lois, burst in through the door like a typhoon. "That was a-ma-zing! oh my god. You really showed Mischa! Are you actually studying right now?!"

Ji-ho nodded to the cute girl with wavy brown hair. "Have to. I might fail calculus." She had never understood math like the way Ava did. Ji-ho felt like a whole new world had been opened to her and it was an addictive feeling.

"Oh-okay, I won't disturb you then, Ava. Just wanted to let you know how proud I am of what you did." Lois smiled warmly at Ji-ho. "Good luck. Kick calculus on the butt."

___

The next morning, Ava was a rockstar at the mess hall. She was given a wide berth by her classmates. Previously, she was either ignored or treated as a pariah by the students but now they looked at her with respect. Some of them even smiled at her when she made eye contact. Well, too bad. Ji-ho wasn't going to befriend the cowards who had been complicit in Ava's suffering. Mischa herself stopped bothering Ava after last night's incident. She was no longer interested in prey that fought back so viciously.

Ava was a slender girl with pale blonde hair and big blue eyes, a reflection that Ji-ho would not get used to seeing in the mirror. She stared at her own reflection on the shiny dinner plate. Such an innocent face, Ji-ho thought with a smile. Ava was a delicate thing that reminded her of a doll.

"Robinson, you're stalling the line."

Ji-ho quickly scooped up some fruits and headed to an empty table to have breakfast. It sucked that she didn't have any friends aside from Lois who regularly skipped breakfast.

After peacefully eating breakfast, she left to attend her first class for the day. And on her way, she gawked at the aerial vehicles that silently glided through the sky.

"So cool," she whispered.

"Watch it-"

Ji-ho had bumped into someone as she was walking with her gaze to the sky.

"I'm sorry."

The person she had bumped into was a tall and unbelievably attractive guy with dark hair and intense dark eyes.

Archer Svenson, her mind quickly supplied. Fourth-year student, genius, athletic, all rounder, mysterious pretty boy, most desired man at Starfield Academy. Mischa's crush. Son of a high ranking army officer. Engaged to someone from another Academy.

Without giving her a second look, Archer walked right past. He was getting late for class and so was Ji-ho.