Feel-Good Story Campus の短編小説 & Face Slapping 小説

At the National High School Football All-Star Game, my boyfriend Evan had just been named MVP. Sophia, the cheer captain, immediately posted on Instagram. Caption: "Guess who got a little something from the champion himself~" The photo turned out to be a pair of Evan's worn underwear! Scrawled across them in lipstick were the words: "For my dearest Sophia." She held them up with her long acrylic nails, pouting for the selfie. The internet exploded. "Why does she have his underwear?" "Isn't it obvious? They're totally together." "Sitting here waiting for the official couple photo." Within seconds, a close-up of the two of them cheek-to-cheek surfaced in the comments. Congratulations and teasing flooded the feed. I gripped my phone, a chill spreading through my entire body. Evan had promised to go public about us ages ago but kept putting it off, saying he needed to prove himself first. He'd been stalling ever since. Now here I was, his actual girlfriend, and I didn't even get an invite to his victory party. I took a deep breath and called him. "Explain." On the other end, Evan's voice was lazy, almost amused. "The fans grabbed everything off me. Jersey, pads, all of it. Sophia insisted on keeping something as a souvenir, so I gave her the underwear. No big deal." "The Instagram post is just riding the hype. Don't be so uptight about it." Then Sophia's voice chimed in. "Yeah, honey, Evan and I are like brothers! I've seen everything on him already. It's just a pair of boxers, so don't be so petty." I listened to their increasingly flirtatious banter through the speaker, then slowly pulled off my engagement ring and tossed it aside. "Fine," I said to Evan. "I'll be the bigger person. Why don't you skip the 'girl bro' thing and just make her your girlfriend? I'm tired of watching this act."

I was born with a strikingly beautiful face, but I also suffered from severe social anxiety disorder. To hide from people's stares, I wore a face mask all year round, which made me the school's resident freak. They moved my desk into the boys' restroom and scrawled "UGLY FREAK" across my school uniform. They even cornered me in the equipment room and tried to force my mask off. That was when Hal Chilton, a transfer student, kicked the equipment room door open. He pulled me behind him and shot the group a cold look. "She doesn't want to take off her mask. Nobody gets to force her." From then on, he became my protector and wouldn't let anyone bully me. Little by little, I fell for him. For his sake, I even found the courage to take off my mask. Then, just before the graduation gala, I overheard Hal talking with the bullies. "The bet runs out tomorrow. Are you really going to confess to the ugly freak?" Hal laughed lazily. "Of course. "First, I'll get her to take off her mask in front of everyone. Then I'll tell her that everything, from the hero saving the damsel to us falling for each other over time, was an act we set up." Someone asked, "What if she turns out to be pretty under that mask?" Hal scoffed. "If she were pretty, would she have spent three years too scared to show her face?" I looked down at my phone. Half an hour earlier, Hal had texted me: [When I confess to you tomorrow night, can you take off your mask?] I'd happily replied: [Sure.]

At eleven o’clock at night, I was racking my brains trying to solve the last physics question when a text popped up in my phone. It was Denise Chadburn, the top student in our class. [Pancakes from the west of the city and black tea with two cubes of sugar.] That was in the opposite direction from my house and would take me over half an hour to get there and back. I didn’t want to do it, so I texted her back: [I’m sorry, I need to get to class early tomorrow and can’t go there.] Denise never texted back after that. I thought that was the end of it. Ten minutes later, my homeroom teacher, Ms. Sable, texted me. [Jordan Schmidt, Denise is preparing for the regional Olympiad and is under much pressure. She also has gastric issues. Half an hour of extra studying wouldn’t do your dismal results any good anyway. Help bring our top student some breakfast to save her time.] I stared at my phone screen, my jawline tightening. [Ms. Sable, it’s out of the way for me. It’ll take me half an hour longer on the road.] Ms. Sable sent me a voice message. “Jordan, you’ve got to be more flexible. The fact you were paired up with Denise in our one-to-one mentoring program is to your advantage. She’s smart. A piece of advice from her is more helpful to you than rote learning by yourself for half an hour. Shouldn’t you at least try being helpful to her?” I ignored her texts and left my phone screen to turn dark, reflecting the fatigue on my face.

