Malicious Intent

~???'s Perspective~

Breaktime. I was staring blankly at my phone, listening in on my friends' chatter.

"Oh my gosh, did you guys pass by Reina in the courtyard this morning?" Hana whispered, leaning across her desk with her chin in her hands. "She was just standing by the fountain, reading. Even in our standard uniform, she looks like a model.”

“I know, right?" Yui said, lowering her phone, “She didn’t even look up when Tatsuya Asano, the soccer club’s president, tried to talk to her. That cold demeanor of hers... It honestly gave me chills.”

“Well, it's not just her looks," Hana sighed, tapping her pen against her notebook. “I heard that she has never even dropped down from her top spot. Beauty and brains—no wonder all the guys admire her.”

“I know, right? It’s like perfection is in her DNA!” 

There they go again... talking about the academy's ice princess

I hate her. I hate everything about her.

Reina Kujo. That name has always haunted me, ever since I was a child. Her name was always brought up at almost every single family dinner, to the point where I just locked myself in my room to avoid being scrutinized.

“Why can’t you get perfect marks like Reina?”“

"Look at how gracefully Reina carries herself.”

“The Kujo family must be so proud.”

No matter how hard I study, no matter how hard I try to improve myself just to be within their expectations... Everything, every single achievement, gets instantly overshadowed by her.

They aren't concerned about the effort I put in, the countless late nights I’ve endured. All they care about is whether or not I’ve beaten Reina.

And spoiler alert, I haven't beaten her in anything, not even once.

Even in the most minute things, she always steals the spotlight. How does she get all the attention?

Sure, she's beautiful, but she has the worst possible personality, quiet, unbothered, and entirely unapproachable. Who likes that? If I acted that detached, people would call me snobbish or an attention-seeker. But when Reina does it? Suddenly it’s a "mysterious, alluring charm."

It makes absolutely no sense.

I put so much damn work into being appealing. I've been playing this outgoing, goody-two-shoes character just so people will like me. Yet, somehow, everyone still admires her. Each time I compare myself to her, and it just drives me insane.

"Ugh!!!"

"Oi! Is anyone in there?" Yui’s voice suddenly cut through my thoughts, followed by a sharp rap on my desk. "The bell rang five minutes ago, and you're still blankly staring at your book."

I looked up, forcing the heavy lump of resentment in my throat. "Oh... uhh, I didn't notice..."

"Hana was talking about checking out that trending boba shop at the mall," she said, packing her lip gloss into her bag as the classroom slowly emptied to the hallways outside. "Are you coming?"

I slipped my phone into my pocket and stood up, forcing a smile. "Yeah... I could use a distraction." I said, my voice sweet and flawlessly light. "I've recentlybeen stressed out thinking about the upcoming exams."

"Oh, forget about studying for just one afternoon!" Yui laughed, linking her arm through mine as we walked out of the building. "We need to celebrate surviving another week first."

We hit the mall right after that, flying through the shops of trendy clothes and accessories. It honestly felt like a drag, it’s almost mid-terms for crying out loud; I should be studying, instead of wasting my time to look at clothes with these so called friends.

A while later, they finally decided to hit up the boba shop, which by now was completely packed with students from our academy and other nearby schools.

Great, as if wasting two hours in this dump wasn’t bad enough; now we’ll have to wait for at least thirty minutes just to drink overpriced sugar water...

"There are so many flavors!" Hana said, gawking at the poster on the window. “I’ll have a mango green tea with double coconut jelly."

“And I’ll have brown sugar milk tea. What about you?" Yui said, turning to my direction.

“I haven’t decided yet... Why don’t you girls go on ahead and find us a table? I’ll think of what I want while waiting in line," I said, already walking away.

Ugh, finally got away from them. I’d rather stand in a boring line for half an hour than have to tolerate listening to another second of their shallow conversations.

After what felt like an eternity there was only one person left in front of me before the cashier. That’s when I spotted something, right at the edge of my peripheral vision. 

It was a promotional gig for the boba shop, something about couples getting 50% off if they agreed to take a picture for their “Sweetsnap” wall. But somewhere in between the seas of photos, a familiar face caught my eye...

Leaning closer, my jaw dropped.

Is that... Reina Kujo?

The heir of a massive conglomerate, like the actual ice princess herself? Despite her notoriety for being a straight-faced, hard-to-approach person, she looked so... different in the photo.

She was wearing the same uniform as me, and I could see the slight shine of her silk hair ribbon on the back of her head. But what shocked me the most was her flustered face while leaning dangerously close to a guy in the picture.

