“Ahem.” A woman at the front of a classroom cleared her throat. “Ryu, I take it you already know all of this?”

A boy whose appearance could be summed up in one word: average, pushed his head up from his desk. He blinked a few times and cautiously yawned, before looking towards the teacher. His eyes carried a droop in them, such that he perpetually gave off a vibe of being bored.

“Uhh... “ The boy - Ryu, yawned while the teacher rolled her eyes.

Numerous sighs slipped through people’s lips. Other students in the room were sat at their desks, some propping their chins up on their palm, some spinning their pens in between their fingers as, yet again, the boy in the back delayed them.

“Wide awake I see.” The teacher smirked and there were a few snickers around the room. “Well Ryu, I suppose you can tell us how to solve this problem.”

Ryu’s eyes looked past the teacher and at the whiteboard, though, from the outside it would appear more like his eyes had lost focus, absently gazing into space.

He wasn’t good at math. Or English. Or Physics. In fact, he wasn’t good at anything. His appearance was a reflection of his academic achievement: average. Never above the line, never below, at least not by enough to be called below average.

Ryu finished reading the question on the board, mostly gibberish to him, so it took but a moment for him to determine his answer.

“I don’t know.”

More sighs. For a moment the teachers smirk morphed into a scowl, before vanishing a second later.

“Moving on…” said the teacher.

Ryu looked down at his book. He’d never liked books. They were heavy and made his bag bloat. He propped his head up with his palm on one cheek and looked out the window. He didn’t watch anything in particular. None of it was new anyway. Trees rustling in the wind, a gym class running laps around the field… no, what he watched was that which couldn’t be seen - time.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

Livia taught maths, Ryu’s favourite subject, so he watched, and watched, and... well, time always seemed to pass slower in Livia’s class.

Eventually the bell rang, though it wasn’t actually a bell but rather speakers playing what sounded like a bell, but it held the same meaning. People packed up, including Ryu, and headed to their clubs, except Ryu.

He didn’t like clubs. Or, from his point of view, clubs didn’t like him.

As Ryu picked up his bag and headed for the door, he overheard a group of girls.

“Hey are you busy this weekend? We should hang out!”

Ah yes, it was also a friday. The day before the weekend. A time Ryu generally occupied by lying in his bed staring at the ceiling, and, occasionally, when he had the will to get up, waste a couple hours playing another of those MMO’s which took up far too much time in the dark.

He’d probably do that tonight, but for now he had somewhere he needed to be.

***

Twenty two minutes later Ryu was sitting alone in a room with a single window, closed, with a curtain. He still wore his uniform, there was no need for him to change, and in front of him sat a desk. But he wasn’t at school. The desk had a computer with what was clearly a spreadsheet on display.

According to the job description he was a “Database assistant”, but those were only as useful as the buzzwords used to write them. The stack of papers to the left and right of him was his true job - data entry.

Click click click

He wasn’t a championship typer by any means, but he was fast enough, which was all that mattered to his boss. So fast in fact that his boss gradually let more and more of his fellow workers go in favor of having Ryu do it all, which was a complete lie. Ryu knew the company was dying. He saw the data after all, not that he’d complain. The job was perfect for him.

He got to sit on his ass for four hours, talk to no one, think about nothing and get paid for it. Plus his family needed the money, not that his mother, Caragh, would let him believe it. At first she’d told him she was taking a little to help him save for university, but he knew it was going to the bills.

“I gotta find a new job…” mumbled Ryu.

Nothing in life is free. It’s perhaps the most obvious but difficult to comprehend things in life. Everyone knows it, but no one fully understands it until they experience it for themselves.

Ryu’s job started at four, so he had another five minutes on the clock. Though he’d finished over thirty minutes ago, so he was more than ready to leave. Once the clock hit eight he was up and out the door.