Chapter 4

CHAPTER 4

DRESDEN MAIL

[email protected] has invited you to contribute to the following shared folder: Dresden University Management Club - Team Ephemere

Monday greeted me with this email. I browsed some of the folders in the shared drive, careful not to change anything as I tried to get a picture of what was going on. I did not want to look like I was clueless during the meeting on Wednesday so I briefed myself on the basics by browsing the materials.

Come Tuesday, I whipped up a new schedule for myself, swapping around my study times and making room for the club meetings. I was extra aware of Cholo being in all my classes and it was doubly hard to pretend not to notice him. In the past, he would ask if I wanted to join his group or offer to include me in a club study workshop but I would be quick to say “No, thank you” before running off. I was sure he recognized me as the classmate he kept calling Maleficent much earlier than I did him. The offers were to remind me, probably just to have the satisfaction of seeing me recognize him and even get a rise out of me if he was lucky.

Nope. Still not going to give you the satisfaction, Prefect Brat.

I dreaded the meeting all of Wednesday, overthinking everything, but I steeled myself to just get it over with.

The club’s room was on the fourth floor of the building and I was panting hard by the time I reached it. I made my way towards the club room, only to be greeted by merrymaking noise.

Oh, man.

The room was bursting at the seams. I saw people playing party games, eating, and generally being rowdy. There were even benches outside the club room, on one of which I saw Liana’s friends.

Wait, was the club room always this crowded? There had to be a members’ interaction event or something. Gosh, why didn’t I check the calendar?

I stood at the entrance, not knowing what to do. I did not know most of the Ephemere team and the number of people and the noise were overwhelming for me. I was tempted to make a run for it, Prefect Brat be damned.

Where was he, anyway?

“Uy, uy, look who’s here!” said a familiar low voice. “To what do we owe the pleasure, Vinnie?”

“Get off me, Gian,” I snapped, pushing him away as he tried to put his arm around my shoulder. The smell of his cologne was overwhelming. “You stink.”

“You’re hurting my feelings,” Gian replied dramatically, putting his hand on his chest.

Gian Magsaysay was one of the few people in my batch I could stand. We knew each other because he was best friends with Liana, and not to mention, had been pining for her as long as I could remember. I teased him a lot about his choice of perfume, which I had always found too strong.

Our friendship language was annoying each other. I rolled my eyes and gave him a once-over, wrinkling my nose at his crisp-collared shirt.

“Niiice, Magsaysay,” I said and he gave an exasperated sigh, as though saying ‘Here we go again.’ “Mukha kang tao today, ah. Anong meron?”

“Very funny, Vinnie. What happened to you yesterday?”

“You saw what happened. I don’t want to talk about it. Have you seen Cholo Valiente?”

“No. Yuck. Why are you even looking for him?” he asked. Gian was not a big fan either. Like me, he kept his grudge from childhood and he had yet to forgive Cholo, too.

“Noooo, wait. Is he suspending you?”

I aimed a punch at his shoulder. “Why you little?—”

“Lavinia?”

As if on cue. Cholo.

He stepped right in between Gian and me, his eyes darting as though sizing us up.

“Hi,” I said, trying to be all proper, even attempting to smile as I remembered that my cum laude standing, Seoul trip, and entire future were on the line.

Gian put his fist against his mouth to suppress a loud snort. I raised both eyebrows at him.

“I’m out of here,” Gian said, holding his hands up in surrender. He then walked towards the bench where Liana and their friends were seated, leaving me and Cholo behind.

Cholo marched down the stairs and to the library with me following him. We’re having the meeting here? Jeez, why make me climb at all? I kept my mouth shut as he proceeded to charm the librarian into handing him the discussion room key, his eyes turning into half-moons.

Wow. Who would have ever assumed such a smile belonged to a judgmental prick?

“Did you get to eat at all?” Cholo asked, opening the discussion room. It was empty and dark so he had to turn on all the lights. I had never set foot in this room before but I would see people holding their case presentation practice sessions and mock feasibility defenses here from time to time. I observed the walls and found soundproofing.

“No.”

“Why not?” he asked.

“It was too noisy and crowded. I didn’t even know there was free food until you told me.”

“Is this why you hadn’t attended anything since we got inducted as members?”

“Yep. People drain me. I think I joined the wrong club,” I said, taking one of the seats on the front table.

“You must’ve gotten food, at least. That’s one thing they do right.”

“To get food, I have to interact. Not worth the trouble, and I’m not that hungry,” I said and then I leaned forward as I watched Cholo write words in block letters on the white board: LOGISTICS , MARKETING , FINANCE , PROMOTIONS , and PUBLICITY / CREATIVES .

“You need to work on that. This group for Ephemere is made up of about 75% extroverts. What’s your MBTI?”

“Why do you ask?”

“You did complete the Career Assistance kit that the college launched this term, yes?” he pressed.

