Beep. Beep. Beep.
The alarm on my phone sliced through the dark of my room, painfully loud. I groaned, dragging my hand across the mattress until I found the glowing screen and hit dismiss. 7:00 AM.
My name is Shiro.
If you boot up your PC and check the global leaderboards for Aetheria Online, you'll see my username sitting permanently at the #1 spot. To millions of players, I'm a top-tier gamer. A living legend who doesn't miss a shot, doesn't lose a duel, and never logs off. Online, I have everything figured out. I control the pace of the game.
But as I dragged myself out of bed and into the bathroom, the guy staring back at me in the mirror didn't look like a legend.
I splashed cold water on my face, staring at the dark bags under my heavy eyes and my hopelessly messy hair. In the real world, my life was nothing like my stats. I was just a low-energy high schooler barely scraping by. My grades were dropping faster than my social battery, and I was constantly stressed out by a world that felt too loud and too fast. I threw on my uniform, grabbed my backpack, and headed out the door. The game was over. Now, I just had to survive reality.
Walking through the school gates felt like playing a game with 999ms latency. I was there, but my brain was still half-asleep. I navigated the crowded hallway by staring at the floor, counting the scuffs on the linoleum. I was the master of "Vanish Mode." Keep your head down, don't bump into anyone, get to the back row. Survive until 3 PM.
I was so focused on avoiding the loud group of guys tossing a water bottle near the lockers that I didn't check my blind spot.
Thud.
I collided with someone coming around the corner. A stack of papers and a notebook slipped from their hands, scattering across the floor.
"Ah, shoot," a girl's voice muttered.
My social battery instantly hit zero. Great. Attention. I crouched down immediately, keeping my eyes on the floor, and started gathering the papers. "My bad. Didn't see you," I mumbled, my voice flat and scratchy since it was the first time I'd spoken all day.
I stacked the papers on top of the notebook and held them out. As I stood up, I finally looked at who I ran into.
It was Anita. She was the center of gravity in our grade—always surrounded by people, always talking, always 0-ping. But right now, she was alone, and as she reached out to take the notebooks from me, her hand froze mid-air.
Our eyes met. I expected her to look annoyed, or to just snatch the books and walk away. Instead, she just stared. Her eyes widened slightly, and a weird, unexplainable look flashed across her face.
She wasn't looking at a "loser." She was looking at me like she had just stumbled into a room she didn't know existed. For a second, her usual confident aura glitched. She looked... nervous?
"I... uh," Anita stammered, her cheeks dusting light pink. She blinked, seemingly confused by her own reaction. "T-thanks. I wasn't looking where I was going."
"It's fine," I said shortly. I handed her the books, broke eye contact, and shoved my hands deep into my pockets. I didn't have the energy to figure out why the popular girl was stuttering. I just stepped around her and kept walking toward class, slipping right back into the background noise.
Behind me, Anita stood completely still in the middle of the crowded hallway, clutching her notebooks to her chest. She watched my back as I disappeared into the sea of students, her heart suddenly beating out of rhythm for a guy whose name she didn't even know.