“Hirai Momo ! You better wake up right now !” Hana shouts from downstairs. “It’s still too early for a Saturday. Let me enjoy my sleep you asstwat.” Momo shouts back. “Too early my . “Today is your competition. Now hurry up and eat your breakfast before I drag your late to school !” Hirai Momo sits up, back straight as a ramrod and mutters “”.

“Urgh” Momo groans as she sits between Jeongyeon and Chaeyoung at the bus stop. “My my my, looks like Hirai Momo, The Always Late Hirai Momo finally arrives on time. Looks like the inter-school gonna be LIT !” Chaeyoung shouts with excitement. Momo can only ponders whether the little girl is teasing her, or encouraging her.

“Do you know that I ran all the way here ?! I ran all the entire way !” Momo complains while her head rests on Jeongyeon shoulder, trying to catch her breath and sleeps while she’s at it. “Let me rests for a bit.” Jeongyeon pays her no mind and carries on playing with her phone, probably texting Nayeon. Sadly, just as Momo says that, the school van arrives which means that Momo cannot have her sleep just yet. She pouts resulting Chaeyoung to pinches her cheek. “Stop it.” “Yeah whatever.” Chaeyoung just shrugs it off while continuing terrorizing Momo’s cheek.

“Gives your identification card, Mo. You only use identification numbers in the game though.” Jeongyeon teaches Momo since it is her first competition. The latter’s face has confusion written all over it and Jeongyeon wastes no time in explaining it to her. “They wants to make sure that the contestant is high schoolers.” “But how would I know the hotties name if I meet one ?!” Momo asks, clearly getting work up. “You could always asks” This time Chaeyoung cuts in. “Besides, you can gawk at The Black Swan. Judging on her last two matches, I’m sure you guys will meet in the finals. Just don’t drool”

Just as Chaeyoung said that, Momo eyes wonders and glued to a team of scrabble players from the hosting elite school, St. Peters. What keeps her eyes glued is not about their clearly classy and expensive uniforms, but instead what catches Momo’s eyes is a girl. She walks slightly behind the team, looking like she’s uncomfortable with them. Or maybe she’s just shy and not good with people. Momo studies the girl’s features; she has a shoulder length copper hair and has moles on her face. She is a beauty indeed. Just as Momo starts to drool, the girl looks at her for a few seconds before turning away and walks into the competition hall. “She looks …. familiar” Momo mutters under her breathe.

“Hey, Chaeng.” Momo calls the smol bean. “Was that just now the Black Swan ?” Chaeyoung nods and continue looking around the hall. Currently they are at the St. Peters Grand Hall and the hall is hundred times better and cleaner than their school hall. (It’s not like St. Mary’s Hall is dirty, but the title ‘Grand Hall’ itself shows that the place is much better than the latter.) “I think she can beats me.” Momo says. “Looks like the Black Swan managed to scare the Black Boar.” Chaeng grins before texting Hana; Momo is afraid :O

After several rounds of scrabble, it is the of the inter-school. The final is approaching and this will determine which school would hold the title of Scrabble Champion. Chaeyoung and Momo both qualifies since they played really well; getting number 1 in their respective group and win big time at the semi-finals with 100 points lead while Jeongyeon right now is chilling at the school garden flirting with the attractive girls and boys after losing in the group stage. Their opponents is none other than the Black Swan and her teammate who are representing St. Peters. The end result is unpredictable since St. Peters never went to the finals before. This make Momo nervous and the poor girl is currently shaking, shaking with the uncertainty of the outcome.

The bell rings and the match finally starts. “About time though.” Chaeng sigh. Momo goes first and she looks at her rack thoughtfully before dropping ‘food’ on the board. Chaeng laughs making Momo shoots her a defensive look. “What ? I can only do this as she picks four tiles from the pouch. Momo takes a peek at the beauty in front of her and she is giggling as well. “She must think that I’m a pig.”

It is Chaeng turn and she drops a ‘fluff’ on top of Momo’s word before giving a wink at The Black Swan who only keeps a straight face. It’s now Momo’s turn to laugh at Chaeyoung at her failed seduction attempt. “Tzuyu is going to be real mad with you if I tell her about this.” Momo blackmails her which make the latter swallows a lump in . The Black Swan quickly arranges ‘dough’ below Momo’s word and the other girl wastes no time in spelling ‘hymn’ at the board.

