Unsolicited School

The Boys Have Eyes

Open up your eyes and wake up

While they're sleeping

Robbie

Robbie arrived at the cafeteria, where the students are enjoying their meal as usual. But the clouds made the whole room a little bit dark if the lamps aren't turned on. The lights inside replace the sunlight that is supposed to brighten the mood, but it made the atmosphere worse since the light was unnatural and too synthetic for their eyes.

Robbie ordered the same lunch after taking his lunch at the counter. He decided to sit with the g**g, where Nino and her friends sit there. Robbie now knows where they usually sit. They're located next to the window of the cafeteria. He sits next to Shouko while the opposite seat is vacant until Mullet sat and joined them.

"I'm sorry to make you mad, Nino. I never make you feel bad on purpose," Robbie apologized.

Although Nino still felt peeved with Robbie's weird question back in the hallway, she replied, "Yeah, it's okay. Please don't talk about this again, alright?"

"Hey, come on, Nino. What's the problem?" Mary cheered before she asked about what happened to her.

She refused to answer and asked her to shut up, "Nah, it doesn't matter anymore..."

"Hey come on, don't be like-"

"Fine..." Nino interjected Mary's words and let out a sigh, "He asked me that there was a stabbing last night, and someone was killed in that incident. His name was Ren, but I don't know who he is..."

The g**g (except Robbie and Mullet) gasped, and they said a single word from their mouth "Huh?". They got confused with Robbie's news which they think has never happened.

Shouko sat up straight and spoke up. Her slender posture looked like a model with her hair was straight down. "Uhh... I don't know, guys. But I don't know who's Ren, or even there was a stabbing last night. Do you guys remember it?"

The g**g shrugged. No one remembered the stabbing last night. It feels like their memories were being overwritten about yesterday's incident.

"Mary, He's your friend. Ren, from class 1-2," said Mullet.

Mary was puzzled by Mullet's replies. She glared at him and said, "Huh? I don't have a friend named Ren. Who's Ren?"

Mullet didn't answer. He fell silent as he won't make everything worse.

The g**g didn't realize that their lunch is getting cold as they keep talking about something they don't remember. All of them fell silent after Mary spoke, and the situation went awkward for a moment. It feels like the crickets drawn on the atmosphere.

He's

Here

A ghostly text flashed on Robbie's eyeballs. The text arrived again after it didn't show up in his eyeballs since day four of the school. But it was just appeared in front of him without changing the situation behind and no screamer voiced in his ears, it just two words written while he could see his friends like usual.

No. Not now.

Robbie murmured to his eyes, telling the message to go away and tell him later.

He's

Here

The words flickered once again in front of his eyes, telling him it's an urgent message, which made Robbie recoiled a bit further. Robbie obeyed the text, but he doesn't sure who's the guy. However, He has a suspicion against Mullet. But he can't trust him because asking the ghost just leads him nowhere.

"Forget about it, guys, let's eat. The lunch is getting cold. Come on!"

Kano's voice disrupts Robbie's aimless staring, and he indirectly pulled back Robbie's mind back to eating. The cold weather and the cold air inside the cafeteria made the food cool down in seconds (Except for soup). The g**g enjoyed their little bit of cold meal. The taste of the food was less tasty than before, but they don't mind that and eat it anyway.

Robbie and the g**g walked back to the hallway after eating and put their dishes in the washing belt. The clouds darken the sky and emit the hallway with dim sunlight. As the light from the outside isn't enough, The lamps in the hallway replaced it. Still, it doesn't delightful and warm as sunlight, but it's enough to illuminate the building from the darkness. Their shadow duplicates from a different angle as they passed each light. While the girls talked to each other (including Kano, who joined them), Mullet whispered to Robbie.

"Can you meet me privately behind the school at 3?"

"Uhh... sure, what do you want to ask me?" Robbie asked him in a whisper.

"I'll tell you later, but make sure they don't follow us,"

After school is over, the students walked to their clubroom. Nino approached him and said goodbye.

