Chapter 3:

C1300 - UTC 13:00:00:00

This Boredom of Mine

The clock ticks on slowly.

???: [UTC is an abbreviation of the "Coordinated Universal Time" or "Temp Universel Coordonné", none of which form up the letters of U, T, C in that order.]

The teacher wrote down the gigantic letters of U, T, and C onto the board.

Teacher: [It is the primary standard of time of which the world uses to base all of its timepieces on.]

The teacher continued while raising her left hand to show us the watch that she was wearing.

It was an unremarkable watch which has seen better times.

Throughout the time she was speaking, she never once turned around to speak to us directly.

However, her voice came through loud and clear to all corners of the classroom.

Teacher: [That is to say, if you knew what time it is right here, right now, and the location of the place of which you wish to know the time of, you would be able to derive the current time anywhere around the world!]

She drew a model of planet Earth and divided it into 12 equal parts longitudinal-wise, like how one would cut a watermelon.

Teacher: [Under that logic, the time difference between us and the place directly opposite of us on the other side of the world is exactly 12 hours.]

She marked two spots directly opposite of each other on her spheroid model and connected them by a single red line.

Teacher: [So for person I and person II here, although they are 12,742km away from each other, they are only 12 hours away on a temporal scale!]

Visible confusion can be seen from some of the classmates, something she would know if she would just turn around and see.

However, when she's like this, nothing can distract her.

???: [Nanochi, Nanochi, does the red line mean anything special?]

"Nanochi, Nanochi": [Ah, yes, Mimi, the red line stands for the diameter of the Earth, which averages out to approximately 12,742km. That is because the Earth is not a perfect sphere but a spheroid where it protrudes along the equator, more so compared to the poles due to Earth's rotation along the poles…]

The teacher continued to annotate on the spheroid model, adding on the precise number and even drawing out the brief outlines of parts of the world along the equator and at the poles.

Nanochi, full name Nano September, is our homeroom teacher.

Normally, she is a teacher that would hardly get through her sentence without stuttering on each syllable when she is addressing us during homeroom.

However, the air around her completely changes whenever she gets into teaching.

The knowledge she has regarding any, if not, all subject matter is vast and limitless, surging through the floodgates that would normally be closed shut from others.

A simple question of when did she reach school gave her enough runway to digress into the history of timezones and now, we are moving along to Geography before we even realised it.

Yet, even so, her content never felt like an overload of information.

Instead, it was akin to a smooth scenic ride along her train of thought, one that passes through high mountains and deep seas of different stations and disciplines.

Although at times her engine changes from an industrial-era steam engine to a maglev train's electric engine, we find ourselves to be incapable of getting off and pulling our eyes away.

The back which refused to look at us as she imparts whatever general knowledge or niche trivia she has to us and the board that would be filled from top to bottom at the end of every class would never cease to captivate me.

