Immoral System

On the evening of the fifth day, the concert time allotted to the invited singers and dancers had been cut in half because a school pageant was scheduled to be held. The huge gymnasium was the venue and the place was fully packed, even the gra.s.sy lawn surrounding the open gymnasium turned into a sea of stalls and people. The audience tonight was way more numerous than the previous nights due to the fact that people were more eager to see their own campus beauties and hunks.

As one of the acclaimed campus beauties, Sofony decided to not partic.i.p.ate in that pageant. Actually, none of the five people in the G.o.ddesses List came to join the beauty contest. They could choose not to because people had already acknowledged them.

Not sure when it started to become like this, but the pageant turned into a battlefield for those beauties in the reserve list. Felicity Dimatrionez and Gilla Broe were examples of these people. Once they win, they would be acknowledged as a new campus G.o.ddess. This was exactly what happened last year to Clarissa Guzman, the known Violent G.o.ddess. Mostly, this was how people from the G.o.ddesses and G.o.ds List got listed. People like Sofony Mendez who got included in the list due to public voting are rare. Probably only two or three out of the whole bunch.

Anyway, in this event, Sofony was still forced to wear a glamorous silver dress due to being one of the judges. She was now sitting below the stage in front of a long table covered with a satiny blue cloth embroidered with intricate patterns. A score sheet laid before her, a pen grasped by her hand. She used it to rhythmically tapped on the surface of the table while watching the ongoing walk. Sometimes her eyes would light up upon the nice faces and figures of the girls and boys modeling on the stage. But more often, she was feeling bored and would pa.s.s the time humming or singing along to the loud tune being blasted out by the huge floor-standing speakers.

By all means, she would have preferred to just stay at home than spend half of the night here. Sofony sighed. In the past few days, after all the cla.s.s activities or whatever programs she had to attend ended, she"d immediately go home and spend the night in a hot embrace. She didn"t attend any of the previous night out concerts because she was just not into occasions like this.

If only the school admin didn"t make it obligatory for them...

She shook her head and sighed. Her mind went back to the current beauty and hunk contest. Nothing special had happened so far though. Maybe it"s due to her increased intelligence, or her increased perception of beauty, but not many contestants succeeded to amaze her. The drop-dead gorgeous ladies seating beside her and giving her advises of all sorts only helped to raise her standards more. It was in this way that her interest gradually lessened.

Probably she only became much more active in her comments and gestures when she saw her sister Steffy appearing as her cla.s.s" female representative. But that"s it. Only when QA time arrived was when she was forced to concentrate on the contest.

She watched as Wendy grilled the unlucky boy who had picked her as his question giver. Sofony"s lips curled up because she saw her friend"s eyes glistening with mischief. The guy was a familiar face to her. It was the man Felicity thought to be having a relationship with her best friend before she "died".

Wendy had asked Chris Meyer how he viewed regret. Apparently, this innocent boy who suddenly turned into a very gloomy, icy person was forced by his cla.s.smates to partic.i.p.ate in the contest, and he said that was how he viewed regret. He regretted going to school on that day he got voted to partic.i.p.ate. He regretted not having enough time to sleep early this night due to this. He regretted having to make himself a clown walking half-naked under the indecent eyes of many men and women.

Naturally, the response elicited many awkward smiles from his cla.s.s. Wendy"s face also darkened but she still gave him a high score due to his response being uncommon. Yeah, when compared to most candidates raining peace and love in their speeches, his answer was quite different from the rest. He magically turned a moment of the contest awkward.

Sofony"s turn came when a cute girl from Steffy"s grade came out and picked her name from the box. Since she was not really a difficult person like Wendy, she only asked some random but easy questions and scored justifiably. In this contest, she could easily be said to be the most just in scoring since the bored system took the initiative to calculate the points she should give to those fortunate contestants that picked her.

