entry #19 | ¢яåѕн

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crash

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Fridays are supposed to be fun and exciting, something people look forward to, especially if they're in school. It was a day where (Y/n) could slack off and catch up on well-needed sleep, as well as begin procrastinating. It was a day where she could indulge in all the movies that needed viewing and games that needed playing. Friday was the gateway to the weekend, when she didn't have to worry about waking up on time or doing her homework. It was the Department for Education (DfE)'s one act of mercy.

But no, a certain someone just had to ruin it for her.

Friday was definitely not fun when she had to spend her precious lunch period staring at Tristan Knight's face. Okay, she admitted it wasn't unpleasant to look at—'holy,' she thought. 'I could cut myself on his jawline'—but spending a one-on-one tutoring session with a cold, judgemental person like him was what made it unpleasant.

The male in question was busy going through stacks of papers he had pulled out of his briefcase as she worked. He had given her more work to do after checking the problems he'd assigned to her during the last session, which was on Wednesday. (Y/n) quickly got bored of her calculus problems and began doodling in the margins, all the while stealing peeks at her tutor.

His posture was annoyingly perfect as he wrote something in neat, uniformed letters on the papers. Even with all those documents, Tristan managed to keep them all organized neatly. If it were her, (Y/n) would've lost them all already.

He suddenly sighed, closing his eyes and reopening them. "Your work is on the paper," he said curtly, not looking up. "Not on my face." The iciness of his tone made the (h/c)-haired girl avert her eyes back to her worksheet.

'Do you think I'm really going to do all this?' (Y/n) glared at the paper. 'I don't even do the classwork in Mrs. Richards' class, so I'm definitely not doing something that's not even written in English. What is this, Turkish?'

"It's been ten minutes," the blue-haired male interrupted her train of thought. "And you've only done two problems?"

'Only ten minutes?' She thought incredulously. 'It felt like an hour.' "Three," (Y/n) corrected him.

"There are only twenty questions. And yet you've failed to complete them in the allotted time frame."

"Oh who knew, you could actually see through those glasses of yours," she retorted snarkily. By now, her fatigue has clouded the nonexistent logical portion of her brain. Where normally she might've ignored him, this time she was subconsciously speaking her thoughts aloud. "Should I clap for you? Or did you want me to commend you on that?"

"You could spend your nonexistent wit or the lack thereof on completing what I assigned you," he shot back without missing a beat. "Let me remind you that you are the one who signed up for the program—"

"I mean, technically it was Jas—"

"Do not interrupt me," the blue-eyed male snapped. "As I was saying, it will be you that suffers when you do not get into the university you want or any in general. It will have no effect on me. So instead of wasting your time trying to get yourself out of a hole you dug, please spend it in a more productive way. Namely finishing that booklet."

He glanced down at his wristwatch. "You have five minutes remaining."

"Wait, five?" She stared bug-eyed down at her worksheet. More than half of it was untouched. "Can't you give me more time?"

"Four minutes and fifty seconds, and counting."

"But—"

"Arguing will not do you any good. Time is money."

She reluctantly resigned herself to her work, grumbling under her breath the whole way. 'Just do it, (Y/n),' she told herself. 'The year will be over before you know it anyway. Do the work, get Mrs. Richards' approval, and then after two years, I'll be in Cambridge, living the dream. Easy peasy, as long as I stay out of trouble.'

(Y/n) couldn't think of anything other than failing grades that could prevent her from getting into her dream college. There were drugs and violence, sure, but the (h/c)-haired girl knew for sure she'd never get into that kind of a mess. Even Carmen with all her drug jokes swore to never touch a single Juul stick or drop of alcohol in her life.

The only one who's ever taken a sip of alcohol in their friend group was Lucinda. And she scared them off with her revolting description of its taste.

So frankly, (Y/n) wasn't all that worried about her future. As long as she slept a reasonable amount in class, get good grades, and don't provoke the popular crowd in school, there was nothing to worry about. She even survived Year 10. Year 12 was the last obstacle she had to go through.

