During the morning, Beth met up with Julianna and Simone during her halfway to school. She was just about to talk to them about the runway show update.

"LADIES! Are you ready for the exhibition of our projects?"

"Yep, Bee!" Simone was excited. "Let's go networking with talents!"

"It would be great to meet other talented groups, but I am not sure if I should go with you guys as well. See, I am not much of an art student, and I didn't do fashion design a lot before this project. This might not be the place that suits me."Julianna said.

"There's nothing to worry about that, Jules. You have been a participant in the project, so your effort deserves to be seen." Simone patted Julianna's shoulder.

"Besides, we are a team, Jules. We would not have achieved success in the project without your hard work."

"Cool! Thank you, guys. There's one more thing that I am concerned about—I am very busy with my other activities as well. I have an important thing on my schedule to finish today. Thus, I need some time to think about if I can attend the event."

"Jules, can I ask what that important thing is?"

"I am meeting with a counselor to discuss my college choices this lunchtime. You guys don't need to wait for me today if the session takes so long."

"This early?!"

Both Beth and Simone stopped and stared at Julianna with startled expressions. The first semester of high school just started, and neither of them had already adjusted to Laurel Prep yet.

During lunchtime, Beth and Simone had decided that they hang out with each other while they wait for Julianna. They grabbed a round table of three and dropped their bags by the table. The cafeteria was packed with people; loud talking could be heard from every corner. Simone looked around, trying to find Julianna by identifying her signature blue hair. Unfortunately, she didn't see any blue-haired girls among the masses. Julianna must still be at the meeting.

"Who even discusses college choices this early?" a mildly disgruntled Beth played with her lunch casually with her fork.

"Jules — You know her. She is very organized and high-achieving. I bet she has straight As. You can never estimate how many hours she secretly puts into her work after school." Simone chuckled and leaned toward Beth to make a scary face at her. "And you can never know whether she secretly thinks that we are bothersome!"

"Anyways, let's just wait for some time longer. Jules takes her academic and extracurricular commitments seriously. When I first met her, I was honestly surprised that she carried out an independent study before coming here! She's probably killing that conversation with the counselor now, with her — I don't know — one million clubs?"

Simone shook her head. "I could never work as hard as Jules. Sitting on one task for a long time is so draining for me. How does she handle doing all of her things at once?"

"Have you asked her about it?"

"Not yet. Have you? I don't know how to ask her if I were to do that. Jules doesn't really text me outside of our group. Talking to her out of the blue just to ask this question feels awkward."

Beth put down her fork and looked at Simone.

'Did you guys talk at all during this week outside our group chat?'

'Well, I have very different course schedules with Jules. I say hello to her when I see her walking in the corridor. But we only talked once or twice on socials, and they were about confirming our scheduled time to eat lunch with you. Nothing personal. It seems that you were the reason that Jules want to tag me along.'

'Maybe that's not true! Jules might just be slow to open up to people. You never know.'

'I guess. You were close to Jules from the start so she clings to you more. By the way, what extracurricular activities are you doing this year?'

'Me?' Beth pointed at herself, her eyes looking around. 'I haven't decided yet. Probably dance club, art club, innovation club...something along those lines. Starting my own club seems such an appealing idea, but maintaining the club is where the headache comes from.'

'What about starting your own project instead of your club? For instance, creating a fashion show or self-directing a play. You get to be the main character of your creation!'

Beth's eyes lit up as she remembered Bianca's art portfolio. Wasn't Bianca's project 'Magical' a reflection of her thoughts and feelings? Beth was hesitating on whether to send Bianca an online message or not, despite wishing to talk to her for a long time. She felt that Bianca had artistic tastes that were too out of the league for her. Were the personal histories of Bianca just as romantic, fulfilled, and meaningful as what she portrayed in her portfolio? What about her life as an art student at Lisette University? That must have been so fun and intellectually enriching, right?

'Great idea, Simmy! Do you have anything you want to do?'

