Chapter 17: Boys time
I didn’t sleep well.
That wasn’t surprising.
Between Bianca, the tea party, Victoria, and the system deciding every bad decision in my life deserved Sin Points, my brain had more than enough material to keep itself busy all night.
The next thing I knew, my alarm was ringing.
I stared at the ceiling for a few seconds before reaching for my phone.
Academy.
Right.
Unfortunately, reality was still there waiting for me.
After a quick shower and breakfast, I headed to Sinners Academy. The girls were doing their physical assessment that morning, which meant the six of us didn’t have classes until later. For once, I wasn’t complaining.
When I pushed open the locker room door, Ryan was already there.
He took one look at me and snorted.
"You look terrible."
"Good morning to you too."
"So that’s a yes."
I dropped onto the bench and ignored him.
A few minutes later Marcus showed up carrying a drink. Ethan arrived right behind him, followed by Daniel.
The conversation started almost immediately.
Not about classes or girls.
Instead it was about Movies, Games and the other important stuff.
"You people have terrible taste," Ryan announced.
Marcus looked up from his phone.
"You’re starting with that already?"
"I’m just saying."
"You say that every week."
"Because every week you’re wrong."
Daniel sighed.
Ethan looked offended.
Ryan looked proud.
The argument was already underway when the door opened again.
The room became a little quieter.
Noah Walker walked inside carrying a duffel bag over one shoulder.
For a moment, I just stared.
It felt strange.
Not because Noah looked extraordinary.
Actually, it was the opposite.
He looked normal.
Black hair that was slightly messy, an athletic build from years of training, and sharp features that made him stand out without looking unreal. His expression was relaxed, the kind that made people naturally lower their guard around him.
He looked exactly like the protagonist should.
The problem was that he wasn’t supposed to be a character standing a few meters away from me.
Just a day ago, he had been pixels on a screen.
Now he was real.
Breathing and talking.
It was like seeing a fictional character casually walk out of your monitor and ask what was for lunch.
Noah glanced around the room.
Then his eyes landed on me.
Unfortunately, I was still staring.
Our eyes met.
I immediately looked away.
A few seconds passed.
Then Noah looked at Ryan.
"Why is Adrian looking at me like he saw a ghost?"
Ryan immediately started laughing.
"So it’s not just me."
"What?"
Ryan pointed at me.
"Him."
Noah looked confused.
Ethan jumped into the conversation.
"He’s been weird since yesterday."
"I have not."
"You absolutely have," Marcus said.
Daniel nodded.
"No joke. You keep staring into empty space."
Ryan pointed toward an invisible spot in front of him.
"Then sometimes you smile."
Ethan added another example.
"Or frown."
Marcus wasn’t finished.
"Yesterday I saw him tap the air multiple times."
Daniel looked genuinely concerned.
"You were having an entire conversation with nothing."
"I was not."
"You literally were."
Ryan looked at Noah.
"At one point he smiled, looked confused, then tapped the air twice."
Ethan nodded.
"Then he looked disappointed."
"Like somebody told him bad news," Marcus added.
Noah slowly turned toward me.
I suddenly understood why people accused me of being suspicious.
From their perspective, I probably looked insane.
Noah sat down across from us and rested his arms on his knees.
"Okay."
He pointed at me.
"That’s actually a little concerning."
"I was thinking."
"Thinking?"
"Yes."
Ryan immediately interrupted.
"He says that every time."
"Because it’s true."
"No," Ryan replied.
"Normal people don’t randomly poke invisible walls."
The room burst into laughter.
I rubbed my forehead.
This was going great.
Noah was still looking at me.
Not suspiciously.
Just curiously.
Which somehow felt worse.
"Seriously though," Noah said. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah."
That answer came a little too quickly.
Noah narrowed his eyes.
"See? That sounded fake."
Ryan pointed at him.
"Exactly."
Ethan nodded.
"Now you get it."
Marcus leaned back against a locker.
"We’ve been dealing with this for a day already."
Noah laughed and shook his head.
"I leave for a few days and somehow Adrian becomes the weird one."
"The weird one?" Ryan looked offended.
"Implying he wasn’t weird before."