"See you tomorrow, Robbie. I'm going to my club now,"

Nino walked away and left the class to attend her club, the Broadcasting Club. Robbie remained seated in the class (because he didn't join any club yet) until only five students remained. After he waits for roughly 20 minutes, he walked outside the hallway. The cloudy hallway was empty, all the students walked to their clubroom. As the situation was safe for him to walk, he moved downstairs until he stepped outside the class. He didn't take the lobby break. He walks to the back of the school, where he kept his promise to meet Mullet there.

"Hey, Robbie," Mullet greeted.

"Sorry for being late," said Robbie while walking closer to him.

"It's ok,"

"So, what do you want to talk about?" Robbie asked.

"Stand here first. I don't want anyone inside the school to see us," Mullet asked Robbie to stand against the wall as he doesn't want to be spotted.

"You remember everything about last night, right?"

"Yeah, and everyone doesn't know about this," Robbie answered.

"Exactly. But I want to ask you something. I wanna know from you. Do you experienced something weird lately?"

"Yeah, I asked some students about last night accident, but none of them remembered it,"

"Did they forget about Ren?"

Robbie nodded.

"I feel the same too, Robbie. But I don't know how they forget about this. It feels like their memories were overlapped with another one, and that b****y hallway somehow got reverted back to normal like nothing happened yesterday,"

"Yeah. For your information, I also looked at the first-year students when I walked down the hallway before. I remember their faces. They're the injured student that I walked past them. But their scars weren't visible at all. It looks like it vanished overnight," Robbie explained.

"Yeah. I walked there too. About those bloodstains in the hallway, I don't think it will vanish overnight. You know if bloodstains still remain on the wall even after they cleaned it,"

The duo silenced as they are thinking about what will they ask. There is so much question mark flying on their brain, and they don't know which one should be caught. However, the cold air from the cloudy weather shivers their body and force their blood to heat up to warm themselves. Suddenly, a question flew into Robbie's mind and forcing him to ask about it.

"Uhh... Speaking of a person, I've met someone in a place that I don't even know,"

"Tell me," asked Mullet.

"Well... last Saturday, when I'm playing a game on my little sister's computer, the game suddenly glitched out. It feels like the game hypnotized me, and somehow, I got teleported. Everything was dark inside that room, only some dying light that leads me to a person. But I can't see him. He was shaded in darkness. It's like a shadow person," Robbie explained in detail.

Mullet's mouth opened slightly. He realized if he also experienced the same thing on the same day. As he wants to make sure the incident is as same as him, Mullet quickly asked him.

"Oh, dude. Is he said something to you?"

"Yeah," Robbie nodded, "He said to me about three uncalculated predictions. And he also told me that he was watching someone who has the same eyes as me. But when you ask me about this, I feel like you know it too. Do you experience the same thing?"

"Robbie..." Mullet paused and glared at him, to tell the truth, "I experienced the same thing as you. I knew everything about that incident last night. And I also got teleported to another dimension when I was playing a video game last Saturday. He told me there's another person who knows the same. God, I can't believe you know about this" Mullet gave him a small smile as a token of gratitude.

"You know what..." Robbie took a breath before he continues, "Looks like we had to work this out if we want to get out of here, but we had to make sure the school didn't know about this. And looks like we can't tell this anymore to Nino or everyone,"

Suddenly, Robbie's instinct told his master if someone's coming and eavesdrop on their private conversations. Quickly, Robbie moved away from the wall and asked Mullet to change the conversation for a while.

"Change the topic! Someone's coming!"

As Robbie expected, he heard footsteps heading to the back of the school. That footsteps sound was getting louder as it comes closer until she appeared behind the wall. It's Sena. She walked alone without being accompanied by the bullies. She put her right hand on her chest, posing a relief feeling as she sighed. Suddenly, she looked to the left. Where she saw Robbie and Mullet, who paused their "tiny talks" and stared back at her. Felt awkward, she clenched her fist and snapped like a tsundere.

"What're you looking at?!"

"Uhh... nothing..." Robbie and Mullet answered simultaneously.

