Lady awoke with a cold sweat. He was certain he had been having a nightmare but he couldn’t seem to remember what it had been about. Looking at the time on his phone, he inwardly groaned realizing that the sun still had yet to rise and school didn’t start for another 4 hours. He decided to get on Citadel Heartscape, one of his favorite fantasy games, and catch up on a bit of grinding. Traversing between Citadels, he continued grinding until the sun rose and birds began chirping. Looking at the time in the bottom right corner of his monitor, he realized he needed to get ready for school. 

He ate a light breakfast after showering and changing. Making sure everything was packed in his backpack, he closed and locked the door before starting on his way to school. Little did he know how weak the security that locked door provided was. Lady usually walked to school which was a bit far from his house but he could still make it on time granted he left early enough. 

His first two classes were uneventful. He didn’t know any of the people in his class but their stares told him more than enough. Rumors had already spread about him. Shaking off their gazes, he took a leather bound notebook out of his backpack and opened it up. He found the page he had been working on after flipping through the notebook and reread what he had written the day before.

Ideal DPS = (( Damage +True buff )(1 / Attack speed)+(Damage Over Time ))(1+Standard buff)(1-Resistance) - (Armor x (.01 x Enemy Level +1))

The equation written above was what players of the game Citadel Heartscape, including Lady himself, had spent countless hours testing to develop. The Citadel Heartscape Final Damage Calculator 3.0. Lady didn’t consider himself a pro player but he was someone who often made it onto game leaderboards and discovered strategies in games that entire communities adopted later. Weather fortunate or unfortunate, Lady's lack of any real friends led to him spending most of his time online.  

Citadel Heartscape was one of Lady’s favorite games and was known for being incredibly vague with its mechanics. Due to the immense number of spells, weapons, and enemies, some hardcore players would calculate the ideal strategy to use against certain boss monsters by using the formula above and similar variations. 

As class continued, Lady worked tirelessly plugging in the stats of different weapons with various combinations of buffs to see what would work best against the game’s newest boss, The Basilisk. He was so absorbed in the task that he missed the bell signaling class was over and only realized when people began to flood out of the room. 

Lady hurriedly packed his things and began heading to his next class, third period English, a class he was not looking forward to. Many of the students that had bullied him in middle school were in this high school including two of the worst offenders, Anna and Sara. He had heard the two making fun of him in class the day before and he wasn’t looking forward to another dosage of it. 

He was welcomed by Ms. Sierra’s friendly smile as he entered the classroom and made his way to his seat near the back. Sara was sitting behind him and to his right but Anna seemed to be absent. As class began, a flustered Anna barged into class and apologized to Ms. Sierra who was angry that she was late again. Class continued after the disruption and Lady returned to writing in his notebook. The bell for lunch rang and Lady headed to the cafeteria with his lunchbox to look for a place to eat. He walked through the cafeteria, lunchbox in hand, before finally giving up due to the angry or disguised looks he received upon approaching any empty seat.

He walked to the nearest stairwell planning to eat at the top of the stairwell. While embarrassing, it was something he had to do a lot in middle school but upon approaching the top of the stairs, he noticed a door. Lady tried his luck pushing open the door and entering onto the roof. The school's roof was used by the gardening club and featured a small greenhouse and several adjacent box gardens. Lady found a small bench by the door and sat down to eat lunch.

As he ate, he heard the door open and watched as a sleepy eyed boy with black hair walked onto the roof and found another bench. The boy pulled out his phone and Lady could vaguely make out the sound of a familiar voice. NekoGirl. Lady wondered if she was currently streaming but couldn’t check due to his older phone being unable to load anything too complex. Lady set his lunch down and worked up the courage to talk to the boy. 

