“Reyna! Try and get it if you can!” a boy's voice said.

My eyes snapped open as I found myself facing a boy with black hair and brown eyes and seeing my past self facing him.

“Leo!” I shouted as he broke into a sprint as the former me chased after him. It felt like I was watching it from a different perspective. I watched my past self.

Finally the former me caught him. I playfully pushed him and said under my breath “you are it.” before running to the stairs and bounding up.

I sat down out of breath. While the past self was catching up with her breath, while muttering curses to Leo, I realized I was at school--- before I went to the Euse Academy. Was this happening right now in the future or was this a memory? The dude that stole my bag looked like , Arye the Marquess's son. Maybe they were the same person. Except this person had curly hair.

“Reyna?” said a voice from above.

Both Reyna and I looked up seeing the boys from my class on their phones while eating their lunch or their snack.

“Oh hi.” Reyna said as she stood up ready to leave.

“Was it Leo again?” Rian asked. Rian was somewhat my neighbour and my good friend. We used to spend our time pranking each other in elementary school, but since high school… we became a little distant.

“Yeah. but I've got it handled. Thanks!” I quickly bounded down the stairs. I seemed to be in a hurry.

I opened the corridor door.

“You are late, Reyna!” Callista said as she set down her phone and ran up to me.

“Yeah, sorry about that. But I'm glad you ate your lunch before I came. I had some business to take care of.” My heart ached when I saw Callista. I missed her.

“Ooh la la~. ‘Business to take care of?’ Was it Jason? Or Eric? Or Leo?” the girls giggled and swatted at each other.

My former self seemed to be slightly ticked off because they thought I was someone who hung out with the guys because I was interested in them, romantically. Although they never said it aloud, Callista told me. They were always talking behind my backs, secretly shooting dirty looks. But when I confronted them they were all innocent because I was intimidating and they were scaredy cats. Just when i thought of walking up to them and take away their stupid phones Lavena spoke up.

“Shut up. I can't concentrate on my novel.” Lavena said.

She was always just sitting casually in the midst of any fight, and being intimidating to the other girls because she was always calm. I liked her for that. She also just casually roasted any girl or boy who dared to talk behind my back. I liked the way she didn’t care about gender, which was nearly the same for the former self.

The girls quieted down. One of the girls, Hannah seemed to be either brave or a little stupid as she asked the most asked question.

“Come on Reyna. Don't you like Leo or another guy?” she asked as her friends nodded.

“I only think of him as a brother.” I said. I knew it sounded so fake and I blamed the girls who stole my line. They say ‘I only think of him as my brother’ and in the end they end up dating their so-called ‘brother’.

Hannah smirked like: and who's going to believe that?

The former me sighed. “Look guys, if i liked him then i would have confessed long ago and would've been dumped. Plus i'm not really interested in relationships right now unless when i'm around like 18 to 23.'' I said glaring at hannah.

Hannah opened her mouth, most likely to mock me but before she could I quickly blurted out.

“Look, I know Hannah, you like Leo. I can make you guys together!”

Hannah looked surprised which you rarely see. I wished I recorded this on my…. Phone. Lavena, my friend who rarely looks away from her phone, looked up to me with a disgraceful look on her face and Callista gasped.

Hannah laughed. “I don't believe you. You are going to steal Leo from me. I know that, and we all know that.”

The former me clenched my fists as if I was about to punch her.

Instead of punching her I said, “Fine. then let’s see who will be right.” I said coldly before storming away with Callista following me, and Lavena and her friends following me.

I woke up, and quickly stood up, and scribbled down my dream on a piece of paper. It was somewhat rare for a dream to end so… cleanly. Normally my dreams would end up in a sort of cliffhanger which I found really unsatisfying first thing in the morning. But that dream was so…. Cringey. No, it was so cringey, i was embarrassed about my former self.

Although my memories of the past were slowly fading, I still knew my number one thing to accomplish and I got more dreams about my past. So naturally the things I had to keep a record of just became piles of papers which I rarely read over.

Anyways, today’s message in my dream was that I now know that Arye was Leo in my past life although I wasn't 100% sure what kind of relationship we had. But i was pretty sure we were pranking partners,

Then we had Hannah…. I think she was Anna judging by the way she looks and her name, a Marquess's daughter who was openly in love with Aeson but……

I flipped through some of my records of the past that happened. Bingo.

She became Aeson’s fiancee but in the end she was imprisoned because she cheated with another dude. And that other dude was Sir Liam who she apparently mistook for Sir Lamri. Anyways, politically it was fine if Anna and Sir Liam were together because Sir Liam’s household was a Duke’s household, and Anna was a daughter of a Count’s, but I mean Sir Liam was the servant of Aeson and Aeson was her fiance so that was a little messed up. So in political terms it wasn't really a disgrace to look at but cheating on a man’s servant was a sort of disgrace. Anyways bad things aside, she didn't seem harmful so i decided to not change any of that fate.

KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK

The door creaked and Sara entered.

“Your Majesty, please change into your clothes and have a quick breakfast. The guests will leave this morning. It is the Emperor’s job to say the goodbyes to important guests.”

Empress… Emperor…. I seemed to have many aliases. The people who had lower positions than me called me The Emperor, and my brothers called me Empress. Well, to be frank, there isn't much of a difference since right now i don't have an official partner. Hmmm. But even if I had a partner it would somewhat be like he didn't really exist. Well, i take that back. Only the fact that my name, position and his position wouldn't change. Which meant only people with the Imperial Blood or someone who had a blessing from any god can become a ruler. Unless, the current ruler makes them next in line for the throne.

So even if I had a husband he shouldn't be bossing me around and even if he had bad intentions the throne would go to my brothers or to whoever i like. It felt like a satisfying law, at least for me since i made it up to make sure to not try and partner me up because of my position. Nothing really good comes from it anyways.