The final is like that the entire time, Momo and Chaeyoung constantly teasing each other while the other girls are keeping calm and not speaking out a single word. At times, Momo notices that The Black Swan stares at her occasionally and she has this confused looks painted on her face. Momo just shrugs it off thinking maybe the girl was intimidated by her. But as times goes by, the stares become more frequent and make her uncomfortable. She decides to break the ice.

“You’re good, beautiful.” Momo says toward the pretty lady in front of her. (She could be very honest about her opinion >.<) The latter blushes like crazy and quickly drops the word ‘mundane’ which scores her a major 30 points lead leaving Chaeng behind with Momo and the other girl trailing just behind Chaeng. The blushing girl drops her head to hide her face and Momo recognise the gesture but can’t seem to remember about it.

The game continues and it is getting harder and harder to score points since all of them manages to block the openings. The Black Swan decides to do a risky move and open up more spaces with a single word ‘adore’. Momo spots bonuses around the word and starts searching for words in her brain that can scores the most point. The round continues and with Momo’s luck, the contestant before her decides to swap her tiles. Momo smirks and draws attention from the other contestants including Chaeng. “Whoa, something in mind ?”

“Yeah, 90 points in mind.” Momo says as she spells the word ‘zenith’ which connects with other words to create more words. She is now neck and neck with The Black Swan for first place and Momo never wants to back down. “Woooooo” Chaeyoung make a noise, eyes widen, clearly amazed by Momo’s action. The Black Swan starts to feel uneasy with Momo’s skill.

For every word that they put down, Momo decides to block it off making the game turns toward her favour. This continues until the pouch is empty. It is Chaeyoung’s turn but she passes towards The Black Swan who only manages to clear only 2 tiles from her rack. The other contestant, looking beat as hell can only passes and it is Momo’s turn.

“Checkmate.” Momo says confidently which erupt laughter from the other three participants, including the players from St, Peter. “What ? What ?” Momo says panicky as she rushes to put all 7 tiles on her rack onto the board to form ‘trotter’. “Wrong game Momo.” Chaeng says, still laughing at Momo’s dramatic-not-so-dramatic final move.

Since Momo finished first, the other tiles unused add ups to Momo’s own score. The judges did several calculating just to be sure before announcing the end result. While waiting for the final calculation, Momo eyes wanders around the crowd and sees her sister silently praying. The view warm her hearts and she remembers the incident this morning. “I’m gonna buy her a jokbal later.” Momo reminds herself.

_______________________________________

“The winner of the inter-school is contestant Hirai Momo from St. Mary !” The crowd cheer as loud as the clapping of hands. Momo walks onto the stage to receives her first gold medal and the trophy to bring back to school. All of her dork friends and sister jumps up and down in excitement and screaming their lungs out as they manage to keep the title ‘School Champion’ again for 3 years in a row now.

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“I’m glad that Jokbal (pig’s trotter) finally gives me the winning prize.” Momo walks towards her club members who are playing scrabble while waiting for the school van. She notices that The Black Swan is playing scrabble alone and she feels bad; so she walks toward her. “Hey” Momo greets her but the girl quickly duck her head, hiding her face. Momo then grabs some tiles from the pouch and starts to arrange word on the board. “I know something that can cheer you up.” Momo consoles her. The latter girl looks up toward a shy-facing-down Momo before looking down on the board ‘jokbal’.

Momo manage to steal a glance at the girl but the latter is busy staring at Momo’s ‘jokbal’. Her eyes are screaming nostalgia and Momo wants to cup her face saying it is fine. First place or second place doesn’t matter. But her intention dies when the girl looks into Momo’s brown orbs. Momo quickly look away and feel embarrass since she was staring at her. She even blushed ! When she peeks a bit, the girl is smiling at her, eyes getting teary and she mouthed ‘found you, Momo’ before turning away and retreat to her friends. Momo has never felt so weird.

"I thinks she likes you." Chaeng whispers creepily at her. "Goddamnit Chaeng ! I'm just about to get sentimental." Momo huffs.

A/N : Sorry if the chapter is too boring hehe. Thank you for all the subscribers. It mean a lot to me ;-) Special chapter coming up next. Until next time, pyong ~