Knights & Mages Online; The Lightnovel

Chapter 4 "Erin"

Seth knew it wasn't right what he did, but it wasn't just about XP, money or winning anymore. It was about staying alive.
  "You're lying." the black haired boy stated.
  Seth blinked in surprise.
  "You're lying about the gold. You avoided my eyes 2 times, shifted your weight 4 times already and your blinking is getting longer. This is a type of defense mechanism. Normally," he explained, "a person will blink at a speed of 100 to 400 milliseconds, or 0.10 to 0.40 of a second."
  Seth blinked a couple of times more.
'So..' he thought, 'he turned out to be a lie detector. Just.. great.'
  Kai was still staring at, studying, him, expecting an honest answer from the blonde.
  "Fine." Seth finally said, "I wanted to win no matter what for my.. friend."
  "Where is your friend now?"
  The pink shaded boy felt like a massive lump started to grow in his throat.

ㅡㅇㅡ

  First day as a junior.
  'So I'm officially in 11th grade, huh...' Seth thought while she was walking in the school corridor. She was kind of early so there weren't many people around.
  She suddenly thought back of the summer. That summer break was.. weird, simply. But it wasn't simple. Everything recently seemed more weird. Seth was feeling weird. She didn't know what was different about her but something was. And if she was completely honest, she could've tell this wasn't the first time she didn't feel.. belong.
The brown haired girl quickly chased the thoughts away from her mind and stood in front of the class door, gave out a small sigh. When she opened the wooden door, she saw there was someone sitting, well actually sleeping, in her usual spot. Second to last desk. Window side.
She couldn't see the person's face because of their angle and the cap they were wearing on top of their school uniform. Ah, the school uniform.
Seth noticed how he styled his pants with a chain on the side. Teachers wouldn't be happy with that. The private school they were in, wasn't exactly open-minded about how students would like to express themselves. They wouldn't openly say anything of course, given the money they were paying, but they wouldn't be happy with it either. Sometimes Seth just wished she could go to a public school. But then again, it was simply not possible when her dad was so against it.
She just couldn't understand him. What? Just because he owned couple of companies, all the criminals would be after his daughter? That was just.. so paranoid of him.
While more people started coming in, Seth was still thinking about whether she should sit one row behind or front. And just then, the guy? looked up, their eyes met. He was so.. pretty?
'Nothing wrong with that, of course.'
He gave Seth a tiny, sleepy smile, which she returned with a small smile of her own and sat on the desk in front of him.
"Erin." the.. wait. Her voice was a little deep for a 17 year old girl but no mistaking it, the asian was a female.
Dumbfounded, the long brown haired girl shook the hand the asian extended, lightly;
"Seth."
Erin's grip was quite firm.
"Ah! I'm not a," she pointed her desk, referring she was taking a nap earlier, "slacker by the way. I just got here too early in the morning. Our guests took my driver and my mother took hers, which was no surprise to me, so my dad's had to drive me here before dropping him off to work. And.. yeah.. I'm talking about something unnecessary."
"You have a driver?" was the only thing Seth could think.
"Umm.." the dark haired asian looked confused for a second and leaned in closer to Seth and asked with a lower tone, "I thought everyone in this school does?"
Seth couldn't stop herself from chuckling;
"Not their own driver. I think..? I mean my family only has one, which is enough." she paused, "Maybe some of them have." she glanced back at her fellow classmates.
Erin smiled back. Seth thought about how her bleached front hair suited her so well out of nowhere.
After their first class, they exchanged numbers.
"Seth!" her group of friends waved at her, inviting her to join them at their table. She was originally planning on eating with Erin but they had different classes after the second one so she couldn't catch up with her and wasn't sure about texting right after getting her number.
The long brown haired girl sat next to her closest friend in the group, Ariel. Her name was kind of an inside joke, since.. well, her family was living in the Mermaids' Lagoon, which was one of the most luxurious neighborhoods in Neverland. Most students in Ever High knew each other since kindergarten,
"We know you shared two classes with the new guy." so, it was pretty exciting having a new face around here for everyone.
"And exchanged numbers."
Seth laughed at her friends who were making faces and corrected;
"First of all; new girl."
"Nuh-uh~" Ariel argued back and continued, "Not because he's wearing the boys' uniform but Sean has seen him using the boys' bathroom."
"Oh. But..-"
"-Welcome to the 21st century, where we have a choice about our gender." said other one of their friends, rather using a little sarcastic tone.
"Whatever." Ariel gave the girl a brief glare, obviously wasn't a fan of her tone, "we wanted to know more more about him from you, but seems like I actually know more than you do."
"What do you know?" Seth found herself asking, which earned her a cheeky smile from her closest friend;
"Well," she started with a bright tone, "his birth name is Kang. Ri. An. Erin is his international name. He's a transfer student from Seoul, South Korea. His family moved in here a week ago because of something about his mother's business. That reminds me; his mother is the one who's rich, like, filthy rich. You know the movies where they have unbelievably rich people? The ones that ridiculous have 50 unused cars in their garage? That's them."
  "Woah.."
  "Yea-ohh. Anyways, his father actually was only an employee under one of his mother's companies at first, and then" she giggled, "you know~"
  "You definitely know a lot." Seth raised her brows in disbelief. Who the hell was Ariel? Spy in training? She never fails to surprise Seth.
  "But," Ariel made the face when she was about to say something.. interesting, "although they rushed moving in here because of his "mother's business", we found out that he was actually 18 years old." she grinned.
  "You mean..?"
  He's repeating the 11th grade?
  Ariel nodded.
  "He could've been just started school late but, we checked out the school registration archive."
  "No way. How?" Seth leaned in, whispering.
  "Riley, the student council Vice President. She owed Leilah one, Leilah owed Marcus one and he owes me one."
  "I think I don't wanna know the details, thank you."
  "I wouldn't tell you even if you'd asked." Ariel sticked out her tongue playfully.
  Seth rolled her eyes.
  "Hey," Ariel said, putting a more serious tone to her voice, "it was weird though."
  "What was?" Seth took a bite from her sandwich.
  "Riley told us his papers were mostly redacted, covered in black lines."
  "Like top secret files." one of their friends commented, laughing.
  "If your family is rich enough, you probably don't even need a registration file."
  "Still need to graduate high school though." Everyone froze in their places with the owner of the new voice who joined their table.

To Be Continued~