55 Social Week 4

I jumped down from the stage to find tears streaming down from Ellen's clear silver eyes.

"You don't know how surprised I got," Ellen sobbed as she unintentionally attracted attention from Ben's guests.

"Yes, this was really dangerous Rika." Alice carefully studied me to see if I got hurt anywhere.

After both Alice and Ben confirmed that I had no injuries from the fall, they sighed in relief.

"I'll arrange for Luke and you to eat in the private VIP dining area on the first floor so you don't have to dine on the second floor," Ben added while he quickly changed the arrangements.

That's how Luke and I came to dine with Ben and his friends in the private VIP dining area instead of dining with Ellen and Allan on the second floor for lunch.

I looked around the dining room to discover that it was not inferior to the dining area in the ballroom in anyway. The rich blue velvet walls set an elegant atmosphere as other furniture within the room were also in shades of blue as if it was trying to make the walls stand out.

Ben and Alice were already seated with their friends who waited for Luke and I to sit down. "Hello, I am Luke de Roselia and this is my partner Rika Roselia Shanes," Luke immediately introduced us to Ben's friends.

"I have heard many things about your partner," a friend of Ben attempted to start a conversation.

"What do you want brother?" Luke asked Ben's friend with strong displeasure.

'Brother?' I stopped eating from surprise.

Luke's brother smiled at me splendidly with his ocean blue eyes that resembled Luke while he tucked in his pale golden strands of hair into his ear.

"I am Lucius de Suilett otherwise known as Luke's brother," Lucius answered my thoughts.

"And you must be Rika." Lucius continued to smile with amusement.

I nodded as I elegantly picked up a fork under Luke's intense glare.

"Are you not from the Roselia family?" I curiously asked Lucius since he did not introduce himself as 'Lucius de Roselia'.

"I am but I am engaged to Belle," Lucius introduced his partner to me.

Belle faintly blushed as Lucius placed his hand around her waist.

"Hello, I am Belle de Suilett." Belle shyly introduced herself while twirling her finger around the strands of her glossy turquoise hair.

"And I'm Rika," I brightly smiled to Belle while ignoring Lucius.

"How's the salmon?" Ben asked me to fulfill his duty as the host.

"Not bad," I plainly answered.

I preferred to eat pizza and chips at a party rather than focusing on which fork or spoon to use while eating a certain dish. Unfortunately, I never had the chance to even eat a slice of pizza in this life as the school only served gourmet food. Meanwhile, Luke only took me to restaurants similar to the setting as the lunch I was currently eating.

"Are you ok?" Ben asked me when I looked dejected.

"I'm fine," I answered with no enthusiasm.

"I never expected your partner to me closer to Ben than me," Lucius said with pity to Luke.

"We met several times in the second and sixth district," I casually answered while cutting another piece of my honey glazed salmon.

Ben suddenly froze as he threatened me with his glare, 'Don't you dare continue Rika.'

"Really?" The other pairs asked with great curiosity.

"I heard that middle schoolers weren't allowed to visit the lower districts," One of Ben's friends mumbled quietly.

"I thought that the freshmen in middle school were only allowed to go to the third district for their practical assignments," Another friend of Ben whispered.

"Maybe they changed things up," Alice offered the guests a potential explanation.

Ben and Luke continued to eat their dish without a single word. The table continued to discuss about where middle schoolers were allowed to go during the practical assignments from nostalgia.

Fortunately, none of Ben's friends noticed Ben's lack of presence in their conversation as Alice excitedly partook the lead in the topic.

"We have to go to our next event," Luke tried to apologize to Ben and Alice while excusing himself after we finished our lunch.

"See you later my brother," Lucius waved.

"Let's meet soon Rika!" Belle shouted as Luke dragged me out of the room.

Ben perked up as Alice also greeted us farewell.

'Was it my imagination, or did Ben not want us here at his event?' I briefly thought.

I left that thought aside as we soon entered the hover car to go to the next event.

"Riikka!" Luke yelled at me angrily once we were inside the hover car.

"It wasn't my fault this time," I talked back to Luke.

"Who knew there would be such a wide gap between one of the bars?" I continued.

"Most people don't lean against the rails during a party or go up to the dining area when it's not time to eat," Luke fiercely argued with his hands clenched onto the chair.

I rolled my eyes at Luke from great annoyance.

"How do you know when it's also your first time going to these parties in social week?" I countered while looking outside the window.

Luke hung his head down again, "It's common sense Rika."

The days quickly passed by. I didn't get into any other incidents as Luke made sure he watched my every move so I wouldn't make another 'blunder'.