"Get outta here! I wanna do my job,"

The duo obeyed her and walked away from the back of the school – leaving Sena alone. They decided to move inside to the school lobby. The cloudy weather didn't cast their shadow. Instead, the school lamps were replaced. The howling cold wind from the sky shivers the duo even they're wearing their school uniform.

Brrr... I can't believe it will be cold like this.

They took the sofa near the bulletin board in the school lobby. The lobby was lit by lights mounted 5 meters above the ground. The brightness of the lights creates various shadows from each angle and duplicates the shadow of any kind of object inside. Mullet and Robbie sit there and warm themselves from the cold weather outside. After a few moments, Robbie speaks up to continue their topics before.

"So anyway, do you agree with me?"

"Agree," Mullet smiled and clenched his left fist, asking Robbie to do a fist-bump as an agreement to team up. As they fist-bumping, Robbie can imagine the explosion behind him. The explosion of optimism, friendship, and trust.

"So, you want to continue to talk about this?" Mullet asked.

"I don't think we can talk here too. We need to talk about this somewhere else privately," Robbie recommended.

"Alright then. Looks like we had to find out more about this later. I don't have any idea to ask about this either..." Mullet shrugged.

"Mmhmm, me too. Oh yeah, by the way," Robbie changed the topic quickly because he doesn't know Mullet's real name yet, "You know that we always call you Mullet, but I don't know your real name yet."

"Yeah... me too. I don't know your real name either. I'm sorry about it, let me introduce my name again. My name is Makoto Shiratori. Nice to meet you. Despite my brother and my family called me Makoto, everyone called me Mullet, and I liked that nickname," Mullet smiled.

"Cool. Then how you get that name?" Asked Robbie.

"Two reasons. First, I get that name because of my hair, and they called me Makoto "Mullet" Shiratori. Second, It's from my account name in Mazebook and my gaming account called Team," explained Mullet, "So anyway, what is your name?"

"Well, my actual name is Ryou Nakata. Nice to meet you too. And the reason I was called Robbie is two reasons. Back in my previous school, there's a tourist, which is my friend. He called me Robbie, and eventually, my friends got to know it. Also, they know my name from a modern drama called Box of Golden Objects, where I play the role of the same name," Robbie took a deep breath to continue speaking, "Oh yeah, you have a Team account? Cool! Maybe you can add me as your friend later. My ID is RocketRobbie_157,"

"Yeah, I will add you later, buddy," Mullet snickered, "And anyway, too bad the weather is so cloudy today,"

"Yeah, I guess we can't hang out on the roof or at the school park," Robbie sighed.

"Because we haven't joined any clubs yet, how about we slack off here until the school's finally over?"

"Yeah," Robbie flexed his body and let out a sigh, "I guess it's enough for us to kill the boredom, and this place is always empty, you know. Only the school guard sitting over there," Robbie pointed to the school guard, who was sitting at the information booth, "and just us,"

And thus, The duo slacked off in the hallway like kids. When no one was passing by the school lobby, they played like an energetic 7-year-old kid. And when someone was passing by, the duo act like a civilized person. The school guard just chuckled as he looked at their childish shenanigans until the time reached 5 PM.

The school bell finally rang, informed all the students to go home. Robbie and Mullet looked at some students walked into the school lobby while buying a drink in the vending machine. Some of the students lined up behind the duo to buy their favorite concoctions and quench their thirst. After Robbie drank his canned ice latte, he walked together with Mullet to their class, took their backpacks inside, and walked out to the schoolyard. The expressions of the students didn't change even though the weather seemed to rain. But not even a single raindrop fell down.

Robbie waited at the bus stop in front of the school, awaiting that white-blue bus arrives. Suddenly, his phone vibrated in his pocket. The funky ringtone told him that someone was calling him. He picked up his phone and looked at the caller. It's Ruri, his little sister.

"Hey there, Onii-chan!"

"Yo, what is it?" Robbie greeted her. But weirdly, after he replied to Ruri, she didn't speak at all, not even a single sound. Just a weird dead silence on the phone.

