I wasn’t always this way.

Just two months ago, I had a girlfriend. We even had seggs. Just once.

I got dumped on Valentine’s day. 

She told me I was selfish. Never cared about how she felt. Never listened to her. Never understood what she wanted. 

Apparently, I was the worst thing that’s ever happened in her life.

I should just go and kill myself.

That’s what she said, not my words.

I don’t think we will ever work out again.

Now was the spring. The first year of high school. This was an opportunity for me to put everything behind me and start anew. But it wasn’t so easy. I was traumatized by my last girlfriend - SHE is probably the worst thing that’s ever happened to me - and that made me scared to fall in love again. 

Whatever. I’m not here to find another girlfriend. Maybe school life will be more fun when you are not tied to one person. Make friends, make memories, sharing them all together - the more the merrier. 

But I still spaced out a lot, both in and out of school. Afternoon classes were the worst as my seat was by the window and the view outside was beautiful under the spring sun. I do like beautiful things.

“Boh, wake up-“

I wasn’t asleep. If I was then it was with my eyes open.

“Sorry, I was just spacing out a bit”

“You seem to do that a lot”

“I guess”

“Anyway-, do you wanna come over after school?”

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

Woot. It’s my first time getting invited by a classmate since I started high school. Kulu is a boy that sat in front of me in the class and he was a friendly guy. We got into chit-chat right from the first day of school. Well, it was mostly him talking and me just nodding my head, but he was alright and could be entertaining at times. 

“Sure, what are we gonna do?”

“My parents are out today and don’t come back till late tonight. That can only mean one thing”

“What?”

“Seggs”

“Dude….”

“Just kidding, don’t get your hopes up :wink: I got the new sequel of that fighting game. Those are more fun playing with real people than vs. AI”

“That is true”

“So you coming?”

“Sure”

“Right, I’ll ask a few more guys”

With that Kulu got out his phone and started tapping fast, then he looked at me.

“Oh, you are still not in the group chat?”

“What group chat?”

“Ah, I must have forgotten. Let me send you an invite now”

With that, I received an invitation on my phone and joined the group chat. 

There were three other guys in the group.

“Hey guys, I invited Boh, the dude sitting behind me here”

I looked around and noticed that the group of three geeks was looking over our way. They were all holding a phone in their hands.  Then I saw one of them type something on the phone.

“I see. Welcome”, said one of them.

“Welcome >.<”

“Whassup ^^”

Erm… okay...

“Kulu, are we talking to the guys sitting over there?”

“Yeah”

“Why don’t we just go over and talk to them?”

“You might scare them. They are kinda shy”

I really didn’t know what to say, so I just typed in the group chat too.

“Hi. I’m Boh. Nice to meet you all”

“Hi, Boh~”

“I’m Kun. I’m the guy with the glasses here”, I looked over to that group over there and the one wearing glasses gave me a nod of greetings. 

“I’m Dash, nice to meet you too >.<”

Another one, a fat boy waved enthusiastically.

“They don’t look that shy Kulu”

“Yeah they are cool, once you get close to them they are cool”

This so wasn’t like the kind of guys I used to hang out with back in middle school. I was in the clique of delinquents. The guys like those over there would cower their heads when passing by us around the hallways, and rush and scuttle out of the way if we pretend to approach them. It wasn’t that I was particularly fond of bullying the weak, it’s just what we did. We were young, and it felt good to be seen as being strong. The fear in the eyes of weak guys was an acknowledgment of our prowesses. 

Man, did I really stoop this low…? Me? The Crazy Boh?

I unintentionally let out a sigh and that caught Kulu’s attention. I breathed in deep again to pretend that my sigh before was just part of a big breathing in and out. 

“You cool, Boh?”

“Yeah, I’m cool. Always”

Kulu gave me a quirky smile before facing forward as the class bell rang again and the math teacher walked in.

Man, I really hate math.