'Alright, done.' She set down her pencil. Not bothering to check her work, she slid the piece of paper across the table to the blue-haired male. "I'm done," she announced. "Now what?"

Tristan tore his eyes off his documents and glanced at the paper. "Number 3 and 16 are incorrect," he said off-handedly. "Fix them."

"Huh, what?" (Y/n) took the sheet back and inspected the questions. "How do you know? You...barely even looked at it."

"I memorized the answers," was his only answer. "If I say they're wrong, then they're wrong."

'Wow, okay.' She rolled her eyes and bit back her retort. 'Someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed today. Then again, that's every day. I bet he's Stalin's descendant.' Stalin reminded her of her history project and her lack of contribution to it throughout the week. 'Ouch, I need to work on that tonight.'

The last time she checked their PowerPoint, Leon had already completed his portion of the work in the form of six detailed slides. Contrary to his attitude in class, Leon Matthews was not a slacker, it seemed. 'My complete opposite. I am a slacker.'

"Are you done?" Tristan interrupted her daydream. "If you are, look over the folder of activities I've organized for your situation. Pick three of your preference and we'll review them after you finish the second booklet."

"There's another one?" Her mouth fell open as he pushed a blue packet towards her. 'Is he trying to kill me? What did I ever do to him? This is cruel and unusual punishment.' She took it in both hands and flipped through it. 'Thirty questions...I'm so done with life.'

"Are all of these necessary?" The (h/c)-haired girl asked. "It's not my grades...that's the reason why I signed up for this. Can you maybe, like, cut down the work? By five questions? Please?"

He finally looked up from his papers. There was no amusement or any light in his cold blue eyes. He wordlessly took another packet from his stack and slid it towards her. "Make that double the work."

'Is it considered murder if I accidentally shove this down his throat?' She glared daggers into the paper, willing it to burn up mentally. 'I'll say he was hungry and ate it. Not my problem if he chokes. It's a good thing for me, anyway.'

"Staring at the paper will not solve them. Moving your pencil will."

'Nevermind, I'm going to stick a pencil through his eye.'

By the time (Y/n) had finished both packets, the sunlight had brightened from bleached honey to burnt, molten gold. A thin mist clung to the wrought iron frame of the tall windows of the classroom, interrupting the waves of light that cascaded down the glass in gentle waterfalls. the curtains fluttered subtly in the draft that came in from the hallway. Shadows melted off the tables and chairs, casting tall, dancing figures against the walls.

Light gently stroked the (h/c)-haired girl's locks that spilled off her shoulders. She basked in the warmth that loosened the stiffness in her fingers, the joints cramped from writing so much. (Y/n) rubbed the side of her hand that had been painted gray by her pencil and cracked her sore neck.

'Never again,' she promised herself. 'I'm going to bring a calculator from now on. How am I supposed to do trigonometry otherwise? I'm too dumb for that.'

Her eyes flickered up to the male seated across from her. His attention was focused wholly on his documents and did not pay her any mind. The blue-eyed male seemed to have forgotten her presence as he was so absorbed in his work. His pen danced across the manuscripts as his hand flew across the keyboard beside him.

Curse ambidextrous people.

Tristan's eyes flitted back and forth between the laptop and the paper as he worked. His eyelashes fanned down over his crystal-like eyes, framed by locks of his equally blue hair. Under the soft light that enveloped him, the blue-haired male almost looked kind for a change.

He caught her looking at him and his features pulled into a frown. "It's quite rude to stare. And please close your mouth; it makes you look even more idiotic."

She spoke too soon.

"I was admiring the wall," (Y/n) said haughtily. "It's a very nice wall. Who'd want to look at you? Anyway...I'm done." She motioned at the papers in front of her. "Seems like I finished before you. How's that for productivity?"

"Do you want another booklet?"

"Nope, I'm fine."

"Good," Tristan typed something into his laptop and spun it around to face them. "Let's go over the events I've put together. These are the ones I personally found most suitable based on the report I received about you. Choose the ones you prefer while I check your work." With that said, he began ignoring her again, refocusing his attention on her finished packets.

