Who is she? (2)

Bella comforted Andrew and eased his worries.

"Thanks Bella.." Andrew looked up at her with a strange happiness.

He finally realized that Bella was a pillar supporting his back ever since he was a child, and it was only because of her that he managed to overcome highschool.

"Hmhm." Bella smiled as she looked down at him.

There was a moment of silence as they both stared into each other's eyes, and that silence was soon broken when Bella flicked his forehead and giggled.

"Shall we study now, Mr. Lazy?" She laughed.

Andrew melted at her jovial attitude, internally he understood that he'd been too stressed lately.

"Right..let's.." He got up and walked with Bella to his bed.

Both of them preferred studying on the bed, contrary to conventional advice, as they both liked to stretch their legs when the concepts got too difficult to retain.

"That's aldol condensation, I taught you that last week, remember?"

"Uh, yeah…"

There were minor hiccups in their study session, but most of them resolved with Bella putting her legs on Andrew's lap and Andrew in return wracking his brain to mug up the notes.

"Why didn't you reply to my message?"

"Uh, I was sleeping…?"

"And you didn't check your phone?"

"Uh …no?"

"Don't lie Andrew. When I called in the morning your phone was switched off, and when I sent a text it wasn't delivered. And after 35 minutes I finally saw that it's delivered but I waited all for nothing since you never replied. I know you turned your phone on later and chose to ignore me."

"You're thinking too deep Bella…"

Well, Bella was certainly very methodical and quite an overthinker. Andrew had to focus on his studies more in order to appease her playful anger.

"What's this?"

"That's the lyman series, Andrew. I told you to remember it no matter what last month, didn't I?"

Regardless, Andrew did his best to learn from Bella. His grandparents had taught him to be an upright person and being a man detached from reality, he never had the smart idea to cheat in his exams, which would be very easy for him with his powers. Another reason he never cheated is because no matter how tough the exam was, whatever Bella taught him always somehow matched with what came on the test and that helped him score decent marks even with a mediocre memorization ability like his. But considering how huge the syllabus was for his college entrance exam, and how a small crack had appeared in his rigid upright behavior, he decided to finally use 'Mon', just a little bit, on himself and preserve the notes in his head.

"Time for a little break, kids. Who wants cake?!" Kara too did her best to make the long study sessions more enjoyable for the adolescents.

"Me!" Bella liked Andrew's mom, and the same could be said about Kara if someone were to ask her what she thought about this valkyrie beauty.

"I want coffee…" Andrew, though, always walked a different path from normality, notwithstanding the fact that he was fed up with studying so much.

"Bellsis, do you want to see what dress I bought?" Shana came in and joined the group and kidnapped Bella from Andrew.

As the energetic trio left his room, Andrew decided to think about more important matters.

"That crazy girl… Even when I used Goto on her, she was still able to retain her presence of mind.."

Goto when used on a living being would revert not only their physical bodies but also their mind, their memories.

Only Andrew is able to retain his memories since he uses Mon as a base on which he activates his other techniques.

But the woman named Anastasia was not affected by it. Her mind was immune to Goto. And not only that, she also seemed to have other sorts of immunity to Andrew's skills.

"Aj didn't stop the chains until it came close to me…just how strong is she? No, what is she? Who is she?"

"Andrew!" Bella called. "Aren't you coming?"

Andrew swiftly put away his thoughts and spent the rest of the day studying with Bella.

However, the more he did, the more he began to use Mon, a small darkness in his mind corrupting all his morales, his sense of justice.

He questioned how it even mattered whether he cheated or not, given nothing mattered in the end. As long as he got into college, that is, he safely secured the end goal- he concluded that the means used to reach the end didn't really matter.

What one bad day can do to an upstanding, pacifist, gentle man is truly astounding.

"I'm going then." Bella waved bye to Andrew and his family.

"Bye bye Bellsis!" Shana nudged Andrew with her elbow while she waved at Bella.

"Uh…" Andrew realized he was expected to accompany Bella home since it was already late at night. "I'll come with you."

"You don't have to, I'll be fine alone." Bella smiled at Andrew.

"Oh alright then-"

This time Kara slapped Andrew's back.

"Andrew will go with you Bella. It's dangerous for a beautiful lady to walk alone at night." Kara winked at Bella.

And that was how Andrew was forced to walk with Bella.

As they traversed the broad and lively roads of the capital city Kata, a place renowned for political upheaval and frequent social unrest, Bella held Andrew's arm and asked him a question.

"Say Andrew… if you manage to pass the exam with flying colors…" She looked at him with an expectant face. "Which college do you want to go to?"

Andrew remembered that before he reset the time, Bella went to the top college in the state, and since he didn't really know the name of the other colleges, heck, he didn't even know the name of the exam he had enrolled for, he just said the name of Bella's future college.

"Medical College, Kata."

Bella's eyelids opened up and she stared at Andrew with disbelief for a while.

"Really?" Then she smiled and held Andrew's hand even more tightly.

"Yeah.."

"Then, Andrew…" Bella left Andrew and walked ahead.

She next turned around and looked at him.

Holding her hands behind her back, her blue eyes gleamed with a beautiful, promising smile. "Remember to study hard."