A/N: Oct. 14th. 2021
A NEW UPDATE HOMIES 🌟
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Q/A: What's your favorite snack/dessert?
I'm in love with almonds and pistachios. As for dessert I'd probably say ice cream?? 🤩
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I swallowed hard. I wasn't shocked at the news that I was "dead", but I was taken aback by the fact that Adam knew. He knew I shouldn't be alive, which only meant one thing: he came back for me. Or at least, he searched for me, at least once, after he had left the orphanage.
I forced myself to speak, hoping the expression on my face wouldn't reveal my true feelings.
"What do you mean?"
His jaw tensed as he stepped away from me and Adam looked away. If there was a hint of emotion in his eyes, it vanished completely after he blinked. His cold, pale eyes returned to mine, masking any vulnerabilities with an unreadable look he had mastered flawlessly.
"He died in a fire six years ago."
He spoke in a calm, regulated voice, but his knuckles were white.
He knew.
"Who was Eric anyway?" I asked.
"A friend." He paused, then shook his head, laughing in a fatalistic way. "No, he was more than a friend. He was everything to me."
The jarring sincerity in his voice caught me off guard.
"What happened between you two?"
"Nothing," he murmured. "Nothing happened between us, and I think that was the worst part."
He ran a hand through his hair.
"We grew up in the same orphanage. He arrived a few years after I did, after he was removed from his previous one." He laughed emptily. "Knowing him, it wasn't a surprise. Trouble followed him everywhere, and if it didn't follow him, he'd go look for it himself."
Adam paused.
"I was adopted and left before he did, but something happened when I was gone. One of the kids set the kitchen on fire. The reports say it was an accident, but it wasn't. The kid was probably angry and sad. I mean, who could blame him? You don't know how depressing it was behind those bleak walls."
Oh, I did. I'd been through it all. The fake smiles, the loneliness, the emptiness...
"The orphanage burned down in flames. Eric wasn't among the list of survivors." Adam took in a shaky breath, pain etching his voice. "When I heard he had died, I wished I had gone with him."
When the caretakers told me that Adam had been adopted, I was petrified. I was torn with grief. I thought he'd gone for a trial session and would come back within a week, like he'd always done.
When a family adopted an orphan, they first had to pass what we called a trial session. They took the child home for a short period of time, and if something went wrong, the child would return.
Adam was a perfect boy. He was quiet, calm, obedient, and kind. But strangely, he always came back. The caretakers didn't understand why. Each time he returned, I'd ask him what went wrong but he wouldn't answer and simply smiled. Even if he never told me, I knew why he came back. He came back to be with me.
So when Adam never returned that day, I was shocked. He acted strangely the last day we were together, but I didn't think much of it. I thought maybe he wasn't feeling well, maybe he was just tired, maybe he wanted to rest. Not for a second did I think it would be the last day we'd see each other.
One visit. Just one visit, I remember begging to myself as I stared out the cracked window, eyes glued to the gates outside. Just let me see him one more time.
But he never came back.
"Then why did you leave?" I asked in a shaky voice, unable to hold back my emotions.
Adam stared at me for what felt like forever. When he spoke, he spoke with certitude and sincerity.
"I did it for him."
I couldn't remember how I left Adam's room nor how I managed to return to mine. When I opened the door, Vadim was sprawled across his bed, his head resting happily on his arm as he snored. I crawled into bed, curling into a ball with a twisting pain in my heart.
Now that I thought about it, I never gave Adam the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he had a good reason to leave. Maybe he never came back because he couldn't. Maybe he had missed me as much as I had him, and that he'd suffered just as much as I had.
Defiance was never a challenge for me, but the day the orphanage burned in flames and burned to a crisp, so did all the documents and papers. It was impossible for me to find his location without those documents, and it was even more impossible since I didn't know his new last name.
But Adam didn't know that. He didn't know how I desperately tried to look for him, how I failed endlessly, how I had never forgotten him, the same way I didn't know what had happened to him after he left. I simply assumed that he didn't care enough to visit, but in reality, I didn't know anything.
When I heard he had died, I wished I had gone with him.
Anger, guilt, confusion, and so many feelings infested my chest. Desperate to shut out my thoughts, I closed my eyes and slowly fell asleep.
***
Rumors spread like the plague in Serpenti High. It was safe to say that I made quite the reputation for myself. People stopped bothering me and whenever they said my name, it was no longer out of amusement. Some of them even feared me. If they didn't, they'd ignore me.
Good. That was good enough for me. Apparently, it was the first time anyone's ever gotten up the ranks so quickly. Not only did I manage to get myself a dog tag, but I had two of them. I was worried that Adam would try and dig up our past again, but surprisingly, he acted as if nothing had happened. Maybe he really thought it was a dream. Whatever he was up to, I didn't want to know.
I lay in bed, dangling Peter and Clyde's dog tags above my face.
#362 and #303
I was still considered lower class, but at least I wasn't rankless. Vadim acted like nothing had happened and returned to being my roommate slash friend. He didn't mention the stunt I pulled on Peter and Clyde, nor the fact that he helped me escape.
I wanted to thank him. Even though he acted like he didn't care, he had my back and even took the risk of getting into trouble for me. I would never forget that and would always be grateful, but Vadim simply shrugged and would change the subject by telling me stories about his great, great grandpa during the Russian civil war.
I was curious as to how Vadim got stuck in Serpenti High. I also wanted to know how Vadim managed to get such a high ranking. As grateful as I was towards him, I knew it was a rare gesture. He wasn't selfless or brave, and he avoided conflict or anything that could bring him unnecessary problems.
