Second recess.

On the second recess, you excuse yourself from hanging out with the soccer stars, telling them you want to talk to Sophia to thank her for yesterday. Thankfully, you find her quickly. She’s in the library, sitting in front of a small table, completely focused on the notebook in front of her as she writes, her pen not stopping once.

“Sophia?” She’s startled and closes her notebook in one swift motion. She looks to her side to find you and sighs in relief.

“If it isn’t the man of the hour.” She smiles teasingly. “It seems that every way I go I’m hearing your name.”

You sigh. “That can’t be good. Can we talk for a bit?”

“Sure. Let’s go to one of the booths.” She says, standing from her chair and leading the way.

Okay, you’ve been in this school for some time now, but this is the first thing you hear about booths. Turns out the library has 20 booths for group studying located on the second and third floor. They’re sound-proof, but with window walls on the front.

You go inside booth 5, though it really doesn’t matter, since every other booth is empty as this time. They’re big enough for a group of 5-6 students and have a table, 6 chairs and a whiteboard inside.

Sophia takes a seat, crossing her arms and legs and motions you to do the same. You sit in front of her and start.

“I just wanted to thank you for yesterday. If it wasn’t for you, they would’ve kicked me out of here.” You thank her.

“Anything for the man who made me captain of the team.” She smiles teasingly, but she quickly sighs and gets rid of it. “Nah, I’m joking. My feelings on those three aside, I know many people who have been toyed with by them. Quite a few are actually from their same high school, even. I just don’t understand how they’ve been allowed to do it for so long. It’s not like they’re being subtle.”

“Tell me about it. They tried to pull some stunt today, as well, before… well, you heard.”

“Yeah, I did. You went from zero to hero pretty quickly.” She smiles. “That’s what everyone’s talking about.”

“Are they?” You ask, wincing.

“Yeah. The way the story goes, you’re a man who’d save even the life of your enemies. Quite poetic, really.” She chuckles.

“I find it hard to believe that people would change their view of me that quickly.”

Just as the words come out of your mouth, you remember. On impulse, you bought the No More Enemies trait, which not only makes negatives score slowly go to the neutral zone, but also makes positive actions have better results. Is the spreading of the story about you saving Olivia responsible, then?

“Well, I might have also started to spread my own little story yesterday. The headmistress told me not to make the recording public, but she didn’t say anything about spreading the results of the… ‘trial’.” She smirks smugly. “All I had to do was send a couple of messages to the right people and, overnight, half the school knew the teachers had found out the picture was fake.”

“Wow. Remind me not to get on your bad side.” You smile wryly. It seems this girl has connections, and knows how to best make use of them.

“Gladly.” She gives you a smug grin.

“Speaking of which, where did the recording come from?” You ask. Supposedly, someone in one of the stalls heard everything and recorded it, but who?

Sophia sighs heavily. “From someone who was too afraid to show her face in front of the devils, but sure wanted some sweet . When she heard I’d be going to the trial, she gave me the recording as evidence. Of course, I had to tell the teachers who it was, but I won’t tell anyone else.” She looks you straight in the eyes and sighs again. “Still, if you should be thanking anyone, it’s her.” She stops to consider something for a moment, then speaks again. “Do you know the café that’s close to the school?”

You nod. You studied there for a while with Emily and Megan.

“Go there at 4:30 pm today and wait until 5:00. If she doesn’t appear, she didn’t want to talk to you. If she does, then… well, she does.” She waves her hand dismissingly.

“Okay then.” The bell sounds. You should be returning to call already. “Well, thanks again for yesterday. You still saved my skin.”

“No problem.” Sophia says, smiling and standing from her chair. “It seems things will start easing up for you. I hope we can hang out every once in a while. You seem like an interesting guy, David.”

You smile back. “You’re definitely interesting yourself, Sophia. I’d love to hang out. Maybe you can tell me how the debate team is doing.”

“Sure, I’d love that.”

With that, you both leave the library and part ways to your different classrooms.

-Johnson, Sophia-
Affection Score: 49.

Hey, Sophia likes you! Well, that was clear in the way she talked to you, but as always, having a number there is nice.

Your last class of the day is chemistry, and like every Friday, classes end at 1:40 PM.