Family Gathering (3)

"The whole estate has been stopped in time." Lucius opened the curtains to reveal the whole estate had a barrier around it.

Each barrier could be spelled to have a different purpose. The one I planned to create was to prevent strangers from coming in by controlling who had permission to come in. However, the barrier that surrounded the property was spelled to stop the time in the entire area inside it.

But what was the purpose of this? Luke had never mentioned anything like this before. It was clear this was truly a family gathering with most of Luke's family members present with their partners. Shelly got up from her seat once she spotted me standing in the middle of the room, confused from the whole situation.

"We're gathered to plan our next actions," Shelly explained.

"Well, this whole meeting did happen because our current position was about to be threatened by Rika," Alex mumbled quietly.

What? What did I do except for trying to skip classes for a day? The school would have never noticed one of its many students taking a day off. It was almost like faking sick to spend the day inside the infirmary room. And what did they mean by current position? How was I even part of it?

"He means the family politics inside our school," Shelly whispered into my ear.

I almost scoffed from the mention of politics. It wasn't that I didn't notice how polite the other students were as they remembered to politely greet me in the halls. But that was common courtesy in the first district.

"What did I do?" I rolled my eyes.

I didn't know what fraction I was in, but I was certain that it was whatever fraction Luke was in. In fact, I had ignored the existence of the different groups and fractions formed within the school since I was too busy just trying to survive. Earning a stable amount of points wasn't an easy feat. Politics was something that could only happen if someone had enough time to care for it.

"During social week, going to the sixth district, getting minus points," Alex started to list all the events off his hands.

"But that doesn't have to do anything with you, does it?" I casually shrugged.

All of this only soiled the ever so great Roselia name that I was forced to possess. From what I knew, Lucius, Alex and Jules was the heir to another family with their respective partners. Luke seemed unsurprised by my response with the amount of time we spent together.

I got most of my information from Luke who drilled in all the latest news into my head. Nowadays, half of the time during the intense study sessions was spent on the common sense in the first district. But knowing this information wouldn't be on the exam, I stopped listening at a certain point when my brain was fried.

"We're all in the same fraction," Jules explained.

"So everyone of your actions affect us in some way or form," Lucius narrowed his eyes as if he was warning me.

"He's just saying how hard it has been for us to cover for all of your mistakes, which is the whole reason why we've gathered here," Yulee directly announced.

"Umm, you don't have to cover for me. I can leave your fraction or whatsoever," I raised my hand.

Yulee laughed at my response, not bothering to hold it in while Belle slightly cringed. But she soon stopped when Lucius sent a glare in her direction. I guessed this meant I couldn't even leave their fraction even if I wanted to. It was laughable on my end too how I was forced into this fraction even without knowing about it.

"You can't leave as long as you're engaged to Luke, which we know isn't ever going to not happen," Yulee wiped her tears from laughing too hard.

"Can we pretend that I don't exist then? You can just ignore me and pretend you have nothing to do with me," I suggested to benefit both ends.

"But, we can't, it would show how our fraction had weakened," Yulee was about to go into another fit of laughter.

"That's why we're trying to work together to come up with a better solution," Belle cut off my routes to escape while placing her hands together.

I guessed this was the life of the top students in the school. They had enough time to care about these insignificant things. How did they even 'cover' up my mistakes in the first place? Weren't they all busy with gathering more points?

"Let's go through the situation first. Who are all your connections in the first district? Who is Rika close with?" Lucius asked us.

"She seems to be close with the Nuelle family in the neutral fraction," Shelly recalled how I stayed in Ben's summer villa shamelessly.

"She also spent some time with the heir to the Lumiere family in the sixth district with the heir to the Nuelle family," Alex remembered Charles retelling the tale of how we got back when he first transferred into our class.

Luke closed his book, and joined in, "The Auclair family has also spent time with us in the fifth district and she hangs out with Helena from the Nicole family who is partnered to the heir to the Krista family."

Lucius nodded with approval, "it's hard to get close to one of the people in the neutral fractions."

Was that really the case? Ben was pretty friendly to me while I did have some blackmail on him from exploring his villa. Charles also didn't treat me too bad after spending some time together in the sixth district. I had literally saved his life with a hefty healing spell while he used his precious sword. But, Cillian was a mistake where he followed us into the fifth district.

I didn't know anything about what stance and fractions they were in, but didn't care. I didn't need to fill my head with more complicated stuff when my head felt like exploding every day from attending class.