Into The Mysterious Guild (A Daragon fanfic)

Friend or foe

The students have gathered around the announcement board excitedly hovering about the list of the scholastic honors and passers for their batch after the first period of their school year. Everyone seems to be feeling euphoric about the fact of passing (well, who won't anyway?) after such a nerve-wracking start to a semester; they had it too hard this year. But despite the contagious laughter and smiles, someone seems to be unhappy about all of it...

She closed her eyes and opened it again for the nth time hoping that that gesture would actually change what are written on the list in front of her; she narrowed her eyes upon seeing her name and slightly shook her head trying to contain the feeling of anger that is building up inside her whole being.

Can somebody snap be back to reality and tell me that this is actually not happening?

"Dara!" She was able to immediately cover the disappointment in her face and built a façade for she had already mastered the art of pretending. "Congratulations on being the second honor!" This is just exactly what I was wishing for earlier, nice. "Wow, just how were you able to survive- no, scratch that, the word 'survive' may be too light you, how about excel? Yes, exactly, excel! On what aspect of mortality are you actually in for you to excel on those tremendously scary subjects?! That's pretty wicked you know."

"Nah, just pure luck I guess."

"Stop being so humble, that's no luck, I deem you as a natural genius! You ranked first in our batch for the whole levels of middle school and when we graduated from it last year!" Dara's smile faltered a bit but controlled herself from ripping the mouth of the girl in front of her to finally hinder her from talking. "I've heard that the person who ranked first this preliminaries is in a different section from us and is actually a transfer student, that's really awesome right? To able to adapt rapidly in another school's system is a very hard thing to do, I had a critical time about handling the stress when I first came here," Chit chat...Chit... Chat... "Oh well, congratulations again Dara! Gosh, I wish I had a brain like yours. I'll be heading first, bye!"

Dara flashed her very appreciative smile, "Thanks! See you around." Hopefully never.

Second huh... Sandara Park thought, what a petty situation I am in. Being the youngest member of the family probably sometimes means that you have the lightest responsibilities amongst the family for you are highly favored and sided. But that is not Dara's case, being a child of two well-known business personas, a sister to a highly achieving doctor and a very famous fashion designer, there was no time for having fun and pacifying the act of a child who sucks up to her family members in order to get what she wants easily for she had instantly and immensely felt that she had the biggest responsibility, there was no need for her to be reminded, it has been an automatic fact for her that she must show her worth and her intelligence, surpass what they have achieved or at least be at par in order not to degrade the family's name.

She averted her gaze back on the list, "Kwon Jiyong, first honor." Dara mumbled, she felt her heart pricked as to how the name sounded so hateful when it came out of her mouth, "I don't know you but you're so dead to me." She stared menacingly at the name and cursed it inside her head a thousand times for about what seemed like forever.

"Don't you think this list looks really wrong?"

Dara raised a brow to the man now standing next to her, "Finally, someone else noticed." This man looks fine, this is the first time I'm seeing him.

"Oh, you agree with me?"

"More than anybody would, yes."

He chuckled, "What's your deal? Let me guess, him?" He pointed exactly to the name of Kwon Jiyong, instead of giving a response, Dara eyed the man suspiciously, "Well I practically hate that guy as well, he's too handsome for his own good and way too smart. To sum everything up he's the epitome of perfection. That guy is definitely hateful, right?" The man slightly shook his head and smiled, "You're against the rankings, huh? Despite of trying so hard conceal the fact that 'that' doesn't affect you at all and pretending that you're actually okay with it and if you think that your efforts are paying off then I'll point it out to you that you're wrong." The man gestured his hand around his face. "It's really obvious."