Sports

Evelyn held Daniel's hand while dragging the man around the place. Spotting them, her homeroom teacher approached them.

"Evelyn, you are here. Come on. Let me get your shirt to change into. And this…" she trailed off as her eyes fell on Daniel— unable to recognize the young man.

"A close relative," Daniel introduced, "Daniel Wright."

A close relative?

That was indeed a strange way of introducing oneself.

Suspicion flashed in her eyes before the homeroom teacher nodded her head and said, "Then, Mr. Daniel, I will give you the form. You can select the activities Evelyn and you will participate at."

After that, she took out a paper and handed it to him. Taking it, he bore a solemn expression while he went through them. Evelyn stood on her toes, trying to push herself up, so that she would be able to catch a glimpse.

But she remained unsuccessful.

However, it seemed that her struggles didn't go unnoticed by Daniel. He bend down to pick her up and let her look at the list of activities.

Evelyn wanted to take part in all of them, but the number was limited to five. This made her scrunch up her nose.

"Math race?" the man suggested.

She was quick to shake her head in refusal. Disgust showed on her face as she expressed, "I hate math."

"You hate math?" he questioned. For split of a second, she thought he was in disbelief.

"Yeah, it makes me think too hard. I wanna play football and also relay race. Select tug-of-war too," she voiced out.

"You can't. They are dangerous, and you will get hurt." There was a hint of finality in his tone

The homeroom teacher was baffled.

Wasn't this taking overprotectiveness to another level?

Didn't all children participate in these activities?

And even if they got injured, wasn't it part of growing up?

"I won't," she protested.

"Don't argue."

"What will I even play then?" she questioned, frustrated and letting out a huff.

"You can draw and recite poems. Singing is fine too," he pointed out.

Her expression contorted immediately at that.

"Those are boring," she whined, "and lame. My friends will laugh at me, and my day will end up being ruined. And, and I can't even draw or sing. Or even recite poems. Aren't you the best?"

And then, a lengthy discussion went on between them before he allowed Evelyn to have her way on the condition she would be careful. He will be pulling her out if she got hurt.

It wasn't easy feat for Evelyn to get him to agree.

She had to resort to her tears.

Her father was too hard to convince.

If she got to live with him, her life would indeed be hard and most of her freedom would be taken away.

In order to represent her classroom, she had on a shirt. Despite her promises, Evelyn had a competitive spirit that got ignited; she knew she had to win against all odds.

On the sidelines, she had Daniel keeping a close eye on her. This did make her feel nervous and alarmed in the beginning, but as she got too engrossed into playing, she easily ignored it.

As Evelyn crossed through the red ribbon, she was the first one to do so, and a squeal escaped from her lips. She jumped over to Daniel who placed his hands under her arms and raised her.

"I did it! I won!"

She gave him a wide, toothy grin, proud of herself and waited for him to shower her with praises.

"Hmm, you did good."

Although his attitude was reserved, she didn't mind, and becoming more enthusiastic, she expressed, "I am the best, right? Watch me win all the rest! I will be the ultimate winner!"

"Ultimate," he enunciated, "you do know big words."

Holding her chin high, she bragged, "Of course I do. I am the smartest out there. The teachers praise me all the time and tell the other students to follow my example. I am the cutest too. And—"

Before she was able to carry on, the teacher called her name in order to get her to participate in the next sport.

This made her pout her lips for a second and say, "I will tell you all about it later on, alright?"

"Understood."