Verdant Hills Academy, a prestigious private high-school where many tiger parents sent their children to. It's among the schools with most rigorous academic standards and the highest expectations for students in the city. From a skyscraper, its cutting-edge facilities could be seen.
"...Now let's try a slightly more challenging problem. Solve the inequality...remember the goal is to isolate x and find all the values that satisfy the inequality..."
"Uh-oh. This one looks pretty tricky."
As Nova walked through the hallway, the lecture from her classroom grew louder. The time was 9:49AM.
Just as she had predicted, the homeroom teacher was overrunning his period.
Sighing heavily, Nova hesitated before walking inside the classroom through the backdoor.
The moment she passed the threshold, the whole class wheeled their heads at the back, training their gazes on her.
The color in some of the student's eyes revealed that they were tired of the unending lecture. Nova tucked her chin down as she walked over to her seat, shouldering their stares. 'What? Are you witnessing a miracle?'
Her desk was located in the first row on the far side of the classroom, second from the end on the rear line of desks. As she sat in her seat, the homeroom teacher, Kaelen, stopped teaching and stared at her. He was a man in his early thirties with an attractive symmetrical face. However, whether the same could be said about his character was in complete doubt.
After shortly orienting herself, Nova fished out a mathematics textbook from her bag and placed it on her desk.
"Oi, Celeste, that's not like you. You sneak off to see your man or what?"
"Huaha!"
The once dull class erupted into a laughter, banging desks and glancing surreptitiously at Nova.
Nova slightly leaned forward, cupped her cheek, and gazed longingly at the track field through the window. 'I get it. 'Silence is the best answer' for moments such as this.'
At the track field, different sport clubs were practising enthusiastically. It was quite peculiar for students to carry out club activities during classroom periods. Did the school perhaps announce a sports festival when she wasn't paying attention? As her eyes lingered on the field, someone appeared in her field of vision. A striking vivacious boy from the soccer club. The boy wheeled around, and his gaze inadvertently met Nova's. He smiled at her while waving his hands.
A teammate had passed the ball to the boy, but it whistled past him since he was busy with Nova, resulting to the opponent taking the ball away. In lieu of making a fuss about it, the teammate scratched his head and ran back to his position.
"Come on, Celeste, talk to us."
Nova slowly returned her gaze back to the classroom. Was it about her lateness or a boyfriend that Kaelen wanted her to talk about?
At any rate, she had to speak out to avoid unnecessary troubles. She was already late to school and thus wanted not to be perceived as blatantly acting rebellious.
Still, no matter how much she racked her brain, she couldn't find a satisfying response, and yet, the silence was growing rather awkward.
"Do I even have one though?..."
The class howled with laughter once more, something Nova found quite disgusting. What was so amusing in what she had said? She bit her lip and stared down at her desk.
"Alright, we should call it quits for today. Consider the inequality your assignment. You can consult amongst yourselves or the upperclassmen, whatever works for you."
"Whew!"
In an instant, the atmosphere was filled with audible relentless sighs of students. Others stood up and stretched themselves.
"Oi, that's indecent. I haven't forgotten about you Celeste, you know where you ought to find me."
With that, the homeroom teacher walked out of the classroom. Sequentially, some of the students also followed suit.
"Ah, that was a snore. Guess I'm done studying for the day." A girl with a pink hair that reached her shoulders remarked, not at all caring whether Kaelen had left the vicinity.
Her seat was in the middle, slightly at the front. She got out of her desk and hastened eagerly towards Nova. Without warning, she threw herself on Nova's laps, feeling her forehead with the back of her palm.
"Feeling okay, Novie?"
"Shouldn't you be gentler if you think she's sick, Tralene?"
The comment belonged to Shen, a boy with a slim athletic body. Even though these two and Nova were members of the Occult club, Nova still wasn't comfortable with them. Regardless, she couldn't let them know.
"I'm good. Just got held up on the way."
They were the only friends she had managed, thus acting normal when with them was necessary for fear of killing the vibe.
The remaining students had formed into little groups, glancing furtively at Nova. It seemed like she had suddenly become the topic of conversation, so she rose from her seat and left the classroom to escape the attention.