01

  September 1 Monday 1999

  One

  “Hey, Two.” I poked my roommate on the cheek. “Wake up. We’re going to be late.” I poked at her again. It’s already 6:30 in the morning and Two isn’t waking up, which is quite odd because usually, she would wake up way before me.

  Two’s clutching her pillow like it’s a giant stuffed animal. It’s cute as heck but we have no time for that right now. “Hey, Two! Wake up!” Realizing that we would absolutely be screwed if we’re late, I started shaking her shoulders more vigorously. “Ah!”

  Two suddenly started waving her arms around and got up from her bed. “Wha…One?” Two looked at me. Her long blonde hair is spayed all over her face. Her eyes are red and there are tears flowing from her face.

  “A—are you okay? You're crying?”

  “Eh?” Two seemed to have noticed that she was crying and started rubbing her eyes with her pajamas. “…It’s nothing. I just have a bad dream.”

  “Is that so? Do you remember what that dream was?”

  She shook her head. I’m kind of curious what that dream was since it was enough to make Two cry, but I shouldn’t pry if she doesn’t remember.

  “Well, when you feel like it. Get yourself ready. We’re going to be late.”

  Two only nodded to my words.

  02

  Through some sort of miracle, we made it to room 301, our classroom. And inside this classroom of thirty students, one of them greeted us. A young man with a large build and shaved head greeted us when we came inside.

  “Woah! You two actually made it,” Three said as he looked at us with a perplexed expression.

  “Yeah…surprisingly,” I said as I tried to catch my breath.

  “Get to your seat already,” Three said. “The teacher might show up any time now.”

  Following his words, me and Two got to our seats. And only after a minute when we got ourselves comfortable. “Good morning, class.” Our teacher arrived.

  …

  The first period in the morning is math, which is unfortunately a subject I’m not great at but it’s something I’m trying to get serious if I want to become a 4th year student. But hearing the teacher talk about triangles is starting to make me sleepy.

  Tap.

  Tap.

  Tap.

  Cutting through the teacher’s voice was Two, writing something on a piece of paper. She must be taking notes on what the teacher.

  “…” Two. I wonder what she saw?

  It may be a bit nosy to wonder what someone’s dream is like but, well, this is Two we’re talking about. The hardened young lady who’s never worried about anything. Seeing her this morning with tears in her eyes was concerning. As her roommate, and most importantly, her friend. There must be something I can do to help her out.

  “…A.”

  “Hm?”

  “One A!”

  “Gh!” Something pierced my head. It was a chalk of all things. “Ow…” I rubbed my forehead from the pain. The only person I know who can throw the chalk at that speed is none other than the math teacher himself!

  “Ms. A,” the math teacher said. “Once you’re done frolicking to dream land, can you answer the question on the board?”

  “…Yes.”

  …

  Second period is science which, unlike math, is something I don’t mind learning, so I was able to pay attention. Right now, the teacher is talking about the strange weather our country usually tackles with.

  “Can anyone tell me the phenomena in which ice managed to maintain their solid state despite the exposure to heat?”

  “…?” I’m sure I read something about it in a book somewhere but I can’t remember exactly what that is?

  Suddenly, somebody raised their hand. It was Two. “Permafrost,” she answered with confidence.

  “That’s correct.” Two went back to her seat.

  Maybe I’m just imagining things. If Two can answer with confidence then maybe there’s nothing to worry about.

  I say those words to myself, but I can’t feel but feel a creeping sense of dread tingling on my back.

  …

  The third period of this morning is free study. Which is basically an hour with no teachers. It’s supposed to be a period where students try to catch up with their work but truthfully many of us used that period as a glorified break time.

  And within that one hour of freedom is when I hang out with my two friends, Two and Three.

  “Miss B.” But it appears that something is happening right under my very nose. “Can you please print these papers out in the printing room?” Our homeroom teacher is holding what I can guess are 50 stacks of papers. “The faculty just called and I won’t be able to finish all of these in time.”

  “Sure. I can do that.” She took the stack from the teacher.

  “Thank you. Here’s the original copy.” He placed another piece of paper on top of the stack. “And here’s the card too.” He placed his key card on top of the stack. “The original copy is back to back so keep in mind, alright?”

  “Yeah,” Two said but she appears to be struggling. She’s not a strong girl so even carrying 50 stacks of papers is a struggle for her.

  “Can I help?” I got up and approach the teacher.

  “Oh? Miss A?” The teacher noticed my presence. “Of course, you can. With you around, work will probably go a lot faster.”

