"Me? I'm the principal of your school homie."
"Huh?" Replied Abhi with his left eyebrow raised to his hairline.
"Yeah, yah heard me right, I'm the principal of yo school cuh." Said the mysterious man in a professional-looking suit with a blank expression once again.
"Yeah, sure and I'm the prime minister ha-ha." Replied Abhi while nervously laughing.
"Whatever cuh, you don't gotta believe me but tell me what you doing here, and if it's safe I'll let you go." The mysterious man replied.
"I don't have to tell you, and I have to go my bus is gonna be leaving soon so bye-bye 'cuh' ha-ha," Abhi replied with a smug laugh while he creased his brows.
The man pointed at something behind Abhi.
"You mean that bus?"
Abhi turned around looking at the spot pointed at by the man and his jaw dropped to the floor.
"WHAT! NO!" Abhi started to run towards the bus station after realizing his bus had already left for the Low City.
After just a few seconds of running, the bus had already gone passed Abhi's field of view, disappearing below the edge of High City.
"NO! NO! NO! What am I gonna do now? Another bus doesn't come around for a whole 30 minutes!" Abhi said as his lips quivered while he held his head up with his arms.
"Oi, why did you want to go to Low City anyway? Do your parents know you are going there?"
"Shut up, you are the reason I'm gonna be late now fuck!" Abhi said as he side-punched a pillar near him in frustration.
"Chill out cuh you shouldn't use naughty words. Also, maybe I could've helped you…wait never mind I can't." The man said in a disappointed tone.
"Wait, can you help me reach Low City?" Asked Abhi with a glimmer of hope in his eye.
"Nah, I can't now."
"Wait, I'm sorry for being impolite sir it was just really important for me to reach my work on time." Abhi requested as his lip quivered with anxiety.
"It's not that, I just remembered I took a bus because my car is at the mechanic so I really can't help."
"BRUH!... There is nothing I can do now." Said Abhi as he stared down at the ground in sadness.
"Well, if you tell me what you are doing here, we can go eat at the café till your second bus comes around." Said the man while pointing his at the "Garlock Gobbler Gamers" café.
Abhi shifted to his left and got a peek at the café, it seemed like a quite luxurious café, one like something Abhi had never seen in his life. His face instantly expressed intrigue but he tried to hide his expression and look down at his newly bought shoes.
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"No sorry, I can't pay for that," Abhi replied.
"Don' worry 'bout it cuh. The treats on me, well technically it's a complimentary buffet so the food is free." The man replied reassuring Abhi.
"Still, I can't eat along with a stranger. Also, why must I tell you my reason for being here when you haven't told me yours?" Abhi said while still looking down at the ground.
"Fair enough, here look at this. I was actually here specifically to… do some… uhm… work in the café but ended up with your situation here ha-ha." The man pulled out his wallet from his back pocket, He flipped open the wallet and showed Abhi its insides.
The wallet displayed two things in a transparent plastic compartment: One was a membership card of the GGG (Garlock Gobbler Gaming) café which was partially covered by the mysterious man's fingers as he held up the wallet, alongside a wedding photo of the man with his wife.
To Abhi, everything other than the card blurred in his vision. He might not even be able to tell apart the face of the man holding the wallet, Abhi was completely focused on just the content of the wallet.
So Abhi observed the displays carefully, verifying that the man indeed had a membership of the café, but some information was hidden underneath the man's fingers but it didn't seem necessary at the time, Then his eyes moved to the man's wedding photo and after looking at the photo for 3 seconds Abhi's Jaw dropped to the floor and exclaimed loudly:
"Is that our teacher Ms Oxlong?!"
"Yuhuh, Nice to meet you I'm Mike Oxlong, Ms Oxlong's husband and the principal of HS Kolar." Said the mysterious professional-looking man Mr Mike Oxlong.
Abhi slowly took a step back while his lips quivered frantically. He suddenly came back to his senses and stood in an 'Attention' position, he then clamped his hands and said:
"Oh, good morni- I mean good evening, Mr Principal! Myself Abhi Archana. Also, I deeply apologize for not believing you and acting so rudely ha-ha…" Said Abhi with an awkward smile frantically twitching lips and shaky clamped hands.
"don' worry 'bout it, let's go to the café." Replied Mike as he started to walk towards the café.
"Uhm… are you sure sir?" Asked Abhi in an anxious tone.
"Yeah, come inside."
The duo walked to the entrance, which had a tinted glass door. There was an unusual orange box-like structure above its door handle, Mike took out his membership card and slid it through the slot at the centre of the box, in a few seconds the door opened automatically and the card came back out of the mechanical box.
The duo entered the establishment. Abhi frantically looked around the environment while staying close to his principal as they passed a passage to get to a room at the left close by. His eyes shined with a hint of wonder and curiosity as he saw many new things inside, it was like a spacious maze of cubicles, inside each were big and long black cuboids kept below a counter, they were attached to big screens on the top of the counter. Abhi immediately stood straight in excitement and exclaimed to Mike:
"Computers!"
"Yup, this is a gamer stop, we can play games on computers here for a specific amount of time, the amount of time depends on your membership," Mike told Abhi while leading him inside a cubicle.
"Oh, so like cricket or something on the computer?" Said Abhi while subtly touching the black box, the CPU below.
"Pretty much the gist of it. Also, click on the big red button there." Said Mike while he sat down on a chair.
Abhi clicked on the button and the screen of the monitor booted up. Abhi got slightly jump-scared but was able to hide his expression as this was the second time he had seen something like this today.
"Go get a spare chair from there and I'll load some games till then." Mike pointed at a hallway to the right and told Abhi without diverting his expression from the screen.
"Alright." Abhi complied with a blank expression.
As he walked towards the hallway to get a chair Abhi linked eyes with a fat kid, the same fat kid that pushed Abhi! The fat kid was sitting in one of the cubicles with a mouth full of snacks and the wrappers and other trash lying all over the cubicle he kept slowly turning his chair to follow Abhi around with his squinting eyes. Abhi didn't pay attention or perhaps didn't even recognize the fat kid and just went his way.
"Wot tHe hAel is tAaT RakVill kid doin' here?" The fat kid mumbled to himself with his mouth full of sugary sticky snacks.
....