Chapter 21: End of Another Working Day

Renan and Alec both left the student council room with full bellies and satisfied expressions written on their faces. They arrived back at their classroom in the nick of time, as a different teacher entered through the doorway and immediately began another round of lessons for the afternoon.

Three hours later, and evening finally came. It was currently 4 PM on the clock, and Renan was making his way towards the student council room once again. The reason for this being that the student council was going to have their daily meeting which always happened every after school.

When he entered the room, he surprisingly found out that he was not the first one to get here. On the contrary, it was the cute silver-haired girl who he met at lunch named Therese Ayuda—the student council's secretary-in-charge.

"Good evening, President." Therese promptly stood up from the couch she was sitting on and greeted politely.

Renan regarded with a nod of his head and responded in kind: "Good evening to you too, Secretary Ayuda. I didn't expect you to be the first one to arrive here. By the way, I don't see Vice-president Sison together with you? Aren't you two almost inseparable and would never go anywhere without the other?"

"Well… yes. Truthfully, I came here early to bring you some bad news, and I didn't want anyone disturbing us…"

"Oh, really now?" He raised an eyebrow as his interest was piqued. "May I kindly ask what it is?"

"Yes… President, do you still remember the deal you made earlier this morning? When you just got here to the student council room and you coincidentally met Celestine."

"Mhm. As clear as day. Please go on."

"Well, the Vice-president wants me to join her committee and become her personal secretary… Therefore, I can no longer stay in the council as one of its members. I hope you can forgive me for this abrupt and selfish request of mine, but could you please let me resign from the council?"

At this moment, she bent her entire upper body 90 degrees to perform a formal and respectful bow of the highest standard. She didn't dare meet his eyes though, as she was too afraid to even look at him and see the disappointment he had for her.

"Haaa… Honestly speaking, I would really hate to let go of a cute and amazing secretary such as yourself, Miss Ayuda. But… if that is what you truly desire, then I have no right in stopping you."

"I am really sorry, President…!"

"It can't be helped, please stand up Miss Ayuda."

"...Yes."

She finally stood straight from her bowing posture. Renan took one final good look at her and said with a smile full of appreciation: "It's been a pleasure working with you, Miss Ayuda."

"No, not at all President. It was every bit my honor to have been personally hand-picked by you to become the council's secretary." She sweetly smiled and sincerely answered his sentiment with her own.

Her words were genuine and very nice to hear, but only two people actually knew the truth behind why she was appointed as the student council's secretary.

'Heh. She's got it all wrong. In actuality, it's thanks to Celestine's incessant persuasion that she was made the secretary in the first place. But, I do have to admit that she's been a great help and a valued member ever since she got here.' He inwardly thought, but he chose not to tell her this because there really wasn't any reason to reveal that reality.

"You're a magnificent girl, Miss Ayuda. I hope you can carry on your hardworking and eager to help attitude in Vice-president Sison's committee for the benefit of our school. Now then, you should go back because the council meeting will be starting soon."

"Don't worry President, I'll definitely give it my best. I won't let you, Celestine, and the whole school down. If there's nothing else I'll excuse myself now, you don't have to walk me out to the door."

She respectfully bowed to him once more before finally leaving the student council room. After Therese's departure, Renan stood there on the spot for a long while with a hard to read expression on his face.

"That woman is really out to spite me, huh." He suddenly said out of the blue, an indifferent smile hanging on his lips.

Then, he moved to the door that was built on the left wall of the student council room where the meeting will be held. Over on the other side of this wall was a separate room designated for the purpose of conducting their council meetings in private without disruption. Renan slowly opened the door and went inside, closing it in the process.

…

An hour and fifteen minutes later, Renan and Alec were currently waiting together to catch a train home from the Sugbo train station. This was after the meeting of the student council and the varsity basketball team's practice was over.

"How'd practice go?" Renan casually asked.

"Oh y'know, the usual scrimmage. Me and Darryl were made to form our own six-man teams, and then we were pitted against each other by the coach. It was a tough, close fight but my team managed to snag the victory in the end. You should've seen the look on his face though when I flew up in the air and dunked on him real hard like a boss. Man, was that a sight for sore eyes or what."

At the end of his sentence, Alec couldn't help but let out an evil laugh as he clearly found joy and entertainment from beating and overpowering others in any sort of competition. As long as he was part of a game, the top item on his priority list would be to trounce the opposing party into submission—winning is only a byproduct of that. That was just his personality and a distinguishing factor that sets him apart from other players.

Listening to his best friend's boastfulness, Renan revealed a faint smile to him and said: "I see. And I don't suppose you wouldn't ask about how my meeting went, now would you?"

"Nope, that's all on you. Keep that political crap to yourself, as I don't even wanna hear a sliver of it being mentioned." He seriously replied with a stern face.

"Okay, okay, calm down. I was only messing with you, I know how these complicated stuff can easily make you frustrated."

While they were idly chatting by, a train finally pulled up in the station and instantly stopped from its tiptop speed shown merely a second ago.

"Looks like my train is finally here. I'll see you later in the game, Renan. Find me in the town square when you get there, aight?"

"For sure man."

And with that, Alec boarded the train alongside many other passengers and students that were heading home from another successful day at work. A few minutes later, the train set out once again to go to another station. Renan silently stood where he was and gently waved a hand to a particular person on the train as he saw it off.