Chapter 2

Beep! Beep! The car honked as her dad immediately stepped on the brakes.

She looked at the front to see what happened.

“Tsk, alam nang paliko, talagang sumingit pa” said her dad. In other terms, he said that the other driver clearly knew that he was about to do a U-turn but still went for it.

“Hahahaha” she laughed in an exaggerated yet not in an obvious way.

Sigh, why do I need to act like this? Anyways I’m on the way to my new school to start “High School life”. This is the easiest way I could think of to get away from the house. Philippine high school for sports, a public school that had just opened. It was actually used as a venue for a big sports event, they built it last year. Since our country’s athletes won a decent amount of medals during the event, the government decided to make a public high school for sports.

They have everything there, a large cafeteria, students dorm, athletes dorm, tons of courts, and...literally everything except for the classroom that’s why it took a few more months to open.

It took me a month to convince my parents about me getting into Philippine high school for sports. I gave them a lot of reasoning, of course, I told them that if I got in I’ll have a scholarship, free food and that I don’t have to worry about my commute expenses every day but of course, instead of tuition fee, we have to pay 1k in every 2 months for the dorm. My mother asked me

“What if you lose some weight and starve because you don’t have food?”

so I said “Mom, as if they’ll let that happen, we’re all athletes there and of course they need to prioritize our health cause if not, they’ll get blamed for not taking care of their athletes. Besides, they have supermarkets there and I know how to cook.”

And of course thanks to my thinking, they finally said “ok”.

But that wasn’t the real reason why I was so desperate to go there. 1st reason: It’s the only way where I can be far away from the house. 2nd: scholarship and dorm.

I… Don't hate them and I can't blame them. We don't know what adults have to go through. But...I, still…

I don't know what went wrong that always led our family to the same situation over and over again. I know it's not easy raising a child…. We're lucky that they took care of us, I mean, of course, it's the parent’s responsibility to raise their children but some other people will just abandon you or give you to someone else.

I…. Just can't take it anymore…. And I want to be away…you never know, maybe without me, they might sort the problem out and make the situation better.

Anyways, For my sport, I did try out for the volleyball team. I’m not good when it comes to attacks and spikes so I just focused on receiving since I’m better at it and I think that that’s my only chance because I’m not tall….I’m short. I was an athlete for other sports as well but I chose volleyball, as long as I have a sport then I’m good. I got in, I passed the tryouts and they temporarily assigned me as the second libero of the team.

Family is the only ones who don’t see talent and they’ll do their best to make fun of what you’re doing and you have no choice but to laugh with them because it’s “funny”. I’m not saying that this applies to every family.

She looked at the car window to look at the scenery outside. She looked down at the Omamori charm that's in her hand. “Omamori means amulet (as a form of protection) or talisman (as a provider of luck), and the kanji at the heart of the word means “to guide or protect.” Someone she didn't know gave that to her, she was planning on throwing it away but decided to keep it in the end.

A few hours later, they finally arrived at Philippine high school for sports. It was really big, spacious, and new.

They got out of the car and gathered Angel’s stuff for her dorm. When they entered the room, they saw a bathroom at their left and 2 beds up ahead, one of them is a pull out so that make’s it 3 beds.

“Which bed do you want?” her mom asked.

“Ah….the left one, I don’t want to be near the window, It’s way too bright” she points at the bed while answering her mother’s question.

“What are you, a vampire? You don’t like garlic, you don’t like when it’s bright, you always like it when it’s dark.” Her dad asked.

“Pa, Vampires are good with garlic, you’re talking about “Aswang”. I also have fangs” she replied to her dad while pointing at her fangs with a disbelieving expression on her face.

She then asked herself “Is that even right?”

Aswang is an umbrella term for various shape-shifting evil creatures in Filipino folklore, such as vampires, ghouls, witches…

Later that day, after they fixed everything in the dorm. They went out to get dinner. Her dad and mom left afterward and told her to always inform them if anything happens. She was alone in her dorm because she wanted to be the first one to arrive to pick the spot that she wanted. She decided to try on her uniform since she doesn’t have anything to do.

