"Saros, you can come on in now." Said an adult woman's voice from behind the door

I immediately open the door, still keeping my gaze downwards all the time, I walk slowly toward her, and then I turn my body left to face the whole classroom. I lift my chin after that, and what comes to my field of vision is something that I already expected but still baffled me.

Everyone in this world really has colorful hair and eyes huh, I thought after seeing everyone in the class looking at me.

There's a brief silence after I lift my face, so I turn my face to my right and said

"Should I introduce myself now Ma'am?"

"Hmm? oh right, please wait for a bit." She said as she clap her hands under her chin as if she remembered something. and then she continued on.

"You guys must be wondering why we even have a transfer student in just 2 months right after school started for everyone here. Well, here's the thing. He's basically already enrolling to this school, but something critical happening before his entrance ceremony that makes him be hospitalized for the whole time until-"

"It's a mental health facility." I cut her

"Huh?" she looked dumbfounded after hearing my saying that, so I repeat myself again.

"I said I'm not hospitalized for the whole 2 months, my physical condition is perfectly fine. I got held up into going here because I was in a mental health facility." and it's not like I was under intensive care either, I go back and forth from my house to the facility every day to receive daily treatments, but let's just skip that part for them.

"..." the female teacher beside me just facepalming while I'm explaining that

"ANYWAY, just do your introduction for now."

After she said that, I turned my face to the classroom again

"My name is Saros Greisyard. I preferred to be alone and I'm going to be busy with lots of things. So I'll do my best to not bother anyone."

I faced the teacher again only to see her looking at me with a disbelief face, but I don't really care anymore at this point

"I'm done with my introduction, can I go to my seat now?"

"...yeah, sure. your seat is the backmost on the 2nd row from the door. the one sitting in front of you is the class representative. if you have any questions about the class or school you can ask her."

"That wouldn't be necessary, I'll be fine."

Without waiting for any more confirmation, I walk slowly toward my seat. and I could audibly hear a sighing voice from the teacher behind me. and of course everyone in the classroom also looking at me in disbelief.

 

***

I am now standing at the teacher's office after school, and in front of me is sitting the previous homeroom teacher from this morning. she's folding her arm and glaring at me with her chestnut brown eye. I usually hang my head to avoid eye contact with people as much as possible, but in this position, the teacher is naturally coming into my field of vision and now I can see that she has an oval shaped face with short brunette hair. a small pink pearl piercing on both ears, and light makeup. I'm pretty sure most people would consider her as beautiful. assuming they didn't see the kind of expression she make right now...

"Saros" she called me with an annoyed tone. I can almost hear her clicking her tongue.

"...Yes Ma'am?"

"What the hell was that introduction about?! The whole class is staring at you weirdly this morning, I feel like I was bringing an alien from another planet to the classroom this morning!"

Well, the last part is technically true.

"I'm sorry if I'm embarrassing you ma'am, but I preferred if people not flocking to my desk during the break."

"Yeah? Then what about your class curriculum? You've been coming in late by 2 months there's no way you could keep up without any help from your classmate."

"All I have to do is ask the teacher at which page on the reference book we're at. I'm still studying at home during my 2 months abstain, and apparently, I'm a few pages ahead for the entire lesson."

She just looked at me in disbelief as if I'm spouting a terrible lie. so I continued on.

"Look, if what your concern is about my midterm exam,  we can talk about this later if I actually got remedial. at this point we can only speculate whether I would tank down my exam score or not."

She just massaged her temple while listening to my explanation as if enduring a headache, she then looked at me after a sigh.

"Okay, I get it now. I have to be very direct with you. I'll rephrase my question then. If you keep doing this, you won't have any friends during your school days, don't you worry about that?"

"I don't need any friends." I said it without delay.

"Yeah, thought you gonna say that."

"Then why are you asking..."

"Because your circumstance is just special!" She said while slamming a fist into her desk.

"I honestly didn't see the correlation between being an orphan and making friends at school, I'm pretty sure I'm not the only teenage orphan in this world who couldn't make friends. And it's not like it's your job to prevent that kind of situation."

"First of all, it actually is my job as your homeroom teacher to make sure that my students could have a normal school life."

"Sounds like a tough job, my condolence."

"Don't cut me off."

"Sorry..."

"And second, currently in this school there is only 3 school staff including me who wholly knows about your situation, and I mean ALL of it."

"So you my homeroom teacher, school principal, and Mr. Vargas the freshman administer?"

"Yeah, it's only us 3 you mentioned"

"And your point? I don't understand where this is going, am I actually suspected of killing both of my parents? Please don't tell me that I'm under criminal watch..."

I'm genuinely concerned here, things will be bad for me if I'm actually accused of murder.

"What? no, it's nothing like that. I'm talking about how you don't have any guardian and your financial situation"

"My financial situation isn't as bad as it looked like, the bank said they would freeze my parent's debt for 7 years, so they didn't touch any of my parent's savings which should be enough for my school admission and my living, as for my guardian that just means I'm being independent here, the school can directly contact me if there's an issue with anything."

But yeah, although I said that I can totally see where they're going now. there's no way they would recklessly believe a 15 year old kid with financial responsibility. I know I could handle most of the stuff because apparently these school admission and paperwork aren't much different from my previous world, and I'd been living alone for years before I'm coming here. But there's no way I could tell them that. while I'm pondering the way to convince her, she then says

"Let me tell you this, a normal 15 year old in your situation would just liquify all of their parent's assets and start over either from an orphanage or a relative. yet you choose to just shoulder your parent's debt and I have to emphasize the most ridiculous part, you actually manage to convince the bank to freeze your parent's debt and start paying the debt installment once you are old enough to make money. so if I were to summarize your situation here. Your future financial looks bleak, you have no family, and now you're saying that you want to cut yourself off from any kind of social life?"

