Chapter 5. Lunch with a Nosy Neighbor (1/3)

Three weeks passed by in a flash. I’d more or less repeated the same everyday routine. Though I was fairly fatigued, it was still nowhere near as tiring as I remembered it. As for why that was the case, it was naturally due to no longer needing to pay attention in school. I also didn’t have to study late into the night after work as well.

I was actually living quite carefree at the moment, quite unlike what I’d gone through during my first high school experience. Somehow I was actually rather content. I had no student loans to worry about now or in the future. I didn’t need to worry about getting scholarships like before since I didn’t intend to waste my time with university again either.

Another difference was the one new monthly expense I did take on though. A smartphone. It was something essential to me now. When I was previously in high school, since I didn’t have any friends, I never saw a need for a mobile phone, but as an adult who’d taken up writing, I knew just how crucial it was to me now. That was because I could use it to write no matter where I was located. I could even do so in school since this time was just used to pass the time during the day until it was time for my shift at work.

It was truly great. I’d already started writing stories and posting them online. Thanks to my prior accumulated experience I was even able to start earning a very small sum of money every now and then. It was by no means a lot, in fact only a few dollars here and there. But that was exactly how I started off in my early days as well. Fighting for pennies and dimes.

It was a gradual process, but the more you wrote, the more you’d earn in the long run. You needed perseverance and an indomitable will to never give up. Even if you faced roadblocks you had to stand back up and keep trying again and again until something finally worked.

I was presently on track for self-publishing the first volume of the story I was working on to Amazon. I just had to spend the next 2-3 weeks proofreading and editing the entire volume.

Even if it was judged by others as garbage, it didn’t matter to me. The fact that I’d written this much, when I compared it to me at the same age before, I felt extremely happy. It was something of my own creation. Something I could be proud of. I felt… excitement.

Even those one-star reviews I was so used to receiving couldn’t put me down.

I suddenly shook my head to snap out of it. I’d gotten distracted and completely forgot what I was in the middle of at present. I looked down at the pencil in my hand then toward the paper beneath.

It was a test paper. When I read through the questions I couldn’t help but let out a contemptuous smile.

Are you kidding me? How could anyone struggle with this kiddy shit?

Well, despite it being easy enough I had no intention of getting full marks. Don’t get me wrong, doing so would be exceedingly easy, but I no longer need scholarships. There’s no reason for me to snatch them all up as I did in the past. Let the kids who have dreams that wish to chase them have them.

As such, I decided to set my scores on these tests at something completely average. A score, neither good nor bad. Seventy-five percent on all of my tests from here on should suffice. Teachers shouldn’t be able to make any complaints either. I also won’t have to worry about classmates pestering me to copy answers for homework if I don’t stand out very much academically.

With a relaxed smile on my face, I slumped over my desk onto my left hand and one by one lazily wrote in answers at a leisurely pace while occasionally looking outside the window at the clouds up in the sky. I kept an eye on the clock to make sure I neither went too fast or too quick. By the time the bell sounded off signaling the end of the period I’d completed 75% of the answers on the test. I left everything after that blank making it obvious I’d simply run out of time.

When it was over, I passed my answer sheet to the student seated in front. She did the same until all our papers reached the students in the front row of the class.

With the test over, I sat up straight, stretched my arms, and let out a silent yawn.

“You sure don’t look like someone who just took a test.”

Since I wasn’t in a bad mood, I glanced at my nosy neighbor and responded, “It was really hard though. I couldn’t even answer all the questions and only finished three-quarters of the test. What about you?”

“I got to the end… but I don’t think I did very well. Maybe… 50% correct I think.” She had a slightly troubled expression on her face.

“Maybe if you stopped messing around in class and paid attention you’d do better.”

“I’d rather not hear that from the guy who’s always asleep. Besides that, what do you think you got?”

“Me? Hmm… tough to say considering I didn’t even finish it all.”

“Do you think you got 50% of what you answered correct?”

“Probably.”

“If that’s all you got then I might still have a chance of beating you.”

“By the way, could you at least… stop staring at me during tests? The teachers are going to think you’re trying to cheat.”

“I am trying to cheat though.”

“If you’re going to cheat, at least be smart about it.”

She looked a bit surprised when I said that. “You don’t care about people cheating?”

“Pfft, the dumbasses who say you’re only cheating yourself by cheating are idiots who haven’t experienced the cruel reality of this world. It’s nothing more than idealistic bullshit and it is only really cheating if you’re dumb enough to get caught. Heh, at the end of the day, just do what you’ve got to do to survive. If you ever want to make it in this world, you’ve got to lie, cheat, and steal. Those who find the greatest success are those who are the best of the best among liars.”

“Hmm, you don’t really look like the type to lie, cheat, or steal though.”

“That’s because I’m not the type of person who’d be successful in life.”

“So you’re saying you don’t do any of those things?”

“No, I’m just not the best of the best among liars.”

“So you are a liar.”

“Are you finally disappointed enough in my morals and character that you’ll leave me alone now?”

“No, I actually feel more motivated than ever to annoy you.”

“Look, it’s been three weeks of this already, give me a break. I can’t sleep in peace during class with you constantly staring at me. Now that I think about it, if you used the time you spent staring at me toward focusing on what’s being taught in class wouldn’t you actually be a genius?”

“Maybe I would do better, but I can’t be bothered. It’s more entertaining staring at you to prevent you from sleeping in peace.”

