Even someone from another program who knows nothing about us could sense how palpable the tension is in this room. However, it isn't just our group who seems to be uncomfortable with one another—it's the other one too. The members of the other group are straight up giving each other a cold shoulder.

Rhea is sitting in the front with her feet propped up in one of the chairs. She has a notebook in her hands, a bored look on her face. She catches my eye and salutes in greeting. Our group would've been more relaxed if she hadn't messed up her foot but I wouldn't say that to her. Even if she denies it, I know that she still feels a bit guilty about this whole thing.

The warm up session goes by in a whim. Val doesn't seem to mind the weird energy in the room, nor did she stop anyone if they bickered. She does her job of guiding us and correcting if we are doing something wrong. She asks us to pick our partners for the exercises ourselves. Since there wasn't anyone specific with whom I really got along with, I just watched as the partners were being formed. There was an odd number, so I was hoping to be left out. That's why I had been standing in the corner watching everyone for the past few minutes.

"Harley," an oddly familiar voice says to me. I don't need to turn to figure out who's speaking. I'm surprised she reached out to me, though.

"Freva," I say, turning to face her.

Her hand reaches the back of her neck and she looks back. Val had been watching the two of us but the moment she noticed that she's caught Freva's attention, she looks away. "Partner up with me?"

"Sure," I agree without hesitation.

She smiles calmly, standing next to me awkwardly while the others struggle to find a partner. I know Freva's glancing at me momentarily and I know exactly why she's asked to partner up with me but I don't say a word, knowing that it's better to go by her pace.

"I need to talk to you," she finally says after two minutes of silence.

"That's why you partnered up with me, right?" I ask her. Her face turns red as she tries to deny it but I send another smile her way. "It's alright. Go ahead with it."

"You knew I'd be recording the whole thing, didn't you?" She gets straight to the point. I have to resist my smiling now because otherwise, I'd be the creepy one. I don't want to scare her away. Not yet. "Harley, you knew, right?"

I don't reply to her for a moment. She keeps looking at me expectantly, waiting for me to answer. "I'd want that recording on my phone, by the way. Send it to me?" I say to her, finally giving in to the grin.

For some reason, this seems to ease her tension a little. She leans back against the bar, folding her arms across her chest, her eyes still trained on me. "You're not going to tell me how you knew, are you?" She lets out a breathy laugh that turns into a yawn. "Guess that's the thing with you genius', isn't it? You somehow always know."

Of course, I knew. I've known this since Saturday when the groups were allotted. I had searched every single member of my group from the rank list, seen their scores, and found their social media to stalk. Freva has a public account and if you really pay attention to every thing on that account, you can see that she's a social media addict. That girl posts literally everything. From the fights in her previous schools to the latest gossip—it's as if she gets paid to publicise every single thing about her.

It was confirmed when she had her phone out during the rehearsals in the afternoon. She was constantly recording arguments till Sam came and told her off. It's okay for a person like her to listen at a moment like that but if a potential fight at Redville's going down right in front of her on her first day of the second week here? Ain't no way she's going to not record it.

It was ninety percent analytical and ten person luck that she really did record this. She hasn't posted it yet—which reminds me that I do have to tell her not to do that.

"Don't worry, I won't post it anywhere," she says as if reading my smile. I zone back into the reality. She's on her phone again, typing something. A moment later, she closes the screen and drops it in her bag. "I sent it to you. Do whatever you want with it."

"Why?" I'm surprised I didn't have to say anything to her. Her lips tug upwards in a smile and she winks.

"I'll trust you on that, Harley."

***

I remember the way she described this campus in her diary. That's exactly why I don't feel alone even after I walk back to the dorms when it's almost dark outside. I thought through everything as I made my way back from the classes. I think about it everyday to make it as flawless and perfect as it can be but there's nothing to change. It's all going the way I want it to.

I open the door to my room and am taken aback by the amount of people in here.