That started another argument.
Within seconds, everyone was talking over each other again.
Movies became games.
Games became arguments.
Arguments became complete nonsense.
For the first time since arriving in this world, things felt normal.
Or at least as normal as they could be.
Unfortunately, every now and then I’d glance toward Noah.
And every single time, he’d catch me.
By the fourth time, he just sighed.
"You’re doing it again."
"What?"
"The staring."
I immediately looked somewhere else.
That only made him laugh.
And for some reason, that worried me more than if he’d gotten suspicious.
The conversation drifted away from me soon after, which was probably for the best. Ryan immediately started arguing with Ethan about a movie adaptation while Marcus sat there acting like some kind of expert despite being the same guy who once fell asleep halfway through the original film.
"It was boring."
"You slept through half of it."
"Exactly. It was so boring I fell asleep."
"That’s not how reviews work."
"It is for me."
Ryan groaned and buried his face in his hands.
Noah had barely been back for twenty minutes and already looked completely at home. He jumped into the argument without hesitation, taking Marcus’s side for no reason other than finding Ryan’s reaction funny.
"I kind of agree with Marcus."
Ryan looked genuinely betrayed.
"You haven’t even watched it."
"That’s irrelevant."
"No, that’s very relevant."
Noah shrugged.
"I support his right to be wrong."
The locker room exploded into laughter.
Even I ended up smiling.
For the next half hour, the conversation bounced between movies, games, and random things that somehow turned into debates. Ryan and Ethan argued over whether story or gameplay mattered more in games. Marcus insisted that any game requiring more than ten minutes of tutorials was badly designed. Daniel mostly listened while occasionally throwing in comments that somehow made everyone else look stupid.
At some point Noah pulled out his phone and showed Marcus a trailer.
"No way."
"Way."
"That’s fake."
"It’s official."
Marcus grabbed the phone.
Ryan immediately leaned over his shoulder.
Ethan wasn’t far behind.
Within seconds, all four of them were crowded around the screen.
I watched them for a moment.
It was strange.
The game never really showed moments like this.
Everything in Sinners Academy revolved around routes, events, and heroines. The protagonist always seemed to be moving from one major event to another.
Seeing Noah casually hanging out with the other guys made him feel less like a protagonist and more like an actual person.
Which was probably the weirdest thing about this world.
The characters weren’t characters anymore.
They were people.
Noah suddenly looked up from the phone.
Our eyes met.
Again.
"You’re doing it again."
I immediately looked away.
The others looked up.
"What now?" Ryan asked.
Noah pointed at me.
"He’s staring."
Ryan didn’t even seem surprised anymore.
"At this point I’m just accepting it."
"I don’t stare."
"You absolutely do," Daniel said.
Marcus nodded.
"It’s honestly getting impressive."
Ethan pointed at me.
"You know what the scary part is?"
"What?" Ryan asked.
"He doesn’t even realize he’s doing it anymore."
"That is pretty scary."
I rubbed my forehead.
"Thanks, guys."
"Anytime," Ryan replied.
The room fell into another round of laughter.
A few minutes later the door opened and one of the academy staff stepped inside.
"Physical assessment should be wrapping up soon. Classes will resume after the break."
A collective groan filled the room.
"No."
"Already?"
"We just got here."
The staff member ignored all complaints and left.
Ryan leaned back dramatically.
"Academy is a scam."
"You say that every week."
"Because every week I’m right."
Noah laughed.
"Good to know some things never change."
For a brief moment, nobody said anything.
Then Marcus pointed toward Noah.
"Actually, while you’re here, I’ve been meaning to ask something."
Noah raised an eyebrow.
"That sounds dangerous."
"It probably is."
Ryan immediately sat up.
Ethan looked interested.
Even Daniel looked up from his phone.
Noah sighed.
"I suddenly don’t like where this is going."
That only made everyone grin.
Including me.
And for the first time since arriving in this world, I found myself forgetting about routes, death flags, systems, and all the other nonsense surrounding this academy.
For a few minutes, I was just another guy sitting in a locker room with friends.
Unfortunately, knowing my luck, that feeling probably wouldn’t last.
