"The absorption of ink by blotting paper involves?"

Buzz.

Shoot, team blue pressed the buzzer, for the 15th time. Elikai at this point had given up on the glorious and prestigious dream of winning the inter-state quiz competition.

His eyes fell on the boy, the only one who was answering and blurred the puppets he had as teammates. The piercing green eyes met his ombre ones, smirking in pity and ridicule.

Elikai couldn't help but roll his eyes. He eats rice with chopsticks every other week, he should be fast on his fingers, not Kal. This was absurd and maddening.

"Yes, team blue?" The quizmaster asked, rather bored by the fact that she asked questions to only one kid, most of the other teams were sleeping at this point.

"Capillary action phenomenon. It helps–"

"That's it, team blue. Thank you very much. Correct answer." The quizmaster waved her hand to silence the boy who knew more than everyone's knowledge combined, inside and outside the auditorium.

Except for Elikai. He wasn't just fast enough.

Elikai had seen Kal eyeing for the prize money, like a lover, like a mother whose child has been taken away from her. Elikai couldn't bother less about the money, it was his prestige that was at stake.

He had to be faster than Kal.

Kal could have the prize and the money at this point. Elikai just wanted to instil the fear in him, the fear that he might be too close to winning yet too far away. Like a cricketer who is playing at 99 not out, and he wanted to be Jofra Archer hurting Kal before he could score a hundred.

He didn't want Kal to dwell on the assumption that all the participants are weeds meant to be crushed under his feet. Kal has to pull real hard to uproot Elikai.

He won't be as easy as he looks to be.

The digital screen behind the quizmaster flashed a pixelated photograph. The pixels had burst due to the harsh zoom in, but Elikai didn't have a problem to look at it.

It was Kal and other myopics who squinted their eyes out.

This was his chance, Elikai had gained the first chance to press the buzzer before Kal and answer it correctly. He had to steal the opportunity and brand it as his. He couldn't wait for the quizmaster to take forever to tell the question.

Buzz.

The quizmaster lowered her gaze at Elikai, so did everyone else in the auditorium. The audacity to press the buzzer even before listening to the question could only match with Kal. Kal did it due to his gifted abilities.

That makes Elikai the mad one.

"Team red has pressed the buzzer even before I read the question? Impressive." She crossed her arms behind her back, hiding the cue cards she held.

She sauntered her way to the table red, trying to read the intentions behind such a hasty decision. His teammates had no say or control over the catastrophe, Elikai had to be held accountable.

He tried hard to look into the eyes of the quizmaster, but the subtle feeling that Kal was snorting and scoffing behind the host lined his forehead with beads of perspiration. He wiped it off with the thing that was closest to him, a piece of paper, and bought the amusement of the Quizmaster.

"Tell me the answer, team red."

Elikai mustered the courage to break the eye contact and stare at the screen whose content quality is worse than lele pons' on YouTube. The picture was a painting of a building, adorned with flowers. It wasn't the best in the opinion of Elikai, but it wasn't bad either.

Okay, so I definitely need to guess the painter, but they won't show me a painter's painting who has a distinct style? Then who is this? Also, asking the painter's name straight away is a bit absurd. So, maybe the place? But what has the place so beautiful looking even in this weird painting got to do...

"This is the painting of a concentration camp by Hitler before he became Hitler."

The quizmaster didn't lock the answer, it was their job to sway the answer to the other direction if the students weren't sure about it. Only confident students' answers would be unshakable like a boulder.

"My son, I think you're confusing a mass killer with a painter." She laughed, meeting with the laughing agreement of the audience.

"Don't say stupid stuff." Alex murmured, looking at how they had become a joke which wasn't even funny.

"Hush, dont bother him, he is smarter than you anyway." Rayleigh hit Alex, silencing him." You answer with the same zest you pressed the buzzer, I trust you." Rayleigh held Elikai's arm tightly as if she could transfer her nerves to him.

But what made him so sure that he was correct was Kal's expressionless face staring at him. The surge of energy he needed was received. He returned a smile in gratitude.

"No, ma'am, I am not mistaken. Hitler used to be a painter, and this is one of his famous works. We just tend to remember him for things related to gore and not gratification."

The corners of her lips twitched as she bestowed team red with points.

"You have finally met your competition." The quizmaster gestured at Kal, and then both of them looked at the satisfied Elikai.

He was scared, not because he received death glares from Kal but because each glare was accompanied by a smile to challenging to invite rivalry.

He returned the smile back as both the boys proceeded to answer, one to win and other to make his win well fought.

"The last question of the quiz follows a different rule. The question is open to all, but you can't press the buzzer. Write the answer on the paper and raise your hands to let me read it. If I signal a thumbs up, you will be given points."

Words ricocheted in alternate syllables and Elikai was now focussed more on the perspective of actually winning the competition. He wanted to feel the warmth radiating in thr empty shell of his body. The feeling of achieving that made skipping classes and sleep worth the pain, the fact that he would actually taste the sour fruits of hard work he bore to taste like sweet lemonade, or even intoxicate him with the vodka shots of triumph.

He never thought about losing, his parents always taught him to enjoy the process. He wasn't even asked to fret about the prize money. The fact that this was the only situation he could prove his parents wrong and still win the appraisal sounded like Christmas to him.

The fact that he could defeat Kal Callahan was like finding candy in a mountain of hay.

"Who was the 44th president of the United States of America and was born in Honolulu, Hawaii?"

The question being ridiculously easy as alphabets didn't bother him, what bothered him was that Kal didn't press the buzzer and sang the alphabet song in all the octaves.

He didn't flinch and took his chance to convey his karaoke voice for the audience's entertainment. It was his chance to relish on.

"Barack Obama," Elikai shouted on top of his lungs when the Quizmaster was reading the answer from Kal's paper.

It wasn't the quizmaster's widened eyes that tried to comprehend what had happened at the speed of 345 kbps that gave in Elikai's fault, it was Kal's smirk.

The smirk you give either to ask someone out on a date or ask someone's death wish before you kill them.

It was choosing between the deep blue sea and the devil, but both of them resided in him.

Tough call.

~~~

"You played well, Elikai."

Elikai didn't expect the trophy boy to know his name, let alone come all the way across the auditorium to congratulate a losing runner up.

He turned around, to meet the tensed pursed lips softened to an amicable smile and a hand put forward to shake their way to a truce. Ilikai counted up to ten, the perfect time to shake hands with him. To early would show his desperation and too late would depict a false picture.

"Although I can't say you played as well as me, I guess private schools like yours don't teach you how to count your dollar bills fast." The fruity voice drowned Elikai completely, just like how he remembered the quizmaster's rules going in his ears, but never into his brain.

"Huh?"

Kal leaned in, cupping his hand around his ear, " Is the noise of my victory too loud for you?"

Both of them blinked, one sarcastically and other in disdain.

"Well, " Elikai folded his arms, " at least you know it's a noise and not music."

"Great show, Elikai."

"Too bad I can't say the same about you, Kal."

This was when Elikai wondered what Kal would be like in his most vulnerable state. He hoped to meet him in that state.

It'll be fun for Elikai to drown Kal in his music of victory.

~~~
Word Count: 1525 words.

A/N
The Honolulu thing actually happened to me in a quiz. We lost the quiz by one point and I was crying my eyes out. It was a great lesson though.

I hope you enjoy reading this!