I was finally the last event of the day. My feet were hurting like crazy and my waist felt bruised from the tight dress. Everything from interacting with Luke's friends to eating was a pain.

"Can we go home now?" I whined to Luke.

"Just two more hours," Luke whispered into my ear.

I learned that everyone in the first district had great hearing from the constant mana training on how to manipulate their bodies ever since kindergarten. I hoped that nobody saw me as I unwrapped the silk ribbon around my waist as I couldn't endure the tight dress anymore.

'I can properly breath now,' I thought for the first time today.

However, Luke's friends gazed at me in awe.

"First her shoes and now her dress," One of Luke's friends mumbled what the group thought out loud.

"It's because Rika wanted to tie up her hair," Shelly tried to cover for me as she tied up my hair into an elegant ponytail.

When the dress suddenly unraveled without the ribbon holding it together, Luke and his friends looked the other way while Shelly and Ellen desperately tried to fix my dress.

"Can we go home now?" I asked Luke again while my dress dragged on the floor when I walked.

Luke sighed as he faced the group, "My partner doesn't seem like she's feeling well today, so we'll be leaving early."

We left the venue and soon entered the hover car again.

"I said only two more hours," Luke looked at me with great disappointment in his eyes.

"You try walking this dress for the entire day," I complained to Luke.

"That's why we remade your dresses after the first day," Luke sighed.

After the first day of social week, Luke and I removed all the heels from my dress shoes and made the dresses shorter and looser so that they would be more comfortable to move in.

However, I guessed I overestimated myself, thinking that this dress didn't need any adjustments after admiring the simplicity of the dress compared to the other ones in my closet.

"I didn't know this dress would become this uncomfortable to wear!" I argued to shift the blame to the design of the dress.

"Well, it's over now. I'll have to wake you up early tomorrow to move back into the school so just go to sleep Rika." Luke continued to express his great disappointment in me.

I rubbed my eyes in the halls as I barely got any time to sleep when I moved back into the school. Luke and I brought more stuff from his mansion than we thought we would and spent most of our time trying to reorganize them into our small dorm room.

And the weeks afterward was filled with exams, which meant Luke dragged me into his long study sessions so we wouldn't get more minus points.

"Hey Rika!" Cillian greeted me when I walked down the halls dejectedly.

I ignored Cillian as I walked toward the usual cafe where Shelly and Ellen was waiting for me with my favourite strawberry shortcake.

"Why? Why now?" I recalled yelling in frustration.

[You have used the maximum limit for absorption for this month] The dimensional library replied.

The most useful part of the dimensional library was now useless. Since the library in the school contained almost all the information about the world I lived in, I didn't need to use the dimensional library to gather more information.

'Maybe I shouldn't have used it on my history exam last week,' I sulked.

Since I got such a good mark on the history exam, Luke didn't drag me to his usual study sessions of hell. So when we got the results back from the math exam I took yesterday, I got a 30, which led us to get minus points again.

"Riikkka!" Luke yelled at me as he dragged me to a study room after looking at my results.

That's how I was tiredly coming back from a study session that lasted for thirty hours on my precious Saturday.

"Hey," I hugged Shelly and Ellen before sitting down.

"I think Luke is getting more crueler these days!" I complained to Shelly and Ellen.

"The study sessions used to be twenty hours and but now it's thirty hours," I continued to whine.

"Well, I think it's because you got a thirty on the math exam for the first time this year. Maybe Luke will decrease the study sessions once your grades get better," Shelly tried to console me while drinking her chocolate milkshake.

"Is a thirty even possible?" Charles desperately tried to hold his laughter when Daniel projected the results onto the board.

"Well, it is Rika." Alex replied unsurprised that I got a thirty.

"Anything is possible with Rika," Allan agreed with Alex.

I shook my head to get rid of my bad memories as Ellen ordered another plate of strawberry shortcake to cheer me up.

"Well we're going on a field trip next week anyways," Ellen casually mentioned.

'A field trip? That meant no exams next week!' I thought.

"How do you know?" I asked Ellen with suspicion as I never heard about it during class.

"Daniel announced it during class today while you were half-awake Rika," Shelly explained.

That actually did explain alot. I didn't pay attention to half of the things mentioned in classes in the morning. That's why Luke had to repeat what the teachers said in his intense study sessions.

"Where are we going?" I asked hoping that the field trip would be not in a fancy hotel or include any hard strenuous exercise.

"We're climbing a mountain." Ellen delivered the bad news.