Chapter 4

The next morning, I felt fantastic. I hummed a little tune as I went downstairs.

I found Olivia in the kitchen, staring at a smoking pan on the stove. She was trying to make breakfast, a task the "Independent Achiever" system apparently required for some sort of daily quest. Her hair was a mess, there was a smudge of flour on her cheek, and she looked utterly miserable. In her past life, she'd never cooked a meal for herself, always relying on our mother or, later, takeout.

She looked up as I entered, and her eyes narrowed. "You look disgustingly cheerful," she snapped.

"I slept well," I replied breezily, grabbing an apple from the fruit bowl.

"Of course you did," she muttered, scraping a blackened pancake into the trash. "Probably dreaming about all the rich boys you're going to trap. You took the easy way out, remember?"

"Oh, absolutely," I said with a wide, innocent smile. "It's so much easier than, you know, being competent." I gestured vaguely at the smoking pan.

Her face flushed with anger. "Shut up! This system is about building character! It's about real, hard-earned success, not... not whatever it is you're doing!"

"And how's that going for you?" I asked, taking a loud, crisp bite of my apple. "Looks like you're building a lot of charcoal."

She was speechless, her mouth opening and closing like a fish. Seeing her so flustered and helpless filled me with a petty, satisfying warmth. This was just a small taste of the frustration she'd made me feel for ten long years.

I gave her a little wave. "Have fun with your character-building! I'm off to school."

The academy was just as opulent and intimidating as I remembered. Marble floors, students in designer uniforms, and the air thick with the scent of money and entitlement. In my past life, I always felt like an outsider here, constantly trying to be invisible.

Not anymore.

In class, I found myself understanding the complex calculus equations on the board. It was a lingering effect of my dream with Liam. The concepts that had once been a confusing jumble of symbols now clicked into place with a surprising clarity. I even raised my hand to correct the teacher on a minor point, earning a surprised but impressed nod.

At lunch, I sat alone at a small table in the corner of the chaotic cafeteria, just like I always did. I was halfway through my sandwich when a tray clattered down across from me.

I looked up. It was Liam Hayes.

"Is this seat taken?" he asked, though he was already sitting down.

He looked tired. There were faint dark circles under his eyes, but he was looking at me with an intense curiosity.

"I was working on that problem we discussed," he said, his voice low. "The one from... last night. I think I found an even more efficient way to handle the memory stack."

The whole cafeteria seemed to go quiet. I could feel hundreds of pairs of eyes on us. Liam Hayes, the untouchable genius, was not only talking to someone, but he was talking to me, Chloe Miller, the scholarship nobody.

I leaned forward, a playful smile on my lips. "Oh? Did you have a good dream?"

[Target Liam Hayes's affection has increased by 5 points. Current affection: 15/100.]

[Points awarded: 50. Current Points: 350.]

A faint blush crept up his neck, but he didn't break eye contact. "It was... interesting."

He pushed a piece of paper across the table, covered in new equations. "What do you think of this?"

Whispers erupted around us.

"Who is that girl?"

"Why is Liam Hayes talking to her?"

"Did you see that? He's blushing!"

"She must be another one of his clingy admirers."

Liam's jaw tightened at the whispers. He glared at a nearby table of gossiping girls, and they immediately fell silent, shrinking under his cold stare.

He then turned back to me, his focus absolute, as if the rest of the world had melted away. "So," he said, tapping the paper. "Your thoughts?"

And just like that, we were back in our own little world, debating algorithms in the middle of a crowded cafeteria, completely oblivious to the social storm we had just created.