  “Thank you.” I halved the stack that Two was holding, leaving us with 25 stack of papers each. I think. Two looked perplexed when I did this. Did she not expect me to do this?

  “We’ll be going,” Two announced.

  “Remember! Back to back!” He reminded the both of us as we left the classroom and started walking through the hallway. Since it’s still school hours, there’s barely anyone in the hallway, leaving our steps to echo through the hallway.

  “I can take care of this by myself, you know?” Two said, abruptly.

  “Maybe so. But it’d be bad manners to have my roommate do all the heavy lifting.”

  “Is that so?” She said with an almost wistful expression.

  Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

  I have been friends with her since we were kids. And even if it felt like I was able to understand her to some degree, I still can’t help but feel like there are things that she’s hiding from me.

  “Are you only doing this because you saw me crying?” Two asked me with an accusatory look.

  I don’t even know what to say. No, it’s more like if I say anything, I’ll definitely get caught. So it’s better for me to keep my mouth shut.

  “Your silence is telling me everything.”

  Damn it!

  A small laugh escaped from her. “While I do appreciate the concern, it’s something you don’t need to worry about. As I said, I don’t even remember what I was dreaming about.”

  “I see.”

  The place where we usually do the printing is in the printing room. And the printing room is at the ground floor of the school, next to the faculty office. Getting there is simple enough but going down while you’re carrying 25 stacks of papers turned out to be a bigger issue than I thought.

  But nonetheless, we were able to bring the stacks all the way to the printing room.

  Inside the printing room are multiple printers. Some of them don’t even work properly. I wish the school would just hire somebody to fix the broken ones already but they seemed to be using them for something else. Well, that doesn’t matter. We know what are the broken ones anyway.

  We walked to the printers at the very end of the room. The printers next to the door are the one’s broken so if you want to get your papers done then you would have to find a more inconvenient route to do it.

  “This looks like a good one.” We placed our stack of papers on top of another printer and get to work. I took out the card that the teacher has given us and inserted it to the printer. The printer lights up when I do so.

  The printers here have a special function where they can only be used when inserted with a point card. Which meant that printing isn’t free around here. A point card is a system used in our school that converts money into points, and those points are used for printing, laundry, food, and a bunch of other stuff. It is a system designed to encourage independence on the students but it ended up creating a weird, or should I say, obvious? Power dynamic where the students with well-off families have a lot of advantages over the other students. It’s a good thing the school has enough foresight and offer a monthly allowance of points to students who are financially struggling but they really should’ve seen that coming.

  We placed all 50 stacks inside the machine and placed the original copy on top of the copier. Then we set the printer to 50 copies and turned it on.

  The printer came to life and the paper we placed are slowly getting sucked in, and what comes out appears to be quiz papers. But not for us, thankfully, it’s for the first years. Which is probably why our teacher let us print these all willy-nilly.

  Printing papers take a lot of time, especially so when you have print 50 stacks of them. And there’s nothing much to do other than watching the papers go by.

  I turn my eyes to Two, who’s just watching the printer with deep intent. Looking at her like this reminded me of the first time I met her. We first met at a park, I found her sitting next to a tree reading a book which is basically a collection of short horror stories. I thought it was strange, seeing her all alone with no one to play with. So, I invited her to play with me.

  …She rejected me.

  I thought that maybe something was wrong with her legs so tried to help her up by grabbing her arm and pulling her up. She responded to my forceful attempts at friendship by slamming my face with her own book.

  I had plenty of time to mull over this part of my life and I realized that I was in the wrong for this one. I thought that every child wanted to play and that there was something stopping Two from playing, only to realize that this is what she wanted. To be left alone with her books.

  Considering how disastrous our first meeting was, I’m surprised that we even became friends. Yeah, if it wasn’t for our names, there would have been no spark for us to get along. And if it wasn’t for this name that I would soon find my irreplaceable friends.

  “One…”

  Someone’s voice snapped me back to reality. It was Two. She’s looking at me like I’m a walking pile of garbage. “W-what’s wrong?”

  “Your eyes are lecherous. It’s like you’re trying to gobble me up with your eyes alone.”

  “…A…am not! I’m just running through memory lane!”

  “I see. So… are you gobbling me up in your memory lane?”

  “Why the hell would I do that? Since when did I ever do that?”

  “I don’t know. It sounds like something you do.”

  “Let me tell you that I was just…reminiscing the time when we first met.”

  “Oh…”

  For the first time, Two didn’t try to make a gobbling joke. She probably realized that it’s going a bit too far with that one. “What makes you suddenly want to go that particular memory?”

  “I don’t know. I guess I just feel like it.”

  “I see.”

