Chapter 112 - 3.52 The Rebels
The single, spacious room was completely dark. Boxes of takeouts were strewn haphazardly on the table and dirty clothes piled up on the sofa. The curtain was fully drawn and the only source of light came from the floating hologram screen which was showing the headline news. Ryan was pacing back and forth across the room, biting his nails anxiously.
He had lost in the final match against Altair and lost consciousness due to concussion and blood loss. But an Alpha’s healing ability had always been exceptional. Ryan had woken up a few hours later in the infirmary, disoriented. It took a while for the memories to come back to him.
He was defeated. And it was after he had proudly asked the Emperor to be the judge of the match, Ryan groaned in mortification. He had lost miserably, his pride shattered into pieces. He imagined how people must have talked about what a loser he was and felt humiliation crawling up his body from head to toe. He gnashed his teeth, chagrin. The more he thought about it, the more pathetic he felt. How could he face anyone again after this? Where would he put his face?!
He had always been a proud Alpha. Yet it was only after he met Altair that he tasted such a bitter defeat for the first time. He was close to having a breakdown and thus he opted to turn off his communicator and holed himself up in the room. Maybe this way people would gradually forget about him. Maybe this way he could gather the broken pieces of his dignity and pieced them together, silently licking his wounds alone.
He counted inwardly. It had been a week since then.
After he felt adequately ready, he had turned on his communicator and replied to a few concerned messages asking about his well-being. Friends, classmates, teachers. He told them that he was sick and they dropped it at that. Then he had turned on the TV as per habit, trying to fill himself in on what was going on around the world.
Yet never had he expected that the first thing he saw would be the same person who had dealt a great blow to his confidence.
When Ryan thought that he couldn’t be any more miserable, he was slapped by the fact that the person he had been trying to defeat was a Prince.
The Crown Prince. A member of royalty.