'Such an agreeable fellow,' (Y/n) rolled her eyes and turned to the laptop, not daring to touch it. 'This dude expects me to put up with gardening? Excuse me? Gardening as in being outside, getting burned by the sun, bitten by bugs, and sweating a lot? I refuse to pull any weeds. That's too much work.'

She went through the rest of the list. 'Volunteering at a daycare, working in an animal shelter, cleaning up the local park, assisting the Physics teacher—yeah, no. Helping Mr. Brooks for a few weeks? I'm not a masochist, thank you very much. But then again, it's at school, so that's pretty convenient for me. Hmm...'

(Y/n) settled with the three that seemed like the least amount of work, namely assisting Mr. Brooks in the lab, aiding Ms. Florence with her art project in the local park, and volunteering at a daycare. When presented with the choice of working with animals or humans, normally she would've chosen animals because, ew, who even likes humans nowadays?

But when you really think about it; would you prefer changing diapers or scooping up animal poo? At least the feces are in something, and some of the kids in the daycare are old enough to go to the bathroom. And it wasn't like she was doing it alone; much to her horror, Tristan would be coming along with her.

The image of the stoic male with several toddlers attached to him made her choke.

"You did much better, I must admit," Tristan said, setting down the papers. "Four incorrect answers in total. I've marked them for you, so please review them when you return home today."

She gave him a thumbs-up. "'Kay."

He folded his hands in front of him after giving the papers back to her. "Have you made a decision yet?"

"I was thinking of either working with Ms. Florence, Mr. Brooks, or the daycare," (Y/n) told him. "But I have a question."

"Speak."

"How is this supposed to make me more motivated in school?"

His hand froze in midair from where he was flipping through the documents and looked up. "You mean to tell me you've still yet to understand the purpose of our arrangement?" At the blank look on her face, he scoffed and set down the papers. He pulled out a clipped packet from his briefcase and tapped it against the table. "This is your file. Every Fortuna student has one."

Tristan pushed it across the table to (Y/n). "Look through it," he said. "Your grades are average at most and every single teacher has commented on your lack of participation. On the bottom of that page, it says your first choice school is Cambridge. From the thousands of applicants, do you think you'll really get in like that? With no clubs nor achievements to boast?"

'Does he have to expose me like that?' The (h/c)-haired girl sulkily flipped through the papers. 'And how is an average of 95% considered "just average?" Here I thought I was actually doing good in school.'

"And changing diapers is supposed to overwrite it?" She deadpanned. "Then all the kids who have younger siblings would be having the time of their lives at their dream college."

"I was told you were quiet but a good student," Tristan frowned and picked up a piece of paper from the table. "It seems like you're the contrary. Your file from Year 10 states you were a bright student who generally kept to yourself. Again, I can only see the opposite."

"Please don't pick apart my character," (Y/n) scowled. "I'm like this because I've been taught to stay quiet when I have nothing nice to say."

"That makes two of us then."

"No, you talk too much. Your likability is dropping with each word you say."

"My job is not to be likable, as your job is not to be a nuisance." He dusted his hands off and took a look at his wristwatch. "We've wasted enough time as is. The period's almost over. We will decide on one activity from the three you've chosen and go with that. Understand?"

'Does he expect me to ignore the fact that he just called me a nuisance?' "Understand that my precious lunch period's almost over or that you're not likable? It's common sense; you don't need to ask me for an answer."

His folded hands tightened visibly and his eyebrows dipped downwards into a scowl. "You are proving me right again and again," Tristan said through gritted teeth. "On top of a nuisance, you are a fool. Agreeing to this is my biggest regret in life. Aside from"—his voice lowered to a hushed mutter—"Allowing that blasted disgrace Fujikawa onto the student council."

"I mean, you're not wrong," she shrugged. "I never said I was a genius and I don't like this as much as you do."

"Indeed, the sheer extent of your idiocy astounds me. How one manages to get so many questions wrong in a simple packet is truly baffling."

