Chapter 3

"And, guess what I told her?"

"What, Feng Mei?" Chang'e replies, fixing her locker.

"That no one would need trigonometry when they're busy doing taxes," Feng Mei says with exaggerated hand movements. Chang'e checks her schedule pasted on the side and takes out two books.

"You would need trigonometry in some jobs though."

"Aww man. But that's just fine because I won't get a job that involves math!" Feng Mei smirks like she's beaten life at its own game. 'Spoiler alert, she hasn't,' Chang'e thinks. "I'm pretty cool, aren't I?"

"Yes, O great Feng Mei, how cool and awesome you are." Chang'e does a mini bow with her hands, resulting in laughter from both herself and Feng Mei.

"Why, thank you. I owe it all to my trusty bestie, hm?" announces Feng Mei, putting her arm around Chang'e's shoulder. They walk together to their classes, hip to hip.

"Who else?" jokes Chang'e, flipping her dark hair with one hand as if she's in a shampoo commercial. Feng Mei snickers at that, one sage nail-polished hand going up to cradle her cheek. "How lucky I am to have a friend like Chang'e," sniffles Feng Mei.

"Feng Mei!" greets one of their batchmates who Chang'e remembers is an avid reader of the school newspaper, "Going good, editor?"

"You know it!" Feng Mei replies, throwing her head back as she laughs to reveal a pair of dangling dragonfly earrings. 'That's Feng Mei for you,' Chang'e thinks as she smiles at the batchmate who smiles back, 'Editor-in-chief of the school's newspaper. Bright, peppy, and pretty.'

But that doesn't mean Chang'e has nothing to her name at school. In fact, she's pretty well-known for four main things: her rivalry with Hou Yi, her academics, her friendship with popular Feng Mei, and lastly, her beauty. She may not understand why, but she's up there on the school's invisible ranking. As per Feng Mei's gossip. She might as well accept it with open arms.

"Aye, Chang'e. Feng Mei," another batchmate, whose name is Jin Sun, greets. He salutes to them, ponytail bouncing up.

"Jin Sun," they both acknowledge at the same time, making Jin Sun chuckle. He nods and goes his way, presumably to the gym teacher's office. After all, he has a basketball game coming up soon.

"Oh, this is my stop," Feng Mei says, unhooking her arm from Chang'e. "See you after class?"

"Mmmhm."

"And do me a favor?" asks Feng Mei, hands clasped together in a plea.

"Yeah? What is it?"

"Don't get soft for Hou Yi."

"As if," scoffs Chang'e. Feng Mei raises an eyebrow, shiny eyeshadow illuminating when the school's fluorescent light hits it. "Free food, Feng Mei. You would too!"

"Okay, okay," relents Feng Mei, hands up in surrender, "Food is life. Even Hou Yi can't get in between that."

"You get it," shrugs Chang'e before raising a hand to high-five Feng Mei. Clap. "I have to tell you something about him, but I gotta go. Classes start soon. See you!" Chang'e jogs away a bit, but stops when she hears Feng Mei again.

"Better tell me later!" Feng Mei shouts, "See ya, partner!" In the form of a goodbye, she waves an arm back and forth manically. Chang'e laughs and copies the frenzied movement. Feng Mei grins back at her, heading into the classroom. And with that, Chang'e brisk-walks over to her classroom.

Creak, squeals the door as she enters the room. Heads turn towards her before turning back and resuming their respective conversations. 'Whenever I want the door to be quiet, it always seems to protest,' thinks Chang'e as she shuffles over to her seat. 'But when I don't need it to be quiet, it's dead silent.'

She sits down, placing her backpack on the floor. 'There's only a few minutes before class starts, and Hou Yi isn't here yet. All the better for me, I suppose.'

Chang'e hums while she scans the classroom. Her observation is interrupted by the screech of the door and the click-clack of heels, notifying her that their teacher has arrived.

"Good morning, students."

"Good morning, ma'am," everyone replies, in sync from all the times they've done this.

"Great. I have something to announce later, almost most of you probably already know—"

The door slams open, revealing a panting Hou Yi. "Ahem. Good morning, ma'am. Sorry I'm late, there was traffic."

"That's alright, Hou Yi, although you could have opened the door more gently. Take your seat." Hou Yi bows his head and closes the door gently as an apology for the disturbance. The teacher hops straight into the lesson, previous topic forgotten.

"Good morning, loser Garbador," Chang'e teases, winking at him. Hou Yi flops onto his seat, chest rising and sinking repeatedly in his breathlessness. Chang'e gives him a few moments to catch his breath, but apparently all he needs is a second or two because he opens his mouth to remark with, "Science test results out today. Let's see who's going to be the loser at the end of the day."

Chang'e rolls her eyes when Hou Yi smirks. "But until then? You're the loser," she reasons, batting her eyes at him, "Remind me, who lost yesterday?"

Hou Yi huffs. "Whatever, Pikachu." Although, considering Pikachu's looks, it turns out to be a compliment rather than an insult.

Class hours seem to drain fast, Chang'e too preoccupied with taking notes to stare at the clock. Plus the fact that she has to beat Hou Yi in recitation. Despite having breaks in between classes, it's only at lunchtime when Chang'e has time to gossip with Feng Mei.

"GIRLLLLL," Feng Mei squeals, doing jazz hands as she walks towards Chang'e who's only just leaving her classroom. "Tell me all about it!"

Chang'e laughs, lifting up a hand. Feng Mei gets it immediately, giving Chang'e a high-five.

"Tell Feng Mei about what?" Hou Yi interrupts, standing behind Chang'e.

"Nothing," Feng Mei says, dragging Chang'e away. Chang'e looks back at Hou Yi, sticking her tongue out and putting a finger up to her cheek to pull the skin underneath her eye. Hou Yi puts his hand up to his chest, offended, and when Chang'e laughs at that, he crosses his eyes and makes a crazy motion with his finger beside his head.

"-E. Chang'e," Feng Mei calls out, fingers snapping.

"Hm?" She turns to look at Feng Mei, leaving Hou Yi to disappear in the sea of hungry students.

"What did you wanna tell me, huh? New gossip?" Feng Mei's eyes sparkle brighter than her eyeshadow upon the possibility of fresh, hot gossip.

"Nothing much," Chang'e starts off with, to tone down the Feng Mei gossip-hungry energy. She's hungrier for gossip than everyone else's hunger for food is combined, Chang'e thinks. "I just told him that I really want to win the art competition."

Feng Mei does a double take at this, stopping abruptly in her tracks which forces the traffic of students behind them to congest even more. Someone's stomach growls at them from behind.

"You told him what?"

"That I really wanted to win the art competition?" Chang'e watches as Feng Mei ponders about this for quite a while, as if it was one of those seemingly unsolvable math problems. But the point of those is that they actually are solvable, and it seems Feng Mei has cracked the case. 'What case? I don't know.'

"What if he runs in the art competition to sabotage you?"

"He wouldn't," defends Chang'e, "I won't run in the math context and he won't run in the art one."

"With men like these, you never know," Feng Mei mumbles darkly, eyes darting through the crowd as if they were top secret spies and the world was out to get them.

Chang'e laughs, "No way." Feng Mei sighs, standing up straight, "Let's go get lunch instead."