'The band.' Simone blurted out instantly. 'But there's one big problem. My high school best friend used to do band with me all the time. She inspired me to come here to Laurel Prep — it was her dream school at first. Do you know my song Out in Space? I wrote it with her in mind. We used to talk about performing Out in Space together sometime. However, before she graduated from my middle school, she broke down and quit band after a failed performance, and we have never spoken since. Now she's an upperclassman at Laurel Prep, and I've been avoiding her this semester.'

'Would you mind if you told me her name?'

'Fifi. Fifi Florence.'

Beth opened the Laurel Prep student directory and searched for Fifi. A profile came up with the title Felicity (Fifi) Florence, with a photo of a redhead wearing a high ponytail, grinning with her mouth wide open.

'Originally I thought I could forget about her and move on with my life.' Simone said. 'I have other friends, and it wouldn't matter if I just lost this one friend. However, When Paige and Jade pressured me on our runway project when I had a cold, Fifi was the person I wished could be still by my side. The band audition is coming soon, and Fifi might be going. What do you think I should do?'

'I am not sure. Why don't we wait for Jules to come back and ask her as well?'

Beth scratched her head and looked around in the cafeteria, waiting for Julianna to appear. She didn't know what to answer Simone. It would be great if Simone could just go to the band audition and talk to Felicity again, but the situation is surely more complicated to be solved like this.

Julianna appeared by herself around the stairs, walking in circles and staring far away, as if she had lost her directions while navigating in the busy cafeteria. Beth stood up and waved toward her. Upon seeing Beth's signal, Julianna marched towards Beth and Simone, with a confused look on her face.

'How was the counseling session?'

"That session was not helpful."

"What happened?"

"I told the counselor about my goals, and she diverted the topic. She asked me a bunch of questions about my personal life, like my childhood memory or insecurity...something like that. Then she told me that I need to slow down, that life is more than work."

"Maybe she just thinks that you need to have a rest," Simone said.

"Life is more than work? That's an alright attitude, but it indeed serves as an excuse not to have high goals." Beth grimaced.

"Right?! It sounds good on the surface, yet you will be left behind if you take that seriously. People at Laurel Preparatory are just very hardworking. Do you guys know this upperclasswoman called Hildegard?"

"Hilda Longworth? She is practically perfect." Simone said.

"Isn't she? She has perfect stats, awards, and a Ph.D. in social interaction. She will compete against me in our school choices. The problem is that she has a gold medal in Laurel Biology Olympiad and I currently don't. Maybe I should do the Olympiad again. I will also go to the networking event."

"Are you sure you can handle everything, Jules?" Simone was concerned.

"Ah, it's fine. It's just a couple of other things added to my current workload.'

'Well, shall we gather together to discuss how we are gonna present ourselves before the event?'

'That could work.' Julianna said. 'You guys can come to my house after school on Friday. My parents will be late from work, so we have plenty of time and space to hang out.'

Just when Julianna finished with her words, Beth noticed a tall girl gazing at them from one end of the cafeteria, as if she had a déjà vu of meeting Beth and her friends before. A redhead with light eyes. She wore a high ponytail, a silver necklace, and black clothes throughout her body.

Beth heard someone shouting at the redhead.

"Let's go, Fifi!"

Is that the Fifi Simone was talking about?

Beth gently nudged Simone, pointing to the profile picture of Felicity on her phone and towards Julianna. 'Simone would like to ask you something, Jules.'

'Go ahead.'

'I have been avoiding my friend who currently goes here at Laurel as an upperclasswoman. We were best friends but broke up after a failed musical performance. I might see her during band audition this week. What should I do?'

'Just go say hello to her and talk to her directly. I don't know if it will clear up any misunderstandings between you two, but it's better than not saying anything at all.'

"Oh never mind. It's not important that I become friends with her again..." Simone quickly changed the subject. Before Beth could say anything else to Simone, she caught a last glimpse of the redhead before she went away.