"It's not that bleak..., no orphanage at least not one from around here would accept me as their resident because I'm already overage, and I don't have any relatives who would take care of me, and I just preferred to be alone. have you ever heard the word introvert?"

"Don't lie to me, we both know you have an uncle from your mother's side."

"Yeah, and he's far away from here in another province. he didn't even know that I exist. The reason is that my parents are basically eloping here."

"Even so..." she's about to argue with me, so I cut her off again

"Things are already been done okay? Even if we assign my uncle as my guardian here it's not like he will fly here only to take a simple PTA conference or anything. can we talk about something more productive?"

she looked really tired and put both of her elbows on the table. after sometimes she finally continues

"So if I told you to make some friends at school will you do that?"

"Definitely not" Replied me quickly.

"Figures..." She then continue after sighing "Did something happen in the past that makes you like this?"

I groaned when she asked that question, I am usually able to control my expression from showing up, but I can't help but show my displeased face after that question.

"That is a personal question Ma'am, I don't feel like answering that."

"Oh, so something did happen?"

She'll keep being persistent, wouldn't she? I got the feeling that she will do an FBI¹Federal Bureau of Investigation, a Law enforcement agency based in the USA. basically, an agency that specializes in investigating crimes of the underworld organization level of detective works to get my background checked...

"Whatever you think it is, I'm pretty sure that's not it. you probably think of some kind of major events that could be nominated as top 10 betrayals or something. it's not like that" I sighed and then continued on "It just based on my personal experience, making friends is always results in more trouble than it's worth. People will drag me into their so called social gatherings, I have to adjust my time with other people so we can do things together, and I'm not allowed to get ahead on anything because I have to match with people around me, the so called nonsense that people labeled it as One of Us. I just had enough of those kinds of things, it's not worth it. This time there's something I want to do, and I want to move at my own pace without anything or anyone pulling my legs."

"Look, this is a new circumstance I'm sure you'll-"

"There won't be any difference" I cut off her sentence again, she'll definitely say High school is different from elementary and middle school. but I know it for certainty from my previous life that's totally not the case. if anything it just getting worse from here on out. But yeah the problem is it's not like I could tell her anything about that. so I give another argument

"Do you remember why I'm here and we're having this conversation in the first place, Ma'am?"

"Yes, It's because of your introduction in class this morning"

"That's what I'm talking about, I behave differently and then everyone makes a huge fuss about that. I just want to come here to study and skip all those fussy classmates from bombarding me with questions during the whole afternoon when I want to keep track of the curriculum. And then you summoned me here and tell me to make friends because that's what every normal high schooler does. people just keep telling me to do this and that because that's what everyone does. I totally had enough of that. I know what I want, and I have my own way to achieve that. The only thing I ask from people around me is to let me do that. but they never let me do so, not even once. And me being here is actually proving it once again."

"That..."

"I know that you probably think doing things this way could cause me a huge problem for some times later, whatever the problem that awaits me in the future is my own problem to handle, I have the resolve to brace and take responsibility for that when it comes, I can't just change the way I'm doing things and I don't want to, but I can at least promise to try for not causing the problem to people around me and I will do my utmost best to not bothering anyone."

She still had a complicated expression on her face while I explaining that, so I continued

"I know that people will get annoyed if don't follow their pace and not do the same things as they did, but the way I see it, I can't see the problem in doing things in the way that is most efficient for me. It's their problem to make a fuss over something that doesn't even affect their lives."

and now she's just massaging her temple as if enduring a headache.

"Can we just wrap this up, Ma'am? this discussion couldn't go any further and I'm sure we both have something else to do."

"What are you going to do after this?"

"Shopping"

after a sigh she finally say

"Okay, we're done for now. But I want you to keep me informed if you got any trouble or anything at all, just message me on Raven²A brand of phone messaging app in this world if there's anything you want to tell me."

"About that..."

"No, you don't have any say in this one, you absolutely have to inform me because as an adult I can't just let you leave on your device knowing that you don't have anyone who takes care of you."

"Not that, I don't have your contact number" I mean, this is the first day we met.

"Oh right..." she then pulled out her phone from her tote bag "Pull your phone out, you scan my QR code³A barcode type image that could be generated by the end user using certain apps, using this feature makes the user doesn't need to memorize or inputting a certain internet link or their phone number manually "

I just silently took out my phone from my side pocket and scan her QR code after opening the Raven app

"I'm actually surprised you already have Raven installed" muttered her

"I need this app to keep up to date with some news & update I followed. But yeah, you're definitely the first human contact that I have"

"Right..."

I check my phone after that, then I saw the name "Ange Ristalika" on my contact list, so that's her name huh...

Nothing much happened after the contact exchange, she just kept vehemently repeating that I should contact her for every little thing, I just kept nodding despite we both know that there was no way I would report her every little thing. so I just excuse myself after she said we were already done.

I check the clock afterward, it's just barely after 3 PM. there should be enough time if I go shopping now. And when I said shopping it means buying some secondhand cards from SoL⁴Sorcerers of Luminaire, it will be abbreviated as SoL from now on player who doesn't understand its true value.