"Ruri?"

No answer.

"Ruri, are you there?" Robbie started to felt uneasy with the dead silence from the phone, "Hello? Ruri? Ruri, can you answer me-"

Suddenly, the phone beeps and shut Robbie's mouth instantly. Followed by Ruri's voice that sounded normal yet morbid.

"He wants to see you tonight,"

*Beep beep beep*

Ruri closed the call with the beeps without saying goodbye to his big brother. Robbie knew that Ruri would hang up the call immediately if she was infuriated or quarreled with him. But this time, Robbie found that was utterly weird – like someone was controlling her. Robbie quickly called her back. He tried it thrice until she picked up and answered him.

"Jeez, Onii-chan! Not now, I'm busy!" Ruri warned him.

"Yeah, I'm sorry. But I wanna ask you right now. Did you called me before?" asked Robbie anxiously.

"Wha? No. I didn't call you,"

"But-" Suddenly, Robbie's conscience told him to not ask about it. He obeyed it and fell silent.

"Sorry, Onii-chan. I had to leave now- Oh, sorry, Sensei. I will hang it up right away. By the way, see ya, Onii-chan,"

*Beep beep beep*

Another beeps ended their call. Robbie held his phone and stared blankly.

He wants to see you tonight.

Robbie felt leery with those words. Is he gonna meet me again tonight? But where?

The bus suddenly arrived without him knowing it. The metallic white-blue bus still shows the students' reflection like a funny mirror even though it was less shiny due to the cloudy weather (But they can't blame it). Mullet pat his left shoulder softly, informed him to get into the bus.

"Let's go,"

Robbie stowed his phone back into his pocket and lined up with the students to get on the bus. As usual, the duo sits on the back seat, with Mullet sits next to the window. The clouds in the sky darkened the surrounding environment. The dry asphalt below looks even darker than usual. So it is the cold air from the bus's air conditioner, makes the bus feel like a fridge.

While Mullet is looking around through the window, Robbie disrupts him.

"Man, Promise me tomorrow will be rain..."

"Why d'you promised to me? It's not my job," Robbie giggled, "By the way, why you want the weather to be worse? Too lazy to water your plants?"

"Yea, bite me,"

"Alright, everybody. The upcoming news will be about a 19-year-old boy caught stealing some money at midnight in a convenience store. We will put on a commercial break. Don't go anywhere, stay tuned,"

The TV in the living room remains on while Robbie had dinner with his family as their usual habit. The cuisines still tasted good even Robbie was behind the smoky kitchen. Robbie knew if today was his day to cook the dinner. Thanks to his cooking skills, he could cook any kind of simple dish without being overcooked. While they're enjoying their dinner, His dad asked him.

"How's your day at school?"

"Peachy as usual. Thanks for asking,"

Robbie continues to chat with his family with the same question as yesterday until they ate their dinner. Nothing happened to Robbie during his nighttime. His mind is still thinking about that shadow person who will meet him tonight. He prepared for this. But sadly, He didn't come. Robbie walked upstairs to his room. Instead of waiting for the shadow person to arrive, he tried to call the shadow person via his phone and laptop. But again, no to avail. He tried a few times until the time reached 9 PM, where he had to cease his summoning matters and continue to study until his sleep time at 10 PM. He turned on the room heater due to the cold weather from the cloudy nights, turned off the lights, pulled out the covers, and sleep straight away without being disturbed.

Day ?

BEEP BEEP BEEP

The irritating beep woke Robbie from his deep slumber. Without opening his eyes, Robbie moved his right hand to the alarm clock. But when he about to turned off the alarm clock, it stopped beeping. His hand didn't reach the alarm clock that should be on the table. It's like the alarm clock just vanished. Robbie immediately opened his eyes and directly focused on the small counter next to his bed. And as he expected, his alarm clock was gone.

