In the debate world, there are five unspoken rules. The first four are trivial; simple social laws that every sane person would understand.
But the last one. Now that's something.
Rule Number Five: Never, ever, under any circumstances, date your d...
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today's theme: artificials
Jisung stuffed his laptop back into his bag. The moment they had finished and the judge had walked out of the room, he immediately began gathering his stuff. They had gone a bit over time, and the preliminary winners would be announced soon in the gymnasium, which meant he had to hurry.
Not that that was a problem. He couldn't fucking wait to get out of the room.
Concordia people were smart. They knew all the exact pinpoints of their own characters, things they could use to make themselves sound condescending and superior without actually coming off like that. They had learned how to weaponize their attributes in the shittiest way possible, and by god did Jisung find that blown in his face for the past forty-five minutes.
Marcus, at the very least, had been slightly discreet about it. A slight shake of the head or a furrow of the eyebrows, standard facial expressions that people made against their opponents. It almost seemed respectable, if he weren't bearing the name of that school of all things.
But if Marcus was a slight gaping paper cut, brought on by the natural sharpness of Concordia's nature that had conditioned him into that fashion, then his partner was a full frontal gunshot wound.
To the head, no less.
Pierre made an absolute point to sit at the perfect angle at which the light would bounce off his stupid enamel pin, showing it off like some ugly crow with a shiny plastic cap. He coughed loudly whenever Jisung made a point that he disagreed with, snickered under his breath every time he accidentally tripped over a word, and did all he could to cut him off when they were asking questions to one another.
All for the sake of standing your ground, or so he said.
Bullshit.
"Hey, Han."
Marcus was standing right behind Jisung, his hand stuck out again. "Thanks for the match. That was a good round."
Before Jisung could take his hand, though, Pierre sidled right in between the two and planted himself next to Marcus, slinging his arm over the boy and ruffling his hair.
"A good round, indeed," he said snidely. "For a maverick. I almost regret going easy on you."
Jisung smiled sweetly at him. Fuck decorum in the face of idiots. "You were going easy on me? How nice of you. I almost couldn't tell."
"It's rather unfortunate, really. Seeing as how you are from the Academy and everything, Marcus and I naturally intended to use our best efforts, given your general positive reputation, especially since we happened to come across some videos put out by your team. Chan, was it? An impressive person." Pierre's eyes were burning holes into him.
"So naturally, when we found out it wasn't them, and instead...a maverick, you can see how discouraged we were and therefore didn't exert as much...care."
