1. Peak Popularity

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• Nya Smith •

She scribbled down the last equation with ease and put her blue-inked pen down on her desk, her eyes going over the paper to make sure she had solved the problem correctly.

Then she stood up, tucked her pen into her pocket, grabbed the four test papers, and walked over to the teacher's desk, placing the papers down neatly. They were the first papers to be on the desk so the next person would have to stack their papers onto her papers.

That was how it usually went. After all, Nya Smith was almost always done with the test or the exam first, no matter the subject. Other students would envy her for that, especially when she would always have good grades as well, even when she would hand in her papers thirty minutes before the official submission deadline.

She walked out of the room without looking at anybody and made her way to her locker. It was in the center of the hallway, right where she was always out in the open. She did not like that.

Opening it, her eyes landed on her workbooks that were stacked against the left side. She reached above them and unhooked her leather jacket from the clothing hanger, putting it on quickly. It had become cold during the test, and her aquamarine blue shirt could only keep her so warm.

She then grabbed her cellphone and looked at the time. She still had about twenty-five minutes left before the bell's ringing would announce the lunch break, one she would usually not spend in her school anyway.

She would always go to Ronin's Delectable Desserts and order something sweet she wouldn't usually finish, just to kill some time there, without anyone bothering her.

So, without waiting for anyone or anything, Nya walked out of the building and left the school grounds, her head held high. She crossed the street, turned the corner, turned another corner, and crossed the street once more before she gazed upon the flickering neon lights of the dessert shop that was owned by Ronin Theftson, a good friend of her father's. Not that she ever cared about that.

She never really knew much about her father's acquaintances anyway. Ever since she had been little, her father had constantly been on business trips, and her mother had never made any effort to keep him at home.

And she was not a housewife either. Maya Smith, Ninjago's most known model in the industry, had more important responsibilities to attend to than the itty bitty children she had bared close to two decades ago.

So, basically, Nya had raised herself, if she took out the various nannies that had tried to raise her.

She had been a difficult child, though.

"Hello, Water Lily," Ronin, a thirty-nine-year-old man, greeted her the moment she stepped inside, and Nya was used to it. He had been greeting her a step in almost every time.

And if he ever missed out on greeting her, he would always make sure to make up for the lost opportunity later on.

"Hello, Mr. Theftson," Nya greeted him back politely, like she always did.

The cycle would always repeat itself. It had been the same dialogue option for the past two years.

"Oh, you can call me Ronin, love." The man behind the counter waved his hand dismissively. "Now, go sit down. Sky will be with you shortly."

Nya offered him a tight-lipped smile and went to sit in the farthest booth away from him. His pet names, or whatever they were, would not go unnoticed by her, and she did not really feel comfortable hearing them either.

Sometimes it was love, other times darling, then sweetheart, and most of the time Water Lily.

She hated every single one of those.

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