We were biking up a steep climb when my roommate, Susan Edelman, caught up to me, panting hard. "Jeannine, this bike is wearing me out. Let's switch." I squeezed the brakes and was about to answer when an unfamiliar woman's voice came through my earbuds. "Jeannine, whatever you do, don't switch with her! "She borrowed that bike from the campus kingpin, and it's worth over 1.4 million dollars. She crashed yesterday and cracked the frame. A new frame and parts alone will run 420,000 dollars. "She wants to switch so she can pin it on you!" I frowned. Why would a financial-aid student like her borrow such an expensive bike? Then the voice came again. "In a minute, your boyfriend will come over and force you to switch, saying you need to keep up with the group. "Once you've switched, he'll back Susan up and swear you were the one who broke the bike." I was so mad it actually made me laugh. Why would my boyfriend help Susan? This had to be some prank show. Just then, I heard the familiar voice of my boyfriend, Benny Reid, "Why haven't you two switched yet? The main group's way ahead. We won't be able to catch up. "Jeannine, hurry up and switch with Susan so we can go after them." Sure enough, my boyfriend had shown up, with the exact same reason for the switch. Startled, I put my foot back down on the pedal I'd just let go of. If they wanted me to take the fall, they should have done their homework. There was a reason my last name was Chandler, and so was the campus kingpin's: Nick Chandler.

The night before term began, my so-called best friend, Wendy Shaw, posted a challenge on the university confession wall. "If this post gets 1,000 likes, our 220-pound campus belle will hand a love letter to the untouchable Jonathan Riverson during orientation tomorrow—in front of everyone!" She paired the post with a hideous photo of me taken back in high school. In it, I was wearing an oversized uniform, my face round enough to show more than one chin. The comments exploded almost immediately. "You want her to give Jonathan a love letter? What'd he ever do to deserve this?" "Goddamn, Wendy. Now the whole campus is forced to watch an elephant walk." Wendy was right there in the comments, encouraging them. "Keep the likes coming! Emilia's a brave girl!" She then texted me, saying it was just to train my courage. I stood before a full-length mirror, staring at my defined abs and sharp jawline, and I sneered. No one knew I had spent the last year working out like mad, and I had lost most of the extra weight. Now I was just over a hundred pounds. The post had 999 likes. I smiled. Then, I tapped the heart and gave it the thousandth. After that, I logged into my main account and left a comment beneath Wendy's post. "Save yourself the trouble. I'll deliver the love letter tomorrow myself."

Even though it has become customary for all the heirs of wealthy families to study abroad, my father has specifically chosen a local university for me, saying that he would miss me far too much if I left the country. He also donates a new building to the school so that I would not be mistreated by anyone on campus. The semester soon begins. Not wanting my roommates at the dorm to be intimidated by the economic disparity between us, I decide to dress more simply. But when I arrive at the dorm room, I see that someone else is using the bed I chose. My bedding and belongings now lie scattered all across the floor. Just as I'm about to speak, the young woman proclaims, "I want this bed. You can use a different one. Oh, and I bought a handbag for all of my female classmates, so you can take one as compensation." "But I arrived before you and chose that bed already," I say with a smile. All she does is look me over and scoff derisively. "Who cares if you arrived first and chose it? Since I want it, it's mine now. My dad is Calvin Stuart, the chairman of Lumina Corporation! If I want something, no one in this city dares to protest!" Lumina Corporation? Isn't that the company that reached out to my father this morning to ask for an investment?

