ATTRACTION WARS

Chapter One

ATTRACTION WARS

© JunoDelusion, 2014

CHAPTER ONE

Sound of running feet -- no, actually it's the sound of shoes making contact with the floor because of friction -- can be heard all throughout the school hallway. It’s always like this in Himedacca Academy -- at the same place and at the same time of the school year. It’s a Monday, and it’s still early in the morning, and yet a lot of students are already at school to witness the big announcement. With that, they go dashing unto the bulletin board, forming a big crowd of students that are desperate to read what’s written there.

Well, what is this all about, anyway?

Every year in Himedacca Academy, the school conducts a voting poll about the most famous students in the whole campus. This survey is conducted just a month after the school year starts, testing how famous these students really are.

The voting is compulsory. All students are required to vote. If one does not vote, his or her head is put unto a guillotine and cut off. Well, not really. The voting takes almost a whole day; therefore the school declares no classes for this, just like the election of Student Council officers. It’s really that important. The student correspondents are free to answer anyone -- no choices, this is not NAT.

(A.N.: For those asking what NAT is, that’s National Achievement Test, a national yearly test conducted in all schools throughout the Philippines.)

For the past thirty years of Himedacca Academy’s existence in the Philippines, it’s still the same type of results every year. Four to six cute girls are always chosen in the results. There has been never in the history of HA to have male students in the results. Well, there has been once, but he’s the only one along with four other girls. Never has it come that only male students are in the results. I guess the population of heartthrobs, hunks, and hot guys -- OUR population -- has been decreasing then.

Don't react; I'll cut your head on the guillotine if you will.

These cute girls are so iconic that everyone loves them. Boys have a crush on them -- maybe one of them, two of them, three of them, or all of them. Seeing them even for a slight second turn their faces into apples. Some even save their money just to buy their limited edition (yes, limited edition, because there is only one copy of each) pictures of girls doing their own stuff. They buy these from one student photographer of the school. Others secretly put love letters in their lockers. (Stupid girls, don’t you lock your lockers?)

Sometimes, some of these male students do personal confessions. Once, there is this one brave guy who confessed to a previously-elected-in-the-most-famous-list girl.

"Ahh, I'm here to give you--"

Before he could even put a period on his sentence, the girl has already turned around and walked away, leaving the guy holding his confession letter mid-air. He got silent. And sad. And hopeless. And he felt a sudden urge to tie a rope on the ceiling, stand on top of a chair below the rope, and wrap his neck with the above-tied rope.