“Um A… Are you a fan of NekoGirl?” Lady asked as he slowly walked over to the boy. The black haired boy looked up at him with a frown. “Yea, what's it to you?” Lady was a little dejected at the boy's response but decided to push onwards. “I… I actually know her. We’ve played a few games together.” Lady hoped the statement would interest the boy but it seemed to have the opposite effect. “Yea right you fucking weirdo” He laughed “I bet you just tell yourself that shit while jacking off thinking about her. Wait a minute, You're that freak everybody’s been talking about right. Ladybird or something. My friend was in your middle school class and said you showed up with a cold and got everybody sick. You’re not still contagious right?” 

Lady tried to deny it but the boy continued berating him. Finally, Lady threw open the door and rushed inside leaving his half eaten lunch on the bench. The boy closed out of the stream and started texting a slightly embellished story about how Lady thought he was best friends with a female streamer to his friend. While his fingers quickly typed away at the screen, he failed to notice the sound of the door swinging open. He looked up when a figure entered his peripheral vision only to see a girl with dyed red hair hurriedly gulping down the water from the bottle Lady had left on the bench. “What the hell are you doing?” The boy asked slightly louder than intended. She ignored him and continued drinking like someone who had been stranded in the desert for several days.

When the bottle was empty, the girl set it back on the bench and turned to the boy staring at him with her fierce dark brown eyes. “So you’re the son of a bitch that said all that to Lady huh?” She muttered to herself. Before he could blink, the woman had bolted towards him and was less than 2 meters away. He raised his arms in reflex to protect his face and stomach but the blow she unleashed still sent him spiraling. 

He crashed against the chain link fence surrounding the roof and felt a hand around his neck moments later. The girl lifted him by the neck and dragged him up the fence leaving his feet dangling uselessly an inch above the ground. His choked words were incomprehensible as she got close and whispered “Don’t ever talk to him again you piece of shit.” The boy tried to nod which was difficult with her hand still around his neck and after a few seconds, she let him go. The concrete collided with his feet and then knees as he collapsed in front of her gasping for breath. 

By the time he regained the strength and courage to look up, she was already gone along with Lady’s lunch box and bottle that had been left on the bench. He reached for his phone on the ground which had fallen during the altercation and unlocked it. Sent from an unknown number was a picture of black haired boy kneeling on the floor with a wet spot surrounding the space he sat and a noticeable dark splotch surrounding the upper thighs of his jeans. Only after looking at the photo for some time did the boy realize that his crotch felt warm.

After class had ended Lady got up with the rest of the students to leave only to be stopped by the teacher, Ms. Sierra. Anna seemed to shoot a glare in their direction and her friend Sara had to drag her out of the classroom. Once the two were alone, Lady suddenly grew nervous wondering if she had seen him working in the notebook and ignoring her lesson. Her gentle smile calmed him down and she led him over to her desk. “Lady” She said “I know the last few years were rough sweetie but I want to support you” Lady nodded wondering where she was going with this.

“I know you’ve been a victim of bullying before” She continued, her eyes glazing over slightly, “but I want you to know you can talk to me. You should feel safe here so let me know if anything happens alright.” She suddenly drew him into a hug which surprised him but he wasn’t complaining. She reluctantly let him go and Lady hurried off to his next class as she remembered the feeling of his frail body wrapped in her arms. Lady meanwhile was trying not to blush furiously as he remembered the feeling of something very different pressed against his face.

The rest of the day passed by without incident, two very different people ignored their teachers for two very different reasons. The new English teacher kept wrapping her arms around her waist as though she were hugging herself much to the confusion of her students. And a black haired boy with sleepy eyes sat in a bathroom stall repeatedly texting his friend and asking him if he had a spare set of gym clothes. He did not. When Lady reached the bookstore where he worked part time, he felt relieved and sat behind the counter pinning the laminated badge to his hoodie. 

The afternoon spent behind the counter was less eventful than the day prior so Lady decided to pass the time by messaging his friends, or the few people he knew online. He sent a message to MagicalGirlLover but had yet to receive a reply. He was about to put his phone away when he got a message from NekoGirl

1 new message 

NekoGirl: You said you'd get on tonight. 

BlackObelisk

Wrote most of this while playing Warframe so hopefully the quality is still up to par. Next chapter will probably be posted Tuesday or Wednesday.