I kept thinking about my task on my way to school.

It was my first D-level task and the first time the system had asked me to help someone. Maybe, this was just a start. Maybe, I’d be catching bank robbers and fighting ingenious supervillains in the future. Did I have the strength to perform such tasks? Perhaps, I would at some point.

For now, I needed to stay on track and help a good person. Were there any good people in our world?

How do you distinguish a good guy from a bad guy? Does selflessness make someone a good person or does it mean that they are an idiot? Is it a bad thing to be greedy in our selfish world?

I wished the system had pointed me in that direction and not let me out blind to fend for myself. Now I was just lost.

Anyway, the school bus was full again. There were no empty seats available. We were only a little way from the school so it didn’t matter if the rest got a seat or not, but I had a task to perform. I decided to give my seat to a girl. She was one of the quiet ones, always lost in her own thoughts. She was a big girl and no one liked to share a seat with her. So she had to stand in the way every day. I didn’t know her name, but I knew she was Abhey's classmate.

“Hey,” I nudged my brother on the shoulder.

“What?”

“Do you think she’s a good person?” I said gesturing toward the girl.

“Whom her,” Abhey scoffed at me.

“Wanna find out?” He wanted to stop me at first, but then he probably thought of something and nodded.

“Sure,” He said, not knowing I was going to involve him in my performance.

Although I said I would do it, I still found it hard to conjure up the courage to act. The same thing happened last evening. I went to pick up the girl and ended up getting love lessons from her and her friends. I didn’t want to mess up again like that. So I quickly made a plan and recited the line I would say and how I would perform.

I motivated myself and waved my hand to the girl to get her attention. She looked around before pointing at herself in confusion, asking if I was talking to her.

I nodded and told her, “Here, you can have my seat.”

I didn’t wait for her to agree and stood up from the seat. Truthfully, I felt anxious throughout the whole ordeal. I felt my ears burning. I, an introverted and shy guy, had a lot of problems doing the deed. And the stares that everyone gave me, let’s not just talk about them.

The girl looked confused at first as did the rest of the students on the bus then she realized what I meant and started shaking her head in disagreement

“No, no, there is no need.”

“Sit down. I need to stand for a while anyway. My legs are numb from sitting down.” I said getting out of her way.

“It’s up to you,” I added without pressuring her into doing it. I raised a fist in my heart for the perfect acting. I was neither too stiff nor too hard with my delivery. The entire act was gentle as a breeze. Best of all, it made me feel good about myself and gave me a much-required confidence boost.

Who knew helping someone was such an easy task? I wondered why I’d never done it before. Probably because I was one of those in need of help. I didn’t have the courage to stand up for myself. How was I to help others? But things had changed now. Maybe I could help others now. Maybe I would.

The girl stood stunned for a while, staring between the seat and me before light eventually returned to her eyes. She thanked me and took the seat. I saw Abhey’s face scrunch up into a ball, which made me happier. Perhaps the girl thought I was smiling at her. She dropped her head in shyness making it slightly awkward for me. A few noticed that little interaction and their eyes gleamed knowingly. I hoped they wouldn’t ask me about it. I wouldn’t know what to say.

The task didn’t complete. There was that.

Abhey was right. She was not a good girl, after all. It could also mean she didn’t need my help and was doing just fine. I shook my head and started waiting for us to reach school.

I was one of the first few to get off the bus today thanks to my generous act. I had just come down when I saw my math teacher getting out of another bus carrying a large canvas bag. It looked heavy and she was struggling with it. Miss Nuri, a recent college graduate, was in between studies. Someone had the gall of asking her why she decided to become a teacher and we all learned that she was taking some time off her studies to prepare for higher education. Instead of wasting time at home, she decided to come teach.

Was she a good person? It was impossible for someone her age not to have done a few or more fallacies in their lifetime. Still, who knows? I might hit the jackpot. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, right?

I didn’t wait for Abhey and rushed to help her, to turn helping into a habit. Something told me I would need to jump at every chance or make a chance where there was none if I wanted to complete this atrociously difficult task.