(Y/n) was at a loss for words. 'I think he's in the wrong century,' she mused. 'Or maybe just the wrong planet.' "Not everyone's a genius, okay?" She said to the blue-haired male. "Are you saying you would've gotten it all right on your first try?"

He pushed his glasses up his nose. "Yes, I would've."

In a single semester, (Y/n)'s managed to meet the entire P4 when she hadn't ever seen them throughout her first year of Fortuna. All four characters were rather...unique, she supposed. Leon, the first one she met, was on edge all the time. There were nasty rumors that followed him like Leon being associated with the Italian Mafia, and was the one who orchestrated the assassination of many business owners.

Jaehyun was the second one she met. He was quiet and reserved, much like (Y/n) in Year 10. But once she got to know him, he was like the awkward version of Jasper in a good way. Kieran, on the other hand, was his complete opposite. Arrogant, over-confident, and self-absorbed, he was so many things in (Y/n)'s eyes and none of them were positive.

Well, except for the fact he was unusually proficient in Shakespeare, He probably thinks in Shakespeare too. 'I mean, how else do I explain his weird behavior and mannerisms?'

And then there was Tristan, her tutor. (Y/n) never thought she'd find someone more confident than the white-haired male. And for some reason, it was really getting on her nerves.

"If you think these are so easy," she sighed. "Then why don't you give me something else? You're making me lose my motivation, nevermind increase it, you bogus tutor."

"I did say they are easy," Tristan responded coldly. "But you're still unable to do them properly. What does that say about you, Ms. (Y/n)?"

"Please go back to the 19th century."

"Your insults have no effect on me. Try again when you're on equal standing with me. I am not childish enough to pick on those below me."

'Not childish?' She nearly snapped. 'Not childish?! You literally just called me an inferior being!'

The (h/c)-haired girl bit back her retort before she said something that would get her expelled. 'Happy thoughts, (Y/n). Happy thoughts.' "So you say you're better than me at everything?" She began slowly.

His reply was immediate. "That is only natural."

(Y/n) was torn between throwing her books at him or throwing her bag at him. Both were very appealing choices, if she had enough energy to do so. 'You know what?' She sighed. 'I give up. I've wasted enough energy arguing with him and now I'm drained. Plan B: play along until the end and I'll be free. It's a foolproof plan.'

But of course, Tristan just had to shoot it down. "Are you implying you have me beat in a particular field?"

"Of course not," she said with a straight face. "I'm just a nuisance, right? What can I do anyway?" 'Be the bigger person, be the bigger person—'

He raised an eyebrow. "Your tone clearly insinuates you are confident about something. Go on, say it. In what way could you possibly believe you are superior to me?"

'Does this guy have a superiority complex or something?' "As I said, nothing. It was just an innocent question."

"Perhaps you're still proud of the fact you've managed to get into Fortuna despite your lack of brain cells?" He continued. "Overconfidence will lead to your downfall, Ms. (Y/n)."

It's only a matter of time and self-control before she finally snapped. "For one, you're the overconfident one," (Y/n) seethed. "Fine. You might be better than me in academics, but I'm willing to be I'll win in the computer hardware field."

The blue-haired male scrutinized her with an impassive face before scoffing. "That is unthinkable, but an amusing notion in its own way."

It's official. Tristan Knight is a sadist.

"Alright then"—he checked his watch for the umpteenth time that day—"We have twenty minutes remaining. That should be sufficient for a quick match to see if you truly are what you claim."

"Wait a second, sir. I didn't say anything—"

"Then it's settled." He snapped his fingers and a butler appeared by his side. 'Is this Black Butler or something?!' (Y/n)'s jaw fell open. 'Deja vu much?' "Bring us the necessary equipment."

The butler nodded and clapped his hands. A team of more butlers appeared on the scene, armed with two sets of computers in their grasp. They placed the machines and a box of tools in front of the two.

Tristan turned back to face the (h/c)-haired girl. "Although I would never dirty my hands with things like this, a challenge is a challenge. And I never back down nor fail."

