40 Don’t Drop The Ball 1 (1/2)
Aika arrived at the main competition venue and saw a huge range of contestants. There were some groups, some duos, and even more people who were obviously alone.
On top of that, there was a clear divide among the groups based on wealth and status. There were several clusters of people who were either sucking up to rich young heirs or staring at them in envy.
One group stood out among all the rest with even the other rich heirs clustering around it and fawning over them. When she got closer, she was able to recognize one of the people there as Emma and felt hatred bubble up inside her.
Seeing Emma brought up everything she had learned about from Aria and she wanted to walk up to her and slap her. How could someone's own sister act like that towards them?
Sighing, Aika shook her head and turned away from the clusters of people to make her way to the registration desk. When she got there, the man working at it was busy adjusting his hair and clothes to notice that she was there.
After nearly a minute of waiting, Aika got impatient and called out, ”Excuse me? I'm here to register for the Newpark Competition.”
The man behind the desk sighed and put away his mirror and spoke still without looking at her once. ”Obviously. What's your name and are you here as a group, duo, solo..?”
He was clearly beyond done with dealing with the dozens of contestants and looked like he was ready to just quit already. That being the case, Aika decided to make things easy for him and answer concisely. ”Aika. Solo.”
Obviously shocked, the man looked up and a small smile spread on his face. ”Well then, Aika, I like you. Everyone else, and I mean everyone, has tried sucking up to me to get some kind of special treatment I'm not even able to give. I'm Ezekiel and personally, you already have my vote to win.”
”Oh, thank you! I'm sorry everyone else is so annoying, they're probably just nervous though...” Aika returned his smile and waved goodbye before turning to leave.
After she left, Ezekiel marked down #100 with a check-mark on his sheet and stood up to finally leave the awful outside area. In the years it's been hosted, he's somehow always ended up with this awful task even though it's supposed to be randomly selected from Golden Star's staff.
Shortly after she left, an announcement rang out across the plaza and the doors at the front of the building all opened. ”Attention everyone, the selection stage of the competition is about to begin, please enter through the front doors and receive a number. Attempting to trade numbers or positions in line with other contestants will result in immediate disqualification.”