I might even go so far as to represent and speak for the class but I'm pretty sure everyone would be too shy to do so even if they had nothing but respect for her.

~~~

???: [How does she keep doing that?! I thought Geography would be the end of it but she somehow chained it together with Astronomy and Molecular Biology before ending it with Taxonomy.]

So said a student while frustratingly pulling at his hair despite his strength barely able to remove a single strand.

???: [Nah man. The shocking thing is somehow, I could grasp my head over the stuff she is saying without feeling lost…]

Replied a voice coming through a smartphone. His face-cam on the phone showed another student putting his head down on the table and groaning.

Talking to each other were the guys, Dio, I mean, Eu and Five, channel name FiveXFive, LALAS as he would always say whenever he is introduced.

I turned around to see if the student behind me had anything to add on.

He, with the man bun, merely nodded in acquiescence.

???: [Teacher, good!]

Man of few (and limited) words as always, Xiao.

The gang once again began to make their way to the cafeteria for lunch.

Occasionally, John's sisters would prepare luxurious Bentos for him and we, as fellow gentlemen, would insist for him to eat with all three of them instead of us but not once did he pick up on his own passive at play and followed along with us everywhere we went.

Not just that, his passive allowed him to be the main bridge between the seven of us guys and the rest of the class since he is always so easy to talk to, boys and girls alike.

It is now a joint effort from the six of us to ensure that our friend and brother, John Smith here, is able to find his one and only, the one that would make his heart skip a beat, in our times in school.

Before I could chip in, I was grabbed by the wrist and dragged along the other direction.

Since I tend to walk behind the gang they have yet to notice my disappearance.

A.A. was walking right beside me but as always, his eyes were affixed to his phone as his fingers danced across the controls on the phone.

The one dragging me away, I would even say abducting me away, was a girl.

With a head of slightly unkempt hair, not once did she look back at me.

Instead, burying herself in was a singular regal blue book overused, bookmarked and annotated from corner to corner.

The pages were visibly crumpled, plausibly from extended flipping through.

Every now and then, I could just about make out what she was mumbling about only for her to lower her volume again as she continue to mutter something under her breath.

The hand she used to grab hold of me wasn't strong or forceful. In fact, I could very well break free anytime.

Yet, there was something about the way she is holding my wrist with her tightest grip and ever so faint tremble now and then.

The conviction and the reluctance and desperation in letting go got me wanting to continue with the charade for just a little bit longer.

We didn't have to walk far in the end;

We stopped just outside the entrance to the stairs.

I used to have wanted to explore every nook and cranny of the Edward Institute main building.

That is until I realised how unrealistic it would actually be.

To the uninitiated, the main building is observed to be more than 50 storeys high and that's only what we can see from the outside.

Who is to know how much more there is to be explored in actuality?

That, and also the point I am driving at is that there aren't any other viable options to venture within the main building other than using the "lift".

As such, the stairs and the place around it are nigh untouched by the complete lack of human traffic coming in, out and around to use it.

Nobody would know that we are here.

My heartbeat increased ever so slightly at the thought.

???: [...It should be here any second now…]

She let go of the hand grabbing onto me and glanced at the time as shown on her three watches strapped on her hand.

The clock ticks on slowly.

We stood there staring at each other for a few seconds.

I finally realised who the face staring back at me belonged to.

It was yet another of our classmates. I think her name was Setsuchi, I mean Setsuna.

Setsuna: [...no…]

She started to whisper something.

Setsuna: [... No No No… No, it can't be…]

Her reactions grew as her eyes blinked profusely.

Setsuna: [NONONONONONONONO! YOU PROMISED! 13:00:00:00, ON THE DOT TO THE CENTISECONDS. YOU LIAR! YOU JERK! YOU WALKING PIECE OF…]

She angrily shut the old blue book in her hand with a loud thud and raised it up high.

Instinctively, I stopped her hand mid-air as she was about to slam the book into the ground.

At first, she resisted with all her might but gradually, she lost strength and knelt down like a puppet with her strings cut.

Her hands drooped with her vigour lost but it still clasped onto the book, refusing to let it go.

Ko: [...I don't know what you are waiting for… Maybe it's just late or incomplete…?]

That was about the best response I could give with whatever little information sending my way.

Setsuna: [...You don't understand… I… I just want to…]

She turned her head to respond and for the first time in our limited interaction, we locked eyes.

Those were eyes that were about to burst into tears at any given moment.

Setsuna: [...I… I have to go…]

She was the first to break eye contact.

Swiftly, she stood herself upright and left the premises while hugging her book tightly.

On her way out, she turned back one last time as if she still had something more to say before stopping herself short and continuing on her way.

Her small back got smaller and smaller before she finally disappeared around the corner.

I find myself wishing for there to be something that I can do for her but the weight she was carrying doesn't feel like something that can be carried with our hands alone.

???: [Gee, Ko. At least learn to let her down gently…]

Giving the scare of my life as she suddenly started talking from behind me was Shiro, yet another classmate from class EI7.

Ko: [Please, for all that is holy and unholy, do not suddenly appear behind me, or anyone else. And that wasn't a confession, we were just…]

What would one call that exchange, really?

Shiro: [As if I would believe a dubious lie like that~ ]

I want to deny him with all my heart but I knew that that would just be playing into her hand.

Shiro: [No matter, Shiro Shaya of the cupid of love is here to help. Someone has to be there to comfort her~]

Nonchalantly waving her hands goodbye, he made her way around the corner without even looking back.

Ko: [*Sigh*]

Hapless, I dragged my feet back to the cafeteria and joined back the guys.

???: [How was it? How was it? I still can't believe that the first of us to be confessed to is Ko!]

The student saying this while actively closing one of his forearms around my neck and drilling his other hand into my head is none other than Hiroshi.

He had been like this ever since I returned.

Hiroshi: [A.A. told us all about it! You were dragged off somewhere by a girl, non?]

SO HE KNEW.

And he intentionally allowed me to be taken away.

Staring daggers at the boy who refused to put down his phone even during meal times, I prayed hard that he drops his phone into his bowl of noodles.

[End of Chapter]

Hiroshi: [So what did the both of you do in the end?]

Ko: [Drop it, it isn't anything big anyways.]

Hiroshi: [Setsuna and Ko~ Sitting on the tree~ K.I.S.S.I…

Ko: [I will smother you. How old do you think you are?!]

Hiroshi: [We are barely at the tail ends of our fifteen years of lives and counting, what's so wrong with showing love to those around you?]

A.A. [*Noodle Slurping Noise*]