The Elusive Prince

Chapter 41: I Just Said That It Was A Friendly Day-out!

Merideth

I gaped at Lia who was cackling and almost had enough and threw her the bow itself.

"For the nth time, it was not a date." I almost fumed but since I had an image to maintain didn't. A princess never loses her composure in the midst of chaos after all.

"Oh come on, you really think I would believe that? Or anyone for that matter? Every single student who saw that post, and mind you I think almost everyone did, will say that you are indeed dating so just say that you did, nobody is going to judge you." her tone suddenly got gentle, as if assuring me and it would've been assuring if only I wasn't about to throw hands.

"And I'm telling you we didn't. It was a friendly day out, nothing more nothing less." I bit back and drew another arrow, directing the anger that I'm trying to suppress into that one shot.

"Hmmm...I don't know if I'll believe that or not. If someone exposed me dating someone I would be pissed too." she said and I threw her a disbelieving look. Seriously, out of anything that she can take from my reaction, she chose that?

"Don't worry Merideth, I'm sure nobody will bother you both too much about it. Other than the fact that you will probably hear whispering everywhere but I'm sure you're used to all that anyway." she said with sympathy before going back to practicing.

I am so close to losing it. It was already hard enough to keep my composure earlier with Ava and the others but coming from someone like Lia, who didn't even know how Cassian and I act in class is testing my limits.

Taking a deep breath to calm myself down, I came to the conclusion that no matter what I say, Lia is probably going to take it differently (because she likes drama and is a romatist) so instead of bickering with her about the non-existent date, I just chose to keep silent and went on with my practice.

Lia seemed to take my silence as resignation from what she said and when we finished with our practice she proceeded to pat me in the back and wished me happiness to my new found non-existent relationship before exiting the range and telling me she would text me later about whether or not she's going to join us for lunch tomorrow. She also added about introducing her again to my presumed boyfriend when we have a chance. I didn't reply because I know that if I do, I would just argue with her so I'll have her believe what she wants that way I'm not going to stress too much about it.

Deciding that I had enough for today, I started walking to the library, where hopefully I find peace and solitude, enough for me to collect my raging emotions and thoughts. I went in there with the determination that could rival a straight A student in their final exams. Sure there were a couple of hushed whispers following me on my way there but I decided that I did not hear it and headed straight to my favorite spot in the library.

It was near the window and it was located in the furthest corner of the library. It was one of the few places where I relax most of the time, so with the book that Yuma recommended me that the library thankfully has available, I sat there, plugged my earphones in to mute out the ambient sounds as I begin to embark on the journey of reading.

Thankfully, like any other time when I'm reading, I got invested with reading that I forgot about everything except for what the book wants me to see. Immersing myself to the story, I let myself relax (for the first time since lunch) and forget about my surrounding for a while and instead found myself deep into the book. 

Time went by and before I knew it, my watch notified me that it was almost time for dinner. Turning the beeping watch off, I took one of my earphones out and just stared outside where the skies were sporting a wonderful hue of orange and yellow, indicating the sun setting down, hiding itself.

Sighing, I looked at my phone (that I turned on silent mode, partly because I don't want to hear anything from anyone) and saw the barrage of messages and notifications from my classmates and friends asking me where I disappeared to. Deciding to ignore that for a while, I rest my chin on my hand and continued staring at the sunset, waiting for the right time to head back down to grab dinner.

The orange and yellow sky was starting to go dark as the moon makes it presence known, replacing the bright sun with its pale and mysterious beauty. It was breathtakingly beautiful that I almost wished time would stop right at this moment but the world was cruel and I had to face it no matter how much I don't want to.

Sighing once again, I decided that I had enough time left to check the school forum, or otherwise known as the source of the impending headache that I was currently experiencing.

The school forum, which was named Eyerini (I know very clever), was run by the school's paper and journalism club. They were the one's responsible for taking care of what goes on in there and also the best place to catch juicy gossip to feed the drama hungry high-school students of Irini Alliance. Personally, I don't check it often because I see no point in knowing who the latest basketball captain was dating or who was the person crying in the restroom at 3 in the morning. I have an account, because Reince said everybody should have one, but don't use it often. Only using it to post random updates but mostly about a certain contest or what this year's school play would be.

Overall, I don't like going to it but I know there were constant updates and posts about us on there because afterall, we were the "Elite Class". It was only natural to have so and it never bothered me before but now I really want to talk to whoever posted about this in the first place.

Logging in, I didn't even have to scroll down to see the thread Sumire was talking about earlier for it was on the top part of the page, which means that it was a hot topic. I couldn't help but let out a curse under my breath when I saw that indeed almost everyone has seen this post, basing on the number of upvotes on it.

