" Nature hath given men one tongue but two ears, that we may hear from others twice as much as we speak."
-Epictetus
~~~~~~
Jillian is on the same flight as me?
There's too much information to digest.
The TV has turned off as it concluded the rules. The last part informed us to gather at cabin 42 at 10am sharp.
I still have five minutes or less before the symposium time.
In total, we have three meetings. If the first meeting commences at 10am, then the next meeting will be at 12 noon, followed by the last meeting at 2pm.
That's too short of time to figure out a difficult target.
I'm the most vulnerable person in this kind of test.
Since the test was seeking for the imposter, the person with many friends will likely not get suspected.
All of the other students have classmates that can support them and I'm the only one who came from class-F. I can be accused early on so I have to set a plan.
At any rate, I must go to cabin 42 immediately.
Just as I left my room, a female student coincidentally went out of her room at the same time as me.
I watched her as she carefully slid the door close.
Her hair tied in a ponytail is subtly jiggling as I gazed at her from her rear.
Her hair goes down to her shoulder. She has fair skin with slim body-shape and she's of an average height.
When the door reached the other side, she turned around quite shock to see me.
She elegantly turned her whole body facing me and said, "Didn't see you there."
She let out a gentle beam.
"Anyways, did you understood the test?" she asked.
"No."
I'm not used to communicating, but since I've been talking to Marco and his friends occasionally, I think I'm improving little-by-little.
She gently laughed, "Yeah, I'm with you—Neither I understand it." "So… Which class are you in?"
"F."
"What's with the brief replies?" she giggled. "By the way, I'm Audrey, from class-D, nice meeting you sir-?"
"Leo."
"Glad to be acquainted with you, Leo."
"Likewise." I replied.
A screeching door sound gathers our attention.
We glanced over to the direction of the sound and saw another student who just got out of her room.
"Lyn, what took you so long?" Audrey asked, walking towards Lyn.
Lyn was slender tall and has a tanned skin.
"You played with your toy again, didn't you?" Audrey pouted.
"Who knows." Lyn shrugged and smiled mischievously.
Audrey and Lyn are casually talking in a language that only girls could understand.
It looks like they're close friends, maybe they're classmates.
"Anyways, Lyn, did you listen when the rules were explained?" Audrey asked.
"Gosh, it's so complicated! I didn't get even a single description." The disgruntled Lyn said exasperatedly.
"Yea, I totally relate."
Lyn was looking straight at Audrey when she noticed me abiding behind her.
Lyn bent her knees a little, closing her mouth to Audrey's ear.
Covering her mouth with her hand, she whispered, "Would you care to explain who's that guy over there?…"
"Him?" Audrey looked over to me. "He's Leo," she said in a volume of my reach. "Leo, please meet Lyn."
"Hello, Leo." Lyn greeted.
I nodded.
"Anyways, it's about time, we should hurry." Audrey said.
We then headed to the cabin 42.
Audrey and Lyn were walking side-by-side as I followed behind. They were talking about some stuff that doesn't really matter, until we arrived at the cabin 42.
Inside the meeting area was a long, oval table with 17 chairs encompassing it.
Eight seats on either sides of the table, while a single seat was on the far end of the table.
When we arrived at the place, most of the seats were already occupied by the other students.
We are the last three to arrive.
All the seats on the side of the table was a normal chair with cotton on where the butt rest. But, the last seat on the curving point of the table was standing out from the other seats.
It was a ginormous throne-like seat with a red cushion and golden outline.
Jillian was already sitting on the throne.
That seat was prepared for the King.
The remaining empty seats was next to King—one on her right side and two on her left.
With no other option, I sat on the right while Audrey and Lyn took the two remaining seats.
Audrey and Lyn was sitting in front of me while on the edge of curving point of the table was Jillian who were my roommate.
Jillian was seating with her both legs close together and her hands underneath the table.
She looked uncomfortable as she constantly fidgets on her seat.
~I just hope this doesn't end in a disaster.
All the students including me were wearing our school's uniform with the Clubs symbol visible on our patch pockets.
However, one of the students was wearing a purple full-zip sweater.
She was sitting on the 6th seat on the left row.
She's of average height with a petite body. I can't particularly see her shape due to the sweater she's wearing, I just speculated that she's hot.
Atop the table was a bunch mobile devices which look like a phone. Each seat has a device in front of them, lying on the table.
There are 17 devices in total and each of us can have one.
The other students were already looking at their device perplexed.
Trying to blend in, I also took the device at the table in front of me.
It has a button on its which worked just like a normal phone.
I clicked the button and the screen lights up, showing a white screen with description.
"You are not allowed to take this device out of the cabin 42. All devices functions by fingerprints, only the real user can tap the device in their possession." The description stated.
It goes onto adding, "This device is use to pick your side." two buttons appeared on the screen. "The blue button indicates for siding on the King, and the red button is for kicking the King out. The voting sessions will occur in the last meeting—without further ado, let the first meeting commence!"
Everyone was busy checking their devices except for Jillian who were shyly looking down.
After a while, all of us has recognized what's about to happen. The surrounding has been drowning in awkward silence.
