♦♦♦

As always, his classmates were loud, making him struggle to get the content of his mind on paper.

Perhaps, in a similar situation, someone would simply say, "that's fine! Just don't pay attention to them and focus on your own thing!" and Adam would fully support that way of thought.

“Look at that bastard. He's again rushing all the assignments of yesterday just some minutes before the first bell, while making them look like the easiest thing ever assigned.”

“Yeah, it really gets on my nerves... The prodigy slacks off all day except at school and gets to have full grades on most courses. Meanwhile, us mortals have to break our spines for hours at home just to barely keep up with the program...”

Unfortunately, if you're the subject of a decent amount of those conversations, focusing your attention on other matters becomes significantly harder.

Alas, he already had a knack on working on something under these kinds of situations, and it's not like he's actually solving these problems right now...

“If only Arthur had half of this worm's talents, he would have already skipped several classes with his diligence, yet...”

He just had to bear with it, to maintain the blankness, like any other day.

“Ah! He's finally here!”

And here he was, the so-called most hard-working student of the school, also known as the eternally second place on every exam ranking.

In all of his glory and infamy, probably looking straight towards Adam from the moment he stepped into the class, probably because the last time Adam's eyes observed his entrance had been a few months prior to today...

He didn't glance at him because he lacked the confidence.

The confidence of being able to restrain himself.

To keep his blankness.

Anyway, at the door of the class, there he stood, Arthur Lourence, Adam's self-proclaimed rival and also class-acknowledged bully of his, with his shining blonde hair and amber eyes, looking down on him from an height not far from reaching the 1 meter and 80 harbored by many.

And the first words that he, whose life lacked less than anyone else in the school, or perhaps even in the whole city, directed to Adam were...

“The worm is spitting on other's people efforts as always it seems...”

And Adam...

Acted as if he didn't even acknowledge his existence.

Same as yesterday or the day before that.

As that was the only method he knew that could barely get him through the day without losing his mask.

At the lack of response from his adversary, Arthur let out a laugh, walking undetected towards Adam's desk seemingly by chance.

And right as he was traveling between Adam's and another student's desk, he took out a water bottle from an external pocket of his backpack...

And unloaded more than half of its content on Adam's desk, drenching all of his papers, from those whose task had been finished to the ones still to compile, head to toe.

And before Adam could even react, a voice filled with elation made it through his ears.

“Aw, man! I'm so clumsy in the morning!”

And the owner of the voice, Arthur, who had already placed his right hand on Adam's right shoulder before bringing himself down to Adam's eye level, certainly didn't plan to stop his taunt so soon.

“But you'll forgive me, right? It's not like these papers took you more than a few minutes to compile. You can just do them again, right?”

It was for an instant, one so brief that even a modern camera might miss it.

But Arthur saw it.

Adam's gaze slowly shifting from the wet papers to his own face.

The almost invisible smirk suddenly adorning his face so shortly that made he - as logical as he was - wonder if time had been stopped merely to allow such an event to occur, just as he made eye contact with him.

And before he could even process the sight, he found himself slamming his right hand on adam's desk, to alert the whole class about the anomaly.

And yet, when he glanced at his face after making a scene, it wasn't there.

The smirk had disappeared.

Replacing it, the usual black look he so much loathed.

All while Adam, calmly, almost eerily so, took from under his desk a second copy of all his now-drenched assignments, sparing no words over what might as well have been an hallucination.

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

“Tch”

And making a rather useless sound with his mouth, Arthur walked to his own desk, his mind wanting nothing more than to forget the strange anomaly of today's interaction with his nemesis, leaving the rest of the class confused about his actions.

And inside Adam's mind was...

Helplessness.

At himself.

♦♦♦

Before Adam even knew it... Or so he'd like to say, since, obviously, by unwillingly gathering so much animosity towards himself, there was no way he would be left to his own devices during lessons...

Anyway, It was time for the interval.

And he.

Didn't get up from his seat.

Nor did he start eating something to fill his hollow stomach.

He just waited.

For everyone to go outside the classroom.

For everyone to forget his existence.

All while carrying out some assignments for later hours at absurd speed.

And when he was finally all alone, with silence being his sole company, he stood up, ready to enjoy his lunch somewhere only he knows, without any sort of obstruction by his lively classmates.

Oh, what a naive thought that was.

Naive because what greeted him behind the door of the classroom he had just opened was a full shower of gelid water thrown towards his face, a fresh gift from some of Arthur's "lackeys" he struggled to remember the name of.

Obviously, he wasn't able to evade a single drop of water, ending up as drenched as someone emerging from the antarctic ocean after taking a full dip.

“Ahah! Everyone look! The worm just found a water source after crawling in dirt all day!”

“Pfff! Don't be too bad on him! He's always doing his best to survive every day again and again.”