“Morning Madam,” I caught her off guard, frightening the poor soul. She almost dropped the bag she carried.

“Oh, Sahil…” She said between deep breaths and nervous laughter.

“I’m sorry, Mam. Did I frighten you?” I found it easier to talk to her because she didn’t intimidate me as other girls did. She was pretty and feeble, but I didn’t like her like that. My heart would have been in my throat otherwise.

“I just saw you… carrying the bag… which looked quite heavy, to be honest, and thought maybe… I could help?” I said.

She was flabbergasted. “You mean, you want to help me carry it?” She asked in a confused tone. As if wondering why I was approaching to help her.

“That’s right.” I nodded. “So can I? If you don’t mind,”

“Umm… sure, I guess?” She cautiously handed me the bag and then sprang up to grab the strap.

“Wait, this isn’t a prank, is it? You are not going to run away with the bag, are you?” She looked around carrying a silly smile, looking for my illusionary assistants.

She was just too cute. I couldn’t help but start laughing.

“Maybe that’s exactly what I want to do. So are you ready?”

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“Ready for what?”

“To learn: if I only want to help you, or I have some mischievous motive,” I said waiting for her to let go.

She thought for a minute, staring at me without blinking before releasing the strap. She kept her eyes on me to make sure I wouldn’t run away with it.

“All right,” I said. “Thank you for trusting me once. Where are we going?”

“Oh,” She wasn’t convinced, but my demeanor must have told her that I wasn’t looking for trouble. She relaxed her vigilance and answered, “To the teacher’s room,”

We started walking.

“Why are you doing this? I mean helping… me?” She asked. “You usually don’t like to be bothered with anything. So what changed?” She hit that nail right on the head, all right. My heart skipped a beat as my mind raced to look for an appropriate answer in the sea of nothingness until I saw light at the end of the tunnel.

“For change,” The words scared me because they came straight out of me. And they were probably true.

“Hmm, what are you trying to change?”

I didn’t want to dwell on this matter more than we already had. I changed the topic. “What’s in the bag anyway? Why is it so heavy?”

“Your test books,”

“Oh… can I get a few extra points for my magnanimity?”

“Perhaps,” She said jokingly.

“Perhaps, I should run away with it so you can’t return them to us.” I joked back.

We didn’t talk again on the way. I dropped her bag in the teacher’s room and came back to my classroom. The task didn’t complete again. I was right. Our math teacher wasn’t a good girl either.

I took a moment at the class door to look around. The lights were off, but there was enough natural light coming from the large side windows to brighten the classroom. My life was changing faster than I could imagine. For now, the changes were small and invisible. Soon I would be so far ahead of everyone that they would not even be able to imagine the distance between us. This classroom, the noise, was already giving me a feeling of nostalgia. Sighing, I stepped inside.

I saw Sonam sitting on the seat next to mine and felt a pang in my chest. Kartik said, Sonam wouldn’t have held my hand if she didn’t trust me. I didn’t know where her trust came from because I had not done anything trustworthy at all.

I took a seat on the bench next to her and sat like a mannequin not knowing how to behave. Kartik hadn’t arrived yet. I looked at the watch. He was late. He usually arrived at school before me. He was probably taking a holiday. My thought and he hit the door at the same time. He entered the classroom kicking the door open like a knight wearing shining armor. He didn’t shake hands with anyone, swaggered to the back of the class, and threw his carry-on on the wall side of our bench like a hyena marking his territory. Then, instead of asking or telling me to step aside, he jumped over the bench, leaving footprints on the table, and occupied the seat next to mine as if it owed him money.

“Mother fucker,” I uttered aloud in annoyance.

He ignored the insult and grabbing my shoulder, started shaking me. “What’s up, Romeo! Did you sleep last night or did you keep looking at your hand?”

It took me a while to understand what he meant. I slapped him away and told him to fuck off. He laughed aloud before opening his bag and tearing a page from his notebook. I wondered what he was doing with it. Then I saw the large footprint he’d left on the table and my eyes gleamed.

