who's to tell me what to do

1.4- Suck a duck?

"Uhhh..." Gretel begins, eying me eye myself. "Have you forgotten about the missions..?"

She was clearly judging me. Fight me, I'm hot as shiiiiiiiiiining stars. Yup, those are very hot.

I reluctantly pull my eyes off my reflection and turn them over to Gretel.

Sighing, I open my mouth to speak. "What are they?" I sit down on the floor next to the oh-so-mystical-sofa. "I have to stop my sister dying, right?"

The last part comes out a bit harsh. I divert my eyes as I realise.

Gretel sits up and pulls out a piece of paper. She jumps off her sofa and walks over to Fliss' desk. "So your main mission is to stop Melissa dying." She draws a big '1' on the paper.

I stand up so I can actually see.

"Well, obviously she can't live forever, so don't let her die until she graduates." She then writes 'don't let Mei Xia Zao die' next to the '1'. "The mission is worth 500 points."

"Then you get other missions," she said, turning to me. "With these, you don't have to complete them if you can't, like, you won't have failed the world, but you'll get a handicap in the next life you have. They're all worth 100 points."

She then whips out another piece of paper out of nowhere and writes some sentences down, then shows it to me.

I take it from her hands.

"1) have the protagonist meet a better guy. 2) let the protag. go on a school trip." I raise an eyebrow.

"3) have the protag. have at least one good, true friend." I stare at disbelief at the last one.

"4) have Fei Xi Zao get a boyfriend or have her come out as gay..."

I look at Gretel, feeling my expression turn sour.

"What the fuck, I am a guy you realise."

SYSTEM MESSAGE: 10 points have been deducted. You now have 30 left.

"Oh fuck off, wait no I'm sorry-"

SYSTEM MESSAGE: 10 points have been deducted. You now have 20 left.

"... what happens if I have 0 points? What even are points?" I ask, dismissing my loss in defeat.

"Uh, nothing happens, but if you go into minuses then you die. Umm, you can exchange points for things like love positions or truth serums. Pretty much anything. Money, fake ID, material goods like clothes. Depending on the value you can get them with a certain amount of points."

I could tell Gretel was trying to hide a smile.

"Urg. Uh, how many do I have? 20? What can I get with that?"

"Clothes, £20, stationary. Not much."

This ridiculous 'no swearing policy' can go suck a dick.

I suck in my breath as I realised what I thought, and let it out as no more points were deducted.

Suck a dick system. Suck a motherboarding dick. Suck a fat dick.

SYSTEM MESSAGE: Due to rudeness, 5 points have been deducted. You now have 15 left.

"...I had that coming."

Gretel nods in agreement before continuing to look at the paper

"Is that it with the missions?" I ask, also pretending that the system is... not on my friends' list, despite my frustration.

Pick your words carefully I guess.

"Yeah, but you can pick up a point or two here or there when you're on the right path to complete the main mission. There are 10 points available that way, I think."

"Okay."

I look at the paper, cringing at number 4.

"Do I have to do that?" I say in disgust. "I mean, I don't think this posh school with rich kids would still respect me if I come out as gay and I'm not dating a guy, please and thank you." I wrinkle my nose in disgust.

"Fliss is 'linking' with a boy already, it's the easiest one on there. Besides, failing a mission will result in a handicap in the next world. Like, if you fail this one, you'll probably find it hard to find love in the next life altogether and that could be the main mission of the world so it's better to be safe than sorry." She babbles.

I let out a huge sigh. If it's trying a get a guy to fall for me, I guess it couldn't be much harder than with a girl. I'll just leave it to last...

"Well, yolo I guess," I say, as I open up my wardrobe and throw on Fliss' surprisingly nice school uniform.

She had a pale blue blouse to put under a navy blue jumper that was too big for her but looked cute. A pretty short pleated skirt with a green plaid design on it. She had a blazer as well, but I asked Gretel and apparently, it's a fashion to not wear them.

Like, you know. Those little alterations in a uniform that makes you look 'cool'. The thing that allows others to know your trendy and above them. Be it wearing your tie loose or undoing your top button -- it was one of those things -- don't wear a blazer.

So I slipped on the thin blue tights over my pretty legs and grabbed my coat and bag from its place near the door.

I cautiously poked my head around the door.

I had absolutely no idea what to expect from her house.

She was rich, I knew that much, so the house would probably be huge. Hence the reason I was kinda scared to ask Gretel.

She probably wouldn't be able to always give me directions through the house verbally, so she would most likely want to implant the memory of the house plan into me rather than verbally.

Plus, she's sleeping. Waking up sleepy girls can be scary.

Urg, I don't wanna go through the pain. Of either, frankly.

So, I'm left to try and guess where the kitchen or bathroom is.

I survey the floor.

If I'm perfectly honest with you, it was really undermining.

It literally looked scarcely different from the upstairs of the house you spawn in the game 'Granny' I played a bit as Landon. Small, dirty and creepy. Not so much the bad rendering but I'm not complaining.

I walk down the stairs, nearly having a heart attack at how creaky the floorboards are. I stepped on about 8 and this is the eighth step I've taken, it's that bad.

Why is their house like this if she's so privileged?

I'm aiming for the kitchen since upstairs was dark and weird, and I'm hungry so I'll look for some cereal or something.

Creak after creak later, I do manage to get down the stairs.

"Took your sweet time getting down here."

"Xiao Mei. Be nice to your older sister."

Oh no. I wasn't ready to see my family yet.

『※』

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