Favored by Indivia

01

Chapter One

In which she caught her sister.

-

[Ross Pagette Monstine.]

“How do bangs even work?”

I passed a look at Samantha, who is having a hard time fixing her hair. The clear irritation is visible on her face, and I would have laughed if I did not feel bad about how she was struggling. She normally doesn’t care about anything that involved her physical appearance, so it was quite amusing seeing her doing everything she could to fix her hair. With a swift movement, she stole the mirror that Elizabeth was holding, not even bothering to ask permission.

“Hey, I was using—Sam!” Elizabeth grumbled, looking at her with a perplexed expression. She was in the middle of applying some lip gloss and clearly needed the mirror more than Sam.

“Give me a second and shut up for me, Eli,” Samatha muttered, acting as if the mirror is her property. It was a rare occurrence that she was oddly focused on something that doesn’t involve her talking to the other person. She simply continued to fix her bangs whilst looking through a mirror. “My heavens, this requires high maintenance. How the f**k do you even do this?”

I simply rolled my eyes, knowing that she had caused this herself. “If you haven’t copied my sister, maybe you wouldn’t be having that problem right about now.”

“Ryli and I have the same face shape, so I know that it will suit me. While I got what I wanted, I was not aware that keeping it good would take so much upkeep.”

I couldn’t simply deny that the bangs did suit her face. Samantha doesn’t particularly copy everything that my sister does with her hair, but the second that she had seen Ryli with it, Sam seemed to have wanted the same style on hers. It also had been some time since she had done something to her hair, so we fully supported her with her decision.

Not only does Sam have this small itch to suddenly change their hair, but most of the female students changed theirs. It seemed normal, that nobody ever comments whenever they would catch that someone was blatantly copying Ryli. Besides, I doubt that my sister had the energy to flinch at every person she caught sporting her own style.

Ryli Monstine is an icon, with a cult-like following for her every move. Since we were young, she was used to people of our age suddenly having the same sense of style as her. I have never seen her genuinely worried about it, nor commented with anyone who does copy her blatantly. I reckoned that she was used to it, or maybe even sees it as a good thing. My sister has a life of fame ahead of her, so she should get used to people copying everything she does.

“I am surprised that you didn’t cut yours, Eli,” Samantha commented.

Elizabeth is the extrovert of the group. and quite frankly—the one who gathered the attention of numerous people. She openly admitted how she is a fan of how my sister styles herself. While she doesn’t flat-out copy whatever Ryli does, Elizabeth always used her as a reference. To see her not sporting what my sister had changed in her style does seem surprising.

“I tried seeing how it looked on me, even asking advice from my hairstylist,” she answered, a look of clear distraught appearing on her pale face. “but it doesn’t suit my face. I would be sabotaging myself if I ever got bangs,” eyes following both Samantha and Vivian, she sighed. “I am quite jealous.”

It wouldn’t be my life without my sister catching the fancy of all of my best friends.

The three of them had met my sister several times, and on some occasions, Ryli would ask for their company whenever she would do something spontaneous. Samantha would always be there, seeing that she complimented my sister’s personality. While my mind somewhat triggers a toxic trait to think that they were by my side simply because of my sister—I was aware that it was simply not true. Ryli and I attended different schools when we were in high school, so they didn’t know my sister before meeting me.

“That looks good, Ro,” Vivian muttered beside me, her eyes focused on the sketch that I had made. Being the introvert in the group, she would often not contribute much to the conversation. However, when she does—I honestly feel like she just wanted to shake me away from my mind. “Is that a project?”

“No. I’m working on my perspective,” I answered, eyes squinting to the paper.

Her lips pulled a smile, hands slowly patting my back. “You’ve improved so much, Ro.”

“Thanks, Viv.”

I do like to think that I am improving my craft.

They used to be so bland as if deprived of life. While I am aware that there is still lacking in what I am doing, I could see that I am slowly heading towards fixing that problem. I only need to spot what feels wrong and work my way into perfecting it. However, I am proud of what I am achieving. From painting mindlessly when I was a kid, to having people rely on my skills during competitions or projects made I see how far I had gotten from my skill. Looking at the mindless dribble that I had done for the past couple of minutes, I could say that even this sketch looked better than I wanted it to.

The feeling gave me a sense of euphoria, one that is pleasantly addicting.

“Isn’t that Ryli?”

The announcement from Elizabeth made me look at her. Slowly following her line of sight, I did spot a familiar brunette from a distance. Normally, I wouldn’t care about bumping direction with Ryli is a common spot where people of our age would hang around. Yes, I wouldn’t.

However, this was different.

I could not help but care the second that she had entered an atelier. My sister is taking a course in Law, in hopes of following in her biological father’s footsteps. Despite my unawareness of how that course goes, I am sure taking art classes is not part of their curriculum.

“That…” I paused, panicked that I couldn’t see through the frosted glass. “Excuse me for a second.”

Slowly rising from my seat, I disregarded the calls from my friends as I wanted to get a better look at where Ryli had entered. I wanted to know the scope of the place, needing to be aware of what she is doing. My body just moved on its own, as if not knowing what to do if she is taking an interest to paint.

“Oh, are you a student?” My steps faltered as I looked back, catching a figure of a man that seemed familiar to my eyes. Due to my panicked and clearly struck mind, I could not—for the life of me, think of his name. Looking confused about my reaction, he looked at the door that I was blocked. “Excuse me, but I am quite late. Could I please get through?”

“Uhm… yes. I am planning on taking classes. I just wanted to know what class…”

The words flow through my mouth so smoothly, only catching myself the second that the sentence ended. Slowly keeping my words in, I gulped. Ryli might not touch a paintbrush since the day I had met her—but she’s gifted. The confidence that I had in my skill seemed to have wavered with the simple idea that she could be taking classes to learn painting. Why is she learning to paint?

“Painting.” He answered, finalizing the terror that shook my mind.

Slowly moving by the side, I let him get through the frosted door. It made me see a glimpse of the inside, how the place was filled with beautiful art pieces and in the middle of it all—was a figure of my sister in front of an easel. Like always, she was shining. People were swarming around her, replicating the same happiness that radiated from her face. Ryli has a smile on her lips, seemingly excited about what she is about to venture into.

And before I could breathe, the door closed.

Ryli Monstine is learning how to paint.

The very advantage that I am holding above hers would be stripped away from me—right before my eyes. It was suffocating me. Eyes slowly dragging on the sketch pad that I had absentmindedly carried with me, I panicked.

My art will be compared to hers.

We’re back to where we were.