"Let them do it," interrupted the teacher behind us. Everyone looked at him in shock.

The girl asked, "But what about everyone waiting outside?"

"They can wait. If these guys don't compete now, they'll hold a grudge against each other, so why don't we let them solve it in a healthy manner?"

Despite the girl's disapproval, the teacher allowed us to go on. In less than a minute, the bully and I were already sitting at a laptop on opposite ends of the room with the IDE—Integrated Development Environment—already open and a crowd gathered around each of us.

"The rules are simple," the teacher spoke at the front of the room. "You'll program a robot to traverse the Race Track as fast as possible. You must use the same IDE to code your program from scratch and compile it. You can't open any of the projects on the computer and you can't use the Internet. Once you deploy the program to the robot, you can't modify it. Understood?"

"Yes," the bully replied.

"Understood," I replied.

"Alright," continued the teacher. "You have ten minutes starting… now!"

Ten minutes?!

My mind got stuck for a couple of seconds, but I managed to come back to my senses.

I had never used the IDE, so I gave it a quick look while the teacher explained the rules. Obviously, that was far from enough time to gather any useful information. The only information I had was that the options and terms were similar to the IDE I had used in the past.

I didn't struggle to find the window to create a new file. However, I was prompted with two options: create an empty file or use a template. The rules didn't allow for already-created projects to be used, but they didn't say anything about templates.

The file had just appeared on the screen when someone behind me asked, "Teacher, are templates allowed?"

"Did the rules say anything about templates?"

"No…?"

"There's your answer."

Snitches.

It was relieving to see code I could use to get hints since I had also never used the programming language. The name of the functions made it clear enough that they were instructions for the robot to move in a specific direction.

Now that I had an idea of how to make the robot move, I needed to find a way to use the sensor to follow the tape on the floor. Maybe there is a function that does it automatically?

Fortunately, I remembered that the IDE I had used before had an integrated emulator to see how the robot would act in real life before I had to deploy the code to it. Sure enough, I found it a minute later.

I spent the next five minutes trying the movement functions in the emulator, meaning I had less than half the time to find the functions to detect the tape and make the robot follow it.

I scrambled through the documentation of the code and found nothing.

Only two minutes remained when I heard claps on the other side of the room. I turned around to see the bully standing up and connecting the USB to the robot. Most of the crowd gathered around me walked away to see it in action, but I hadn't given up.

As I continued to scramble through the documentation, a dry knock sounded behind me and people uttered in disappointment; the robot had crashed onto the wall. The bully picked it up and tried again, just for the same thing to happen. He even tried to do the Race Track backward, to no avail.

"I know what to change," the bully said. He walked toward the laptop but was stopped by the teacher.

"You only had one chance."

"But—"

"No but."

The bully was clearly angry, but he couldn't do anything about it.

A crowd gathered around me once again. The two minutes left were quickly over, yet the teacher didn't tell me to stop, so I continued.

There was no progress until the girl standing next to me asked, "Teacher, can't we help her? The time's already up and the bully lost."

"Who are you calling a bully?" growled the bully.

"S… Sorry."

The teacher answered, "He didn't lose, his program just didn't perform. She still has to get further than him. More importantly, did the rules say anything about getting help from other people?"

"What?!" the bully yelled. "That is—"

"Part of a competition are the rules and part of being a competitor is understanding them, don't you think?"

"Then why hasn't he lost if the rule was to do it in ten minutes?"

"The time limit was specified after the rules, meaning it is under my discretion."

The bully simply scoffed, "Give me a break."

I couldn't help but chuckle.

Suddenly, the girl standing next to me asked me if she could help me, to which I agreed. It quickly became obvious she knew a lot about the IDE and the language when, in a couple of minutes, she explained what I had to do in a concise manner. It turned out there were functions to detect the tape automatically.

The code was compiled in a few seconds and I connected the USB to the robot. The tiny screen displayed that the program was ready to be executed, so I disconnected the USB and put the robot at the beginning of the track. I pressed the only button on the back of the robot and it slowly started moving.

Soon enough, it was time for it to take the first turn. Even though I had seen it do it in the emulator, it still surprised me when it did it in real life.

Less than a minute later, the robot completed the track and everyone clapped. A weight lifted off my shoulders, but I still had to hear the final result from the teacher.

Expectantly, everyone stared at him until he finally said it.

"It's a draw."

Silence encompassed the room.

"What?" I said.

"I said that the time was under my discretion, right? Well, my discretion is that you didn't finish in time, but I didn't want to interrupt you while you were in the zone."

Are you serious?

He clapped once and continued, "Let's not waste any more time. If you want to sign up for the club, make a line at the desk and fill in the details on the form."

"Who would want to join this circus? What a joke," the bully complained before turning around and walking out of the room.

Quite a few people headed out as well. I didn't blame them after having seen what the teacher did, yet I couldn't help but think he did it with that purpose.

I joined the line to sign up which, despite many people leaving, was still long. Only then did I realize that most of the people that were outside before had been allowed in, probably to let them see the competition.

"Good job," a girl said behind me. It was the girl that had helped me.

"I couldn't have done it without your help. Thank you."

"Well, you had the courage to stand up against the bully and you didn't give up even after he finished. I had to help you to show you my respect."

Not knowing how to react, I merely scratched my neck and laughed nervously before turning around.

Eventually, it was my time to sign up. I grabbed the pen and looked down at the form to find a space to fill my details in. My eyes kept going down until I found the last empty row. Oh, no.

Although I didn't know there were more forms to fill, it didn't seem like it. I didn't want to leave the girl behind me without a club to join, especially the one where she showed so much passion and skill to explain things easily. On the other hand, Emi was passionate about it too and I had promised her I would join the club.

I had no other choice but to sign up.

Please tell me there's another form. If not, I'm really sorry.

I filled Emi's details in and dropped the pen on the desk. I began to walk toward the door, when the girl that had helped me said,

"Excuse me, there are no more empty rows."

The girl guide approached and grabbed the form. "It means there are no more spots available to sign up. I'm sorry, everyone, but the sign-up is closed."

I could hear the disappointment in everyone's voices as they headed out. The girl that had helped me seemed just as disappointed as she walked past me. I didn't have to and I probably shouldn't have, but I followed her down the hallway to apologize.

"I'm very sorry."

Her eyes opened wide before smiling, "You don't have to, I'm sure you'll give your best. Regardless, it's a nice opportunity for me to adventure through new horizons."

What a peculiar way of saying she'll join another club.

"Alright. Talk to you later?"

She seemed surprised again, then she nodded, "Sure."

As she walked away, I realized I hadn't told her that I was a guy in a girl's body. I'll tell her later.

Finally, it was time for me to head to the school's parking lot, where Mrs. Kozue was already standing beneath the shade of a tree.

"Hasn't Emi arrived?" I asked as I approached her.

"She hasn't. It's not surprising since the marching band can be quite picky and strict with their trials."

"Did she tell you about our plans?"

She nodded. "How did it go for you?"

I had enough time to tell her everything that had happened, although I asked her not to share some of the details with Emi, who arrived just as I finished.

"How did it go?" I asked her.

As soon as I asked that, she looked away and her head lowered.