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Most people were surprised that Ashton had good grades. His free time was limited enough as it was with all the practice he did, both at school and on his own time. What little bit he had leftover, a large chunk was sliced out for studying. While not the best he did get a healthy mix of As and Bs. Maybe it was the bad reputation of the football team but a lot of people expected the jocks to coast by and pass classes with minimum effort just for being on a team.

Not him. Ashton actually spent his study hall doing homework or prepping for tests.

... except today.

Everyone had off days.

It was quiet and he kept to himself. His Algebra homework was spread out in front of him. Already done but he was having trouble with negative integers in more complicated places and wanted to brush up on them before the test Friday. Yet, he had lost focus pretty easy. Phone out, he tapped on the screen to view his Unovr character. His Froakie was in place next to his character, stats displayed. The Froakie in the phone lacked the same complexity as the real one in the game; this one was little more than a looping idle animation.

Spinning his character around quickly, he sighed and put the phone down on the desk. Something about it soured his stomach. The pink frills and long hair of his character was... why had he even selected this type of model? He should have been a guy. If anyone saw this they would make fun of him and then it would get back to his older brother. Then dad would find out... it would just be a whole mess. Maybe he could see about starting over this evening.

That idea made him sick, too.

Glancing around the library to find something else to focus on, he happened to catch a glimpse of a girl's screen. She was... Vera Micheals, right? They had the same finance class. Ashton had never really talked to her outside of the occasional assignment.

"Is that Unovr?" The impulse to ask wasn't caught fast enough.

prince