At any rate, we only have 4 hours left before the voting session, we can't afford squandering time.
Someone broke the tension. She initiated to take the lead over the bewildered students who don't know where to even begin.
"Did you guys understood the rules?" Audrey asked.
She had asked that same question trice. It somewhat piques my curiosity, but I suppose that's just a normal reaction in human nature.
The silence stays the same, everyone was still confused and afraid to cooperate.
This helpless group needs courage. Someone has to push the first domino for the others to get involved.
"I-I didn't understand the rules very well, if someone knows, could you please explain it." Lyn asked, supporting Audrey's initiative.
The first domino fell.
And the next followed, creating the domino effect.
"Me too, I didn't understand it as well," a student from class-B affirmed.
The rest then followed.
I actually understood the rules in one listening. I just lied to Audrey earlier that I didn't so I could keep a low profile and avoid unwanted attentions.
The awkward silence popped like a bubble. The girls began communicating better.
Those who didn't get a grasp of the rules were asking for questions while the others share their own understanding.
But then, the girl who was in purple sweater spoke for the first time.
"To those who were asking, I'll explain it all to cut the chattering." she remarked.
The attentions were diverted into her and she began explaining.
"The objective is very simple, we just have to find the imposter, and after that, we'll press the blue button on our devices and let the King know who's the imposter and eject whoever it was."
She's compassionate and confident in her tone.
"But Ella, what if the King was the imposter?" the girl sitting right beside her asked.
"If that's the case, then we'll press the other option—the red button. The red button means defying the King. If all of us chose the red button, then the King will get ejected." Ella said.
"Rules stated that if all of us defied the King, but the King also voted to defied herself, then all of us will get ejected except the King." Audrey said.
"That's correct, however, if at least one of us pressed the blue button, then the King will be ejected. In short, this is a game of anticipating what the imposter's plan is." Ella said.
"Oh-okay, I get it now." a girl from class-C said.
Four girls sitting next to Ella have their chairs pulled closer to Ella's seat. The five of them are sitting close with Ella in the middle.
Perhaps they're a group of friends and Ella could be the leader.
"So Ella, how're we suppose to know who's the imposter?" one of Ella's friends asked.
"Don't worry about that, Ritch, I already figured out the imposter's identity." Ella said with a serious face.
The surroundings became dead silent as they all listen to Ella's words.
"Who is it?" Ritch asked zealously.
All eyes were on Ella, and all ears were waiting for the answer.
"Aren't you curious about why there's a male student among us all girls?" Ella said.
"Yeah, why's there a male student here?" Ritch asked curiously.
"Ella, are you implying that he's the imposter?" Ann, who was Ella's friend, asked.
Everyone turned their gaze on me.
This has gone from okay to worst. Where did my lowkey profile go?
I need to get out of this predicament before their accusations influenced the others.
I need to reason my way out.
"That's not quite true. Our flights were randomly generated and not purposely arranged. We're all put together in this plane by pure chance. The fact that Leo is the only male here is just coincidental." Audrey explained.
Someone came to my aid, but that wouldn't be enough to convince everyone.
"So that's his name… Leo." Ella smirked. "Though that statement may be correct, there's one more thing I'd like all of you to hear."
Ella took out a voice recording device in a pink-rabbit case.
She laid it on the table and put it in maximum volume for everyone to hear clearly. She then played a voice recording.
The sounds echoed in our ears as the whole surrounding was silent.
It played the voice of male guy talking formally.
I suppose the person talking was Ella's personal butler.
It seems like Ella and I got the same thing in mind.
On the voice recording, we could hear Ella starting a question with "How many are we on this flight?"
A manly voice then answered her question formally. Ella continued inquiring for information about the other students until her butler revealed the numbers of students in each class.
The same as my personal butler said earlier, it stated 1 in class-F, 2 in class-D, 7 in class-C, 4 in class-B, and 3 in class-A.
After the information was divulged, Ella turned the voice recording device off and slid it back to her sweater pocket.
"As you all just heard, that's 17 students in total. Let me remind you, the imposter is a Heart student, which means that he is unfamiliar with Clubs students. As you all just heard on the voice record, there are 17 students in total, and class-A, B, C, and D has two or more students in this flight. That sets the conclusion which simply means that we can distinctly vouch for our classmate since we studied together with them. The only person left was that single person from class-F, all students in class-F are male so I presumed it's you, Leo."
I knew this was going to happen. I need to bargain my way out of this situation.
"Yes, I'm from class-F. Be that as it may, there's no indication that I'm the imposter." I retorted.
"That said, the fact that no one here can vouch for you is concrete evidence that you are the imposter." Ella said confidently.
How could she be so certain that her judgement was correct?
There's a glint of burning anger in Ella's eyes as she ominously stares at me.
Looking around at the students in my vicinity, they looked like they agreed with Ella.
My eyes reached the end of its scope, when I noticed Jillian's hands underneath the table on my peripheral vision.
Her hands were constantly wringing above her lap. I quickly glanced at her and turned my eyes back to Ella.
In that instant, I caught a glimpse of Jillian's face. She was wearing her usual beret and below it was sweats inking out from her temple down to her neck.