“God damn, you seriously don’t have any friends.”

“Sure,” I said, with my eyes lazy on the page. I can’t remember the last time I flipped it.

“Do you want me to replace you for the afternoon classes too? And also let’s get lunch.”

“Yeah.”

The head of a boy peeked over my shoulder.

“What are you even reading cooped up in here?”

To which I responded, “I honestly have no clue.”

“...”

“You can read that?” His voice sounded off as he scrutinized the words.

“You can’t?”

“It’s all scribbles to me.”

“It’s English,” I said, not understanding what he meant by scribbles.

“Did you get that from the system?”

“Yeah.”

“I see…” he seemed to be thinking about something.

I closed the book and shoved it back into the system’s inventory.

“So where are we eating.”

“Cafeteria,” he said, getting up from the bed.

“...”

I continued looking at him with the resting bitch face I knew I had.

“What? You think I’m rich or something?—of course we’re eating at the cafeteria!”

I shook my head and pointed at his black uniform.

“You want it back?”

“Look in the mirror you idiot.”

“Mirror? Oh!” Deciphering my intent, he finally understood the problem.

He looked exactly like me. Or maybe I looked exactly like him. Either way, my point was clear.

“Well if it’s just that, I can cut your hair bald and tell everyone you’re my distant cousin.”

Hearing that, I intensified my glare for no legitimate reason.

“You know, it just so happens that I have this extremely convenient black cloak in my spatial storage.”

As he said that, a black cloak appeared out of thin air.

“How convenient.”

“I know right.”

I also had another thought, but I didn’t say it.

‘Overpowered.’

Anyway, I continued to glare condescendingly, maintaining my state-of-the-art poker face. There wasn’t a reason for why, I just felt like it. But it would appear someone misinterpreted my shit-faced demeanor.

“Do you want me to strip in front of you? Is that what you want?”

He continued to clamor about while unbuckling my uniform he was wearing.

And this. This gave me a wonderful idea.

It wasn’t until he handed me my uniform in his underwear did I finally say, “You’re a goddamn clown,” as my hand grabbed for the cloak.

But of course, it was an attempt, and only an attempt.

“Nice try.” He let out a grin as he held the cloak above his head.

“You’re making this scene boring,” I grumbled, as my knees caved onto the floor defeated.

“Scene? What does that matter?”

Idiot.

“This is supposed to be the part where I take all your clothes and run outside,” I said while eyeing a certain body part.

“Why would you do that?” he said with a calm voice; not dramatic at all.

Did I seriously have to explain everything?

“If we can’t appease the author, this chapter won’t make the cut, you moron.”

He bobbed his head up and down in approval, “Ah, is that so?”

Needless to say, he was still in his undies.

“...”

He pinched his cheek before speaking.

“Aren’t you being out-of-character, then? Like, aren’t you supposed to be extremely depressed after what happened?” he chuckled with a grin that could break some arbitrarily numbered wall.

Was that dialogue supposed to be important? Anyway—where was I?

“There’s no such thing as out-of-character if my character isn’t well-established,” I replied. With a fat grin, of course.

“Besides, aren’t you the same?” I added.

“The same?” He laughed hysterically. How uncharacteristic of him.

“I’ve only had a few chapters of screen time and I’m already better established than you. Not to mention your lack of backstory!”

“Backstory, why would I need that?”

Seriously, what was this motherfucker on about?

“Don’t speak as if you have backstory either, Benni.”

Hearing my words, he laughed even harder.

“Pssh, I’ve lived for like, what?—a couple thousand years? And you’re saying I don’t have a backstory?”

“You have no dignity too,” I said, commending his bravery for exposing a certain "private" part.

“What’s this about dignity? That’s bold coming from a shy antisocial prick like you. And you call yourself the protagonist! Get a load of this!”

“Laugh all you want. We’ll see who’s more popular in the polls.” My smile faded away, knowing I wouldn’t financially recover from the results. After all, the readers hated me. Fuck those guys. But… There was still one other thing I had up my sleeves.

“You fucker!”

With his “dignity” exposed, I slapped his underwear down once more before launching myself into the bathroom.

It was only after he opened the bathroom door did I remember that the doors of this world did not have locks.

“Well well, I’m sure we both know where this is going,” he said with a devilish grin as he approached. Cornering me one step at a time.