From the looks of things, he does seem like he goes to the academy, though I couldn’t recognize him; he wasn’t in any of the parties that I attended. And judging by his looks, it doesn’t look like he belongs to any of the prominent families in our social circles, nor was he part of the popular crowd. He was just... some random...

Reina’s family could probably buy her the whole franchise if she so desired, so why is the academy princess wasting her time clinging to a complete nobody?

A slow, vicious thrill began to hum right beneath my skin. The pristine Ice Queen, who wouldn't even deign to look at the rest of us, was fooling around with an absolute zero in a public mall just to save on a couple's discount.

"Can I take your order, Miss?"

The cashier's voice snapped me out of my trance. I blinked, quickly pulling myself back from the wall and smoothing my expression into its usual flawless, sweet demeanor as I stepped up to the counter.

"Oh, yes! Sorry about that," I said, offering a bright, apologetic smile. "A mango green tea with double coconut jelly, a brown sugar milk tea, and a... large jasmine milk tea, please."

As the cashier rung up the total, I couldn't resist. I tapped my chin, leaning in slightly with a warm, casually curious expression. "By the way, I was just looking at your promotional wall. That girl in the bottom corner looks exactly like someone from my class. Did you happen to get the names of the couple in that picture?"

The cashier glanced over at the board, a knowing smile warming her face. "Oh, them! Yeah, the guy ordered for both of them. I think his name was Kaito? The girl seemed pretty flustered the whole time; it was honestly really cute."

Kaito. So that was the nobody's name.

"How sweet," I chimed, pulling of to the side to wait for our drinks, casually pulling out my phone. pretending to check my hair in the reflection of the screen while angling the camera perfectly. But I was actually taking a sneaky high-resolution photo of the Polaroid.

Perfect.

Just as I lowered my phone, an employee brought out a tray with our drinks and placed them on the counter. "Here are your drinks, Miss!"

"Thank you so much!" I grabbed the tray and walked over to the table where Hana and  Yui were already waving at me.

"What took you so long?" Hana asked, happily snatching her brown sugar milk tea.

"Oh, just a bit of a bottleneck at the counter," I lied smoothly, sliding into the vinyl booth.

As they went right back to chatting about trendy boutiques and makeup tutorials, I sat quietly, sipping my jasmine tea. Underneath the table, I opened my phone screen and went straight towards the gallery app. Zooming into the guy’s face, my brows knitted slightly.

Kaito, huh? just what did you do to make the ice princess look so... normal?

The more that I stared at the screen, the more my mind wondered. The conversation between Hana and Yui blurred into the background. Even the thought of studying for the midterms was replaced by the intoxicating rush of ideas on what to do with the photo.

After five minutes of deep thought, I abruptly stood up, grabbing my purse. "Oh, I’m so sorry, girls; something just came up," I said, putting on a perfectly rehearsed expression of sudden panic. "My mom just texted me. I completely forgot that I have a family obligation. I have to go ASAP!"

"Wait, really? Right now?" Yui whined, but I was already throwing on my jacket.

“Yes, I'm so sorry! Love you guys; see you Monday!"

The moment I stepped into my house, I sprinted past my mother and flew up the stairs straight to my room, slamming the door shut. I didn’t bother changing out my uniform before booting up my laptop and going to the academy’s student information portal.

My fingers flew across the keyboard as I logged into the student directory and typed the name into the search bar: Kaito.

Only a few results popped up, but it didn't take long to find the matching face.

Kaito Akizuki. Rank 2. Receiver of the Star Crest Scholarship.

A brilliant nobody, no special surname, no family legacy. He was basically a charity student who was given admission into this academy just because he could solve equations faster than the rest of us.

I leaned back in my leather chair, a slow, malicious grin spreading across my face as I pulled up the photo on my phone again.

My parents wanted me to emulate Reina so badly. They constantly threw her perfection in my face, all they think about is how Reina was such a perfect person compared to me...

Then I wonder how they will feel when their precious golden girl is dragged straight down into the mud with a commoner.

This is the perfect opportunity to completely destroy her pristine reputation. A single scandalous photo spread across the academy; people like Hana and Yui would gobble it all up and spread it like a disease. It would grow, distort, and poison her perfect little world from the inside out until no one could look at her the same way again.

I leaned forward, the glow of the screen reflecting in my eyes as I opened a burner account on the academy's forum. By Monday morning, I would ensure the entire campus was talking.

Let's see how long that crown stays on your head, Princess.