When Steffy came out as the next contestant for the QA, she unluckily picked up Clarissa Guzman"s name. Sofony immediately turned to the girl sitting two seats from her left, and worriedly glanced at her sister on stage. She would never forget that particular incident that happened between Steffy and Clarissa"s underling. She couldn"t help feeling a bit worried.

Sofony knew Clarissa since she"s become popular earlier than her. As last year"s female winner, Clarissa was really a G.o.ddess. Last year, when she was sitting at the audience seats, she quietly did a comparison between Clarissa and Wendy and admitted to herself that the former was actually way charismatic than the other. The beauty level was the same, but Clarissa Guzman, despite having a violent tendency, was a natural stunner. If the girl did nothing but stand next to Wendy, or even Clea, she"d appear a bit more beautiful due to her endless charm, which the two fell short a bit. There was also a bit of aura on her that makes her like someone from the high society.

However, no matter how beautiful Clarissa Guzman was, she would still be forever a Violent G.o.ddess in everyone"s mind.

Sofony eyed the leisurely girl. She exhaled long when she saw the playful glint in that woman"s beautiful black eyes as she stared at Steffy. Sofony clenched her teeth and tensely rested her hand holding the pen on the table.

A second later, she held her breath when she saw the girl suddenly looking at her, a smirk still hanging on her lips. Sofony subconsciously furrowed her brows. She didn"t like the meaningful stare Clarissa gave her before the woman looked back to her sister.

"Sofony, don"t let yourself be distracted. That girl is tricky."

Probably Wendy also saw what transpired between them in that brief moment so she reminded. Sofony nodded at her, but not without pursing her lips in unease.

Steffy"s turn ended without any hitch and Sofony was momentarily stunned by how smooth things proceeded. Clarissa actually didn"t make things difficult for her sister. It made her confused. She couldn"t help but wonder if the other woman was not angry or incensed by Vienna"s imprisonment last month.

"Wendy, she didn"t make trouble." She dumbfoundedly said to her friend.

"Weird." Her best friend shrugged her shoulder. "Who knows what"s running in that fierce woman"s head. Hateful. Maybe I should start picking up karate and martial art cla.s.ses to get some piece of mind in the future, just in case I have to personally confront her. Sofony, I just don"t believe that she won"t take revenge against us. Hateful girls like her are hateful due to their unwelcome stubbornness, unreasonableness, and pride."

But Clarissa Guzman didn"t really make trouble, Sofony mumbled to herself. Clarissa acted like a role model as she sat there concentrating on being a proper judge. The only odd thing the girl did was probably her small battle of smiles and words with Lois Gabriel, the beautiful curly-haired woman wearing an expensive red dress sitting next to Clea. She noticed the rich spoiled princess gritting her teeth in annoyance and glaring daggers to the still glamorously smiling Clarissa.

Sofony furrowed her brows then looked away when she noticed no more abnormalities from Clarissa. She focused once again to the contest and watched as it reaches the crowning part.

She later joined the clapping crowd when the pretty senior named Delila Morison won. Sadly, Steffy didn"t make it due to her low score in popular support which was fifty percent of the contestants" overall score. In the end, the one declared as the first runner up was Gilla Broe, the chief editor of the publication.

On the other hand, the one that got crowned as the new campus male G.o.d was some boy called George Li, a name quite familiar to Sofony. Okay, she was just being in-deal. She actually knew that this guy was the one who made a scene at the court earlier after publicly declaring his basketball team as her fan club. This boy"s runner up was that gloomy bloke, Chris Meyer, who looked not the least bit happy about winning people"s recognition.

When Sofony saw the guy climbing up the stairs to receive his awards, guilt and shame wormed into her heart. Without realizing it, she averted her eyes to the left only to meet Clarissa"s amused stares again.

Initially, she was stunned silly, but not long after, her face hardened. She watched as Clarissa Guzman mouthed her a name of a place to her.

"Tomorrow. For Felicity," Sofony"s face darkened as Clarissa additionally mouthed this using her very alluring red lips. On the last two words, she suddenly found her heart panicking and sinking into an icy abyss.

....