Emmett

The two of us walked over to the class. Luckily, Louise seemed to know her way around the place, so all I had to do was follow a few paces behind her without making it too obvious that I had no clue where to go, but thankfully she never ended up noticing.

Looking around the hallways, I saw hordes of students coming and going, some in group, some alone, and all wearing the exact same suit.

“So, what’s your schedule look like?” she asked. “Maybe we got a couple of other classes in common.”

“Um, well….”I took the schedule paper out of my bag, unfolded it and scanned the content. “So, on Mondays, I’ve got two classes which are short fiction and introduction to poetry. Then, on Tuesdays, I’ve only got one class, Literary studies. Wednesdays are my busiest days. I've got three classes, two of which are electives.”

“Oh, we’re in the same class on Monday and Tuesday, then, pretty cool.”

As we kept walking through this huge building which I would have almost certainly gotten lost in, I started thinking about how weird it was that I hadn’t encountered anything fantastical like magic or something of the sort. When I first went on my way to Winterbury, I expected there to be classes like potion mixing or spellcasting, but apparently that wasn’t the case. So far, everything seemed incredibly normal, and there weren’t any historical mentions of anything unusual according to the book I read, simply some brief depictions of political disputes between a couple of lands which escalated into major wars, but were settled within a couple of years.

However, the past two or three decades had been relatively quiet worldwide, it seemed like peace had finally been attained. I knew better though, the fact that I had been Isekai’d into this time period meant that something suspicious was bubbling under all that peaceful façade, and perhaps my arrival was a sign of things to come.

I wasn’t sure whether or not I wanted to get involved with what was going to occur, but my way home probably lied in interfering with these events, so unless I wanted to stay here, I most likely had no other choice.

As I was lost in thought, Louise suddenly stopped right in front of a classroom. I nearly walked right into her, but luckily managed to stop myself at the very last moment. That would have been pretty embarrassing.

Louise, however, not realizing how close I was, turned around and immediately bumped into me, causing the two of us to topple over.

“I-I’m so sorry!” She immediately got up and apologized, her face turning red.

“I-It’s fine…It was my fault, sorry.” I didn’t know what my face looked like as I got up, but I’m pretty sure it was almost as red as hers.

“Geez, watch where you’re going, man, will ya?” A voice behind me said.

I turned around and my eyes met with a red-haired boy about my age holding a cane and wearing a top hat to go along with his suit. He smiled, it wasn’t the warm kind, but neither was it malicious.

“Me personally, that’s not really what I have in mind when I want to make someone fall for me, but hey, whatever works for you, man.” He continued.

“Wait, no, it’s not like that okay?” I tried to explain the misunderstanding. “I simply wasn’t paying attention to my surroundings, that’s all.”

The boy’s smile instantly faded, a blank stare replacing it. Had I said anything wrong?

“No, it’s my fault, really.” Louise interrupted. “I should have been more careful turning back.”

“Can you two please just stop apologizing, already? We get it, it’s not a big deal.” The red-haired boy started walking towards the classroom, before stopping and extending a hand to me, the smile on his face back where it was. “I’m Emmet Wilkins, by the way. Nice to meet you.”

I shook his hand and returned the greeting. He then offered to sit next to each other during class. I turned to Louise, and she nodded. The three of us entered the classroom together, it was larger than I expected. There weren't any desks, but rather, about seven huge tables that were almost as long as the entire room,  each one had about fifteen or so seats. The room actually had steps that descended from the top where the door was, with each table on one row, which eliminated the possibility of someone being unable to see the board.

 It was clear we were early since no one was here except a woman with long dark hair and glasses, she seemed quite young but not young enough to be a student. I judged her to be probably somewhere in her late twenties, so that must likely have been our professor.

She was seated at a desk in the front of the class and seemed so focused on the papers in front of her that she hadn’t even noticed us come in. Emmet pointed to the back of the room, but Louise shook her head.

“I need to sit in the front to concentrate better.” She explained.

“Alright, we’ll catch you later, then.” Emmett said, dragging me alongside him before I could even get a word out.

I took a seat at the very back, in the corner of the classroom. To my left was the wall and to my right was Emmett who had taken the seat right next to mine. The board was pretty far away, but not far enough that we wouldn't be able to see.

“Pst, Barnaby.” Emmett whispered to me, even though there was no need to since literally no one was here and class hadn’t started yet.

“What?” I whispered back, for some reason.

“You’ve lost your memory, haven’t you?”

I froze.

“Yeah, you have.” He continued. “Why else wouldn’t you recognize your best friend?”

“Hold on a minute-”

“You haven’t told anyone else, either, right?” Emmett interrupted again. “You’re trying to pretend like nothing happened even though you have no clue who the hell you are and where you are, am I right or am I right?”

“Yeah, you’re spot on. How did you know?” I asked.

“When I introduced myself to you, you simply returned the greeting without a hint of confusion. After all, we’ve known each other for eight years, why would I suddenly do that?”

“But, what made you think of introducing yourself in the first place?”

“I was suspicious because you didn’t insult me as soon as you saw me, so I tested you and that only confirmed it.”

I'd gotten careless. As soon as I entered the school, I assumed that I didn't know anyone here, so that would make me safe. Yet there was no base to that assumption, and I ended up paying the price by giving myself away to this Emmett guy. Luckily though, he only thought I'd lost my memory, not that I was actually a totally different person that suddenly woke up in his best friend's body, so I decided to keep it that way.

“Damn, so that gave it away, huh.” I said.

“Don’t worry, old friend, your pal Emmett here is going to help you, alright?”

“Wait, hold on a second, how do I know we’re not actually enemies and you’re just trying to sabotage me?”

“Are you actually stupid? Seriously? Why would I sabotage you, I could just leave you to it and you’d end up sabotaging yourself, dumbass.”

“Good point.”

“Anyway, how did you end up losing your memory in the first place?” He asked.

“Are YOU stupid? How should I know, I don’t remember anything!”

“Right…I forgot.”