When I returned to the dorms, Arturo grabbed my shoulders tightly while Hugo rushed for the first aid kit.

“What happened?!”

“Its nothing. I just had a light scuffle with some people. Its all resolved now.”

Hugo patched me up gently.

“You’re quite the dangerous roommate.”

I chuckled.

“So are you, Hugo. Your marks never cease to make me faint.”

The two of us laughed. Arturo joined in as well.

The weeks passed by quickly. As I looked around the signum part of the campus, I came to realise how good of a system this school had adopted. This signum bubble was so perfectly placed and reinforced that not a single person had a thought to explore the outside of it. The Chairman of this school was truly a ruthless, cunning man. I stayed out of trouble with the non-signum people for a while. Before I knew it, I was writing the semester exams. I came out of the examination hall exhausted.

“Arturo, lift me to the dorms. I’m too tired.”

He laughed dryly.

“Then I’ll have you accompany me on my next training day to make up for it.”

I straightened up.

“Whoa, I found my hidden strength. Thanks, Arturo.”

He smiled knowing exactly what to say to make me straighten up.

“Where’s Hugo?”

Arturo shook his head.

“I didn’t see him. Anyways, I got to head to the gym. See you later.”

“Later.”

I retraced my steps back to the main building. I found Hugo outside the staff room. He was holding a big stack of papers. Before I could help them, the door opened and his face lit up brightly. The History teacher grabbed the stack of papers. The two of them seemed to be in some deep conversation. After some time, Hugo smiled and came walking towards me. He saw me and quickly ran towards me.

“Ah! That was just… I had some thoughts to share, our teacher is great to talk to but I just uh-

I clapped Hugo’s shoulder.

“Ah, I’m so glad you found another nerd you can share everything with.”

I wiped a fake tear.

“You’re a good kid, Hugo. You’ve grown up so much. Take good care of her, ok?”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“Its ok. You don’t have to tell me anything.”

“You’re stupid.”

He started walking down the stairs.

“You coming or not?”

“Hugo, you became so cool!”

He gave me a perplexed reaction and continued walking.

Nothing eventful happened during the break. Once the break was over, the first thing all of us mulled over was the exam results. Just like everybody had predicted, Hugo ended up coming first by a large margin. I noticed something odd about the result list. There was an insanely small number of students on it. I decided to just stroll around to the non-signum side. My hunch was proven correct when there was a huge crowd gathered around their own noticeboard. I clicked my tongue as I walked over to their results. With the crowd pushing each other, I managed to blend in and looked at the top of the list. My good friend, Quillon was sitting at around number 7. I looked at the marks of the highest scorer and the second highest.

“Ah, my Hugo came second in the entire school. He could even beat this top scoring girl. What a cruel world indeed.”

I heard some familiar footsteps echo behind me.

“How’s your face?”

“Looks like I can still get married.”

“I heard what you said just now.”

“Oh? That’s good then. Even segregating the damn mark list. This school is weird as hell.”

“Would you like to change that?”

I turned around to face him.

“What did you say?”

“You heard me. Do you want to end all the segregation? Do you want a unified Aequalitas? One where signum and non-signum people study together.”

“That’s a nice fairy tale you have right there. I might steal that for my children.”

“I’m not joking, Clarence.”

I looked at Quillon dead serious.

“How do I get it?”

“Simple. Academic, Cultural and Sports competitions.”

“One class vs four sounds quite unfair.”

“Don’t worry. You will only have to fight my class.”

“Even the classes between non-signums are ranked?! Damn, this school has some deep-rooted issues.”

“Will you take the opportunity?”

I stroked my chin. What an enticing offer.

“I want a written agreement stating all the details and everything.”

“You shall have it by the end of this week.”

“This is going to be a very interesting semester, Quillon.”

I walked back to the dorms filled with excitement.

“It’s going to be quite interesting indeed.”

Quillon walked towards the Chairman’s office.