[Music Recommendation: "Sunny Mornings" by Peter B. Helland (instrumental only)-available in Youtube or Spotify] ~ Please listen to it in a loop while you read this part to experience the utmost beauty of this chapter ~

That answer—“I’ll give it a try”—I never knew how it was going to be one of the factors that would change my life in this timeline dramatically.

We talked a bit more after that, just random things. A few moments later, Hora arrived in a rush. I knew it. My text message worried her. Good thing I was with Ken, and she arrived at the classroom while we were laughing at each other. That should erase some of her worries.

Our classmates started to arrive one after another. The girls would let out a squeal once they realized that Ken was sitting in front of me. You could see them summoning all their wits trying to impress him or appeal to him. Some would purposely blink prettily, or flip their hairs. The others showered themselves with perfume, making me sneeze, and my head ache from the smell. I had always been allergic to strong smells, especially the fumes from those fragrances. I couldn’t stop sneezing after that so I went out of the classroom. Hora and Ken followed me, much to everyone’s dismay. It was their fault to begin with. They could have stared longer at Ken if only they didn’t put too much perfume.

“Achooo!” I sneezed so loud it felt like my brain went along with it.

“I told you not to go to our classroom, Ken!” Hora reprimanded him. “Girls flock at you like hungry hyenas wherever you are!”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t notice the time.”

“Don’t scold him, Hora. It’s my fault. I held him up in a conversation.”

“What? No you didn’t,” Ken disagreed with me. “It was me. I’m the one who-”

“Oh for goodness’ sake,” Hora shook her head and rolled her eyes. “Stop defending each other like some old married couple.”

“No, we’re not!” We chorused.

Ouch. He denied it so strongly. Welp, there goes the blush from my face. I felt myself pale up from devastation. Poor me. Be strong there, my heart. Well, I denied it, too, so I’m not really in a position to be hurt.

I looked at Ken, curious about his expression. Was he feeling guilty or sorry? As I peeked, I was surprised to see his face turn red. Why though? Was he embarrassed?

“Whatever, you two. Let’s just go back. Morning assembly is starting.”

And so, we did as Hora instructed. Morning assembly took a bit longer than usual because of the principal’s speech, making most of the students bored from trying to listen. She talked about informative things though, pity not everyone appreciated it. But what caught my attention more was the conversation of the two girls in front of me.

“Did you see the news yesterday?” one of them said.

“Why would I watch the news?” the other replied in disgust.

“I normally don’t but you won’t believe what I saw.”

“And what’s that?”

“A very handsome man, apparently a genius, who’s only the same age as us, but he already graduated college,” the girl looked so smug.

“You’re kidding.”

“Nuh-uh. Look. I took a picture.” Then, she showed her phone to her friend.

“Oh my gosh! He’s so handsome!” They giggled and squealed after that. They tried not to be so loud, but they failed. They only stopped talking when a teacher approached them.

I knew it. The gossip about handsome genius—whom I already forgot his name—would have spread by now, along with that picture that the girl took, and probably those that the other girls took as well. I couldn’t blame them though. If Ken was already very handsome, making hungry hyenas out of them, how much more of that guy? To be honest, even if I had feelings for Ken, that guy really had the upper hand when it comes to looks. His face was the type that would make girls feel “challenged” because he was too much out of their league and it would take a miracle to be noticed by him. Plus, he was a bit of a bad-boy, dominant type of guy. At least that’s what I thought when I saw him in the news. And snobbish, too.

Classes started after that, and the whole day went on with nothing but gossip about the handsome genius. It was funny how everyone was so interested just because he’s handsome. Because of that, the short news about him got a little exaggerated as the gossip was passed on from one mouth to another. Not minding the gossip, I went on with my day until classes finished and we all went home.

Ken went home with me and Hora. We passed by his house to get the game he was talking about. It was a game that I had to play with a console so he kindly lent his console to me as well. He carefully placed it inside a bag.

“Wait, aren’t you still gonna use this?” I asked him, worried he wouldn’t be able to play anything while I’m still using it.

“Nah, it’s fine. I still have other consoles,” he answered with a smile. “And I could play that on my desktop. They have a version for desktops.”

“Oh, okay.” It should be fine if that’s the case, right?

Hora became curious about the game too, so we all went to my house, and unto my room, to play. Good thing I had a television in my room that we could use. The maids brought in some snacks for us and they informed me that mom and dad wouldn’t be home until late at night. Works fine with me, I could play with Hora and Ken until then.

I picked up the game as Ken set up the console. It was inside a blue rectangular disc case. There were cute pictures of probably the characters in the game, wearing fantasy clothes. And on the title, it read “Armageddon”.

“So, what’s this game about?” I asked Ken as I tried to read the descriptions on the back of the disc case.

“There’s two modes—one is the single player story mode where you get to play the story until you finish it. You level up along the way, meet comrades, etc; and the other is the multiplayer open world where you get to modify your character, level up with your friends online, and even meet new friends all around the globe! You can join guilds and do quests together as well. Cool, right? There’s a lot you can do actually.” He said all that in a single breath, and so enthusiastically. He really liked playing games.

“Play with friends, and meet new ones around the globe, huh?” I pondered. I never thought games could be played together. If I could play this with them, wouldn’t it be fun?