Robbie immediately got out of the bed like an electric guy. His eyes scoped around his bedroom. He realized there are some differences. There's no lamp installed, no alarm clock, his computer, laptop, and his phone was nowhere to see. The bedroom is very dark. Only the strange lights dimmed on the doorway. And no door isolates his room. It feels like it got taken away.

Robbie realized if the shadow person has arrived in his house, I know it's him. Calm down, Robbie.

He opened the curtains. There is no view whatsoever outside. Just pure darkness consumed his house. He closed the curtains again and walked to the doorway. He saw other strange lights lead him downstairs. He followed the lights. His bedroom and the lights vanished as he walked away from it. He walked downstairs and followed the strange lights that leads him to the living room, where he encountered the shadow person for the second time.

"Hello," he greeted him.

"So that's the prediction that you told me? That's what you said?" Robbie asked.

"Of course. So, did you found the answer? Tell me,"

"Yeah. Someone was killed by his own friend last Monday. I almost got killed too, but I stopped him – the possessed perpetrator before he continues his killing spree, or even I will be the one of them," Robbie explained.

"So?"

"Everyone forgot about that incident the next day. Except me, and one of my new friend,"

"Correct. And who's his name?" asked the shadow person.

"Mullet,"

"Let me tell you, kid," he paused, "He's not just your friend. He's your brother,"

"What do you mean?" Robbie was disgusted, "Brother from another mother?"

"I think this one's right on the spot," he giggled, "Anyway, you finally found the person that I read his storybook, and you found your first helper. Congratulations,"

Robbie lifted his eyebrows and asked, "So you just sent me here to congratulate me? Wow... I cannot believe you've done such a hilarious thing," Robbie laughed, "Anyway, I can't believe you're not a scary person at all. At first, you might be a scary person, and I thought you're my grim reaper. But I guess you're a good spirit. I believe in you,"

The shadow person clapped his hands before continues, "I'm glad that you finally found out. However, tomorrow will be the best day to harvest the crops. So, harvest as possible while it lasts before they wither."

"Uhh yeah," said Robbie confusedly.

"Anyway, this will happens again in certain circumstances. So, survive and make the most of it,"

Robbie nodded.

"Now lie down," asked the shadow person.

"What?"

Suddenly, Robbie fell down, but the floor was so comfortable as his bed. Felt confused, he asked the shadow person again.

"What're you doing?"

The shadow person stands next to him. And strangely, he beeps like his alarm clock. And slowly, Robbie realized if he wasn't called to another dimension.

Day 10

BEEP BEEP BEEP

Robbie quickly reached his right hand to the alarm clock before it's stopped beeping. His index finger directly pressed the off button in one push. He realized if his alarm clock reappeared (or actually just stands there, unmoving). Robbie vigorously jumped off the bed and looked around. The door, the lamp, his computer, laptop, and his phone were there too. They're all didn't moved an inch from their position. Robbie rushed to the curtains and opened them. The view also came back to his eyes (even though it was just a dream). It's raining outside. The last night's clouds finally rained and drenched everything in sight. He was finally relieved.

After Robbie get dressed, he walked downstairs and joined the breakfast with his parents. The TV was set to the news, and it shows the weather forecast. While they're enjoying their breakfast, Robbie listened to it thoroughly.

"Too bad for today's weather will be rainy for 24 hours straight. Until tomorrow at 5 PM, the sun will rise again and brighten the weather until Sunday. So maybe it's a perfect time to enjoy some hot drinks and ramen during these rainy days,"

Without realizing it, Robbie finished his breakfast. As he needs to go earlier due to the rain, Robbie directly said goodbye to his parents after cleaning his dish. He went upstairs to take his backpack and his umbrella. Then walked down to the shoe rack to put on his shoes and finally walked out to the drenched street. The raindrops from the sky were soothing to his ears. He enjoyed such weather because he loves to listen to the raindrops while drinking his hot chocolate. Haaa... what perfect weather.

While he was walking through the streets, his mind focused on two things that he should know later in school. First, he needs to continue his conversation with Mullet. And second, he had to make sure if Hideki comes to school, even he's a bully.

I believe I will find those answers.

To be continued…