I have always had an almost pathological sense of paranoia. Ever since I was a child, I was convinced that the people around me were out to get me. Back in elementary school, when everyone was lining up for their student ID photos, I flatly refused to have mine taken. I insisted that the district office was going to use my picture for identity theft. The situation escalated so badly that the principal had to personally sit me down and spend half an hour trying to convince me otherwise. Then, there was the fingerprint registration system in middle school. The school required every student to submit their fingerprints to access the campus buildings. I was so terrified that someone would steal my biometric data that I literally rubbed the skin off all ten fingertips to make them unreadable. Even when my fingers were bleeding, I kept shouting that they were trying to steal my identity. I would rather climb over the school fence every day than cooperate. Every relative I had called me crazy. My parents were so fed up that they seriously considered having me admitted to a psychiatric hospital. I did not care. I guarded my privacy with obsessive determination, gritting my teeth and holding my ground all the way up to the eve of the final exams. Then came the day before the exam. That afternoon, our homeroom teacher, Tracy Collins, walked into the classroom carrying a metal lockbox. A warm, motherly smile spread across her face as she set it down on the desk. "Everyone," she said, "to make sure nobody forgets their documents tomorrow, I'd like you to hand over your IDs and exam admission slips for safekeeping tonight." She patted the lockbox reassuringly. "Tomorrow morning, I'll personally return them to each of you outside the testing center. This way, there's absolutely nothing that can go wrong." The class was deeply moved by her thoughtfulness. Some students even looked close to tears as they eagerly pulled out their documents and lined up to hand them over. Everyone except me. My hand clamped down over my pocket so tightly that my knuckles turned white. Cold sweat poured down my back. A sharp alarm bell was ringing in my head. Trying not to attract attention, I fished out a spare flip phone from my bag, ducked beneath my desk, and dialed emergency services. As soon as the call connected, I lowered my voice and spoke into the receiver. "Hello. I'd like to report a crime. My name is Charles. "I believe a teacher at St. Alden High is working with an identity-fraud ring and is planning a large-scale operation tonight involving examination fraud and identity theft."

After the holiday, the student council president assigns me the task of mentoring a freshman named Mona Leach. I text her to discuss the task at hand, but she ignores my messages. When she finally replies to me, her words are scathing. "I'm a freshman, but that doesn't mean you can harass me just because you're my senior. I have a boyfriend." Just as I'm wondering how she even got the idea that I'm interested in her, I see her complaining in the student council group chat. She writes, "Just because he's a senior doesn't mean he can harass a freshman. I already told him I have a boyfriend, but he keeps bothering me. I barely started my freshman year, and I have to deal with such disgusting behavior. This is going to traumatize me." What's this about me harassing her? My family has billions in assets that I'll inherit sooner or later. Heiresses from other wealthy families are lining up to marry me. Why would I ever need to harass her?

As the only day student in my class, I had spent three years picking up breakfast for my classmates every morning without ever charging a single penny for the errand. That changed when a transfer student joined our class. "Oh, my God… Don't tell me you've all been paying him full price this whole time. You guys have been stuck on campus so long you probably don't know this, but the food vendors outside always give a discount if an entire class places an order. "I can't even imagine how much he's pocketed from the price difference over the past three years." When he noticed the shocked looks on everyone's faces, he smiled and added, "How about this? From now on, just let me know what you want for breakfast. My uncle runs a breakfast truck outside the school, and he knows everyone along the strip. "I'll pick it up for you at the discounted price. I'm not trying to make money. I just want to make some friends." When I heard that, I let out a quiet sigh of relief. What he didn't know was that I'd long since grown sick of waking up two hours early every morning just to buy everyone's breakfast, endure coming back reeking of food, and putting in all that effort only to end up completely unappreciated.

