I Studied With the Last-Ranked Boy… Then Came in Second Chapter 06

I Studied With the Last-Ranked Boy… Then Came in Second Chapter 06

“Exactly.”

Sienna chimed in, pointing at the bulletin board.

“Anyone with eyes can tell the rankings were posted wrong. Mr. Bennett probably mixed up the names when he printed them. There’s no way your score could be higher than mine.”

I didn’t argue. I simply returned to my seat in silence.

One after another, my classmates came back from the bulletin board.

Every one of them looked at me with disbelief.

The bell rang, and the classroom quickly settled down.

As Adrian walked past my desk, he impatiently tugged at my sleeve.

“Stop wasting everyone’s time. Go wait for the transfer notice. And don’t come back to our class.”

He had barely sat down when Mr. Bennett hurried into the classroom with a stack of graded exams.

The room instantly fell silent.

“You’ve all probably seen today’s rankings. There are two things I’d like to address first.”

His gaze swept across the room before landing on me, a bit apologetic.

“Last week, we wrongly penalized Elena for cheating on her Math Olympiad section. That was our mistake. I’d like to apologize to Elena.”

“Second, I want to recognize our top three. First place, Declan—his solutions were more elegant than the official answer key. Third, Elena, who improved from failing to eighty-two in just one week. She mastered a huge range of advanced concepts through sheer effort. Everyone should learn from that.”

“This test was harder than any normal competition. Only four students broke eighty. For Elena to finish third is an incredible achievement.”

Before the teacher finished, Adrian shot up.

“That’s impossible! She cheated!”

“I designed that test. Some concepts are beyond what ordinary competition students have even studied. There’s no way Elena or Declan scored that high!”

“Adrian. Sit down.”

Mr. Bennett’s voice was sharp.

“During the entire exam, Elena sat beside my desk.”

“I watched her from beginning to end. There wasn’t a single suspicious action. There was no cheating.”

“As for you… I trusted you enough to let you write this quiz. But instead of focusing on good problems, you made them unnecessarily hard to target a classmate. We’ll discuss that later.”

Adrian dropped into his seat, fists clenched white.

His confidence was gone. His eyes were locked on me, full of panic I’d never seen before.

Beside him, Sienna lowered her head. Her cheeks flushed bright red.

The smug arrogance she’d shown only minutes ago had completely disappeared.

I paid closer attention in class than ever before.

Every now and then, I caught Declan in the corner of my eye.

As always, he rested his chin on one hand, looking completely indifferent.

But whenever I lowered my head to work through a problem, he quietly slid a note toward me.

On it were a few shortcuts for solving the question more efficiently.

The moment class ended and Mr. Bennett walked out, Adrian strode straight to my desk.

His voice trembled with restrained anger.

“What did you do? How did you get your hands on my exam before the test?”

I put my pen down and looked up calmly.

This time, his accusations no longer filled me with guilt or self-doubt.

“The only thing I did was pulling all-nighters, grinding problems in the library, and asking Declan questions every chance I got.”

“From beginning to end, the person who refused to acknowledge someone else’s hard work, the one who couldn’t accept that other people could improve…”

“Was always you.”

Adrian’s pupils contracted.

He opened his mouth, trying to defend himself. But not a single word came out.

“Adrian Whitmore.”

“From today on, we’re no longer friends.”

My voice was calm. Without even a ripple of emotion.

“I used to chase after you with every question I didn’t understand. And I actually believed your promise that if I could score sixty, we’d be together.”

“I was wrong about you.”

“You and Sienna make the perfect pair. The so-called promise between us is over.”

“From now on, let’s stay out of each other’s lives.”