“Hey Tristan,” I said, as Tristan and I entered the school building.

“What?” Tristan replied.

“If a liar who always lies tells you that they are lying, are they lying or telling the truth?” I asked.

In response, Tristan paused and stared at me for a moment.

“Shut the hell up.”

I frowned and gloomily walked until we reached our cafeteria table.

When I did, I noticed something very odd.

‘Aurora?’

For the very first time, Aurora was sitting at the table with Nishimoya before we even sat down.

I expected her to just barely make it to her first period on time like usual, but I guess she was feeling punctual that day.

“Why’re you here so early?” I questioned as I sat down.

“Because I decided to be kind and grace you with my presence,” Aurora said flamboyantly.

“I liked it better when you weren’t here,” I retorted.

“What the hell?!” Aurora exclaimed as her eyebrow twitched in frustration.

I let out a small chuckle.

“Anyway, you good Nishimoya?” I asked casually.

Nishimoya, who was zoning out, snapped back to reality and looked towards me.

“Yeah, I was just wondering something,” She answered.

“What were you wondering about?” Aurora asked with a curious look.

“Well, if a liar who always tells lies tells you that they are lying, are they lying or are they telling the truth?” Nishimoya asked seriously.

Tristan, who was silently reading a book, looked up, and frowned.

“Are you both demented?” He asked.

Aurora and Nishimoya made confused expressions while I grinned.

For the next few minutes, Aurora, Nishimoya and I talked about a few different things.

However, only one of them particularly intrigued me.

“I really don’t get how people struggle so much with grades and stuff,” Nishimoya said as she casually checked her phone.

That statement caused me to raise my eyebrow slightly.

‘How could that possibly be confusing to her?’

I could also tell Nishimoya was pretty uncomfortable with the statement too.

“What? What do you mean?” I questioned.

“What I mean is that if you’re struggling with your grades, can’t you just buy a tutor?” Aurora answered.

For a few moments, I just stared at her.

Then, I remembered how to speak.

“Are you an idiot? Not all people have that kind of money,” I replied.

Aurora blinked.

And then she blinked again.

“Oh yeah! You’re right, my bad,” Aurora said with a look of realization.

Even with her new understanding, my confused look stayed for a few moments.

‘I guess I can’t blame her. It’s not like she gets a lot of chances to learn about average people with her being in this kind of school.’

My expression turned deadpan.

‘Yeah no, I don’t care. That’s still a dumb assumption.’

A bit after that, school day began.

Since it was Friday, I had physical education for my first period.

I was feeling pretty energetic that day so I had a lot of fun.

Although my classmates, on the other hand, didn’t feel the same.

For my next period I had science which was just alright.

I paid attention and gave it my all, but having no one to talk to really sucked.

In art, I honestly was a bit less attentive.

You can’t blame though, I was way too energetic that day to listen to our teacher ramble about Vincent Van Gogh.

Especially because that particular lesson was a mini unit so I knew it wasn’t a big part of my grade.

In other words, I didn’t have to give it my all.

So I ended up half listening, half doodling  on myself with a sharpie for most of the period.

Don’t worry, I still paid attention. 

I just paid attention while drawing a funny lil bone man on my arm.

Fortunately, my next period was Mathematics and Aurora was in my class.

“You look like you’re struggling, need some help?” I asked mockingly as I poked Aurora’s shoulder.

“Shut it,” she said, staring at her paper in frustration.

I laughed and began to answer some of the questions on my own work sheet.

That went on for a few moments before Aurora asked me something.

“Hey Elliot,” she said before looking at me.

“What’s up?” I replied.

“Have you ever had a girlfriend before?” She asked.

I thought for a moment and shook my head.

“Only the dumb ones from elementary. Why?” I answered.

“I was curious. Since you have such a terrible personality, I figured no one would wanna date you,” Aurora said with a mocking smile.

My eyebrow twitched.

“Shut it, You’re so dumb that if I replaced your brain with a soda can, you’d somehow be smarter than you are right now. ”

Aurora frowned.

“I hate you so much,” she said.

“Oh no! I totally care so much! How could I ever recover from this?” I responded dramatically.

Her frown deepened even more after that.

