Disha -

I kept myself occupied throughout the day, trying my best not to think about what happened in the club. But right now I just remembered about everything.Honestly I was used to M's dissing me. And I have never expected anything from Raidan so far but I don't know why after yesterday I had somehow started to expect things from him. But it's all good now, all expectations are gone. Right now I just feel like what I had felt the first week after joining the club.

I was really excited about joining the club, just the thought of being around Raidan excited me so much. But since I joined he didn't talk with me, in fact apart from B nobody did. There was a competition on the first week after I joined the team. The total marks of the competition was 150. Our team had earned 142.50, and yeah of course we won. But I had messed up. I had messed up a big time. At that time, with everything else it was already too much for me. And on top of that the nervousness..... so, including all the pressure and nervousness I messed up even the most familiar question.

After the competition everyone was sad and angry. And back in the clab happened my worse nightmare...

As soon as we entered the club M smashed his phone out of anger. I was standing behind him, so he turned towards me. He looked at me with his bloody red eyes. It looked so dangerous that I got goosebumps.

"Tell me what's your contribution to this victory? Out of the 142.50 scores, how much have you earned? Opps!! I forgot, you earned us 3.75 scores and made us lose 1.25 score!!" he let out a sarcastic laugh and continued, "also guess what? Since the beginning of DT, we have never even once lost a single score, let alone negative marking. And so we had the 'No Negative Mark' record. And you!! Because of you we lost that record. What a splending job you have done there", M said clapping his hands.

"You had to answer only eight questions, but you messed that up too. Your questions were so easy. You were lucky to have two zoology questions. You know why? Cause they bearly add zoology since it's too easy. But you messed those up. And what was the last question? You had to guess a plant's name, which was the most easiest question but you couldn't answer it either", S said expressing his dissapointed.

After S, A also added a little bit insult to the injury. "He is right. And then there was one biology and one criminology question. I wouldn't blame you if you hadn't answer those, since you have never read those subjects before. But since you didn't know the right answer, why did you even bother to answer?" A said spreading his hands.

"Aren't you going to say anything now? Why are you quiet? Why now? Why didn't you keep quiet there? If you had kept quiet there then at least we wouldn't get negative marking". M punched the wall in frustration. And then he took a deep breath to calm himself.

"Why are you even in the team? Why don't you just leave? Our team doesn't welcome people like you..... Foolish, stupid, brainless and loser", M said. "That's enough M", Raidan said, his voice louder than he usually speaks. I still kept quiet.Trying my best to swallow all of their insults. M's last words hurted me like hell. I've always been a straight A student and have always been praised by the teachers. Nobody said things like those to me. Never ever. I held back the tears that were rushing to come out.

Raidan looked at me once and then he looked at B. And right after that B spoke up for me. "Calm down guys!! Mainly you M. This was her first time to participate in a competition like this. She must have been nervous. And on top of that, this is her first week in the team. You can't possibly expect her to be in the same level as us. She is a freshman guys!! Stop blaming her. It's not her fault", B used more pressure in the last two sentences than needed.

And then finally Raidan spoke. I thought that he would defend me too. "I agree with you but Lam, M is also right. This team was made with the strongest students. There is actually no place for weak in here. It's been a week. And a week is a lots of time. You should have already started changing yourself, to be more strong. But since you didn't do it and if you have no intention of changing yourself then" a moment of silence and then he continued, "you should be wise enough to know what to do!!" he finished in a calm voice.

Honestly, so far whatever others had said hurted me. And I wanted to cry. But I'd hold myself back saying that, 'look Raidan didn't say anything. He trusts you'. But after what he said, I couldn't hold myself back anymore. I lost my control and let the tears come out. They rolled down my cheeks.

"What he meant is either be strong, strong enough to stand with us or leave the team. The choice is yours", M interpreted what R said for me , in case I failed to get what he said.

"Hmmm... I got it. Sorry for bothering you", I said wiping the tears off my face with my hands. And then I picked my backpack and run away from there, out of embarrassment.

That's what had happened right after I joined the team. And since then I had realized that this Raidan was different from my imagination. He isn't going to be the 'Prince to save the princess' . So, I had to be the Mulan of my era. Since then I had stopped having any kind of expectations from anyone. I'd no one else to rely on but me. I'd to work really hard to be what I'm now from what I used to be. "Now I'm strong, strong enough stand with them even without them. So there is no point of feeling bad for what happened in the club". I said to console myself. But I wasn't feeling bad for me. I was feeling bad for those kids, the ones whose that case was about.

"Hey", a voice spoke as I picked up the call. "Who is this?" I said in a half sleep state.