The Eleventh Gifted (The Gifted Fanfiction)

Chapter 12

The first half of the day went by. Most, if not all of the competitions were won by Ritdha High School thanks to Punn. But Aria couldn't shake off the worry about her classmate. He seemed too stressed based on the scene she witnessed in the cafeteria.

It was too disturbing for her that her friends found her behaviour off as soon as she got back to give them their meals. She had to tell them what she witnessed, and they too worried for him. But they tried to brush it off.

She was then on her way to the room for the math competition. She hadn't seen her other friend, Wave since the day started. So she thought that he might be there to watch. It was also an opportunity to check on Punn to see if he was doing okay.

"Welcome to the math competition."

Aria entered the room and saw that a few students were gathered, watching too. She searched for the person she was looking for and found him sitting silently. She excused herself in a low voice so she wouldn't disturb the old man speaking.

But she stopped in her tracks when the man spoke again. "We have a Gifted student from Ritdha High School so you'd better step up."

She looked at Punn; he was fidgeting with his pencil. She took away her attention from him and proceeded to walk to Wave.

There was an empty chair just beside him, so Aria took it. The man in the red jacket didn't pay attention to her, that was why she took the initiative to talk to him.

"Hey."

And finally, he looked at her. With furrowed brows, he asked, "What are you doing here?"

"Am I not allowed to come here?"

Instead of answering, Wave stared at her. Aria tried to fight him and stared back, but she eventually gave up. Why was that trick only working for Wave and not her?

"Fine! I haven't seen you today so I tried to look for you. I thought that you might be here so I came."

"You don't need to see me every day."

"Yes, I don't need to. But I want to, so I came."

"You already have friends. You should be with them."

"Hence why I'm here." Her bright smile ended their conversation and Wave's sigh of surrender. The two turned their heads to the speaker.

Aria heard the clicking of a camera that made her look at where the noise was coming from. It's from Korn, taking a picture of the contestants.

And the event began.

The students who weren't in the competition remained silent. But the person beside her kept muttering the answers.

"Next question, the end result is 570. Please use the following numbers in your equation: 3, 1, 6, 4, 2. If you don't get 570, try to get the value closest to the given value."

The contestants started scribbling down to get their answers. Within a few seconds, Punn finished answering, but the student beside him was the first to raise his hand.

And he gave his answer. "6 + 2 = 8, 8 to the power of 3 is equals to 512, 512 + 4 + 1 = 517."

"517. Anybody can come up with a value closest to 570?" the speaker asked.

Punn looked around, waiting for anyone to give their answer. But no one did. And so, he raised his hand.

"What do you have, Punn?" asked the speaker.

"3 to the power of 4 = 81. 6 + 1 = 7. 81 × 7 = 567. 567 + 2 = 569."

"569 is closer to 570 than 517. Can anyone else come up with a better answer?"