She finally lets loose of her arms, although the feeling of her chest pressing tightly on my back is pretty damn awesome. I almost want to ask her to hug me again. But I can’t. I’m a cool person. A cool person never proposes such inappropriate requests.

“What do you want?” I ask, gazing at the far end of the horizon. A cool person never looks at people while talking to them.

“Invite you for a cup of coffee? I'll pay.” She chuckles. Her slightly curled hazel hair flows down to her shoulder and waves as she approaches closer to me.

“No. ” I say. “Take one sip of caffeinated drink after 2 pm and I won’t be able to sleep for the entire night.”

“That’s too sad...” She leans toward me a little. “Milk tea then?”

“You totally didn’t get the caffeine part, did you?” I say, sighing inwardly.

“Then what are you doing on the roof? It’s kind of cold here, isn’t it?” She asks, leans herself closer. She thinks her canny movements are unnoticeable, but I can sense them very clearly. I moved away.

No, it shouldn’t be cold; it’s May already. But I’m not very sure of that either.

I always release a small part of Qi from inside my body to form a thin yet unpenetrable layer of protection two millimeters above my skin: an invisible enclosed Qi shell that keeps me from any kind of outside harm: dust, germs, bacteria, rain, snow, et cetera. It also controls the temperature of the air around me. I’ve set it to twenty-three degrees Celsius for five years, that’s the temperature that makes me feel the most comfortable.

“Empty-mindedly relaxing,” I answer.

“Great. So you are not busy.” Lexie nods, taking out a deck of cards from her backpack. “Let’s play Magic Uno!”

Seriously? I now regret not saying yes when she first proposed to buy me a coffee.

There are two types of ‘Uno’s: the regular one and the Magic one, their rules identical: each player plays a card with one of ten numbers from 0 to 9 and one of six colors representing six basic elements making up this magic world - fire, water, wind, earth, light, and shadow. The only difference is that the magic one releases fancy spells every time a card is played based on its element. It’s basically a visually enhanced version of regular Uno, but three times more expensive.

Last year they also released “Magic Uno VR”, a sensibly more useless and even more expensive version. What can I say? Technology makes people crazy.

She is wearing our high school’s uniform for spring: a camel-colored thin sweater over a white short sleeve shirt. The brooch with 19th High School’s silvery blue logo is on her left chest. She smells of rose and jasmine, which possibly come from some classic Chanel perfumes.

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

“You know, next time when Ian and Alicia have time, we four could play Mahjong together.”She says, playing a six of the fire element.

I play four of the fire element, shrug to show my nonchalance.

Lexie is a perfect girl, almost too perfect to be real. She’s the daughter of a renowned local entrepreneur although I’m not sure what kind of business her family does. She’s kind and adorable, the Juliet to every restless, teenaged Romeo. She’s the most talented student in this school, or even the whole city: specializing in light magic spells, excelling in studies with a cGPA of 4.0. She’s too excellent in every aspect, which is the reason I’ve never acknowledged her as my friend.

Being friends with popular people puts me under the spotlights, and that could mean troubles. Lexie may be thinking that I’ve already accepted her as a friend, well, I haven’t. What we’re having right now is an acceptable normal relationship between high school classmates. If she wants to move forward into the next stage, which is eating lunch with me in the lunch period, she needs to try a lot harder to earn it.

Just like Lexie, I excel in every course in school, as long as it doesn’t involve casting magic, which the only thing I’m unable to do. To be honest, finding someone in school who’s sufficiently smart as me isn’t easy, and Lexie has almost met my requirements.

Except that she sucks at card games.

At the twelfth round, I’ve played my second last card on my hand and there’re still seven more on Lexie’s. She squints hardly at my last card as if trying to look it through. If she plays her next card wrong, the game will end with a bunch of fancy mini golden fireworks shooting off from my head: it’s an exclusive feature that only comes with Magic Uno Gold Edition 2018.

The next moment I hear my name is announced in the broadcast.

“Eason Lu, please come to the main office. Eason Lu, please come to the main office immediately.”

Just about time.

“Oh, I forgot to call ‘Uno’. You win, Lexie.” I drop my hand.

“What?” Lexie sits stunned as golden fireworks shoot upwards from her head.

“That was an intense and fun game. But I got carried away by the hype of victory and missed the most important part. ”I say while striding downstairs. “Victory is yours. Now if you excuse me… I need to go to the main office.”

Lexie wants to follow up but then she realizes she has a whole box of Uno cards to sort.

“Wait… Hey! Eason! I’ll wait for you in front of the office!”

I leave without even looking back. Everything goes just as I planned. Today’s the last day for students to select their courses for next semester in September and Mrs. Grintonham, the guidance counselor, will check everyone’s selection throughout the day, and ask them to come to the office if there’s any problem.

And the biggest problem, me, is always to be dealt with at last. I didn’t go home right away after school because I expected to be called. I even went on the roof to avoid bumping into Lexie, but I didn’t expect that she could still find me and invite me for a few rounds of Uno.

It takes two minutes and a half for Mrs. Grintonhamto to go to the cafeteria for a cup of afternoon coffee and some bagels then head back. Five more minutes for her to refresh her makeup and broadcast my name around the whole school.

So I played my card at a pace that at the exact moment when I’m called, I had my last card on hand. This way I can secure my defeat by not yelling out “Uno”, end this game gracefully and - not too early to leave two of us in tens of seconds of awkward silence or too late to make Mrs. Grintonham wait.

A cool person never lets a lady lose in a game, or let her wait.

By the time I arrive at the main office. Mrs. Grintonham has only taken one bite on her first bagel.

“The principal wants to see you, Eason.”She says.