I nodded in reply. The College of Business launched its Career Assistance program that distributed kits with personality tests for us to fill out, including MBTI, or the Myer-Briggs Type Indicator. This included brochures on what roles or jobs were a good fit for you depending on your results. Some of my classmates pointed out that the MBTI personality test was not as relevant anymore and was not supposed to be used as a personality measurement. The college said that was a valid point but stood their ground and argued that it was still a good gauge.

“For the org’s use, though, the chairpersons need it to balance out the group and know how to handle everyone. You did read it, right? You were on the last viewer list.”

“Fine. I’m ISTP-Turbulent. Temperament, Melancholic,” I said. “Wait. How come your name wasn’t on there?”

“Because it’s mostly for my use. You looked for me in there?” he asked, turning to face me with a cocky smile.

“Wooow, yuck,” I said, making a face.

Cholo laughed and pulled out his phone again. I assumed he was adding my details to the file.

“Never mind, forget that I asked. You’re probably Choleric, though. Extroverted, too.”

“Is it that obvious?” he asked, putting his phone away. “You’re right. ENFJ, Choleric. Anyway, the others are on their way here.”

“You could have texted me to go straight here, too, you know,” I muttered.

He sat on the table I was leaning on. “How? I don’t even have your number.”

“You never asked,” I said.

He handed his phone to me and I entered my digits. “Don’t bother me with non-Ephemere things, though,” I reminded him as I gave it back to him.

“You got it, Lavinia,” he said.

Then my phone chimed.

+639*********

As discussed. - Cholo

Swiping his text notification away, I opened my laptop and stared at the board.

“So, which one are you assigning me to?” I asked, wanting to get a headstart.

“Depends on which you like,” he said, taking the cap off the whiteboard marker.

“Yuck, that stinks,” I complained. “And I don’t know. What does Finance do?”

“Sell stuff. Raise funds. Set up stalls in bazaars to sell the stuff we get from sponsors’ X-Deals.”

“Absolutely not,” I said, terrified at the idea. “Also, how is Promotions different from Publicity?”

“The Promotions team involves, well, promoting on various media channels and doing campus tours. They do the spiels on radio stations, give talks about the event to nearby universities, make people from our partner orgs pose with our giant 3D logo,” he said, extending his hands to demonstrate how huge the logo was. “They also make deals with media channels to promote our event brand free of charge.”

“We have a few influencers in the club,” I suggested, folding my arms. “Have we reached out to them? Might give us a better reach.”

Cholo’s eyebrows knitted together and then his eyes went wide.“That’s brilliant, Lavinia. Would you like to lead that? We can put you in Promos.”

“You want to send me to negotiate with people? With my brawling history?”

“Fair point,” he said, letting out a laugh. “But do you want to at least pitch it in the meeting later? It’s your idea.”

“Remind me to bring it up,” I said, grateful that he wanted me to take the credit. “What about Publicity?”

“Publicity-slash-Creatives is our in-house design team. They check the visuals, posters, everything else. As we’re on a limited budget and cramped timeline, we don’t usually have the resources to hire artists so we do it ourselves.”

“Cool. Do you do video teasers, too?”

“The team last year did. Why?”

“Hmm. Maybe we should do that. I’d be happy to join this team. Video editing is kind of my thing,” I said, having so much experience from editing videos of my favorite Korean girl group, Era of Maidens. I started it on social media as a joke and then it became my outlet when things at school got way too stressful.

“Right, of course,” he said so knowingly that made me raise my eyebrow.

“Of course what?”

“The one you had on the case presentation last Friday. Wasn’t that your work?” he said a little too quickly, scratching his nose, which made me feel a teeny bit suspicious. “The one you played before, um, you got interrupted.”

“Ah,” I said, letting out a relieved sigh. Yikes, just the thought of someone like Cholo Valiente watching my fancam edits of Hyoyoon’s funny moments...

Dear god, no.

I would rather have the underworld swallow me whole.

“So you want Pub?”

“Yes, please.”

“Hmm, that’s good. You’ll get right along with the Pub and Creatives kids. They’re…interesting, too.”

“I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that thinly veiled insult.”

“Oh, that’s not an insult. I do find you interesting.”

“‘Ge, push mo ‘yan,” I said, rolling my eyes. “Which team are you on?”

“Didn’t Miss Co tell you?”

“I remember she mentioned something but I was too worried about the possibility of being suspended to digest it. What was it again?”

He stared at me with a sly grin. “Why do you ask? So you can change teams and spend more time with me?”

Seriously, why did they even put him on this team? All he does is annoy me. I wondered if he was like this with the others. Was that a strategy to get things done?

I might never understand.

“No, because you’re annoying me enough as it is, and if I ever end up having to work with you, I’ll get two suspension warnings in one term. Which one are you in?”

