Page 15 of Chasing Mr. Prefect

“Uh, online,” I said, thinking of how I started editing videos for my entertainment and then posting them on Flitter. Five thousand followers later, here we were.

“You should be in Multimedia or something. That’s skill!” Kristine mused. “Give me a tutorial some time, won’t you?”

“Sure. I’ll send you the links I learned the stuff from. So what’s the best news?” I said, keen to get off the topic.

“Marketing Team Head, can you please do the honors?” Seth told Kristine.

I turned to face her.

“I had been bursting to tell you since last week but I didn’t want to blab without making it official first,” Kristine said, excitedly squeezing my arm. “We have two co-presentors now!”

“WHAT?” I asked, my eyes nearly popping out. Co-presentors were sponsors who pledged seventy-five thousand pesos and up. Having two of them meant we could now afford the venue.

“I’m just about to tell the team now but I had to tell you and Seth first. Cholo said it was your strategy to embed the sample package videos in the sponsorship letters. It worked!”

My jaw dropped. Sure, I pitched the idea because it would have worked according to the theory taught in Miss Co’s class but hearing it worked in real life made me feel all kilig.

“Well, like we kept saying, it’s the club and event name that spoke for itself. The embedding was probably an add-on,” I said.

Kristine shook her head.

“Look, okay, the assistant brand manager for this new men’s care line just spoke to me about it. She said it caught her and her boss’s eye and it was a big deal because they used to be DMC members, too. They pledged a hundred thousand pesos, Vinnie,” she told me in a quick stream. “She also asked if she could have a word with the Creatives team who put it together because they were asking for a sort of collab. Would you be okay with that?”

“Well, I?—”

“Hold on,” Summer interrupted from where she was seated, looking at her laptop. “This isn’t the template for the sponsorship letter. When did we send these out?”

“Weeks ago,” Kristine said, her smile fading.

“External Relations would never have let us send this. Why did you bypass the procedure?” Summer asked, her eyes flashing with danger.

“We didn’t bypass anything. External Relations approved this. Cholo had ExeCom across on this decision too,” I said, unable to stop myself as Kristine went from looking like she won the lottery to being on the verge of tears. “You would have known this had you not missed five consecutive Ephemere meetings in a row.”

“Vinnie,” Kristine said, looking both alarmed and grateful that I was standing up for her.

“I wasn’t talking to you, Creative,” Summer snapped at me. “This is a Marketing sub-team task. Stick to your job.”

I raised an eyebrow and let out a mirthless laugh. “You don’t get to tell me how to do my job when you don’t have a single clue how to do yours,Chairperson.”

“Kristine Andal, you’re Team Head of Marketing,” Summer said, refusing to acknowledge me and instead addressingKristine. “Did it not occur to you that there were two chairpersons and you were bypassing one of them? I would have expected a heads-up at the very least. Ephemere is an event of both Dresden Marketing Club and the Student Council. I don’t appreciate being blindsided.”

“This was discussed in the following meetings, Summer. We expected you to be there and you would have known this if you attended?—”

“I’m a busy person. Maybe an email or two would have worked, no?” Summer cut Kristine off. I hated how disrespectful she was being. It was one thing to be useless, but power-tripping in this day and age did not sit right with me.

“We have a group chat where this was discussed and you were even commenting here and there,” I jumped in. “You can’t call this bypassing. It wasn’t like this was being kept from you. I mean, did you want to be asked for a written approval every time? Fair enough, this is an SC event, too, but DMC has been doing well for years without SC’s help.”

Summer finally looked at me, her face radiating pure loathing. “Oh, how cute. Look at you standing up and being all bibo for DMC now,” she said, smirking. “Considering how you’ve only been active, what, weeks ago?”

“Someone had to do so, considering the tight timelines we were left with after your SC buddy left.”

Summer’s smirk vanished. Seth and Kristine were both looking at me nervously.

“What are your motivations for this, anyway?” Summer retorted, one eyebrow raised. “Aren’t you just here to make up for that big mess you made?”

Oh, she didnotjust go there.

“Mess?” I repeated, all the blood rushing to my head in anger. “Disciplinary office trips aside, don’t you think that themessI’m cleaning up now isn’t mine but council’s?”