  We continue watching the papers being printed one after another. “So…do you still hate your parents? For giving you that name?”

  She sighed. “I guess that’s the result of your trip to memory lane?”

  I nodded.

  “Yup. I still do. I mean, who the heck named their kid TWO of all names?! It’s like they’re setting me up for failure. And I’m still not believing that excuse that they gave me that name so that I always have a mountain to overcome and that I should humble myself. They probably named me that because it was funny.” Two took a deep sigh after that rant.

  “Yeah…in terms of setting a child up for success, One is more impressive than Two.

  “But at the same time… it makes you sound like an arrogant fool, doesn’t it? It’s a name that belongs to someone that’s supposed to be number one in the world and yet it belongs to someone that has grades all over the place.”

  “Yeah!” The both of us spent our remaining time ranting to our parents about their poor choice of names. And we had so much fun talking about it…

  …That we almost forgot that the paper he gave us is back to back.

  03

  Lunch here at school can be a breeze or a war zone depending on how early you are at the cafeteria. And since lunch usually starts the same for everyone, it usually turns to a race on who can get the best seats first.

  And this time, class 301 lost the race. But that’s mostly because our history teacher couldn’t stop talking about his failed attempts at trying to win the favor of our math teacher!

  …Anyway, enough of that, at least we managed to get our food from the cafeteria ladies and we managed to find a decent spot to eat. That’s all that matters now.

  Three sighed as he placed his food on the table. Looks like he decided to get grilled fish and rice. “Too bad we’re late. We ended up missing Four and Five by a hair.” Four and Five, just like Two and Three, are my childhood friends that got together because our parents weren’t the best when it comes to making names. Though, unlike us, Four and Five are still 2nd years.

  “Strange, isn’t it?” Usually they would wait for us by the table,” Two said as she placed her food on the table. This time, she decided to get noodles in beef broth.

  “Didn’t you here?” I said as I placed my own tray down. I got the same thing as Two but I decided to put more toppings like veggies and meat into the mix. “The second years seemed to be up to something for this year’s Autumn Festival.”

  “I see.” Three nodded. “No wonder why the 2nd floor has been especially noisy.”

  The three of us got our utensils ready and started eating. “Speaking of which,” Three started talking as soon as they are about to eat. “That’s a pretty hefty bowl.”

  “Couldn’t help it. We were late so we didn’t have the chance to have breakfast.” I said as I already started taking my first bite.

  Lunch here at the school follows the same points system like the one in the printing room. Which usually means that the more points you have, the better or more options you have in terms of meals. From the simple bread which only uses up 1 point to something grand like curry rice which uses 50 points. In comparison, Three’s grilled fish and rice used up 10 points. Same goes for Two’s noodles. Mine would also go for 10 points but I spent an additional 5 points on toppings so it’s 15 points.

  The meals we have at schools are usually not bad, as they prepared by old ladies who know what they’re doing. But the quality can range depending if the ingredients managed to make the school on time or who’s in charge of the cafeteria that day. But usually, they are pretty good.

  As we continue to enjoy our lunch, we happened to catch a conversation on a table next to us. A conversation appears to be somewhat interesting. At least, to Two that is. “Did you hear? They say there’s a ghost roaming around this building.”

  “Wait, really? But why would there be a ghost here?”

  “Ghost?” Two suddenly got up from her seat and approached the other table.

  Oh boy, here we go again.

  “Is it true? Was there actually a ghost?” In an instant, Two invaded their conversation.

  The boys were confounded when she suddenly started talking to them. But they managed to regain their composure “We don’t know for sure. We just heard some of our classmates said that they saw something spooky going around the library at night.”

  “Interesting…” I may not be able to see it from here but I can tell that her eyes are absolutely sparkling right now. Two have always been interested in all things spooky and occult since she was a kid. And she’s usually the one who gets us involved in any ghost-related escapades. Depending on how this conversation goes, I might have to brace myself for another long night. “What’s this something spooky you’re talking about here?”

  The boy scratched his head. “I don’t exactly remember what they said. But I think I heard them saw something funny going around the library. Things moving about even when no one was there. They couldn’t get a good look since, of course, we’re not allowed to enter school building at night. They saw it at the courtyard.

  “I see. Thank you for telling me.” Two went back to our table with an excited step. Yup. I know exactly what she’s going to say next. I turned my eyes to Three, who’s face has turned as white as the ghost they were describing. He’s pretty much a statue right now. They’re no way I would be able to get his help like this.

  “One!” Two said as she slammed her hand on the table. Her eyes are sparkling like stars. “I know what we’re going to do tonight!”