For their school uniform, girls have black above-the-knee skirts with a white long sleeve polo tucked in and a cropped black coat over it with the included socks and tie with the school logo and black shoes. For boys, they have white long sleeve polo tucked in black pants, a black coat over it with the included socks and tie with the school logo, and black shoes.

Now that I look closely….I’m….pretty. Long black silk hair, fair white skin, almond brown lazy lifeless eyes….. full lips with a mix of a heart shape type, a pretty nose, a mole at the upper right corner of my brows even though I want it in the lower part but, eh. Not to mention an hourglass body if I don’t bind my chest. Did I go to a different type of puberty or something?..or is it just normal?..........

But I’m short, 5’3...at least I have long legs so that makes me look taller somehow.

Not gonna lie I want to have red eyes but I’m not a foreigner and having red eyes is really rare even for foreigners.

I have fair skin because I don't like it when it's bright, so when I go outside I usually try my best to hide in a shadow or just bring an umbrella and sunglasses. I'm… really thin, I'm like a stick that can be swept away any minute so I think a lot of people will be surprised at how I managed to be a part of the team… It's not my fault, I have the second biggest appetite in our family, the first one was my brother of course. We both eat a lot of rice since we're athletes except we don't really drink milk that's why we're short, he's 5'4.

The phone rings in the background. She goes to get the phone and answers the call.

"What?"

"You finally managed to leave the house."

".... Look….I just got here, I can't find you a job. It may take years, I don't know, but don't get your hopes too high, brother."

"I won't."

"IAN!"

"Is that Aunt May? Oh, don't forget to tell uncle jay that I'm still waiting for my Christmas money, I mean gift."

"Yeah yeah"

"Don't forget to drink milk hahahahaha, I turned 5'3 at the age of 12 and you're still 5'4 at 18. ……..Mom..forced me to drink milk…well at least it's fresh milk so it's better.

"..........."

Ian, Angel's brother didn't say anything after and hung up on her.

"Hahahahaha haaaaaa…. This is fun"

She then went to her stuff to check her schedule.

Sigh…. It's really not easy being a student-athlete.

7:50 flag ceremony, 40 minutes each for History, Filipino, English after that, a 20-minute recess, another 40 minutes each for Math and Science, and another 20 minutes for a Minor subject.

Great…...we start at 7:50 am and end at 12:00 pm for lunch and 1:00 to 4:00 pm for training. I thought that our studies would be easy but it's the opposite since we're athletes. Our lessons are way more advanced compared to other high schools. If you fail the entrance exam you won't get in. For other students who have poor studies but have a great talent for that specific sport, you'll need to attend extra classes and maintain your studies because if you don't maintain both your sport and studies then maybe they'll kick you out. They also take the athletes education above anything else.

For the food, our lunch and dinner will be provided for the weekdays, but we need to provide our own breakfast. For the weekends, since you can go home during that time, they won't be providing us any food but of course if you can't cook you can still buy some food in the cafeteria or outside the campus.

We won't be wearing our uniforms on Friday because it's laundry day.

Wait… What!?? Do we still have PE?

Angel reads the schedule seriously to make sure she doesn’t make any mistakes in terms of understanding her schedule.

Grade 7 PE day, Monday so I need to wear PE attire on Monday.

Grade 8 Tuesday

Grade 9 Wednesday

Grade 10 Thursday……. Sigh

"Are…. Are you serious? Dude…..We have 3 hours of training every day and you're telling me that we still need PE?"

“I hope my dorm mates aren't annoying and messy. I didn't bring so much stuff with me cause I hate it when it's unorganized and messy, it ruins the mood, not to mention I'm always not in the mood so that better not make it worse. I'm a minimalist person.

I think they'll be here tomorrow, during the time when they need to fix their stuff, I'll look around outside and inside the campus, good thing they gave us a map…"

She changed her clothes, took a bath and dried her hair. She lay down on her bed to sleep. A few minutes later, she felt uneasy because it's her first time alone in the dorm.

".... The lights are killing me but I don't want to turn it off cause it's my first time sleeping here, not to mention I'm all alone."

She gets her phone and plans on using it until she falls asleep.

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