“Let me do it,” I stopped him, took the page from his stunned hand, and started wiping the table. I cleaned both sides and went away to throw the ruined paper in the trash. I came back to find him staring at me like he had seen a ghost.

“Who are you?” He asked in complete seriousness. “And what did you do to my friend?”

That gave me a déjà vu-like feeling. Where had I heard those words before?

“Wait,” He sprang up. “It’s not because of her is it? You didn’t get her number, did you? Did you?”

The way he said it made me so annoyed. Why did he find it so impossible? Couldn’t I have gotten the number of the girl in a white dress? I thought about it and found nothing wrong with Kartik’s reaction. It really would have been a miracle to get her number. Hell, I even forgot to ask her name. Shit!

“I told you it’s nothing like that.” I wanted to see if Sonam heard him, but I wasn’t a complete idiot either. “She gave me relationship advice instead.”

“Oh,” Kartik said interestedly. “What did she say?

I wanted to tell him the truth, but I didn’t have the courage to talk about this in front of Sonam. We hadn’t interacted since that incident. I didn’t want to make things any more awkward between us. I was my biggest enemy after all.

Changing my words, I said, “She told me to take the initiative.”

“That’s all she told you? Liar. You two talked for well over ten minutes, buddy. Don’t tell me that was all she said.”

“Well, it was more like they were talking to me rather than me talking to them,” I said and the conversation died down. I made an excuse to look to my left, saw Sonam talking and laughing with her friends, and sighed in relief.

The bell rang and the teacher came. We stood up to greet the teacher and the class started.

We were doing physics problems and they usually need a scientific calculator. I had been doing them almost every day these days and always had it on me, but my neighbors didn’t. I saw it as a chance, not just to help a good person, I didn’t know if Sonam was a good person or not, but I was taking the initiative to break the ice.

“Hey,” I called and Sonam hurriedly turned around as if she had been waiting for me to call her.

“Here,” I gave her the calculator. Her eyebrows scrunched in question, but she couldn’t stop a faint smile from growing on her face. She was far too expressive for her own good.

“You don’t want it?” She asked growing increasingly happier. I wasn’t wrong to name her sunflower, but did I have the qualities required to be her Sun?

“I can solve the problem without it,” I said confidently. While someone thought, I was exaggerating.

“Really? You, can solve the problem?” Sonam’s friend and benchmate, Kusum, chimed in from the side.

I could understand the slander because I hadn’t been active enough academically to be given the respect. Still… what did I do to deserve that?

I didn’t care much about her question, but Kartik didn’t like the tone of her voice. “Does it have anything to do with you?” He said venomously. “It doesn’t look like you can solve anything either.”

“You!”

“Stop her,” I told Sonam and turned to Kartik. “What are you doing? Can’t you shut up for a second?”

“She is making fun of you, man” He replied glaring. “You might not care but I do.”

Oh, that felt good. That was the first time someone had done something so nice to me.

I couldn’t help but smile and pat his shoulder, once, twice. The third time I slapped him too hard and he hissed in pain.

“Mother fucker! Is this how you pay for my friendship.”

“Sorry, sorry,”

“Anyways,” I turned back to Sonam. She still hadn’t accepted the calculator and the others were already solving the problem.

“Here,” I called her again. “You should take it. The teacher wouldn’t necessarily ask us for the solution, but he might ask you.”

“All right, thanks.” Sonam hesitated first then took the calculator. Our fingers touched, causing a spark that surprised the both of us. She turned away at lightning speed while I tried to gulp down my rising heartbeat.

So many things happened yet the task did not complete. Even Sonam wasn’t a good girl. Were there even any good people in the world?

I turned back and found Kartik squinting at me. “How are we solving the problem now?”

“Come let me show you.”

Did this consider as me helping him? I would not know because there was still no task completion notification. No wonder it was a D-level task. It was harder to find a good person than I had imagined.