Entering the Competition (4)

I was tempted to place my head against the table. They were still explaining more rules that were like common sense. We couldn't even eat while listening to them this time. All the tablecloths were removed with the schedule earlier showing that dinner time would come after an hour from this presentation.

My stomach grumbled from my poor breakfast and lunch. When I looked around the room to see if it was only me, others also looked like they were dying from boredom. Maybe I will refuse if the school asks us to come to this competition next year.

"They were shorter last year," Shelly couldn't help complaining.

"Everything was better last year," I sighed.

I almost tripped as I rose from my chair as my head was starting to feel dizzy. I didn't feel like waiting for dinner time anymore. I tugged on Luke's shirt, "can we ask them if we can eat dinner first?"

"I can send a message to Lucius to ask for us," Luke agreed.

Luke immediately got a message back that they have an extra room with the tables already set. We walked to the new room, not using the spare time to rest. Since there were no waiters, we placed our food on the table by ourselves. This was when I noticed how convenient the first district was with everything appearing wherever and whenever we wanted.

I didn't care that the plate in front of me wasn't a cake. I began to devour everything, leaving the cake at the end. Binge eating was a poor habit I developed since we were too busy with studying. I smiled as I enjoyed the cake, all to myself.

"We still need to finish organizing everything," Shelly sighed.

"And the first day was supposed to be the day with the most breaks," I frowned.

Unfortunately, we needed to rearrange our rooms. Alex opened the door and stepped on a peg to keep it open as we had no time to spare. Luke let the organizers know we were replacing some of the furniture to make it more livable. Luke and Alex began to push all the horrible furniture of the room like the small useless table that would make it hard to study on.

Meanwhile, Shelly and I began to put out the new table and chairs in their place. Although we couldn't bring an entire bed, we could get rid of the ones already inside the room. By the time we were finished, the living room turned into a study room like the ones in the library. Meanwhile, our bedrooms had some shelves added to help us organize some bottles of medicine Luke had brought with him.

Miscellaneous workbooks also filled the remaining space with some accessories. Alongside the tatami mats placed in the bedroom since we were sleeping on the ground. With all the old furniture outside the door, everyone stared at where we stayed. Since we also gave the same furniture out to the people in our fractions, there was a whole pile that the organizers would have to take away.

The organizers froze at the sight of all the furniture being replaced in our rooms. They began to call for more people as they carried them into the storage room. Instead of watching the people staring at the scene, I decided to take a bath before the next thing on the schedule started. There was a mix and mingle session between the schools.

"Did they finish taking all the furniture outside our door?" I asked Luke once I came out of the bedroom.

"They're still transporting them into the storage room," he lowered the soundproof setting on our room to show me the sounds.

"Can I go to the mix and mingle section room before you guys?" I wanted to see how the room was like there.

The larger rooms were much better in terms of ventilation. However, since we were doing the mix and mingle only in our grade, the rooms were slightly smaller this time. I wanted to focus on meeting new people, not coughing to make everyone avoid me.

"I'll go with you," Luke placed his book down.

As I expected, I started to cough like crazy once I entered the room. I almost stumbled onto the floor from the bad air. I could see all the tiny dust floating in the air that I got rid of in my own room. My eyes slightly burned as I wondered why the cleaning was done so poorly this time. When I turned to Luke, he didn't look much better than me.

"I can't believe this room is like the others as well," I told him the reason for the visit.

"We can tell the organizers to hold it outside," Luke agreed.

Luke sent another message to Lucius to tell him the smaller rooms were poorly cleaned. This time, it took more minutes to get a response. The organizers agreed to hold the session outside and pushed the event an hour later to move everything over. I felt like I could finally breathe once I entered my own room again.

Even my parent's house was better than this. Did something happen to the competition arena to make everything worse this year? While Luke exchanged more messages with Lucius to prevent something like this from happening again, I tried to catch up on some sleep.