[The King's Avatar] The Misconstrued Situation With An Overdue Explanation

Chapter 7: Realization Sucks

743 words, 3 minutes

Holy, if Akane knew this guy was gonna keep turning up, she wouldn't have told her friends to drop it a few days ago.

It was now Thursday September 25th, and during all those previous days, Akane had been riding to school while seeing the same stranger she had seen at the beginning of the week.

This day was no different.

He would also give her a quick flip every time he saw her, and being courteous, she would do the same, and they would ride along the road in silence. Now that she knew he was heading to the same destination as her, she didn't feel that sad when she saw him speed off.

Today, however, she decided to be a little bit cheeky.

Since this guy clearly noticed her and kept on giving her quick flips whenever he saw her, she decided to turn it up a notch by wearing shorts that revealed her smooth, slim legs.

She'd normally wear skinny jeans while riding and change into a dress if she wanted to when she had privacy in Chen Guo's and Tang Rou's dorm room, but there would be no need for that today.

She just wanted to see his reaction.

And she noticed he didn't zoom off right away like he did the days before. He lingered for a little while, and while she didn't get to look back right away, a quick and subtle glance through her helmet showed her that his head was angled towards her legs for a good moment.

And then he zoomed off.

Akane never considered doing this until she noticed he kept on riding along the same road as her and giving a sports bike wave, and she found that quite intriguing.

Maybe this year was going to be interesting after all.

~

When she got home from her classes and rehearsal today, though, it was during this ride home that Akane noticed the guy wasn't riding with her in the late afternoon. Normally she never gave it much thought because she'd come home tired from university or her internship.

He's probably doing something else. Work, study group, I dunno,  she thought.

That thought made her think about how she's an adult herself. It was so different, living far away from her parents, making her own decisions, buying her own groceries, paying her own bills and basically making her own rules.

As a child, she didn't have that much freedom because her parents expected her to get good grades. But she didn't resent them and felt happy when she remembered the times they would let her hang out with her friends after school if she aced a test.

She did her best to make them proud, and she supposed they trusted her enough to live more than 2 800 km away from them, separated by sea and responsibilities.

~

When she entered her suite, Akane headed to the living room and opened the curtains covering the large windows to reveal a view of the Jialing River in the distance, the many other buildings and roads mixed in with trees and such. She felt like truly seeing this view from the 8th floor and stepped out, the fresh air lightly caressing her face.

In China, students studied extremely hard. She was made aware of this since middle school. She's seen firsthand just how much students cram for their exams. They make plans before school, after school, during lunch and even overnight at a friend's place to study so that they ace their exams.

Hell, she did the same thing with her classmates.

It was like everyone was included and shared a common goal as a result, and came together to achieve that goal.

After seeing just how hard it was to learn Mandarin Chinese at home and here, Akane understood.

After seeing how the main method of studying was just memorization and regurgitation, Akane understood.

After dealing with the loads of homework she kept receiving in her first year of university, Akane understood.

What did she understand?

She understood that if she was going to live here, she needed to pass her classes with flying colors. She needed to keep working hard now and in the future. She needed to keep her standards in education as high as the residents of Chongqing did.

So how could she distract herself with some guy she simply had a chance of seeing on the road every morning?

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A/N:

I'm not liking my tone in these chapters so far.

But don't worry, as the author, I know exactly how this is gonna end.

Hope you guys are enjoying this so far!

—Kaio