Lonely Human, Lonely School - Part 1
A year passed—I had just began attending National High School.
'Can you stop staring at me?'
The short, blonde haired girl who sat in front of me decided that she had had enough of me existing. Granted, I was looking at her, but not in a way that suggested anything improper. She turned around on her seat, her hair whiplashed on her face like a cat o'nine tails, which was fitting because she looked like she was about to show me some severe punishment.
'I don't unde-' She didn't let me finish my word.
Crash.
My belongings were splattered along the floor like a bucket of paint.
It wasn't very nice, but I wasn't exactly completely guilt free.
A few moments prior, I stumbled and accidently bumped into her. Turns out it was a very bad time to bump into her because she was trying to sort something from a little pocket she was holding—what resulted was a few sealed condoms dropping out of her hand straight onto the ground.
Her scathing glare towards me seemed didn't seem to dissipate.
I picked my stuff up off the floor and placed them back onto my table.
The room was relatively empty at this point since we were the earliest arrivals—which was quite lucky, otherwise some other people might have seen the contents which fell out of her hand. I stacked my books back up on the corner of my table.
After a moment of introspection, I decided to move to a different seat, otherwise she might accuse me of having my eyes open again and have to resort to corporal punishment.
Eventually, the room began to fill up with more students. They began flowing in like a small leak on a pretty sturdy dam. Everyone began choosing their seats and talking to each other. No one decided to talk to me, no wonder—I didn't really have social skills.
After a little more of a while, the teacher walked in.
'All of you who are in here, I don't know why you're in here and not with your orientation partners.' The teacher commented.
Huh? The people in the class responded with confusion.
'Why are you all looking at me like that? Check the phone that the school gave to you.'
We all opened the phones that we were distributed upon entering the school.
Instantly, I was notified that the time was 8:23, very helpful. There was a short verification before I was let into the main screen.
On the main screen I was greeted with a few apps. Personal information, Preseqta—which was greyed out, Bank, Weather, Contacts, Mail and Map. They were all pretty self-explainable except for the app called Preseqta. Next to the mail app, there showed a little notification, I tapped on it opening the message screen.
-
NATIONAL HIGH SCHOOL
First-years, please meet your orientation partner at the class stated below. Meeting time is 8:30am.
Your partner: Akira Eno
Class: 3-C
Failure to appear will result in a 500 point deduction.
-
All of it made sense aside from the 500 point deduction. What were 'points'? Well, luckily I still had time to make it to the meeting so I quickly got out of my seat and left the class.
It looked like me and many of my classmates had not checked their phones. I opened the Map app and began making my way towards class 3-C.
I walked through the sleek, bright hallways of the school building. There were plenty of large windows letting in waterfalls of light into the path. The natural light was so extensive that almost the entire area was illuminated by the sun alone. Pots of shrubbery and vegetation were also placed around the area to show that the architects really knew what was hip and modern.
I finally made it to the third-years' classes and began looking for 3-C. There was a huge amount of students all gathered in a relatively small space. For such a prestigious-seeming school, they didn't really organise this event that well—unless this was intentional? Maybe they were trying to encourage students to socialise, I wouldn't know.
It was like a parade was happening, the cumulative voices of all the students raised the average noise level of the area to that of a construction zone. As I looked around a little more, I noticed that there was at least some order to the chaos. Most of the students who found their partners seemed to be walking off, and those who hadn't stood in their general class area, waiting.
The closer it got to 8:30am the quieter it became. Just one minute before the designated arrival time, I managed to find my partner. It was convenient that all the third-years were given name tags, even though we weren't for some reason.
'You're Rin Takamiya, right?' He asked.
'Yep.'
'Alright, I was worried you weren't going to show up for a second, thank goodness. I'm Akira, nice to meet you.'
I wasn't sure why he seemed so relieved.
'Alright I'll show you around now, which room are you in?' He asked
'Room?'
'Check on the personal information app on your phone.'