“Funny you should ask, it’s a touchy subject,” he said with a small frown, looking at me dead in the eye. “I wanted to be Marketing Team Head.”

“Wow, seriously?” I said, my mouth curling in a disbelieving pout. I could not tell if he was serious or not, the cheeky brat. “The club said no to you , Mr. I-Can-Do-Anything Prefect?”

“Yeah. They turned me down as Team Head,” he said, mirroring my pout and pulling a tragic expression. “Wala, eh. They wanted me as the entire event’s Chairperson.”

As if by reflex, I kicked the foot of the table he was sitting on.

“OW!” he whined, as the force of it actually dislodged him off the table.

I snarled. “Weirdest flex ever! Last mo na ‘yon.”

“Damn it, that usually works,” he said, shaking his head.

Before I could reply, the door swung open. A tall, beautiful girl stepped in, whose face I remembered seeing in class and student council posters.

“Hi,” she said, smiling at Cholo.

“Hey, Summer,” Cholo replied.

Ah, Summer Tiu. Of course .

Summer always looked immaculate and I could not help but notice how pretty she looked today. Being in the same block, she was in a lot of my classes and I was always being impressed whenever it was her turn to present in case presentations. She had substance and a perfect tan, plus the unforgiving white light in the meeting room did not make a dent in her seemingly poreless face.

Damn, girl, drop the skincare.

“Sorry, I’m late.”

“Did you see any of the others?” Cholo asked, his tone changing back to his formal one. He also rearranged his face in a polite smile.

“They’re on the way na daw, didn’t you check the group cha—oh,” she said, forgetting her train of thought as she saw me. Her smile vanished. “Sorry, Cholo. I didn’t realize we weren’t alone.” Summer looked disappointed about it for some reason.

“Probably a blind spot,” I said, looking at my chair then back at the door.

“Oh, introductions,” said Cholo.

I stood up and found myself at eye level with the other girl. I wanted to tell Cholo that I already knew her but she probably did not know me. I tried for a small smile, which she did not return.

Crap. How do you even do that smiling thing? I probably just looked constipated.

“Lavinia, this is Summer Tiu. She’s the Finance Head of the Dresden College of Business Administration Student Council. As I mentioned last week, Ephemere is a joint effort with the SC, so Summer is my co-chairperson for this event.

Summer, this is Lavinia Exconde. It’s a little late but Pats—I mean, Miss Co put in her word for Lavinia so she’s going to be our additional Publicity and Creatives officer taking Carina Lim’s place.”

I’m what ?

“Just Vinnie is fine,” I said, making a mental note to berate Cholo about the ‘officer’ part later as I thought I would just be a volunteer or something. The decision to be in Pub was only made five seconds ago and now I was an officer ?

I extended my hand towards Summer, who stepped forward to take it.

“Nice to meet you, Lavinia,” she said, flashing the poster smile. “I’ve heard so much about you.”

Her tone made it clear that whatever she had heard about me was not good. Guess she knew me, after all.

“Carrie’s from SC. Shouldn’t we be getting an SC rep as a replacement?” Summer said to Cholo as she let go of my hand. It was like I was not even within earshot.

“I’ve sent my third follow-up to the SC Vice Chair last week asking for that and I didn’t hear back,” he said, looking at her straight in the eye. “I contacted them right after Carrie backed out and, weeks later, still nothing. We do not have the luxury of time so Miss Co and I took matters into our own hands and found our new officer.”

Miss Co and he did what? This is making no sense. He was so against me being in the team in the first place ? —

Oh, wait. Is Cholo defending me?

“Well,” said Summer, giving me a once-over. “If you and Miss Co are vouching for Lavinia, then I guess we can work this out.”

“Oh, we will. I was just about to give her an orientation about the job when you arrived. Help me out with the basics?” said Cholo, sounding so confident, it was scary.

I sat back down, feeling both confused and vindicated. It looked like Cholo had a competitive bone to pick with Summer and the student council so he had to stand up for me as a part of it.

Luckily, the rest of Cholo’s event committee came in at that moment. The discussion room started smelling like food, and Cholo chided them as the library did not allow students to bring any in. Summer presented me the event and its beneficiaries on her iPad while he was distracted. She also continued Cholo’s explanation of each team’s functions and matched the names in the file with the faces in the room.

The chaos died down as everyone followed Cholo’s orders for everyone to settle down. I was introduced to the group, making my anxiety levels rise, but everyone else except Summer made an effort to be welcoming.

As the number of people who were genuinely nice to me far outnumbered the one who was not, I decided not to care about Summer. She did her job orienting me quite well, anyway, and never mind that she was distant. Any qualms I had about her would have to be ignored. Like Cholo, she would be overseeing my performance and her feedback would be important. I had the feeling I would not be graduating on time if I ever got on her bad side.

Or if she got on mine, whichever came first.