The response of Adam at the blatant bullying was.

Walking away.

Treating everyone present at the scene as air.

With an expression as blank as the one he awakened with.

He didn't even need to take the coin out this time, as that was the only kind of response allowed to him here.

And that, that wasn't his main concern.

In his mind, there was but a single thought standing out about what had just occurred.

Adam thought that...

This time, the joke had been pretty elaborate.

♦♦♦

Finally, he was at peace.

"Peace" being "sitting alone on the stairs of a locked staff-only door hidden behind the school field".

Having changed his clothes with the spare ones he always made sure to hide in his locker, no one would think that just some minutes prior, he had been washed - clothing included - with freezing cold water.

Well, if one managed to ignore his still-wet orange hair, that is.

And despite having grasped the respite he needed to keep his cool, his expression didn't change.

Nor did he speak a single word at himself.

He just stood there, for almost the whole interval.

Existing.

♦♦♦

The walk towards class after the interval was as lively as always.

“Hey, that's him!”

“You mean the guy who gets periodically "washed" up? What has he even done? Always been curious.”

“No idea, just heard his head is full of himself or something.”

“Hmpf! He deserves it all! This is what you get by treating all our efforts like a bad joke!”

“But isn't this strange? Are the professors really so much blind? It's plain bullying even from miles...”

“******* told me things are more complicated than they seem, but he didn't give me much detail...”

“Eh! If he's this much hated, he probably deserves some of what he's getting!”

Word after word, phrase after phrase, argument after argument, all about him for his ears to enjoy.

So much was being told that anyone would expect the one concerned to go mad, and yet...

He was still expressionless.

His blank look unwavering, unchanging.

“Don't you guys find that calm exterior of his a bit unnerving?”

“What bullshit are you spouting now? He's only doing that because he wants to show how little we matter to him, and that in turn shows how much he does care.”

“I told you! He's only thinking about himself! Maybe what to do after school since, unlike us, he doesn't have to think about homework...”

“I would like to see the look on his face the day when they give him enough workload that he has to do some at home.”

“Dude, even if they do that, he doesn't even come to school with a backpack. I would be less surprised if he just rushed them and be over with it.”

“Or maybe he'll try to take them at home during a rainy day and get officially bullied by the planet itself! Ahah!”

Everything was registered, but nothing ever managed to affect his expression.

It was always like this, and always like this it will be here.

That was the hand he had been dealt with.

A moderately bad hand that later on was able to draw a few good cards from the world, only to be forced to give them away by other players.

And in the latest 4 years, never once did he draw anything good from that accursed deck.

The day wasn't over, but his life itself might as well be.

After all, how much could he still fall?

♦♦♦

As he expected, Arthur's torture hadn't been over.

But as he predicted, none of what Arthur orchestrated managed to surprise him, and even if it did, it wouldn't show on his face at all.

In the end, except for the absence of someone from which a bit of abnormal behavior had stemmed, it was a rather uneventful day, like yesterday or the day before that.

And after dodging a second encounter with his lousy "childhood friend", he was finally there.

At the most miserable yet liberating part of his routine.

The visit at the hospital.

Where perhaps, one day, he might get back one of the good cards he had been forced to give away...

♦♦♦

“I'm sorry to inform you, but even today, there have been no improvement in her condition, my most sincere apologies.”

It was inside the already familiar white room, where the blank pure color reigned supreme, be it walls, ceiling, tents, or bedsheets, that he was made aware of it by a female doctor he had never seen before, again.

The fact about the day he so much craved for still being far from arriving...

But there was one thing today he couldn't help but wonder.

Nothing as serious as the person on that bed currently out of his view, but rather something so trivial that he wondered why he hadn't asked about it right after entering the hospital.

“I understand, but where is Clara?”

“Ah right, she, along with some others, will be out of service for a while due to a refresher course, I don't know the specifics of it, but I assure you, even without her she is still in good hands, so don't worry.”

“I see”

Strangely, Adam felt himself almost staggering at the news, but he made it go unnoticed, just like everything else.

“Then, I will leave you alone. I apologize for taking some of your time of visit.”

At the cordial female doctor's words, Adam didn't answer.

And when the patient's room was only occupied by himself and the person he came to visit, Adam - still expressionless - slowly walked towards the bed mostly hidden by some white tents.

And the familiar sight awaiting him behind the tents was the only one that could make his well-crafted mask finally show some real time cracks.

“Good afternoon, Mother.”

So he said, towards the long brown-haired woman lying on the hospital bed with her eyes closed, the same woman who in the past brought him to a world he would have never parted for anything in existence.

The same woman who had fallen into coma 4 years prior to today's shallow events.

The same one who gave away her own future to save his.

The one whose sacrifice was wasted by his incompetence in living.

The person that he had failed in every thinkable way.