I opened my phone once again and had a look at the app he suggested.
-
Personal Information
Name: Rin Takamiya
Age: 16
Date of Birth: 9/9/2018
Student Number: 192202
Class: Not Assigned
Housing: #188 - Boys
Entry Type: Recommendation
-
I guess I was in room 188 then.
He took me around the school whilst talking about its various facilities.
I hadn't gone to a normal school before but this seemed out-of-the-ordinary. There were a huge amount of buildings including an entire shopping area, gyms, an aquatic centre, two libraries, cinemas, basically anything a student could want.
We finished the tour at the boys dormitory.
'Do you have any questions?'
'I'm alright.'
'Well, I'll see you later then.'
He left me at my dorm and walked off. Each other the rooms had a electronic lock which could be opened by our phones. I scanned my phone and after a clicking noise, the door opened. I was greeted by an empty corner kitchen and two beds. It appeared that I would be sharing the room with someone else.
Apparently we didn't have classes today so there wasn't really much for me to do. I looked on my phone and opened the Bank app.
-
Your Account
Current Points: 40000
Owed: 0
Owing: 0
-
It was as you'd expect from a typical bank app. After the explanation from the senior, I learned that each point was approximately a cent in value—which could be spent at the school facilities. There was nothing else profound about the points.
Everything else on the phone appeared pretty normal so I called it a day at that point.
Suddenly, the door creaked open as a boy walked in holding a large sports bag which looked like it was packed to the brim.
'Oh, you're already in here.'
He spoke with quite an upbeat voice, his demeanour reminded me of Chia's. She also used to be pretty extroverted—at least in comparison to the rest of the Ideal Human Project.
'Yeah.'
'I'm Haruto Kimura, nice to meet you!'
'I'm Rin—Rin Takamiya.'
He walked over to the other bed and plopped his stuff onto the ground. His bag hit the ground with a dense splat sound—it was obvious that there was quite a lot of stuff in it.
He looked quite fit—well as far as I could tell, I assumed that he either did training or at least played quite a lot of sports. The clothing that he began pulling out of his bag made me believe he was like one of those jocks in those American movies.
'The school's pretty amazing isn't it.' He said.
'I suppose so.'
I didn't exactly know what a school was meant to be like but even I could tell that this was pretty abnormally well-fitted.
'Which class are you in?' He asked.
'I'm not sure, it said 'not assigned' when I checked my profile.'
'Apparently they released them a few minutes ago.' He added.
I opened my phone once again. There was a notification next to the Personal Information app.
-
Personal Information
Name: Rin Takamiya
Age: 16
Date of Birth: 9/9/2018
Student Number: 192202
Class: 1-E
Housing: #188 - Boys
Entry Type: Recommendation
-
'I'm in class 1-E.'
'Really? I'm in class 1-A.' He replied.
His reaction implied that there was some deeper meaning to the class placements.
'My partner said that classes are related to some sort of ranking system they have.'
'Oh.'
Ranking system... I hope that doesn't mean what I think it means. Also, why did my partner not inform me of these things?
The room was filled with a ruffling sound as he began pulling out his various belongings, mostly consisting of sporting equipment and clothes—it would appear my initial prediction was correct. He quickly folded some of his clothes and walked over to the one wardrobe that we had. He appeared shocked when he noticed a lack of items inside.
'Where did you put your clothes? Is there some other hidden wardrobe that I'm not seeing?' He joked.
'I'm wearing my clothes.'
He laughed a little.
'No, I mean the rest of your clothes.'
'I didn't bring any other clothes.'
He was taken aback by my statement.
'You seriously only have one set of clothes?'
'Yeah.'
It seemed he had some other thoughts but decided to keep silent. It was true though, I was given nothing aside from the clothes I'm currently wearing and some basic toiletries from the facility, it seemed that other people had brought quite a lot of their belongings.
He eventually broke the silence once again.
'Anyways do you know anything about the app on our phones called Preseqta?'