Title: 天然 // Natural for Gensui 108 themes #98
Disclaimer: Konami
Characters: Apple, Shu, Caesar
Timeline: Post Suikoden II, before Suikoden III
There was no one in the world that Apple hated more than Shu.
Everything in Shu was not right. The way he acted, the way he talked, the way he stood, even seeing Shu blinking was enough to make her furious. His existence itself was like a pollution.
She also hated the fact that he excelled at everything; particularly and precisely everything. Maybe that was why Mathiu paid attention to him more than her.
"I know what you're always thinking, Apple." One day Shu told her. "But don't let it get into you. Mathiu doesn't mean so much to me as he does to you."
That was why he hated Shu more; the way that he regarded her one true idol. Shu didn't appreciate Mathiu like she did.
"No, I appreciate him." He said then. "But I do not adore him as much as you do. I am not as obsessed as you are. I am student. I learn so much from him. I respect him as my teacher."
Young Apple snorted. "If you respect him, you better start doing your homework, not slacking off and playing around at the trading center with people twice your age."
"I need some potch to live too, you know."
"We all need money, but it's not the most important thing in the world." Apple replied dryly, and it's time for her to blurt the most important reason why he hated Shu. "And how in the world you can keep your marks like that when you're barely studying?"
Shu smiled, mysteriously. "It seems that I'm naturally smart."
Oh yes, how she hated Shu that time.
***
It was no more than twenty years later. The same, now middle aged Apple was furious off her pupil. Caesar Silverberg was practically sleeping in his desk, on the test she had given fifteen minutes before.
She hated the fact that he could finish the questions she had thought about for two nights, in fifteen minutes. Her hard work was meaningless.
It made her remember Shu in their young days in Mathiu's school.
Damn Shu and all naturally talented people in the world.