For the rest of the period, Aurora and I joked around in that manner while we worked.

And finally, it was lunch time.

“Hey guys,” Aurora said as she sat down next to me.

For the first time in a while, Aurora had decided to sit down with us during lunch.

The others didn’t react much, but I was pretty confused.

‘Did her other friends not come today or something? Eh, it’s not any of my business anyway.’

As Aurora and I began to eat and talk with each other, Soriel came rushing to our table.

“Oh you’re late, what happened?” I asked, taking a bite out of my chicken sandwich.

“Sorry, I had to finish some work in Ms. Marvel’s class,” she answered as she sat down.

“But that’s not important right now. You see, I have a hypothetical scenario that I’ve been meaning to talk to you guys about.”

In response to Soriel’s words, I tilt my head in confusion.

“What scenario?” I inquired.

Nishimoya and Aurora adjusted their postures to pay attention to Soriel while Tristan looked up slightly from his book.

“So let’s say there’s a button. And if you press it your family gets 10 million dollars. But, if you do, you’ll lose your life on the spot. Would you press it?” Soriel asked.

‘What an easy question.’

I didn’t have any particular ideas in mind for what Soriel was going to ask, but I expected it to be a more challenging dilemma.

Her question was anything but that.

“I’d obviously press the button,” I answered calmly.

Soriel gave me a surprised look.

“Really? Why?” She asked.

“Well, in short, I’m not worth 10 million. I make way too many mistakes and cause way too many problems to be worth that much. 10 million dollars would be much more valuable and useful to them,” I explained.

Even with my explanation, Soriel seemed to be displeased with my answer.

“I agree with Elliot. I think my parents would be much happier with 10 million dollars instead of me,” Nishimoya added.

“Huh? What about you, Aurora?” Soriel replied.

Aurora thought for a moment before shaking her head.

“Definitely not. My parents love me way too much. Plus, we already have plenty of money, it’s not like we’re obsessed with getting more,” Aurora answered.

Soriel sighed in relief.

‘Makes sense, I didn’t really expect anything different from her.’

Despite me understanding her answer, I couldn’t let the chance to annoy Aurora pass.

“I’m not sure why they love you so much though. After all, you’re—mmph!” I tried to say before feeling my mouth being covered.

It turned out Aurora had reached over and covered my mouth with her palm.

She was extremely close, our faces only inches away from each other.

I wasn’t sure what to do and for a moment, I kind of just stared into her emerald eyes.

Fortunately, Aurora separated herself from me before it got awkward.

“Hey Tristan, what would you do?” I asked Tristan in an attempt to ignore what just happened.

Tristan, who was reading his book like usual, looked up for a moment.

“It doesn’t really matter either way,” He responded before going back to reading.

Soriel made a very confused and concerned expression.

“I’m surprised you guys answered like that. I expected all of you to not press the button like I would in that situation. Don’t you guys think you’re important to your families?” Soriel said.

“Yeah of course. But like, money,” I responded.

My statement caused Soriel to tilt her head in confusion and Aurora to shake her head in disappointment.

For the rest of lunch, we kept having these types of conversations.

But, lunch eventually ended and we all had to go to our classes once again.

For my last 3 periods, I had English, Coding and Social studies, all of which sucked.

No, that’s a lie, coding didn’t suck.

It was just confusing.

And in the other two classes, even though I wasn’t doing a presentation in either of them, the lessons that day were very difficult.

Maybe I shouldn’t have expected anything easier considering how rigorous the school’s academics was, but it was still a pain.

Despite how my classes were, I still managed to end the school day on a semi good mood.

That’s why when I got a text from Aurora to meet her outside of school, I agreed.

“Alright, I’m here, what’s up?” I asked as I approached Aurora.

She was sitting on a bench outside the school building and there was some extra space for me.

So I sat down.

When I did, I could see an odd expression on Aurora’s face.

Not quite serious but not a playful one either.

‘Is she okay?’ 

“I just wanted to talk to you about something,” Aurora replied as she looked at traffic on the street in front of us.

“About what?” I asked.

“About the fact that I like you,” Aurora said, turning her face to look at mine.

“So will you be my boyfriend?” She asked.

‘What?!’