“I’m seriously going to have a nervous breakdown and constantly be looking over my shoulder in the future at this rate. This is going to lead to a bad case of PTSD at this rate. Please… just tell me what I need to do to get you off my back.” I was seriously getting desperate now. I felt like I couldn’t hide anything I was doing with her constantly staring me down.

During lessons, I’d be writing out my story, but I’d always be self-conscious about it. Letting someone know that I was a writer was something I’d never done. Nobody knew the identity of the person with the pen name I hid behind in the past and I wanted to keep it that way. For fifteen long years, I kept that secret all to myself. I’d written unspeakable things that were by many people’s standards unforgivable and vile.

If she found out I was a writer and what my pen name was… I didn’t even want to think about it. I’m certain normal people would think of me as sick in the head for many of the things I’ve depicted through words.

Writing, though fun, was extremely embarrassing. It revealed some of your deepest thoughts. It allowed others to take a look inside your head and analyze you. By doing so, they could pick you apart, one piece at a time, and see through everything that made you tick. Your darkest fantasies were on full display for the world to see whenever you wrote a story.

“Hmm… something to get me off your back?” She questioned and broke off my train of thought.

“Yeah.”

“Then… how about… telling me your biggest secret you’re hiding?”

This woman… is she out to get me? What the hell did I do to incur her wrath? Was it really just taking this seat? Was she that damn petty?

Hell no. Absolutely not. Over my dead body! I wanted to say all that, but instead, I kept a cool face and said, “Unfortunately I have no big secrets, nor do I have anything to hide.”

“Is that really the truth?”

“Yeah.”

“Didn’t you just admit that you’re a liar to me though? How do I know I can believe that you’re not telling a lie right now?”

Me and my big mouth.

“I’m telling the truth, I swear.”

“Then, if you really don’t have any big secrets you're hiding… how about letting me take a look at your phone that you’re always fiddling with during class?”

“Sure, feel free.” Heh. I’ve always been prepared in advance should someone secretly try to inspect my phone. They naturally won’t find anything on it. They’d need to log into a separate online account and I don’t keep the login credentials stored on the device anyway. She could search through everything and never find a thing.

“Huh? Wait, really? You don’t care even if I snoop through your contacts, text messages, or emails?”

“Heh, all you’ll discover by snooping through my phone is the fact that I don’t have any friends.”

“Oh, you have no friends? How sad.”

“What would I be sad about? It’s a relief not to worry about troublesome relationships that require constant upkeep to maintain. I don’t need them, nor do I want any.”

“Wow… you weren’t kidding either. This contact list is just… barren? Devoid of life, hope, and dreams?” She launched several verbal jabs after opening up my empty contacts list and verifying the lack of a single text conversation.

When she confirmed there really was nothing there she handed my phone back while looking at me apologetically with pity in her eyes.

“You may say that about me, but what about you? It doesn’t seem like you particularly get along with any of the girls in class. Hmmph! Why don’t you flash your contact list if you’re so confident in it.”

“I mean I could… if that’s what you really want.”

She unlocked her phone and turned it toward me then swiped down.

My lips twitched when I saw it, but I noticed something immediately.

“Heh, it’s exactly as I thought.”

“What do you mean?”

“There are only guy names. My suspicions were correct, you don’t have a single female friend.”

I tapped on the shoulder of the girl seated in front of me and said, “Excuse me.”

She looked a bit surprised when she turned around as this was the first time I’d ever called out to her. “Uh… did you need something from me?” She asked suspicious of my intentions. In all honesty, I didn’t even know her name. Now that I thought about it, since I’d slept through the self-introductions at the beginning of the year, I still hadn’t learned my nosy neighbor’s name either, but that wasn’t something I particularly cared to learn either way.

“Well, it seems this pitiful girl beside me doesn’t have a single phone number belonging to a girl, can you please do her the favor of saving her pitiful soul by presenting her with yours?”

“Uhm… are you indirectly asking for my phone number for yourself?”

“No, I’m genuinely asking you to give her your number because I felt bad when I found out she didn’t have any girlfriends. Don’t you think something like that is just too pitiful?” She had a lot of text convos open with guys from what I saw just now though.

“Hey, what do you think you’re trying to pull here? Why am I being the one made out as the pitiful one when you’re the one without a single contact registered to your phone?”

“Ehem. Please ignore her, she’s still trying to cope with her loneliness. She’s been so broken-hearted she’s just been staring at a wall behind you all day every day trying to work up the courage to ask for your number.”

“Really? That’s why she’s been blankly staring in this direction since school started?”

“Yes. She just couldn’t work up the courage to ask you for your number in the end. Please, I’m begging you on her behalf.” I clapped my hands together pleading to her.

“All right. I understand.” She nodded understandingly and turned away. She wrote something down on the corner of a page in her notebook then tore it off. She stretched her hand out and placed it on my nosy neighbor’s desk.

Heh. Kids are just too easy to deceive. Well, it can’t be helped, I am forty on the inside.

“You can contact me any time, you don’t need to be afraid.” She was honestly too kind. So kind... that my nosy neighbor’s lips couldn’t stop twitching.

“R-Right… thanks… I’ll do that.”

Having done her good deed for the day, the unnamed girl stood up satisfied, collected her things, and exited the room for lunch.

I turned to my nosy neighbor with a smirk and said, “Isn’t that nice? You made a friend who isn’t a guy.”