※ The contents of this work are entirely fictional and have no relation to any real history, places, people, events, or organizations.
Episode 1
When I first saw her, I couldn’t help but wonder why her name was Leda Swan. She seemed like someone born to do ballet, and her name was even ‘Leda Swan.’
I don’t have the hobby of listening to gossip, nor do I have the talent for catching whispers that secretly circulate among the kids at school, but I know this much: most of the guys who attend Moonbeam High, myself included, worship Leda.
Leda is nice to everyone, but in the end, birds of a feather flock together. Always by her side is Liam Blake, who is the starting quarterback of our school’s pride, the football team, and the undisputed alpha male. With such an incredible boyfriend, there’s no way other guys would catch her eye.
The reactions of kids at our school toward the football team ‘Rangers’ are split in two: admiration or criticism. There are indifferent kids too, but eventually, they’ll form an opinion. The Rangers guys won’t be satisfied unless they’re at the center of attention, so there’s no way they’ll leave alone kids who have no opinion about them.
I think most of the Rangers guys are shitheads, but Liam Blake is a bit different. Regrettably, he’s not a bad guy except for the fact that he’s Leda’s boyfriend. Well, I don’t actually know that much about him.
“…Can’t we go now?”
A party where everyone’s having fun except me. I’d been waiting patiently until my friend—Sophia, my childhood friend who lives next door—said she wanted to go home, but now I’ve reached my limit.
“If you’re really so bored you can’t stand it, go home alone.”
Sophia, who had been grooving to the music flowing from the speakers by the pool, said exasperatedly.
“It’s already 11 o’clock. We agreed to leave by 10, but you’re breaking our promise. If I come home alone without you, your parents will come after me and ask where you are…”
“If you know that, stop whining, will you? You know I don’t get chances to be this free very often.”
Sophia’s parents are strict. Her curfew is as early as 9 PM, so her attending a private party like this would be unthinkable. Today, she got permission on the condition that I would go with her and watch her every move, but if Sophia had said she wanted to go to the party alone, it would have been out of the question.
“Hey, Liv. Look, the loser couple over there is fighting.”
While Sophia and I were bickering over when we’d leave, Aiden—the Rangers’ backup quarterback and the biggest troublemaker on the team—showed up with his girlfriend Olivia in tow and started picking a fight. Olivia burst into excessive laughter at the trashy joke, getting on my nerves, but I tried to ignore the two of them and finish coordinating with Sophia. However, Sophia, who had a grudge against that couple from before, apparently couldn’t let this behavior slide.
“Stop it, you idiots. Why are you picking on us when we’re just minding our own business?”
“Don’t you know? When trash like you hangs around here, it brings down the quality of the party.”
Olivia poked Sophia’s forehead with her index finger, looking down at her since Sophia was much shorter.
“Look at you all dressed up. Hilarious. What, you think if you do this, Liam Blake will give you a second glance?”
A few weeks ago, Olivia committed the atrocity of secretly stealing Sophia’s diary and reading it aloud in the cafeteria during lunch. The diary contained content about Sophia liking Liam, and proud Sophia endured whatever humiliation Olivia’s gang dished out to her face. When it was all over and we were alone together, I can still clearly see how she cried pitifully, shedding the tears she’d been holding back.
How terrible is the fact that a person can do such vicious things to someone they haven’t even made an enemy of? On the day of the incident, I went to Olivia and demanded she apologize to Sophia, but Olivia only used her brutish, strong boyfriend Aiden as a shield.
That day’s incident was resolved by Leda. She pointed out what Olivia had done wrong and demanded she apologize to Sophia. Olivia, who had consistently ignored my demands, immediately complied when Leda demanded the same thing.
“Don’t be like that. Your makeup’s all smudged. Let me fix it for you.”
Under the pretext of fixing her makeup, Olivia smiled cunningly and forcibly grabbed Sophia’s arm. Sophia desperately refused.
“No! You’re just trying to ruin my face!”
“Stop it, Olivia. We were about to leave anyway.”
I tried to stop Olivia and hurriedly leave with Sophia.
“No! Just leave us alone, we’ll hang out by ourselves!”
But Sophia still didn’t seem to have any intention of leaving. Did she want to see Liam so badly that she’d put up with Olivia being annoying? After all, the reason she came to this party in the first place was to see Liam. But Liam would want to be cozily alone with Leda.
“…If you’re going to keep making a scene like that, why don’t you just leave?”
As the noise around us grew louder, Leda—the homeowner and party host—came over with her arms crossed and asked. Her eyes were flashing toward Olivia. Olivia, who had been so cocky, couldn’t move at Leda’s words and just looked around nervously, and even Aiden quietly read the room.
“Sorry, Leda. I…”
“I’m in a bad mood today, okay? So if you’re just planning to go around bullying innocent kids like this, I’d appreciate it if you’d just leave.”
At Leda’s words, Olivia practically buried herself in the large Aiden’s arms and disappeared, and Leda immediately apologized to us.
“Sorry. Not fun, is it? This party—I regret throwing it myself.”
