["PLAY THE KING" IS ACT TWO OF THE "PLAY" SERIES. PLEASE READ "PLAY THE QUEEN" FIRST.]
It's been four months since Priam Torres, the once unpopular president of the Elysian University Student Council, assumed office. Thanks to his chief-of-staff Cas...
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CASTIEL
IF IT weren't for the Oplan First Lady exposé, Priam would have been only five points behind Alaric the Prick. If it weren't for that prick's cowardice to face our candidate in a heated debate, the gap would have been much narrower than now.
"We're only one week away from the elections, and Alaric is leading Priam by double digits," Avrille reminded us during our strategy meeting in the USC office. We were joined by our candidates around the conference table. "If we don't do anything soon, he will win the presidency by a landslide. Maaapektuhan din ang down ballot natin sa CSC. We can't let them dominate the LEXECOM again."
"Don't worry, Avi," I tried to assure her with my soothing voice, "we still have a trump card up our sleeves. It's not yet the end of the world for us."
"'Yan din ang sinabi mo tungkol sa debate," sumbat niya. "Look at what happened. Alaric declined the invitation, and Priam's numbers only moved by, what, one point?"
I was not happy with our candidate's placement in the latest presidential survey, but I was not as worried as the SALVo party chairperson. Maybe because I knew something that she did not know? I had not been fully transparent with her about my reelection plan—and I figured it's best to keep it that way—so she had no idea about the nuclear bomb at my disposal.
We were lucky that SALVo chose to retain Priam and Tabitha as their party's nominees. They knew that it was too late to change players. Even if they did, their hypothetical tandem would have not reached the same numbers as ours. Kahit paano'y nakatulong ang public confession ng First Couple para maplantsa ang isyu at maipaliwanag ang side namin. But we lost a number of supporters during that fiasco. Honesty had its cost.
Looking unbothered, Priam turned to me. "What's your plan, Cas?"
I steepled my fingers after resting my elbows on the table. "Alaric is almost at the top, which means there's no other way for him but down. Meanwhile, Priam can still catch up—"
"But fifteen points?" Tabitha scoffed, rolling her eyes. "That's a lot of catching up to do. Baka hanggang election day, naghahabol pa rin tayo."
"If we assume that two-thirds of the fifty-four percent voting for Alaric are hard voters, then we may be able to chip away the remaining one-third who are presumably soft voters," I explained as I did the math in my head. "All we have to do is sway them to our side."
"And how exactly do you intend to accomplish that mission?"
My phone buzzed. I checked the message notification, making me smirk as I read the sender's name. "Again, we still have a trump card up our sleeves. I have been saving it for this particular moment."
"Okay." Avrille held up both hands in surrender. "Tell us what your trump card is. Let's see if it's strong enough to make us win the election."
"I'm going to tell you, but not now and not here," I replied after typing my response to the message. "And I'm not going to tell just you. I'm going to tell everyone in the university."
