“Hey, have you tried out this new—”

“—how are you just starting? I already played it nonstop for—”

“I heard there’s a tournament coming up soon, maybe we should—”

“No way, that tournament is for ridiculously good players that are—”

They were at it again. Everyday there would always be people going on and on about this new game. I held no grudge against games. In fact, I liked them very much. But it’s the noises I couldn’t accept.

“Aren’t you gonna try it out?”

I looked up to meet the gaze of my childhood friend, her face filled with excitement. Miyu’s always been this way since we were little, always full of energy, always positive about everything.

“Don’t give me that blank look, I know you weren’t sleeping,” she carried on with her interrogation, this time inching her face closer to mine.

I turned away as a sudden wave of heat rushed up my cheeks. “Aren’t you gonna go to class? Lunch is almost over, you know.”

She made a face at me then started to leave, the radiance in her eye dimming ever so slightly but returning full force again by the doorway. “You better wait for me today, 4:30 by the school entrance, okay?”

I rested my head onto my arms once more without saying anything, my heart restlessly waited for her to leave. She did so silently and unknowingly, quite in contrast with her personality. But this also caused me to maintain the same position until lunch finally ended.

I regained my posture as people started filing through the door to attend our afternoon class: Mathematics. From their faces of displeasure I could already tell that no one wanted to be here. I never hated the subject itself, unlike many of my fellow classmates who complain about every new concept we learn. Nor did I like it very much.

“Alright, today we’re gonna learn about factoring polynomials,” almost immediately after the teacher finished, plenty of murmurs of disagreement followed. “You don’t have to learn if you don’t want to, but I’ll remind you all once more that the unit test is next week.”

With that, the teacher was able to bring back the original silence this room had before our afternoon block started.

“Now, to factor a polynomial, you must first multiply the first term with—”

I stared at an empty seat several rows from my left. She’s not here again. Thinking back on it, no one ate their lunch in the math room except me. That is until several weeks ago when she came to our school. Rina transferred mid-semester due to family issues, but she didn’t seem to take school too seriously. She rarely showed up to any of the classes and she never talked to anyone. On rare occasions when she did come, she would eat her lunch in the Math room. We sat far apart from each other and we would never say a word. Sometimes my only childhood friend would come visit, too. But she’s been reluctant this past week, and I don’t blame her. Not after what happened between us.

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“Ray! Ray Starlin I’m talking to you!”

Startled, I searched around the room for the source of the voice. After meeting nothing but giggles, the thundering voice came booming again, “eyes up here, Mr. Starlin.” More laughter followed.

Of course it was our homeroom teacher, Mr. Hutchins. He had the voice of a metal singer, but he came to teach at our school instead.

“You can step outside if you find my lectures boring.”

I responded with a meekly “no, thank you.”

“He’s probably thinking of Miyu again,” whispered another voice. Although it was quiet enough so that our teacher couldn’t hear, it made it to my ears as something more impactful than the harsh scolding I received earlier. Then there was the snickering that echoed shortly afterwards.

They wouldn’t understand how it feels to like someone. How it feels to have someone that listens to you and understands you. To have someone that’s always there to support you. And of course they wouldn’t understand how it feels to have that person reject you. Everything you’ve built up for years destroyed in a single moment; to realize that this feeling of yours was only one-sided. They just wouldn’t understand. . .

The rest of the school day ended somehow without me noticing. I only remembered the hard surface of my desk, which I pressed one of my elbow against while my hand supported the side of my face. Yet here I stood in front of my locker, puzzled. I lost track of why or how I got here, in this silent and motionless hallway. It was weird that I did not remember hearing the bell signalling the end of a student’s imprisonment, or when it was that I exited the only classroom I felt comfortable in. Without further hesitation, my hands started their daily routine of the exchange of textbooks. Until my brain finally caught up to relay a message. I was not alone in this hallway. Fellow friends and classmates were casually chatting, joking and laughing with one another. A scene that would be perfectly normal if any of them were moving. Instead, they all stayed in absolute stillness, frozen halfway from continuing their leisure lives.

I extended my arm in disbelief towards a familiar figure. Wait, wasn’t this guy’s name. . .Max? Or was it Maxus? His skin felt hard but rather warm-to-the-touch despite being frozen in time. It was a weird sensation that could not be described otherwise.

“Surprised?” Said a voice that almost made me jump.

I turned around to face the source of the sound, but all I found was an ordinary boy dressed in a pair of oversized sweatpants and a hoodie. Except no ordinary boy levitates several feet above the ground.

“Am I dead?” I responded with the only question I could think of at the moment.

The boy-like being rolled in a backwards somersault while hugging his stomach in laughter, an action otherwise impossible unless one was afloat in midair. Finally calming down, he asked me with amusement: “Do I look like the Reaper to you?”

It was clear to anyone that he couldn’t possibly be the Reaper from Hell. His wide, shining eyes and cheerful nature however, reminded me of my childhood friend. Why am I thinking of her again? Before my mind could wander off, I asked a second, slightly more useful question.

“Could you please tell me what’s going on here, ummmm . . . whoever you might be?.”

It came out more as a plea than a question.

The boy seemed to find every part of me laughable. After giggling to himself for another several seconds, he returned his gaze to me.

“Please, just call me Tim,” he replied with a smile on his face. He then paused for a little as if waiting for me to answer. But seeing that I had no intention of interrupting, he continued.

“Welcome to the Grand Tournament!”