“Good morning, Kolson.”
“Sit down and eat quickly.”
I sometimes wondered why my nice father married my witch of a mother. The only things they had in common were their brown hair and eyes, which I inherited, and their fitness. They both looked like sportsmen who were very active at one time, but eventually stopped most activity. There were some remnants of muscles and shapes, slowly smoothed by time and deskwork. They had apparently met while attending the same handball club at university.
My father looked relatively intimidating, with large shoulders and a decent height. However, his character was anything but, being gentle and caring. My mother was the exact opposite. A standard build that would be common on the streets, hiding a lot of ferocity on the inside.
As for me, I obviously had taken only the good parts of both sides. Kind (according to my father), smart (according to my father), handsome (according to my father), sporty (according to me, e-sports only), and popular (in games). It was a wonder I didn’t have a girlfriend yet.
“Stop daydreaming and eat your food!”
“Don’t shout so much in the morning!”
“What did you say!”
My mother’s scolding woke me up, and I vaguely protested. My father was nice, but if he had a flaw, it would be treating my and my mother’s arguments as a fun drama to enjoy. According to him, it was even better because it was free. No need to pay for Netflix monthly to get access to it! And it was even being released daily!
I put food into my mouth while my mother stared at me. Her gaze was so bothersome that I couldn’t help questioning it after a while.
“What?”
“You stayed late at night again playing on your computer, didn’t you?”
“Of course not. I was doing my homework.”
“Do you take me for a moron? You’re lying straight to my face?”
Her tone was reaching a few octaves too high for my taste. It was time to escape. I took a piece of bread and rushed to my room.
“Ah! I’m going to be late for school!”
“Hey! Come back right here!”
And she was the one asking me to hurry up. That’s why it was impossible to talk to her.
I put on some clothes at high speed, took my bag in hand, and rushed out of the apartment.
“See you later! Have a good day, Dad!”
“Have a good day, Kolson.”
Judging by his satisfied expression, he approved of this morning’s verbal fight. Not that I knew what his criteria were.
“You’ll hear from me this evening!”
My mother’s threat was her way of wishing me a pleasant day. I didn’t take it too much to heart. The two of them were working, but that didn’t stop her from having plenty of energy to fight with me even after working hours. As expected of an ex-athlete.
At least, things could have been worse. My parents were part of the fad arguing that children shouldn’t receive physical punishment. Even my mother didn’t hit me during the very rare times I did something wrong, even though she sure looked like she wanted to. Viva modern education methods!
Once I was out, there was no need to hurry anymore. My high school was only a few blocks away from home. There was a good reason I had chosen that one. I finally had time to open SBPR and check if anything interesting happened while I was sleeping. Unfortunately, except for a few expensive and uninteresting offers, nothing had changed. I kept it open, in a corner of my vision, in case something good popped up.
Today was Thursday, a very normal school day. I reached the premises in no time and could even afford to do my homework before the first period started. That was the advantage of fleeing from home early, I guess.
Just before the bell rang, Bryer entered the classroom. With blonde hair and green eyes, he wasn’t as handsome as I was, but he wasn’t bad either. He was my best friend from elementary school all the way up to now. Last year, we were in different classes. This year, fate had it to put us together again, which was amazing.
“Safe!”
“Your timing’s just right today.”
“Almost late, yeah.”
We chuckled as he sat next to me. I wanted to chat with him, but the bell rang at that moment. The teacher entered the classroom, and the first period began. I could use my phone to send him messages, but this was a bit risky. I wasn’t too worried about school. The bigger problem was if my mother learned about it. She was already unhappy about my school results as they were. No need to give the witch the match to start the fire to boil the pot I was in.
Instead, I waited until recess before talking to him, careful not to be overheard by our neighbors.
“Man, something crazy happened last night.”
“You mean more than when we won 4 vs 5?”
“That was lit. But I’m talking about high-key insane.”
His eyes lit up.
“Yeah? What?”
I looked around. No one was paying us any attention, but I wasn’t about to take any risk. My school was within 500 meters of my house, and thus SBPR’s range. A lot of the students and teachers lived close by. Who knows, maybe some of them were chosen, too. Realistically, the probability was low, but it wasn’t null either.
“I’ll tell you later.”
He understood I wanted to talk in private. We usually did this to share any of the porn stuff we found, even though today would be a bit different.
It was only at lunch that we could find an isolated place to talk. We usually went to the cafeteria at the end, when there were fewer people, and used the rest of the time to play on our phones or chat about random stuff.
“So, what’s it? Did you find an amazing site?”
“Not exactly. You didn’t get contacted by SBPR yesterday?”