“Hmph.” Seeing no other choice, I cracked my knuckles to this absolutely unavoidable situation.

“It’s been a while since I’ve done Judo,” he said, also getting into stance.

“I’ll tell you right now, fists don’t work on monsters.”

‘Fists?’

“So it looks like I’ll be winning this time.”

Hearing his words, I couldn’t resist laughter from escaping my mouth.

“OSU!” he roared out, this time serious.

We both stood our ground with eyes locked.

His black eyes stared into mine, and mine as his.

The first who broke. Was the first to lose…

Wait, did I really just say that? Are we really fighting in a fucking bathroom?

“...”

“...”

Grappling on hard ground? Who am I kidding?

‘This is stupid.’

“We’re being stupid aren’t we?” he said, having come to his senses.

“You are stupid, yes.” I agreed.

“Shall we call it quits, then?”

“Wear some god damn pants first.” I pointed, reminding him of his exposed undergarments.

“Yeah yeah. Don’t you feel it was strange?” he said to me.

“Strange?”

“Yeah, it’s like something was controlling us to say all those things… What were we talking about again?”

Hmm, what were we talking about?

‘I guess it was just some horseshit.’

I couldn’t recall our earlier conversation either, but it wasn’t too disconcerting.

“If you forgot, it probably wasn’t important,” I said.

“Forgot? Hmm, I suppose so…”

“Anyway, are you sure a cloak can disguise your face?”

Hearing my doubt he chuckled at my ignorance.

“Trust me, it’s even better than going incognito mode.”

“So you do shady stuff? I see…”

“No, I never said that.”

“What are you hiding? Your porn stash?” I jokingly commented as I took off my pants.

“If I wanted to do that, I’d just visit a brothel.”

“Jeez prostitutes?” It wasn’t anything too surprising to believe. I just overreacted for the sake of overreacting.

“It was an analogy, I never said I did go to such dodgy places.”

“So they are dodgy places, I see.” I nodded to myself why stroking my non-existent beard.

“Dodgy as in I’ve never been to them; stop trying to frame me. It almost sounds like you are interested yourself.”

Heh, me?

“Don’t make me laugh. Who would willingly give themselves STDs.”

“Dude, succubi exist for a reason.”

“Succubi? What the hell kind of biology are they?” It sounded interesting, I admit. Did succubus really exist in this world? The logistics of how they existed ought to be pretty crappy. I can’t imagine how a species could survive off of the nutrients gathered from semen alone.

“They are plants, calm down.”

“So people stick their dicks in plants nowadays? What the hell.” That also wasn’t impossible to believe for a fantasy world—no, I bet someone was doing that on Earth too. Strange motherfuckers, they were.

“What—no, they smoke it dumbass.” He rubbed his forehead profusely as if I were supposed to know such underground knowledge.

“Does it give sexual hallucinations or something?”

“An aphrodisiac, basically.”

I figured that was the case.

“What do they look like?”

“Eh, the leaves are curled up like a cigarette. They’re pretty expensive if I remember correctly.”

“Sounds like a business opportunity,” I said with a grin on my face.

“Well they do increase size,” he said cheekily.

“You didn’t need to tell me that.”

“I figured you wanted to know since yours is quite…” his eyes wandered to a certain part of me.

This fucker.

“I’m literally a kid.”

“Sure.”

And that was the end of that as I watched him change into the clothes I was wearing before. As unsanitary as it may have seemed, both of us couldn’t give two shits what clothing we wore.

“So you still have that habit, huh.”

“What habit?” I asked.

“Your underwear.”

“And you shouldn’t be looking.” I ignored his gaze as I buckled on my uniform.

“Seriously, I don’t get how it doesn’t get chilly down there.”

“Grow up,” I simply responded.

“Alright caveman.”

In my eyes, underwear was a diaper with extra steps. It was unnecessary.

Once we got dressed, we headed out for the main school building.

“You weren’t joking when you said incognito mode.”

“What’d you expect? It’s a top-grade artifact,” he boasted as if he handcrafted it.

And like I said, it really was stealthy. From the mouth up, his identity was sealed by a black shadow. The color gradient was natural though, adding an air of mystique.

“Your voice is the same.”

“What does it matter? Your voice is different from mine even though we both literally have the same bodies.”