"Like I said," she tried again. "I didn't challenge you—"

"The time limit is the end of this period," he continued on as if not hearing her. "Both computers are completely identical, I assure you. Both are experiencing the same technical difficulties. the person who fixes it first wins. Ready?"

"No, I don't—"

The butler pulled a golden pocket watch from his breast pocket. "Begin!" At the command, Tristan set to work, his movements swift and unhesitant as he pulled wires and screwdrivers from the kit. He cracked the back of the computer open and began disassembling it.

'You know, I really need to stop getting myself into these kinds of annoying situations,' (Y/n) groaned internally as she reluctantly opened her box. 'I like computers and everything, but not when I'm being forced to fix them under a time limit.' Then she brightened as something occurred to her. 'Actually, maybe if I win, popsicle face might go easy on me from now on. Woah, I'm so smart. It's a perfect plan.'

She started by attempting to power on the monitor. It started to power on before going into a shutting down and restarting loop. Then she removed the back of the monitor and computer and disassembled them into the most basic components. 'Ooh, an Intel Core i7-7700k processor. That's not bad, but the i9-9900K looks and performs better.' (Y/n) took out the graphics card, the RAM, hard drive, and motherboard.

'Is it fried or something?' (Y/n) knocked her fingers against the sleek, black side. 'Or maybe it's—wait, I'm so dumb. The RAM just doesn't match the motherboard. The RAM's DDR3 while the motherboard's memory speed is DDR4-2666. I'll just replace it.'

"Psst," she whispered to the blue-haired male. "Where are the parts?"

His ice-blue eyes flickered up from his work. "Ask my butlers," he answered. "They will get anything you need." He returned his attention to the monitor he was working on, a subtle crease in between his brows.

'Well, at least that's convenient.' To the butlers, "Can I get a Corsair Vengeance LPX 32 GB Memory?"

"Right away, miss," the blond butler said monotonously. He clapped his hands, and a younger butler appeared with a package in his hands. "Here you go. I hope it meets your requirements."

"T-thanks," (Y/n) sweatdropped. 'Is this some kind of magic trick?' She sweatdropped. She fitted it into its rightful place and checked the rest of the hardware. 'Core matches, hard drive has enough cache, and this display card brand should be pretty good. I remember Nvidia GeForce having a pretty high core clock speed and GPU so it should be fine.'

Ten minutes into the match and she was finished. 'Is this his idea of hard?' The (h/c)-haired girl mused. 'Cuz that was way too simple. Even an absolute beginner at this could've gotten it.'

She glanced at the said male. Smoke seemed to be coming out of his ears as he took apart the motherboard with a glower on his face. Tristan seemed to be struggling as he placed the hard drive in the wrong place and kept dropping the processor chip.

"So even Mr. Perfect has things he's bad at, huh?" (Y/n) teased, feeling a little petty after all the insults he'd thrown her way. His head snapped up, a frustrated scowl on his face.

"I've gotten the hang of it!" He snapped. "I've read all the books on this kind of thing and gotten the basics down. I-I just lack experience, okay?!"

"Yes, yes. But that still doesn't change the fact that I've won."

His knuckles were white around the screwdriver and his hands trembling as he lowered his head. His bangs casting a shadow over his features, obscuring them from her view. "I-I admit defeat," Tristan choked out. He glared up at her, his ice-cold eyes filled with a white-hot contempt and bitterness that was unusual for him. "Don't you dare get ahead of yourself just because you know a thing or two about computers, understand? Do you hear me?!"

"Crystal," (Y/n) muttered, pushing the materials away from her. "Do you want me to turn it on?"

"Y-you just had to deal the final blow..."

"Anyway, if there isn't anything else you need, I'll be going now." She stood up and began packing up her things. With a look around the room, she noticed the butlers had disappeared. 'Woah, imagine having a team of butlers at your beck and call. Can't relate.' "I guess I'll see you on Saturday, Trish...tan."

"Stop right there!" He flung out a gloved hand to stop her. She turned back curiously. "I demand a rematch!"

