Ficorpio
Chapter 1
“Sophie! Emergency! The Computer Science message board is blowing up! Someone made a post accusing you of fighting dirty!”
At one in the morning, Mia’s relentless barrage of calls jolted me awake. A string of screenshots followed, and the title of the top trending post was as glaring as it was ridiculous:
#What Do You Do When Your Rival Keeps Fighting Dirty?#
I rubbed the sleep from my eyes and tapped the link. The server nearly crashed under the traffic.
The private message board was only open to students in our university’s Computer Science Department. Most nights, people shared code or talked about competitions. Tonight, however, a plain-text advice post had shot straight to the top of the trending page, collecting more than a thousand comments in a single hour.
The original poster had a blank profile picture and a username made up of random characters, but the final digits attached to the account looked extremely familiar.
They matched Adrian Sterling’s phone number.
I nearly laughed aloud when I read the post.
“I’ve been going up against my rival for three years, and lately she’s getting worse. She keeps using underhanded tricks. Every time we fight—and by fight, I mean debate or compete—she puts gardenia-scented oil in her hair. The second the wind blows, the smell goes straight up my nose. She also wears this shiny lip gloss that catches the light whenever she smiles. I can’t concentrate at all, and she’s made me lose several times! It’s despicable! Any strategists out there have advice on how I can ignore her distractions?”
The comments had descended into chaos.
[??? What kind of new fighting tactic is this? I don’t understand, but I’m stunned.]
[Man, are you sure you’re complaining and not secretly in love with her? Perfume plus lip gloss equals fighting dirty?]
[My advice is to confess already. Stop pretending. I’m getting anxious just reading this.]
[Agreed. You’re not being distracted. You’re completely defenseless against a pretty face.]
The original poster—Adrian—was still arguing with everyone in complete seriousness.
“Stop making things up! We’re nothing but rivals. We’ve been at each other’s throats since we were toddlers. There is absolutely no chance of anything else happening between us! She deliberately uses these cheap tricks to throw me off. I’m asking for real solutions!”
Comment 158 asked, [Besides wearing perfume and lip gloss, what other dirty tricks has she used?]
Adrian replied almost instantly.
“During our last competition, she deliberately wore a white blouse with the top two buttons undone. I misread the question three times!”
I rolled my eyes at the screen.
Chapter 2
That white blouse was part of the Debate Team uniform, and the buttons were missing because he had ripped them off. How was that my fault?
As for the gardenia oil, it was the scent of my new shampoo. Mia had practically forced the lip gloss on me because she said it made me look less pale.
Apparently, in Adrian’s eyes, getting dressed like a normal person counted as fighting dirty.
Adrian and I had been everyone’s favorite example of mortal enemies since childhood.
At our first-birthday party, I grabbed a dog leash while he chose a toy gold bar, only for him to insist on sticking his head through the loop of my leash. In elementary school, he stole my spicy snacks, so I hid his homework in a doghouse. In high school, he beat me at a debate tournament once and strutted around outside my classroom until I dumped an entire bottle of water over him. Then, through some cruel twist of fate, we applied to the same university, ended up in the same Computer Science program, and became regular opponents on the Debate Team.
In Adrian’s words, “Sophie Bennett is the greatest obstacle in my life. Without her, I’d have won ten championships by now.”
In my words, “Adrian Sterling is a thorn in my side. I can’t stand seeing him outshine me.”
But who could have guessed that the man who never stopped calling me an obstacle would sneak onto the campus message board in the middle of the night to complain that my “dirty tricks” were distracting him?
Intrigued, I created an account under the name Rivalry Strategist and joined the discussion.
“If you think she’s distracting you, why not give her a taste of her own medicine?”
Adrian replied immediately. “How, exactly?”
“If she wears perfume, use stronger cologne. If she wears lip gloss, find one that reflects even more light. If she wears a white blouse, you wear a fitted black shirt. Fight fire with fire.”
I was offering complete nonsense, but Adrian actually believed me.
“That makes sense. Thanks, Strategist! I’ll try it tomorrow!”
Comment 203 read, [??? Are you really this clueless? This person is obviously trying to send you straight into her arms!]
Comment 204 followed. [Help, these two rivals are way too cute. Go for it, OP!]
Adrian stopped replying. He had probably gone off to research his “counterattack.”
I set my phone down, but by then I was wide awake.
No matter how I looked at it, Adrian’s reaction didn’t seem like simple dislike.
Could he actually… like me?
I smothered the thought as soon as it appeared.
Chapter 3
Impossible. If he liked me, he wouldn’t have spent all these years fighting with me.
The following afternoon, at the preliminary round of the university debate tournament, I found Adrian armed for battle exactly as promised.
He wore a fitted black T-shirt with a neckline low enough to reveal his sharply defined collarbones. He had sprayed so much cologne into his hair that the scent could have knocked someone unconscious. Worst of all, he had actually put on lip gloss—metallic silver lip gloss that made his smile look as though someone had coated it in chrome.
One of my teammates leaned close to my ear. “Sophie, what’s going on with Adrian today? He looks like he’s headed to a nightclub. Is he trying to distract us with his looks?”
I fought back a laugh. “No idea. Maybe he’s having some kind of crisis.”
When the open-floor rebuttal began, Adrian was the first to rise. His eyes locked on mine, and his tone carried its usual challenge.
“Opposing counsel, your position is riddled with flaws. This idea that ‘perseverance guarantees victory’ is nothing more than a comforting lie people tell themselves—”
Before he could finish, I stood and gave him a flirtatious wink. My voice turned soft and sweet.
“Opposing counsel, that lip gloss looks wonderful on you. Where did you buy it? I’d love to get one for my little brother.”
The entire hall went silent.
Adrian’s face turned scarlet in an instant. His polished argument stopped dead. He jerked his gaze away and stammered, “I—I…”
After several attempts, he still couldn’t produce a complete sentence. In the end, he abandoned the podium microphone and fled the hall.
My teammates stared at me, dumbfounded.
“Sophie, that was brutal.”
I shrugged, delighted with myself.
Adrian’s reaction could not have made his feelings more obvious.
That evening, another post from him took over the message board.
#This Woman Is Too Cunning. Strategists Urgently Needed!#
“She flirted with me in front of everyone today! She even asked where I bought my lip gloss! She deliberately humiliated me! I forgot the entire argument I spent all night preparing!”
“Did she see through my plan? What am I supposed to do now? I need answers. This is urgent!”
The comments erupted again.
[Hahahaha! OP got destroyed by his own strategy!]
[I told you, you’re no match for her. Surrender and confess already.]
[Stop struggling and let her have you. The tension between you two is unbearable.]
[Agreed. Rivals to lovers? I’m invested.]
Using my Rivalry Strategist account, I replied, “Don’t panic. If she flirted with you, that means she’s interested. Your next move is to take the initiative and show her what you can do.”
Adrian responded at once. “How exactly do I take the initiative?”