“It’s only a little deeper.” I couldn’t help but sigh. A sense of relief, perhaps. My ability to relax was unsettling. I knew I should be on alert as usual… But…

It’s good that I didn’t need to think too hard.

As much as I wanted to reflect on why that was the case, it would become ironic real fast.

When we arrived, the cafeteria was a lot more crowded than I remembered. There were a lot more tables too. Was it the upperclassmen?

‘I thought each grade had meals at different times.’

I looked around for a good while as we made our way to the self-serving area, much like a buffet.

My eyes landed on Melissa sitting with her lonesome self.

‘She’s not here.’

“Who you looking for?”

I gave a simple reply.

“God.”

“It’s a girl ain’t it?” Benni’s face crept closer to me as he stared me down, trying to deconstruct my facial expressions.

“It’s my gay best friend,” I said. That sounded about right.

“Gay—pfft. This ain’t a rom-com. Seriously, who?” I didn’t think he’d laugh at that but sure. He was just as dumb as a kid so it made sense that humor on the level of dick jokes would please him.

That said, Sam was pretty gay if I had to say so myself. She was quite… How should I put this? Ecstatic?—Yeah. Ecstatic. That was the only befitting description. Apart from the part where she sexually assaults me, her aura radiates protagonist energy, or as some enthusiasts would call it: Big Dick Energy. That’s right. Sam has Big Dick Energy.

In that sense, I couldn’t help but like having her in my company. That was reason enough to consider her a friend, right?

“Is it that girl over there sitting by herself? Come to think of it, wasn’t she with you in the exam or whatever?” The gibberish that came out of Benni’s mouth was indistinguishable from the chattering from the surroundings.

“Not her.”

“So you’re looking for a ‘her’, I see,”

“She may as well be a ‘he’,” I said.

“Well, you two are pretty similar—no friends,” he continued blabbering with his eyes on Melissa, that heterochromia girl who was sitting alone.

“It’s not the person you are thinking about, but you’re also not wrong.”

Sam didn’t have friends so I loved that I could poke fun at her in my head to cover up my nonexistent insecurities… Well, that is unless she considered Melissa her friend.

As a human myself, I wouldn’t approve of her as friend material. It was hard to explain without a fifty-page thesis, but my intuition told me to beware of the heterochromia girl.

“What are you looking at me for.”

Benni has been staring at me for a long time now. I’ll add that it was more intimidating coming from someone wearing a cloak overhead—like the grim reaper.

“Is it… Yes, that was her name wasn’t it? Samantha?”

“Who the hell is that?”

Hearing my words, he shook his head.

“Nevermind, I thought you would have met her already.”

“Met who?” To that question, he didn’t respond.

Once we filled both our plates to the brim, we headed for a table. And as much as I wanted to load on a shit ton of food since I haven’t eaten in days, the standard procedure for fasting warns me not to chow down on everything I could get my hands on. To summarize, I had to slowly reintroduce the food back into my system.

“Daniel?”

“Yes?” Both of us answered at the same time.

I sent a look at Benni before returning to the speaker.

It was Melissa.

“Where have you been these days?”

It was only a single sentence—a plastic phrase I have already grown familiar with.

“We saw each other in class today, didn’t we?” I lied explicitly, knowing it was true even without attending the morning classes. Benni nudged me, disapproving of my dishonesty.

“You looked like you were trying to avoid me.”

“Is that so?” I said, not knowing what else to say.

Of course, I knew what she said was true. My senses were barking at full flare. Even now, I wanted to distance myself from her. It wasn’t fear per se, but discomfort. I despised these personalities.

“I have something to tell you. Is it alright if you accompany me outside for a moment?”

‘I’m about to eat…’

But I wouldn’t say that even though I absolutely could.

“Sure,” or so I said.

I handed my plate to Benni who skillfully caught it with his other hand. These plates didn’t have grooves so it was hard to carry more than one at a time without a tray.

Without saying a word, I departed.

I didn’t want to reminisce.

So I didn’t want to talk.

And I didn’t want to be held verbally hostage.

But I couldn’t avoid it.

Because worst of all, I wasn’t in the mood to play four-dimensional checkers. Not today…

Or so I mistakenly thought.

“I wanted to say thank you.”

It was hard to believe I heard her opening words correctly.

Like a false confession, her behavior didn’t add up.

They didn’t.

'Was I wrong?'