Ty and Ciara sit on Jude's bed with her. Hayette's on the study table, Julian on the chair. Aaron's on the floor, leaning against my bed. Aarav's on my chair. And lastly, Elliot's on my bed, sitting quietly. The only reason I know all their names is because I've done a great job in memorising all their names and faces.

"Hey, Harley," Jude's the first one to greet me, her voice cheerful as ever. "I'm sorry, I should've texted you beforehand. I promise I didn't call all these people in the room to piss you off."

"It's fine. I'm not pissed." I drop my bag on the floor and sit on my bed next to Elliot.

Jude beams. "Thank you."

They get back to whatever conversation they were in before I arrived. I take out my phone, Freva's text still unread on my notifications.

"So..." Elliot begins, his voice low. "People are calling you Asher's girl and stuff. How are you feeling about that?"

I shrug. "Not much. I'm not fond of that guy anyways."

"Let me reframe the question. How are you feeling about the slutshaming commenters on a post that happened because of a guy you're not that fond of? You read those comments, didn't you? You can't really miss those." He blows out a breath, resting his head on the wall. "I'm sure there are girls who've texted you personally because of that shit."

He's right. They really have. I've just been ignoring all of those, not accepting a single request. The more I pay attention to this, the more they talk about me. It's better to just let rumours like these settle in their own time. Besides, I'm pretty sure he's not the only one I'm going to have a dating rumour with. There'll be plenty. It's better if I just get used to this instead of lashing out at every single people who says shit about me.

"They have," is all I say.

"Oh, by the way, Harley. Congrats on being the representative," Hayette says to me. She tries to sound genuine but fails, the laced up jealousy clear in her voice. I ignore it. "You'd do a really good job."

"Yeah, really," Aaron says. "Man, I wish I was the representative, though. I could've talked to that Ana girl then."

"Okay, hold up," Ty laughs, "No. You actually have to score real high marks for that, Aaron. And by the way, you don't need to be a scorer to talk to a girl, remember?"

"Man, do you really think this guy over here has the courage to even approach a girl? I bet he can't even talk to a girl without getting flustered," Ciara says, laughing.

Aaron's cheeks grow visibly red. "H-hey, that's not true! I'm talking to you guys right now."

Hayette and Ty exchange looks while Jude tries not to laugh.

"I see what you mean here," Aarav says, taking out his phone to record the moment. I want to slam my head against the wall. I've had enough of phones today.

"Hey, what the fuck, man?" Aaron gets up. "Why are you recording me? There's nothing worth recording here!"

"Oh, really?" Aarav asks. "If that's the case, why're you bothered by it?"

"It's a violation of privacy," hisses the other guy.

"Are we seriously stuck with these morons for the next three years?" Elliot mutters as he watches the scene unfold.

Sighing, I hum in response. "Seems like it. Why don't you go join them?"

"Me? Join them? No, they're too noisy," he scoffs in disbelief. "They have a rowdy energy."

"Well, this is a rowdy bunch. You can't expect to make friends here if you're gonna be like that."

He looks at me. "What makes you assume I want to be friends with someone?"

I click my tongue. "You are here, aren't you? It's on your face. If you didn't want friends, you wouldn't be here in the first place. You could've simply said no."

"No, that's not the case. I'm here because I have nothing else to do," he tells me but his tone tells me that it's a lie. I throw him a look that clearly says 'are you sure you want to lie to me' and he sighs in frustration. "Okay. Fine. Maybe I don't want to live my high school life as the creepy invisible loner."

"There it is. Was it really that hard to admit?"

"There's a difference between trying to make friends and being noticed by people. I want people to think I'm not a creep who's just like, watching stuff happen."

"'Stuff'? You sound creepy."

"You're disgusting," he says, not like an insult but as if it's a fact. "You know what I mean here."

I nod once and turn to look back at my classmates who're laughing over something one of them said. It's weird how they've gotten along with each other this quickly, to be honest. If I was an outsider looking at them, I'd think that they've known each other their entire lives.