Clicking the thread and seeing the abundance of replies and reposts on it, I was ready to barge into the journalism club and ask them to take this down, even though I know there would be no point in doing so anyway since everyone probably knows and has seen it by now, but still.

The account was anonymous however as most accounts in here, so I don't know who started this but that doesn't mean I won't find them. Okay, enough with the threats that I won't be able to do anyway because of my image, I decided to scroll under the thread again. I saw a few of the replies on here before when Hailey let me see but seeing this the whole thing was on a whole other level.

There was definitely more replies and reposts of the thread from before and it ranges from people grieving over the fact that we were alledgedly dating and cooing because of the cuteness and a barage of congratulations and stuff. Sighing again, I put my phone down and looked out the sky again before ultimately deciding that I should probably address the whole situation.

I was in the middle of composing a post addressing it, when I suddenly stopped when I came into realization that I should probably talk to Cassian about this first. Sure the post meant nothing and won't affect us (except for the fact that we would be followed by whispering people everywhere) but I should probably clear up everything with him first right? I mean it was only natural that I do so because he was the other person in this narrative and I would probably need his opinion before I issue a statement, yeah right I should probably do that.

Standing up with that resolve (cough excuse cough), I started heading into the mess hall and since I purposefully took my time in the library, there were barely any person in the hallways, which I'm thankful for, but that doesn't mean that I won't be facing the rest of the student body in the mess hall, so psyching myself up, I took a deep breath and entered the crowded mess hall and headed straight into the garden where Hailey told me they were at.

Ignoring the sudden silence and the eyes following me, I walked calmly into the table where the rest of my classmates where at. I kept a straight all throughout and sat down beside Hailey who was looking at me warily and I just gave her a small innocent smile like I wasn't being gossiped by the whole student body right now.

"What's with the stare? Did you guys really miss me? Aww...I was gone for a whole afternoon and you already want to commit my face into your memories? I'm touched." I said innocently and they almost looked dumbfounded but quickly regained their composure and went back to normal.

"Nothing Your Highness, they're just acting weird again. Here I ordered for you." Hailey slid me a plate of dinner and I took it gratefully and went on to eating, acting nonchalant and not minding the knowing looks thrown my way.

Half-way through our dinner, they settled into mindless chatter and acted like they weren't about to burst from questions earlier. Seeing as I was too focused on my meal rather than the conversation around me, I finished it faster than everyone else on the table. My eyes wandered around the crowded table and unknowingly my eyes landed on Cassian's who was apparently looking at me. I couldn't decipher what the emotion on his eyes were so I continued on staring and didn't notice the table fall into silence.

We only noticed when Levine suddenly cleared his throat and we both snapped out of our staring contest and looked around the table only to be greeted by the leers of our classmates.

"So...anything you wanna share the both of you?" Luna dragged on with a small wiggle of her eyebrows for emphasis.

"What exactly do you want to hear from me?" I said while dropping the fork I was using to play with the piece of cabbage left on my plate, shoving my plate and gave them a pointed look which would've been usually intimidating but they were like hungry hyenas who just found meat so no amount of intimidation can faze them.

"I'm pretty sure you know what we're talking about Mori~~~" Kellen sing-songed which made some of them suppress a laugh.

"Stop making such a big fuss about it. I said this before and I'll say it again. It wasn't what you think it was and you should know better by now." I huffed, feeling the annoyance creeping back in.

"Oh come on Mori, there's nothing wrong with admitting it." Spie said and I narrowed my eyes at them in warning, feeling my patience running thin. The others were clearly too focused on making me spit the truth that they wanted to hear that they didn't notice my sudden shift in emotion. Someone did though so before I could finally snap, he stepped in.

"That's enough from you guys. What we did was nothing more than a friendly day out so please stop coming up wtih assumptions that you believe are true." Cassian's usually warm tone was gone and was replaced with a serious grave voice which made everyone on our table, who was so focused on me that they forgot about the other party, turn to him in surprise.

He suddenly stood up from where he was seated in and went for my direction and pulled me up, which took me by surprise not gonna lie, and tugged me off my seat properly.

"Besides, if we ever did anything other than friendly date, we would talk about it to you guys. So please in the future, stop trying to forcibly corner us to admit an information that you believe in without actually listening to our side and knowing the truth because you're just aggravating the situation. Now if you'll excuse us, we're going to breath some fresh air and I hope you reflect for now." leaving the others who were either gaping in surprise at Cassian's sudden outburst or just plain looking at us with eyes as wide as a saucer, he tugged me out the garden, ignoring the stares that followed us.