A day had passed since I saw Maia.
It was Monday morning so I began packing my bag for class. The classrooms were very close to the dorms so I didn't need to worry about being late.
I had a bitter taste in my mouth. What was the letter about? What was Maia talking about? It was uncomfortable.
Was I missing something?
Is there something I haven't noticed yet?
*
I made my way into the classroom for the first period, taking my seat beside Noah. He was speaking to the girl behind him.
"Hey, Saha."
"Hello, slug."
She was a very uninviting person. She was often alone, without a circle of friends to be with. The only person who ever seemed to talk to her was Noah. She was without a doubt mean and cold to everyone, but it seemed to be intensified even more around Noah.
"I hear it's going to rain very heavily today."
"Isn't that optimal weather for you, slug?"
"I'm pretty sure slugs don't like heavy rain..."
"Heh, so it seems you are well aware of the behaviour of slugs."
Saha's voice was deep and monotone. She seemed to be able to come up with a plethora of insults at any given moment. Despite her extremely unpleasant attitude, Noah never seemed to be deeply phased by it.
"Can we stop talking about slugs?"
"Oh, so you think that even slugs are too good for you."
It was honestly impressive how she was capable of giving a barrage of insults and crude jokes whilst keeping an unchanging poker face.
"Um..."
"Ok about I call you a bacterium, is that better?"
"Not particularly...?"
Noah looked awkwardly at Saha whilst she stared blankly at his face. After the exchange, he turned around for the first period.
The classes went ahead pretty normally with nothing out of the ordinary occurring.
As predicted, rain began pouring heavily around early afternoon. It was about when people were beginning to make their way back to their dorms or the mall when it began getting incredibly intense. The wind was thrashing at the trees making them bend and their leaves showered the ground beneath them. The rain was so severe that there was a thick layer of water on the ground despite the extensive drainage system. However, the insides of the buildings remained unaffected as expected from the architecture.
Just before I left the main building I witnessed Saha slip over in the rain. As she crashed to the ground, a sharp railing caught her bag, tearing it from top to bottom. A pile of books then splattered all over the ground.
I slowly made my way over to help. However, as she saw me approaching, she quickly scrambled to pick up her belongings and rushed away, holding her tattered bag and belongings in her arms. In the chaos, she left several of her books still on the ground.
It seemed she didn't like the fact that someone had seen her in such a state.
I walked over and picked up the abandoned books off the ground. The books had become soaked from the water and were nearly illegible.
I'd return them to her tomorrow I guess.
I made my way to the boy's dorms, drenched in rain. Back in my room, as I looked at the books I had picked up, I noticed one was different to the others. There were two notebooks for her core subjects, but there was one notebook that was distinctly higher quality and had a special spiral bind. There was nothing special on the cover but as I looked inside...
"I can't believe I actually decided to get this diary."
I guess this was a diary?
I flipped through some of the pages which were somewhat sodden but partially protected by the hard outer cover.
"March 24th,
Why does it always end up like this? He must think I'm some kind of weirdo."
Her handwriting seemed aggressive and shaky.
"The more I try to talk the weirder I become. Why can't I just speak normally? I know I can't keep this is up but, in the meantime, everyone already has this weird image of me. Even so, Noah didn't turn me aside and he still talks to me every day. I don't know what I would do if he wasn't there for me anymore. I know it's just my fault for being weak but I can't seem to admit it.
I really really hate the fact that I'm so weak and yet I still can't change myself.
I'm scared, if I were to show my true self and he didn't accept me, thinking about it just scares me."
The words gradually trailed off.
The entry was unexpectedly sentimental. It seemed that Saha did in fact have feelings for Noah despite how she acts. Somewhat unexpectedly, it seemed to be that her personality was not a direct choice, but something that she unintentionally developed.
Now that I'd read this, I wasn't sure if I should still return it.
I decided to leave the books next to the heater and decide what to do with them tomorrow. I took a towel from my bathroom and briefly dried my clothes.
I opened my phone and checked my point balance.
1598.
It was a decent amount, the way I lived was generally pretty minimalistic. The wealth gap was already much in place, however. It had only been four payouts in total, but those in the higher ranks would likely have many times more money than I.
Someone like Caleb would probably have earned to this date, 4000 points from class points and 3960 from rank points, resulting in him having somewhere around six or seven thousand points depending on how he spends it.
The system seemed somewhat unfair, you had basically no way of changing the number of points you earned as ranks and classes don't change until the end of the year. For the students near the bottom ranks, it was incredibly harsh.
Oh well, that's just how it is, I guess.