We were supposed to hand in our college applications. The ditzy school belle volunteered to hand in the whole class' applications and told them it could save them time. "Have fun, guys. I'll make sure all your applications are handed in." I was the class president, and I told her that the applications are important. "Their future is on the line. We can't have someone else hand in the applications on their behalf. They have to be there themselves. No exceptions." That made her cry, and she told everyone that I humiliated her. That very afternoon, she climbed up to the main building's roof and jumped off. My childhood friends lost their minds when the results were out. They stopped me from getting out of the classroom and yanked my hair as they dragged me to the rooftop. "She was only trying to help! Why'd you humiliate her?" "You killed her! You're not our class president!" "We're not letting you live! Not when she's dead!" They shoved me off the rooftop. I hit the ground hard, and blood seeped into the cracks between the tiles of the ground. When my eyes snapped open again, the first thing I saw was the school madonna asking for everyone's application. I snickered and handed her what she asked for. My childhood friends were surprised but also glad. I went into the headmaster's office and signed the papers that would secure me a spot in Harland University. There was only one of those here. This time around, I decided to stop helping those who didn't deserve it and take the highway to success. The boys would see their own future ruined as their applications were changed and sabotaged. As for me? Why, I couldn't care less.

When I touch someone else's personal belongings—things they have had direct contact with before—I can hear the items voicing their owner's thoughts. The day of my grandma's funeral, I clutch the emerald bracelet she wore for over 30 years and hear it shout, "The house mustn't go to Michael! He hit me!" Michael? That's my uncle's name, and right now, he's bawling his eyes out in front of Grandma's casket, seemingly grieving even harder than everyone else.

My best friend, Natalie Grey, was the most famous pushover class president in the entire management department. When classmates didn't pay their class dues, she covered them out of her own pocket. When people sent her on errands and dumped grunt work on her, she kept her head down and did every bit of it. When someone got written up and pinned the blame on her, she quietly took the fall. I, on the other hand, breathed a sigh of relief and told her to keep it up. Because deep down, Natalie was a little hellion. Emotionally detached and born with a screw loose, she was the kind of person who would actually take a knife to someone in real life. When we were kids, a boy from our town picked on me. Natalie pinned him to the ground and beat him so badly it took three or four grown-ups to drag her off. He ended up in the hospital for three days. Natalie climbed a drainpipe up to his fifth-floor room and yanked out his oxygen tube. He was so scared that his family moved away the very next day. I was terrified she would one day do something she couldn't take back, so I poured everything I had into training her to be sweet and docile. Then Selena Morrison, the department's it-girl, moved into my dorm room. She made me pick up her meals and fetch her packages, but she never paid me a single cent. Every time we split a bill, she made a point of rounding her share down. With no money left for food, I lost thirty-three pounds. When I finally tried to stop picking up her meals, Selena went straight online and posted that I was jealous of her and out to get her. Suddenly, every guy in the school had it out for me. My bike, parked outside the dorm, got smashed to pieces. My food deliveries kept disappearing the moment they arrived. One day, as I stood helplessly over yet another takeout order splattered across the ground, Selena looked at me with a smile. "Come on, be a good girl. Being my servant is an honor..." There was a loud bang. Before Selena could even finish her sentence, she went flying half a mile. I snapped my head up. Natalie was walking toward me, her face dark...

After the SAT scores were released, Sean White threw a lavish graduation party. He was the most popular guy at school and had been on financial aid. That night, I got a text saying my credit card had been maxed out. I went to confront Sean. Instead, I found him standing next to my girlfriend, Janine Slater, looking like he was about to cry. "Just because I'm on financial aid, does that mean I can't hold a graduation party?" he asked. Janine rushed to comfort him, then turned on me. "Your family has plenty of money. Spending a little on Sean isn't going to hurt you," she said. Sure, my family was wealthy, but that didn't make me a charity case. Why should I pay for him? I refused to back down and called the police to get my money back. However, Janine retaliated by sabotaging my family's company, pushing it to the brink of bankruptcy. While I was on my way to meet with investors, Janine and Sean plotted together and ran me over. When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the day of Sean's graduation party.

