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

Chapter 28: Total Misery

1102 words, 5 minutes

Remember that goal Akane set where she didn't want to score anything lower than 90%? 

Take a wild guess as to how much her average tanked since she received the news about her mother.

82%? 79%? Maybe even 70% on the dot?

Or how about 68%?

At this rate, she was teetering on the edge of failing university in general, but the news about her mother's death devastated her so badly that she spent almost no time at home studying and did poorly on tests covering new material as a result.

Instead, she spent all that time crying and mourning.

"WHY—?!" she kept yelling in her bedroom, sobbing into her pillow and squeezing it so hard her knuckles went white.

She wasn't the kind of person that would dramatically break vases and glassware, though. Once she was told something like this, she would get angry at first and then feel helpless later.

And if anyone—even her friends—tried to console her, she would get defensive.

"Akane... I'm so sorry..." mumbled Chen Guo when Akane told her. Akane had begrudgingly gone to the library with them the next day—Tuesday January 7th—and internally dreaded her trade internship tomorrow.

"This is serious... you should let your professors know," advised Tang Rou, who had placed her hand on Akane's arm. "We'll be here to support you."

"It's fine." Akane's meek voice scared them because it lacked livelihood. Then she had gathered her backpack and simply left, declaring she needed space.

She wasn't going to study in there anyway, so she might as well not distract them.

And later on, as she prioritized mourning over her studies, her grades had dropped to 68% by Tuesday February 11th. She never understood how that was possible; for her to study so hard and get good grades only to raise her average a little, but the moment she stopped, it started dropping faster than a boulder rolling down a steep hill.

She didn't even feel like going to have fun at the Spring Festival her friends told her about for goodness sake, and it was the next day. Another amusing opportunity missed.

Her productivity at work lowered bit by bit. It served as a good distraction until she arrived home, remembered the reality and feared returning to face the world the next day.

She ignored their texts, both in DMs and the group chat. Josaku picked up on her silence long ago and tried to reach out to her via texts and phone calls, but Akane stopped looking at them once the truth about her life settled in; she was now a mess.

Everything went downhill for her.