[Music Recommendation: "The Name of Life" by Joe Hisaishi (Spirited Away OST)-available in Youtube or Spotify] ~ Please listen to it in a loop while you read this part to experience the utmost beauty of this chapter ~

The class resumed after that and the day went on just as I remembered it.

Sir Greg taught us Music, Arts, Physical Education and Health—MAPEH for short, every day at 9 o’clock. It was funny how it's followed by Trigonometry because those two subjects use opposite sides of the brain. Maybe the curriculum wanted one side of our brains to rest for a bit before going on to the next one. Not sure if it helped me in remembering the lessons but maybe it did since I graduated valedictorian. Too bad I mostly forgot everything I learned from school when I started working. Most of them didn’t really have any relation to the job I took, so they were kinda useless. Looking back at it now, instead of studying so hard when I was at school, maybe I shouldn’t have been too strict with myself and had a little fun.

After Trig was lunchtime, my favorite time. I always had the appetite of a man, despite my slim figure. Blame it all on metabolism. Yeah, metabolism I didn’t have anymore when I grew older, hence, making me chubby. It’s great to feel so light again and still be able to eat lots of food. I spent lunch with Hora and a few more friends like we usually did.

Then comes the afternoon classes—Physics, English, Technology, and last, Economy and Politics. Sometimes there would be extra lessons about Values Education, usually during Thursday. But today was Monday, as Hora kindly reminded me, so when the bell rang, we immediately got up from our seats and prepared to go home.

Our family were one of the well-off ones who lived only a few blocks away from school since we lived inside an Executive Village where all the establishments a family would need were already inside. Be it grocery stores, restaurants, hospitals or clinics, schools, even churches. There was also a clubhouse with swimming pools the homeowners could use. Security was tight on all entrances, and patrols roamed the streets every now and then. The only thing you wouldn’t be able to find inside would probably be a Shopping Mall since they built most malls on highly frequented areas.

Hora and I walked home together like how we’ve always done in the past. Our houses were just a block away from each other. As we walked home, I continued to deliberate if all of this was real—if I really travelled back in time. And as we did, every place and every corner we passed through were exactly how they used to be. Even the news being played on the tv of the appliance shop near our home was familiar to me—about the boy who was only 16 but already managed to graduate college. I remembered him because he became a hot topic at school the next day the news aired. All the girls were gossipping about how handsome he was. Despite the boy’s privacy claims, it seemed that a reporter still managed to get footage of him. Once his picture was out for the whole world to see, the news changed from “A genius prodigy who graduated college at 16” to “A handsome genius who graduated college at 16”—amazing, right? After all, ‘Visuals is one of the secrets of a great advertisement’. And when I say ‘Visuals’, I mean faces, yeah, face values.

“Ma Kaiden,” the news anchor said.

Must be Chinese. If I’m not mistaken, ‘Ma’ should be his last name and ‘Kaiden’ should be the first name. They always had it in reverse, right? Chinese, Koreans, and the like? To be honest, I wasn’t entirely sure of it before. I just thought that Kaiden would be better as a first name—it was pretty cool to the ears.

“OMG! He’s so enchantingly handsome!,” Hora squealed the moment she saw the ‘footage’ of him. Actually, he was just jogging in the footage, wearing white shorts and an almost fitted black shirt while listening to music, maybe, on his earphones—nothing special. But Hora quickly ran towards the tv playing the news and almost kissed the shop’s glass window in an attempt to get a closer look. “Look, Sena! Come here!” she waived at me.

She’s so funny and energetic. I’ve always felt like having a sister with me all the time. I came closer to her and looked at the boy on the news she was squealing over.

Seeing him up close, I would agree that he’s really handsome—even for a teenager. He had long legs making up for his tall stature of probably around 5’9? Or 5’8? Combined with his broad shoulders and lean, muscular physique, you could mistake him for a model or a celebrity. As for the face, he had that bad-boy, uninterested, cool and aloof type of face. Slim, sharp nose, perfect jaws, healthy-looking skin, sharp-looking eyes in a gorgeous dark amethyst shade like his straight and silky hair.

Wait a minute, weren’t purple eyes extremely rare? Woah! Sometimes the world could be so unfair! He was a handsome genius already PLUS he had purple eyes?! I never felt so envious. Give me those eyes! That means he didn't have any facial or body hairs, right? Just his hair on the head, which was also dark violet? Was that natural? Darn. So lucky of him.

Anyway, there’s still a possibility of all this just happening in my head. I mean, come on, purple eyes and hair? A handsome genius? I never really saw how he looked like before, so I’m not sure. I guess I’ll know when tomorrow comes. If I sleep and wake up, still on this timeline, then this probably wasn’t a dream.

Hours passed, and night came after that. I had a quiet dinner with my family of four—my mom, dad, and younger brother. Then I went to my room and slept. Morning came, and despite that, I still found myself on the same timeline.

Now, I’m convinced. No matter how far-fetched it was.

I really time-travelled for some reason. Probably that woman who spoke to me before coming back here. Or maybe an act of God?

Upon finally believing that fact, I didn’t know what to feel. But one thing’s for sure.

This time, I will live MY life the way I want it to!

I will live for MYself!