I saw my college roommate send a voice message into a group chat. I watched his screen as our four other roommates responded. However, there were no notifications on my phone. That was when I realized the five of them had created a group without me. In that group, they complained about me being a dumb rich kid, cursed my mom for being a homewrecker, and secretly took nude photographs of me. They were even planning to drug me and give me to a older rich woman for her entertainment. I covered all their meals, drinks, and living expenses, yet they dared to betray me? Fine. I would show them the true rage of a trust fund kid!

Sawyer Lund is my brother, and I've been his wingman since we were kids. Growing up, my absolute favorite thing to do was serving him—bringing him his drinks, getting his food, even lighting his cigarettes. I do it happily and never complain. When Sawyer gets accepted into Javon University, I waste no time skipping grades and following him there. On the first day of the semester, Sawyer walks into our dorm room with eight bodyguards. Our roommates greet him enthusiastically while I busy myself cleaning up his desk. Harvey Warren is the only roommate who mocks me pointedly for it. "You're not Sawyer's roommate," he says. "You're clearly his lackey." I just smile and stay silent. One day, Sawyer carelessly tosses his newly purchased Patek Philippe to me and says, "The colorway suits your style better. You should wear it instead." Harvey happens to walk past the door just as I accept the watch with a smile. Over the weekend, with Sawyer away on a business trip abroad, Harvey and I are the only ones left in the dorm. "Do you know what everyone in class calls you behind your back, Felix?" he says. "Sawyer's lapdog." The next day, Ruby Sutton, the campus belle who happens to be my girlfriend, tells me to meet her out on the field. She furrows her brow deeply the moment she sees me. "Do you have to be this pathetic, Felix? How could you throw away your dignity and become someone's lapdog just for a watch? Harvey's family isn't well-off, but even he lives with more dignity than you do." She pauses, then delivers another crushing blow. "Harvey takes the top spot in our major yet again in this term's finals. What do you have to show for yourself? You spend all your time acting as a glorified goon while your grades sit at rock bottom. Do you not feel ashamed, Felix?" Harvey tugs gently at her sleeve and lowers his head. "Please stop arguing with him, Ruby. You know how much I dislike this kind of thing." Ruby's expression immediately softens. I watch her rub his shoulder and smirk. Has nobody noticed that Sawyer and I have the same last name—Lund?

After returning to school following a few days of absence, I can clearly sense a shift in how my classmates look at me. Even my former best friend, Jake Turner, has grown cold and distant. During a mock exam, when I ask to borrow a pen from him, he raises his hand and declares, "Ms. Stafford! I want to report Darrell Goodwin for cheating!" I'm given a major disciplinary demerit as a result. When I demand to know why he did it, he shoots me a look of utter contempt and says, "The SATs are just around the corner, and here you are, taking time off to sell your body for favors. My father is the vice principal of this school, and even I wouldn't stoop as low as you." Completely bewildered, I watch as he tosses a photograph at me. It's a picture of me getting into a luxury car on the day I took leave. Suddenly, everyone begins mocking me, claiming that I'm resorting to any means necessary just to take a shortcut and even become someone's kept man while my parents work themselves to the bone, running a farm to support my education. I try to explain that the person in the car is my own mother, but no one believes me. "You mean your sugar mommy? Do your parents even know you're being kept by a woman?" The rumors spiral out of control, and the principal, Mr. Matthew Snyder, even demands that my parents come to withdraw me from school. But the moment my entire family arrives, Mr. Snyder panics.

The day before the semester began, my childhood friend Daniel Carter asked if he could borrow my private jet. Thinking he'd finally changed his ways, I agreed without a second thought. A moment later, he transferred a single dollar, calling it rent because he couldn't stand the thought of freeloading. The quirky amount said more than words ever could. I smiled and accepted it. On the first day of school, I kept things low-key, taking a cab back to campus. But when I arrived, there it was, my private jet parked right in the middle of the quad. The jet had been decked out in bubblegum pink, and students crowded around, their eyes shining with envy. My heart leapt. For once, I thought Daniel had finally figured it out. Beaming, I braced myself for his surprise. But as I drew closer, my smile froze. Sitting barefoot in the pilot's seat, my seat, was Clara West, the campus' queen bee.