Vadim followed the rules that would keep his neck above the water and blend into the shadows so he would go unnoticed. How did someone without any lust for power, manage to get into the middle-class category of the Ranking System?
As for me, despite being part of the ranking system, I wasn't interested in beating up others or climbing up the ladders. I wanted to be left alone in peace so I could finish the school year in one piece so I could graduate with all limbs attached to my body.
Surviving. That was my goal.
"You don't have to worry about anyone bothering you for the time being," Vadim said as he came into our room. He had a towel over his half-dried hair and he smelled of cheap shampoo. "Some people will eventually come for your ranking, but you've scared a lot of people, so don't worry too much."
I sat up, slipping the necklaces into my pocket.
"You think Peter and Clyde will try and get revenge?"
"They're both Nobodies, at the very bottom of the Ranking System. Peter and Clyde will be too busy trying to stay alive to bother you," he said, casting the towel on the floor and plopping onto his bed. I stared at the towel and blinked.
"Aren't you going to put that away?"
"Put what away?" he asked, closing his eyes.
"Your towel."
A pause.
"Vadim?"
"Apologies, I no speak English." He said it in the thickest Russian accent I'd heard. I rolled my eyes. "Can you repeat?"
"I said—"
Vadim cut me off with a dramatically loud snore. My mouth hung open as he roared loudly through his nose. I sighed but smiled, picking up his shit and throwing it in the small laundry basket. Vadim peaked through an open eye but when I turned towards him, he pretended to be asleep. Dead as a corpse.
"I'm going to hit the showers," I said, heading to the closet.
"You don't want to go there right now," he responded.
I snorted. "Oh, you're awake?"
"I sleep talk; you should know this by now."
"Why shouldn't I take a shower?"
"I saw Adam heading towards the showers when I came out."
My eyebrows shot up. Vadim turned towards me, resting his cheek on his palm.
"You never told me what happened after we split that night when you snuck into Peter and Clyde's room. I thought you were dead since you took so long, but you came back looking like you saw a ghost."
"The guards were on my tail."
"Pah, a terrible liar."
Vadim stared at me with his beady black eyes and I rubbed the back of my neck, shifting my gaze. I didn't tell him how I ended up hiding in Adam's room to avoid getting caught by the guards, nor the fact that we kissed, and definitely not the fact that I almost got hard because of it.
Shit, even now I couldn't help but think about how fucking embarrassing that was.
"I bumped into Adam," I finally admitted. Vadim raised his eyebrows, but he didn't look surprised.
"This sounds like a great hook for a romance novel." He smirked. "No wonder you took so long. So, friend, who bottomed?"
My jaw hit the ground and he chuckled, raising his hand to stop me.
"Never mind, I think I already know."
For some reason, I felt offended. I would have thrown my pillow at him but the risk of Vadim never giving it back stopped me. Every student only got one pillow. Well, except for Adam. He had the luxury of having two.
"You like him, don't you?" Vadim said.
"I hate him."
"You look at him strangely."
"Strangely?" I echoed.
"It's different from how you look at Ruby or me. You have this, I don't know how to put it, special look in your eyes like you're in love with him or something, you know?"
I sucked in a tight breath, feeling the ring around my neck feel heavier than ever.
"He beat me to a pulp," I grumbled.
"Yes, but why? Adam is number 1 and he doesn't need to fight people, especially someone who was rankless. Who knows? Maybe he loves you back."
"Can you not use the word love?"
Vadim shrugged. "You love him?"
"I don't," I mumbled, unsure of my own feelings. "It's just that..." I sighed. Vadim was my only friend, I might as well tell him about my past. "It's not the first time I've met Adam."
Vadim blinked blankly.
"You are a stalker?"
"No!" I blurted. I told Vadim about the orphanage and our past.
"My parents left me on the streets when I was little. I heard that they died afterward 'cause my old man drove drunk. I was sent to an orphanage but I never really liked it there. I never fit in, never felt wanted, so I ran away a lot."
"Were you never lonely?"
"Sometimes yes, sometimes no."
Vadim could probably sniff the truth.
"But eventually, I stopped running," I said.
"Why?"
"Because I found a reason to stay," I said, remembering the first time Adam held my shirt and said my name. "I met this kid, he was only a year younger than me. He was thrown away like me and the rest of the kids. He was bullied a lot and I found him locked up in a storage room. Ever since I helped him out, he wouldn't stop following me around. Even when I told him to beat it, he'd quietly follow my shadow. He needed me and for the first time, I felt like someone wanted me," I laughed bitterly. "It felt nice, y'know? Being wanted. Being able to exist in someone else's eyes."
Being a somebody.
"That kid who held onto you," Vadim said slowly. "That was Adam, wasn't it?"
I nodded.
"If you two were so close, why did you lose touch with each other?"
"Because Adam wasn't like me," I answered flatly. "He was wanted. Even as a kid, he was cuter than the other lot of trash he was stuck with. He stood out, and adults would always ask about him. He was shy, quiet, and looked like the perfect adoptable son. I think that's why he was bullied so much." I paused, shaking my head. "No, I know that was why he was an outcast."
Whether it was the orphanage or Serpenti High, we were all lacking something, which drove them to commit crimes or act unfairly. Envy, anger, sadness, all those emotions drove us to do things that we shouldn't do. Adam was a victim of that vicious circle, even though that no longer seemed to be the case.
"But it was strange," I murmured, deep in thought.
"What was?"
"He'd always come back."
"What do you mean?"
"Whenever a couple would ask about him or take him home to see whether or not they wanted to adopt him, he'd always come back."
Almost.
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A/N: Axis 😭😭😭
P.s: chapter 39 of The Ranking System is now available on Patreon! The link is in my description bio.
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