My Bothersome Life

New Assignment

When Luke walked me back to our dorm room at school, it was a long silent moment with neither of us daring to break the awkwardness.

By the time we entered the dorm room, I gently said to Luke with the little energy that I had, "We can talk about this tomorrow, for now I'm going to sleep."

Before Luke had the chance to respond, I flopped onto my bed and went to sleep and hoped that we would have gained some points from teaching in the third district.

* * *

I woke up with someone shaking my body as if he was urging me to wake up. This familiarity... right it's probably Luke trying to help me get ready for school as part of our daily routine.

I opened my eyes to see my uniform on my bed. My uniform was all ironed and by the time I sat up, someone was already brushing my unruly hair.

"Luke?" I said while groaning as I was unwilling to wake up.

"We have to go to the classroom early today because of the announcement our homeroom teacher will be making about how many points we'll get based on our results in the third district." Luke replied as he already knew what I was going to ask.

"Well, I will be making the announcements now about the points you'll be getting. Most of you guys will be pretty satisfied with the results, but there may be some exceptions," Daniel said while glancing at Luke and I at the last bit. 

When Daniel (our homeroom teacher) projected our results, I was thankful I did not spend my points too much when I was rich with points. I did kind of expect this, but it was a bit too much to handle as the dean said that Luke and I would not be getting any punishments from what happened in the third district.

When I looked at the projection I saw:

Ellen and Allan: 50,000 points

Shelly and Alex: 60,000 points

Rika and Luke: 0 points.

I knew that next time someone asked me to help find their family heirloom, I would decline under all circumstances.

I hung my head down while Shelly and Ellen tried to console me, "Rika you know it wasn't your fault..."

"We heard what happened from the rumours that came from the dean's office," Ellen added.

Maybe even Alex felt bad for me as he said, "It's a pretty rare event that something like this happens."

Well I knew now that with the mere 100,000 points Luke and I have left, we would spend it very wisely.

And this was how it came to be that I was studying in the library with Luke non-stop for over twelve hours. Since this month was not over yet, I could not use the dimensional library.

Whatever suspicions Luke had about how I was able to gain a lot of points last time, he didn't ask. All he did was to drag me into the library as soon as class was over to make up for the points that we did not get from the practical assignment.

I didn't dare to complain to Luke as it was mostly my fault with going along with the prank which got us in this mess in the first place.

Whatever that girl's true identity was from the fake one in the third district was deemed to be scary.

She reminded me of a term called a 'Yandere' in my past life not that I exactly remembered what that term meant.

As the years went on in this reincarnation, I felt I was losing more and more of my memories in my past life.

Like those memories were getting more and more hazy.

At first, my memories from my past life came instantly back to me when I willed it, however as the years were going by, there were only flashes of memories that came back to me whenever I encountered something familiar from my past life.

Like that vending machine, I almost forgot that vending machines even existed until I came to the third district. However, I always remembered something like my light novels and junk food because I was always with them.

Maybe I was always nervous about fancy food and stuff in my past life that I had always innately disliked it in my current life.

Maybe it was because I was getting tired from cramming all this useless information lately. That must be it I thought.

I flipped another page in the book noticing that Luke thought I was blanking out as he stopped reading his own notes.

***

I was constantly tortured by the never ending studying done in the last eight months. Thanks to that, Luke and I earned a stable amount of 30,000 points each month.

It was the usual routine just like elementary school. At this point, there was nothing different from elementary school except that the content of the class just had a rise in difficulty as you would expect from anywhere.

I was sitting in the cafe with Ellen and Shelly as we were taking a break together from all that studying.

"I wish we could go outside the school again," Ellen muttered.

"Yea, it was nice in the third district..." Shelly added on and then stopped when noticing I was here with them.

"No, it's ok. It was somewhat better in the third district if not for the incident," I told them.

Ellen and Shelly looked somewhat relieved and then continued on to talk about other topics while enjoying their tea.

"My older brother had told me that middle school students have practical exams twice a year," Shelly told us.

"The third district only?" I asked in curiosity.

"The first, second and third districts for middle schoolers," Shelly replied confidently while whispering.

"If you think about it, it's about time for our practical exam since they only have it twice a year," Ellen said while smiling.

I shivered while I suddenly felt something cold on my spine.

* * *

It was Friday evening when the class was to supposed to end got extended.

"Class, today we will be doing something different." Daniel announced.

Maybe the cold sensation came from what was about to come from Daniel's announcement.

"You will be having another practical exam this year before we let you go for summer vacation," Daniel continued.

Summer vacation? The summer vacation that I thought that didn't exist in the first district!?! I wondered how long it would be and blanked out until Luke pinched my arm to get me to pay attention to the teacher again.

"You will be staying inside the first district this time and this time each pair will be working in a shop for one week. The points you will get will depend on your performance results from your employer." Daniel told us in a serious tone.

When we left the classroom, Ellen whispered in my ear, "I guess we're not going to other districts this time."

I knew what she meant. Ever since the last incident, the school was afraid of more unexpected situations that may occur in other districts. This was probably why they had our practical assignment in the first district.

This was just like a part-time job. I was pretty confident that I could do well on this assignment because I was accustomed to receiving customer service in the third district (which seemed pretty easy to reciprocate).

By the time Luke and I went to our dorm, there was a special message that popped up from the marble which projected news about our assignment.

New Message:

Rika and Luke is to report to the ABC International Corp. of the First District by 1PM.

ABC International Corp. of the First District? That was a pretty long name for a company. I had never heard of that company before within my stay in the first district.

Since I didn't know what it meant, I asked Luke, "Have you ever heard of the ABC International Corp. of the First District?"

Luke sighed before answering, "It's one of the companies that the Monete family owns that does business in high end accessories and clothing."

Wait. The Monete family? Monete... that name did sound very familiar, but I could not recall where I heard it.

"What do you mean by the Monete family? Who is the Monete family?" I asked trying to confirm my suspicions.

Luke started to frown as he stared at me like I was a hopeless person in bewilderment.

"Did you forget the name of your classmate that you see almost everyday? It's Alex. Alex of the Monete family." Luke answered disapprovingly.

Ahhh. No wonder that name seemed really familiar. This brought back memories when we were partnered together. Alex did bring up his family name many times on the first day while trying to drag me into studying.

If this company was owned by Alex's family, I could not imagine the many strict protocols that would come with it, knowing Alex's personality.

I hoped this field assignment would not be as unfortunate as last time, anticipating it would resemble something like a part-time job in my past life.