The day before the SAT, Lewis Sutton, the most popular boy in class, volunteered to help everyone verify their test centers and organize two charter buses for everyone. Just before departure, he suddenly stopped me. "Finley, I just realized your test center is Easthaven. Both buses are headed to Westbrook." Everyone thought it was no big deal. "Just take a cab. We can't risk missing the exam for you." When I asked Lewis for the transportation list, Cerys Moore stepped in front of me. She lowered her voice to insist, "Lewis is already exhausted from coordinating logistics for the whole class. Why are you kicking up such a big fuss over nothing? "If you're this petty now, you're going to give him a harder time in college. "I'm warning you, either don't apply to Northbridge University or Blackwell University, or intentionally skip one of your exam subjects, so you won't end up attending the same school as us. Otherwise, our engagement is over." Too fed up to argue, I simply hailed a cab and headed to my test center alone. When I arrived at the Easthaven test center in the nick of time, our homeroom teacher, Mrs. Leah Williamson, was standing outside, sweating profusely from anxiety. "Why did both buses go to Westbrook? The entire class is supposed to take the exam in Easthaven!"

On the day of the SAT exam, my girlfriend, Heidi Moore, makes the entire class stay with her and wait for her childhood friend, Jeffrey Price, who's running late. But it's less than an hour before the exam starts. If they keep waiting for Jeffrey, they will definitely miss the exam. In my previous lifetime, I played my part as the class president by advising everyone to take the exam first. But all I received was their scolding. "You're just jealous that Jeffrey and Heidi are extremely close friends! That's why you want to ditch Jeffrey so that he can miss the exam, huh?" I could only stand in the pouring rain while begging my classmates relentlessly. Only then did everyone leave for the exam venue reluctantly. In the end, we were able to arrive at the exam venue one minute before the exam started. But after the exam was over, I was pushed off a building by Jeffrey, which caused my death. However, Heidi and the rest of my classmates gave the police their fake testimonies. "Finley caused Jeffrey to miss the exam. That's why he killed himself out of guilt!" Jeffrey even used the opportunity to sell his sob story and become a popular influencer. Mom tried to seek justice for me, only to get cyberbullied by the Internet users, who were blind to the truth. Dazed and disoriented, she drove off a cliff, and her body was nowhere to be found since then. Only after I died did I realize that this was just a part of Jeffrey's scheme. When I open my eyes again, I've returned to the day Heidi tells the entire class to wait for Jeffrey before departing to the exam venue together. In this lifetime, I won't stop my ungrateful classmates from ruining their own lives.

On the last day before college entrance exams, Tristan Kelley, the most popular guy in class, let out an ear-splitting shout. "Everyone, skip the exam! Sage will pay out 50 million dollars!" He held up his phone, showing an insurance agreement he had signed with Sage, the AI chatbot, for everyone to see. All we had to do was miss the exam and we would receive 50 million dollars in compensation. "We're all bound for the best universities. In the worst case, we can retake the exam next year. "This is 50 million dollars. Do you think you'll ever see that kind of money in your life?" In my previous life, I called the police right away. I explained until I was blue in the face that Sage was just an AI with no ability to pay anyone anything. The police dragged every last student into the exam hall by force. However, Tristan was ridiculed and harassed online because of it. Unable to bear the weight of it all, he jumped from a building. The entire class cornered me on the rooftop and threw acid in my face. "If it weren't for you, he'd still be alive." They watched me writhe in agony, then kicked me off the edge. When I opened my eyes again, I was back at the exact moment Tristan rallied everyone to skip the exam. This time, I sat quietly and watched every single one of them sign the agreement with Sage. I wanted to see exactly who they planned to collect their 50 million dollars from.