"Plus," Elliot adds, "You know how they go about cooperation and shit here, right? It's almost too annoying, You've to cooperate with your class. You have no option. And if you don't, you take your class down."

I nod, slowly understanding the guy next to me. Not what he's saying but how he's saying stuff like this. He seems to know a lot about Redville, something freshers don't usually know. I contemplate whether to jump to the conclusion or not but I decide to do it anyways. I have nothing to lose if I'm wrong anyways.

"So, you have an elder sibling, don't you?"

"A brother, yes." His lips tug upward in a slow smile. "How'd you guess?"

"You know a lot about Redville. Was he here too?"

He hums in response. "He was. A music student, carrying on the family legacy and all that shit but he dropped out after his second year."

"Why?" I ask, incredulous. "Couldn't handle the pressure or something?" That's the only reason I've heard the dropouts ever give. There's almost every subject here—you can pursue anything after you've been here at Redville—so being under too much pressure is the most frequent reason for students to quit.

"Don't underestimate my brother, Harley. He's a freakin' genius too. He could have handled the pressure easily. It was just that he didn't want to handle the pressure for something he wasn't interested in. So, he went against my entire family and quit Redville."

There's an expression of admiration on his face and honestly, I do get that. It does take guts to go against your entire family and do something you actually love, no matter what. "What's he doing now?"

"Culinary arts," Elliot whistles. "The one art form Redville forgot to add to their curriculum."

I laugh at that. After a brief pause, I ask, "You're in music, aren't you? You like it?"

"Are you indirectly asking me if I'm going to run away from home to do what I want?" He smiles, though his words hit me hard but I brush it away. "I would if I knew what I want to do in my life. I guess I did like music at some point. It doesn't suck. It's just boring. But then again, everything's boring."

This makes me want to hear him play but I don't say that out loud. The conversation has reached its unspoken end and I once again focus on the others.

"Anyways," Aaron says, "I heard Harley was going to reject the position? I'd be thrilled if I was in her place."

Julian shrugs, pointing his head in my direction. "I don't know. Ask her."

And just like that, suddenly, all eyes are on me. I'm caught off guard with this shift of attention as all the people in the room rest their gazes on me with a questioning look. I shrug nonchalantly. "I don't know. I didn't think I'd be able to lead someone."

"What exactly do you mean by that?" Julian asks me and I know he's been meaning to ask it for a while now. He would've been the one to get the position if it wasn't for me after all.

"I don't know," I admit, "I just think you all will be better off without me interfering with whatever it is you guys want to do."

My answer seems to have confused the others even more and I sigh. There's no way in hell I'm going to elaborate when there's nothing much to say. They're smart enough to make their way to the top without me. Besides, if I were to get serious in everything related to competitions and classes, I'll get the first year Serpens to the top without thinking much.

However, the only area that I'm planning to contribute to is my individual strengths and grades. They will push the ranks up a bit. I'm not dumb enough to destroy everyone's drive that's fueled by competition. If that is to happen, it'll happen. Otherwise, it'll all get ugly when it goes down. The whole class will fall apart. Plus, knowing about this school a little from the diary, I know my methods could put me under the radar of the board and eventually get me expelled.

"You're being confusing," Aarav admits. "But I don't care, honestly. Just don't be a bitch and be bossy around us all later with the excuse that you can't take up responsibility. In the end, it's you who said yes to this." I don't bother telling them that Kalen hadn't given me the slightest opportunity to get out of this.

With that, all their attention is off my back, They're all indulged in their own conversations again, giving me no mind. I still catch Julian looking at me with an unreadable expression. I know what he's thinking—he's still hung up on the fact that he's second to me in this class. He'll be over it soon so I pay it no mind.

Even if he isn't, it'll be better for him in a while. Even for Hayette, who clearly isn't fond of me. It'll be better for all of them and none of them will be feeling this inferior to me. At least, not after when I'm done with what I'm here for.