Leda said desolately, looking at the pool cluttered with various things.
“No. Thank you. Leda, we would’ve been in trouble without you.”
When Sophia expressed her gratitude, Leda responded with a goddess-like smile. Then she listed the things she’d prepared for today’s party and asked if we’d tried them all.
“I made a no-boys zone on the second floor—it’s my room. At least it’s comfortable there. What do you say, want to check it out?”
Leda asked, looking at Sophia. Sophia hesitated for a moment, then accepted Leda’s offer.
“Um, sorry to your partner though.”
Leda, who had been talking with Sophia, looked at me and said playfully. I pulled myself together from feeling dizzy and barely managed to say it was okay, then took a breath while looking at the pool full of water.
…Idiot.
When I turned my gaze away from the pool, Leda was already heading indoors with Sophia. Now there’s no Sophia to whine about going home. Still, she got to have a conversation with Leda, so was there some gain? But Leda’s boyfriend is Liam.
Olivia and Aiden are annoying, but there’s some validity to them calling me a loser. Just look at my reflection in this pool water. Even though I was dragged here by Sophia’s nagging, I absolutely don’t look like someone who came to a party. Look at these raggedy clothes. When I first got here, one of the Rangers shitheads even sarcastically said, “Nice outfit.” The guys around him laughed their heads off.
“Hey.”
While I was pacing around the pool with my hands clasped behind my back, a relaxed voice clearly came from behind me. I lifted my head toward where the voice came from, and there stood Liam Blake looking at me.
“…Hey.”
“I came to talk. Why, we both got ditched by our girlfriends, didn’t we?”
Liam said matter-of-factly, looking at where Leda had disappeared.
“Don’t you have plenty of other people to talk to besides me?”
I asked Liam in a deflated voice. I don’t know how many Rangers guys and their followers I saw on the way here.
“Seems like you don’t really want to talk with me? Cheick Rowan.”
Liam said, looking at me with a gaze that felt somewhat challenging.
My name is Cheick Rowan. I was born to Jamaican-American parents, and aside from being somewhat good at high jump, I have nothing particularly noteworthy about me.
“It’s not that I’m reluctant to talk because it’s you. It’s just… I’m not much of a talker.”
It’s true that Liam is an awkward conversation partner, but I really am not good at talking. I’m not very sociable either, so even at school, I only hang out closely with Sophia and Virgil.
“You won the NCHSAA track and field competition last year, right? You even set a new record.”
“You know about that?”
I thought only the coach and I knew about that now, except maybe at the time of the victory.
“You were interviewed in the newspaper and the news was plastered all over the bulletin board, how could I not know? I even saw it in person at the stadium. It was impressive.”
Liam praised me, then pulled out an energy drink from an icebox packed full of them. Then he held out a drink and asked if I wanted one. I shook my head at him, and he laughed lightly and drank some.
“…I should’ve watched the football game last year too.”
I said to Liam as he was drinking. It was just a polite comment.
“Haha.”
“Congrats on your team winning the championship too. Sorry it’s so late.”
I don’t care about football and don’t know anything about it, but Liam is a good quarterback. Most of the Rangers guys are idiots with shit for brains, but how could they have made it to the state championship without the excellent command of their quarterback?
“But is it okay? Your girlfriend, I mean. I’m not actually dating Sophia, you know. You know that. The person Sophia likes is…”
When I trailed off and glanced at him, Liam laughed a bit awkwardly.
“Even though that’s the case, your girlfriend left you and went off to hang out with her. Isn’t that weird?”
“Leda’s so cool like that. And well, um.”
Liam looked around slowly, then leaned toward me and lowered his voice significantly.
“Leda and I are actually just ‘pretending,’ you know.”
“Huh?”
“Only you know this. I’m telling you because you seem like you can keep your mouth shut, so keep it secret from the other kids.”
As Liam was asking me to keep it quiet, one of the Rangers guys appeared and took him away, glaring at me like I was an insect before walking off. Do I have to keep staying here being treated like this?
Sophia, who had gone off to hang out with Leda, appeared much later than expected, and I was finally able to take her home in my car well past midnight.
“…Don’t forget. Five sundae ice creams. Five. Got it?”
“I got it.”
“We’re both going to get scolded so badly when we get home. You and me both.”
“You’re seventeen years old and you’re scared of that?”
When I grumbled, Sophia glared and asked.
“It’s not that I’m scared. I wouldn’t mind getting scolded if the party had been fun. I had to stand stupidly in a corner of the pool just waiting for you to come. All I did there was awkwardly exchange a few words with Liam Blake.”
“…You talked with Liam Blake?”
Sophia was very curious about what conversation I had with Liam. I told her I’d just had a casual conversation with him, nothing special.
“Just a boring conversation between guys who got ditched.”
“Wait, it feels like you’re hiding something?”
“I’m not, so drop it.”
After dropping off the interrogating Sophia at her house, I parked my beat-up car that’s about to be scrapped in the garage and headed inside. In the living room, Mom was standing waiting for me with her arms crossed and a very angry face.
“What time did I tell you to be home by, even if you’re late?”
