Just think about it. If this gets leaked to everyone, what do you think would happen? There would be no one who would vote for her, and if I just put your name under it, or even indirectly say that it is something your team found, just imagine! You will become the hero overnight!"
Maria finished talking, but yet there was an awkward silence from the other side. She thought maybe the call got disconnected, or the network was unstable, so she moved from her position trying to reconnect with the network again. "Hello! Hello, Airi?"
"You must be totally mad!" The voice from the other end sounded so cold yet fierce that Maria felt a shiver running down her spine. "What are you thinking, planning to do something like that? Using someone else's crumbled reputation to climb up, do you think I would agree to do something so underhanded?" Airi felt like her blood was boiling. No matter how bad of a person Rena is, there is no way Airi would step down this low to use someone's character to gain success. Surely, this matter needed to be disclosed, but not for her own benefit.
"But why?" Airi's thoughts got interrupted by the winning of Maria. "No reason. You just won't do it. End of the discussion." And then Airi cut off the call.
The next day, Airi went to the school early, as she had to report to the principals' office for the election. Upon reaching there, she found students bustling all over the hallway. It was also the exams for the other two years, so everyone had their eyes practically glued to the books. Airi was calmly crossing them, when suddenly she heard someone calling her from behind.
"Airi!"
She turned around to see Carter calling out to her. And as always, the girls were giving a burning expression towards her. Ignoring all those, she waved back towards him.
"How's your preparation? You could manage to revise all of them, right?" Carter asked, while catching for his breath. It seemed like he was running all the way here, as there were little drops of sweat on his forehead, sticking those long strands of hair with it, despite the breezy cool weather.
"Yes, I did. There is no way I couldn't. Thanks to the notes you gave me." Carter swept up his hair which was falling in front of his view, "Nah, those were just somethin' I made for my last moment of rescue. And I don't need these anymore, so…"
"Airi!" Carter's words got interrupted by the sudden call of someone. Both of them turned their head to see the source of the voice, and it was a girl calling out to them. "Airi, finally you are here. You need to come quickly."
"What happened?" Airi asked back to the girl in front of her.
"It's…" the girl was about to disclose when all of a sudden, her eyes met with Carter. "Oh! It's senior! Good morning! You too have exams today right? All the best for it!"
In response to it, Carter awkwardly smiled, "Yeah… Thanks… Um, you…"
Seeing Carter fumbling through his words, the girl got an astonished look on her face, as her eyes became bigger. "Don't tell me you forgot my name, senior! It's Scarlet! We worked so hard together for Airi, and here you are…" Scarlet pursed her lips in annoyance, which made her look like a nagging kid.
"Who needs to remember a dumbo like her? As if I care…" Carter muttered in the way only Airi could hear. "Hey, now that's mean. You never had any problem with mine, Carter, " Airi retorted back, smacking her palm lightly on his shoulder.
"Because I paid attention to yours, simple." Carter almost immediately replied with the usual straight face of his. But the words had a totally different effect on the girl in question. The Carter who never showed any interest to anyone, never cared about anyone's business, yet paying attention to Airi, made her heart flutter a little bit. She felt a little heat rising up to her cheeks, and a little blush on her cheeks was clear as a day. She couldn't figure out why she suddenly felt like that. She even couldn't tell what the feeling was exactly. One moment she thought it was somewhat like nervousness and anxiousness, then the next second it felt like the feeling she gets when she gets her hands on a book she was waiting for eagerly. And after that, she thought that it was something more than that, but it was a question her heart couldn't answer, except the accelerated beating of it.
Suddenly, Scarlet tugged Airi's hands, breaking her from her trance, "Airi, you need to come right now. Senior, if you would…"
"Yea yea, sure. Go ahead. I won't hold you guys any longer. All the best for your exams, Scarlet, right?"
Scarlet brightened up immediately. "Yes! You too."
Carter moved his gaze towards Airi, "Give your best shot." In response to it, Airi meekly nodded back, without returning a look back to him.
"See you later, then." With that, Carter left.
As soon as both of the girls were alone, Scarlet almost screamed out, deafening Airi. "OH! MY! GOD! Airi!!! Since when did you and senior become this close? You guys are on the first name basis… and also that physical intimacy…"
"Dude that was just a smack, for your kind information." Airi flatly replied, making the line clear in between her imagination and reality. But that seemed to not enter her brain cells even a little bit. "Tell me tell me, since when you guys are in a relationsh… mmph!"
Airi grabbed her mouth, muffling down her voice. "Who is in a relationship with who now? Talk only if you have something better to say, otherwise shut the hell up for eternity. Want to get me killed here?" Airi hushed down her voice, in fear that no one would hear them talking, especially when the topic was about Carter.
Airi removed her hands, letting Scarlet talk. "Then how should I define this? The way senior behaves around you, the way you call each other by your first name, and don't you dare deny the blush you are having on your face, you are practically beet red." Airi immediately grabbed her flushed cheeks to hide her blush. "It's nothing like you think… just the heat… yeah. And we are really good friends of each other, so the names… turned out like that. That's all it is. Nothing else!" Airi kept looking another way, escaping the penetrating eyes of Scarlet, seeking the fact she wanted to hear.
"Yeah, yeah. Sooner or later we will know anyway. But there is a more interesting thing to know right now." Scarlet grabbed Airi's hand and dragged her to their computer lab.
"Wait, why are we here?" Airi asked her, but Scarlet turned on a computer without replying to her. After logging in to her mail, she showed a short video to Airi. And seeing that, Airi felt a mixed feeling of shock and rage, also disgust. A surge of emotion was rising up to the surface, reflecting on her face. It was the clip of Rena, the same as Maria talked about yesterday.
'But how did that get revealed?'
"God! Can you imagine? How dirty of a girl Rena was all along? To think that this got revealed today, we got lucky…"
"Who send those to you?" Airi coldly threw in the question, cutting off Scarlet in the middle. Scarlet got a bit scared hearing the cold tone of hers. "It's… it arrived yesterday, maybe at 2 AM. And when I arrived at school, everyone got the same email, even the school's email got one… but it was anonymous… hey wait, where are you going?"
Airi rushed out towards her classroom, without letting her complete her words. "Airi, wait for me. Why are you running?" But no matter how much Scarlet called Airi from behind, Airi never slowed down or halted. Climbing up the stairs, when she was in the hallway of her classroom, she heard a loud slap by the end of the hall. And almost immediately later, a loud shout echoed throughout the hall.
"Maria! You b*tch! Why did you do it! What haven't I done for you up until now!" Rena raised her hands to slap Maria once more, but just then, another hand stopped hers.
"Another b*tch is here to mess! Look, it's between us sisters. You better not f*ck between this." Rena hissed through her breath.
"And being the class representative, and a candidate of the student council, I can't let any students get physically or verbally abused, let alone my classmates." Airi threw Rena's hand away, standing in between the two sisters.
The video clip about Rena reached all of the students. And those who hadn't seen that yesterday night, have seen it or known about it upon coming to school today. So when Rena came rushing to the class Maria was in, almost every student from all the classes gathered up around them. And no matter how much of a cool aura Rena has always given off, right now all of those have gone crumbling down. Right now she was looking like a mess, being on the verge of bursting out of her unstable emotion.