The time for the first round of the Economics competition to take place had finally come. It took only a day, 3 hours, 45 minutes and 26 seconds. Or at least, that’s how much time Jessica thought had passed. Yes, she was counting because she couldn’t wait. She had been anticipating this moment for such a long time and it had finally arrived. The girl had to admit that Taeyeon was a bit of a distraction, though. Usually, when she’s with the girl, which was almost all the time, she would kind of forget about everything that’s going on. But she’d try as hard as she could to keep her head in the competition because they couldn’t afford to lose this.

When the whole team walked inside the large hall where the first round would take place, Jessica felt that nervous and yet exciting feeling in the pit of her stomach. Taeyeon secretly squeezed her hand without anyone noticing in order to help her calm down a bit. It definitely worked because Jessica looked at her girlfriend and smiled sweetly at her to express her gratitude. As they continued walking, the girls noticed that there was one large desk for each of the teams with the number of seats matching that of the members. Taeyeon looked at her phone to check the time and noticed that there were still 20 minutes left before the start of the round, so she had some time to lay back and chill. As for Jessica, Hara and Gyuri, it was the perfect moment to look around and examine the competition.

“Well, well, well… Look what we have here. I didn’t expect to see Asians at this competition,” some y girl said as she eyed Jessica’s team. “Isn’t China a little too far? Why would you travel all this way just to lose?”

“We’re from South Korea actually and we’re definitely not going to lose. I can’t say the same thing about you and your team, though…” Jessica fired back with a smirk on her face, making the y girl angry.

“Hun, you’re no match for us. We’re the best team in New York and we’ve won this competition every single year since its beginning,” the y girl stated and pushed Jessica back a little, “So I suggest that you don’t get too comfortable and start packing your bags, because you’ll definitely be eliminated in-“

“Now, now… Play nice, Amanda…” a tall man said as he came behind the y girl and placed a hand on her shoulder, silencing her immediately. He then looked at Jessica and her team with an apologetic look on his face before saying, “I’m sorry about her. She’s a bit stressed out. I’m sure you’ll do great in the competition.”

“Steve, it’s nice to see you again!” Mr. Han also came out of nowhere and smiled at the other man. It turned out that this man’s the New York team’s teacher and he and Mr. Han go way back.

“Hey! It’s been a while, old friend!” Steve said and shook Mr. Han’s hand. Then they went on talking about the good old days while the two teams just stood there throwing death glares at each other.

The minutes passed before everyone knew it, so all the teams had to go to their respective desks, because the first round was about to begin.

After everyone was seated, the organizer Mr. Tim Harris stood at the front with a microphone in his hand.

“Before we proceed with the first round of the competition, I’d like to say a few words. First of all, I am so happy to see all your beautiful faces here today. It’s always nice looking at bright young people. Second, we’ve decided to change the format a bit this year. You’re probably wondering why you’re all sitting at these desks with the sheets of paper in front of you. Well, this year, the first round will not be the presentation of the virtual enterprise. Instead, we will do everything backwards and start with the bonus part that I spoke about yesterday. I know that this came as a surprise because you expected it to be last, but you know the moto – “Expect the unexpected!” Mr. Tim Harris explained and everyone looked at him in shock because 90% of the contestants thought they weren’t prepared enough for this challenge. They believed that they had some time to study more. The other 10% like Amanda for example from the New York team, were clapping loudly because they were cocky little es who believed that they were better than everyone else. “The rules are simple. You are managers of a store. Each week you have to make a decision of how much of a certain product to order from your supplier, while at the same time, taking into account how much of that product will be consumed by the supplier's clients. You also have to know that there are transport costs of 900$ which do not change. After you write down the order delivery in your sheet, I will reveal on the board how much is the consumption by the customer for the week. If your number is higher, you have a surplus and if it's lower, there's a shortage. Bear in mind that if you have a shortage, you have to pay a fine of 300$. Your goal here is to have as less expenditures as possible. The team who manages to have the least amount of expenditures, will be in first place during this round and will be granted the most points. Oh, one last thing, keep in mind that you have only 2 minutes to decide your amount for each week.”

Everyone nodded after hearing the explanations given by Mr. Tim Harris and looked at their sheets of paper. Jessica quickly told everyone that they should play safe first and shouldn’t order a really high amount for the first week. Her team members nodded and trusted her, so they wrote 239 in the bar for Week 1. As soon as the 2 minutes were up and Mr. Tim Harris revealed the amount of consumption, Jessica’s team sighed because it was 228. They had a surplus of 11 units, which was okay. So, they proceeded with making calculations. The team continued playing it safe for the next few weeks, still ordering small amounts, but when they had a shortage of 5 units and had to pay a fine, they decided not to do that anymore and ordered a huge amount of 451 units. They thought up a strategy that seemed brilliant. During two of the weeks, they decided not to order anything and not pay transport costs. Everything was going perfectly fine. In the end, they ended up with total expenditures of 9602$. Because the whole thing was stressful, the t