Her features morphed into a displeased grimace. "No thank you," she turned him down immediately. "We can call this your win if you're so hung up on it."

"I refuse to let myself be defeated so easily, so allow me to challenge you again!"

"Then how about I—"

"No," the blue-eyed male interrupted her. "Don't even think about going easy on me or letting me win. It is a disgrace to the Knight name if I allow myself to win that way."

'Damn. Can't say I didn't try.'

"Nice story," the (h/c)-haired girl said with flippant disinterest. "But in what chapter do you sh—I mean, let me go to my next freaking class?"

He gritted his teeth and sat back down while pinching the bridge of his nose. "Very well," Tristan relented. "The period will end in five minutes. We will discuss the volunteer work further tomorrow. Secondly"—(Y/n) froze in her tracks as she was about to tiptoe out the door when he wasn't looking—"Do not think I've let you off the hook. We will compete again—"

"Nice talk, sir," she hastily interrupted before she was dragged into something annoying again. "But um, El—I mean, Mr. Johnson will mark me late if I don't go now! See you n—tomorrow, Tristan!"

"I wasn't finished speaking—"

She quickly collected her things and shouldered her bag before pushing in her chair and dashing for the door, leaving behind a spluttering Tristan. 'Escape plan, success!' (Y/n) thought gleefully as she speed-walked through the hallways. 'If I had stayed any longer, he would've made me miss the rest of my classes just to satisfy his pride. That's physically impossible for me; I would die from exhaustion.'

She slowed to her normal walking speed. The hallways were unsurprisingly empty since it was still technically class time. On her right side were lines of classroom doors, each with the lights on. She could see the side profiles of each room's respective teachers standing before the blackboard and lecturing their classes. On her left were tall, arched windows, gothic style. They rose from just slightly below her waist and high up the wall, stopping just before it hit the ceiling.

At the end of the hallway was a stained glass window built into the top of the wall. It displayed a figure of a woman dressed in a toga and a golden olive wreath around her head. Even (Y/n) could recognize her; it was Fortuna Institute's patron goddess, Fortuna, also known as Tyche in Greek mythology.

Not that it meant anything to her, of course.

There was the sound of scuffling and a few faint voices. In the empty and silent hallway, it easily caught her attention. The (h/c)-haired girl wandered curiously towards the sound. All the classrooms were soundproof from the outside and bulletproof—but we don't talk about that—so it wasn't coming from a class. Who was it?

She wasn't sure what possessed her to follow the sound. Possibly out of boredom, she supposed. Boredom from having some time to kill before class. Or maybe it was just because the sound came from in front of her, so all she had to do was keep walking forward on her regular path to gym class.

The scuffling sounds grew louder. (Y/n) paused from the classroom it was coming from. The lights were turned off and the door wasn't fully closed. 'Strange,' she frowned. 'Is someone beating someone up? I probably shouldn't get involved then.' But curiosity got the best of her, and she dared to peek inside the room.

"Hey, that tickles," a redhead giggled playfully as she snaked her arms around a familiar white-haired male's neck. "Stop that~"

"You aren't being very honest today, Neveah," Kieran purred as he lowered his face into her neck. "Who's the one who called me out in the first place?" She opened her mouth to respond, a pink blush on her face. But no words came out. Instead, a sound (Y/n) did not know was humanly possible to make escaped her lips.

The white-haired male finally looked up. His golden eyes locked onto the (h/c)-haired girls frame and he stiffened. "K-koneko-chan...?"

"Hmm?" Neveah breathed out a confused sound and turned around, her crimson locks falling off her shoulders in rippling waves.

It took (Y/n) a while to realize what was going on. Her blank face turned even blanker, if that was even possible. She quickly took a step back. "Whoops, wrong room."

She closed the door. It locked with a satisfying click.

(Y/n) walked away speedily. 'I wonder if Eli's going to make us do a lot of work today again...'

It was her policy to erase things she didn't want to remember from memory. Nothing has happened and nothing will happen.

Tips in life #22: Never peek inside any room or closet in the school again. It's for your own good.