A rigged game

After a good laugh, the four of them walked to the classroom right beside the room Jenny and Jason had fallen asleep in. "Were you guys in there the entire time? We had been worried sick about you guys. Not telling us anything, not picking up your phones and not answering our messages." Jason just shrugged his shoulders at Elizabeth's words of concern, but Jenny apologized while forcing back a residual laugh. She explained, "Sorry, we were so tired from last night. It became much later than we had anticipated. Since we got things done quickly, we decided to rest our eyes for a moment but that rest turned into a full fledged nap."

Elizabeth decided to tease Jenny, something that appeared somewhat of a hobby for multiple people, as punishment for making her worry. With a haughty look she said, "Oh, my, my. I didn't think you would jump on him the moment you turned eighteen. Don't forget, he is still a minor." With this remark, she took a jab at Jason as well, killing two birds with one stone. Jenny turned at her abruptly and hit her on the arm out of embarrassment. Especially as she was so close to the truth. "Not like that. Get your mind out of the gutter." Jenny said in a huff before fastening her steps and hurried into the classroom. Leaving the amused Elizabeth and Nick, and the less amused Jason, behind. With cold eyes he followed after Jenny in his usual pace and entered the classroom as well. After Nick had dropped Elizabeth off and said his goodbye, he too returned to his own classroom and the second bell rang. Signalling that it was time for class to start.

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As Jenny was sitting in class, forcing herself to pay attention, she saw that Jason was hard at work on his laptop. It seemed that these days he was becoming more and more busy. She saw him switching between multiple screens, alternating between writing words and writing code. He seemed so focused that the words appeared to be reflected in his eyes. She couldn't help but be impressed by him and how he could be so productive when he was lacking just as much sleep as she was. Even more actually, considering he had gotten up earlier than she had to start baking.

Then again Jenny had long since discovered that Jason wasn't like 'normal' people like herself. Even the challenge she had given herself during her first exam week, to steal the number one position from him, was a rigged game from the start. Jason was a person who, even when he was barely listening, was able to catch the teachers' mistakes. Making even them happy that he was keeping himself occupied with something else. She imagined that it was because him being preoccupied allowed them to save some face during the lessons. Otherwise how much more criticizing would they have to face during their teaching?

When she discovered this, she asked herself 'How was she to compete with someone like that? A person who could ace each test without even studying, a person who was teaching the teachers.' The answer to that question was that she couldn't. At least not if you were being serious. Having accepted that answer, she competed with him just for fun and to keep challenging herself, but not because she actually expected to win. As she glanced over at Jason every so often, she thought to herself that he must be working on something really important. Usually if she was stealing glances, he would catch her in the act and start teasing her. But today, even after looking over over ten times, he hadn't looked up from his work once or said a single word to her. He was completely focused and absorbed in his work. But that could also be her lack of focus talking, that was looking for any excuse to not have to pay attention. In the end her mind wandered off to last year.

Though last year he wasn't paying much attention either, he was usually keeping busy with his phone or with staring out of the window. But this year, she had been in a different class, so she hadn't noticed the changes as much. It appeared that he had stopped lazying around and had traded his phone and window view in for a laptop screen and computer windows. She was surprised at first when he brought his laptop out during class, but by now she was used to the image. Though Jenny didn't understand what he was doing, he always appeared very busy. The one time that she did ask him what he was so busy with, he had thrown so many technical words at her that she got lost halfway through his explanation. So, she told herself that as long as he wasn't causing trouble for her or the teacher, she wouldn't interfere.

With that thought she let out a small sigh and turned back to face the blackboard. This was when Jason suddenly turned around and looked at her questioningly, his eyes conveying the words on his mind. Asking her 'What's wrong?'. She didn't mean to distract him and had covered her mouth immediately after she did it, but the damage was already done. Jenny quickly waved her hands and smiled at him, to let Jason know she was okay and that he should continue what he was doing. After looking at her a moment longer, as if not believing her, he slowly turned his face back to his laptop. It wasn't long before he was drawn back into whatever he was working on and started his rapid typing once more. The rest of the class Jenny didn't dare to look over for fear of disturbing him again.