01

  It’s free study in the afternoon right now, time to make our move. Luckily, Six decided to attend classes this time. When he left his sit and went outside, me and Four walked behind me.

  It didn’t long for him to turn around and glared at us. “Why are the two of you following me?”

  “Oh. You saw me this time,” I said in surprise.

  “It’s hard to ignore two pairs of eyes staring at my soul,” Six said with a sigh. “What do you two want now?”

  “What’s with that attitude?” Four doesn’t like Six’s tone. “We came to you because we were worried.”

  “Worried?” he said curiously. “What could possibly happen that makes you two worried about me?”

  “The teacher said that you’re the only one without a role in the play…so we’re here to bring you him.”

  “Tch! So that’s what you’re talking about.” Six scratches the back of his head. “Can you tell him I’m not interested?”

  “Sorry, Six, but this play is required. Which means that this will affect your grades.”

  “Tch. You do know that the only reason they made it a requirement because if they didn’t then, not many of them will participate.”

  “I know,” I answered quickly. “But I still want you join.”

  “Why!”

  “Because as my classmate and future member of the Numbers, I want you to succeed.”

  “You’re still on about that?!” He shouted. “I told you many times that I don’t want to join your stupid group!”

  …

  Did he just call the Numbers…stupid? He did, didn’t he? THAT BASTARD!

  “Oh gods, you shouldn’t have done that!”

  “Done what?”

  “Insulting the Numbers. Five gets really offended when someone does that.”

  “And who doesn’t?” I said as I crack my knuckles. “The Numbers fight for the weak, and spitting on the Numbers meant that you’re spitting on the weak, and enemies of the weak are enemies of mine.”

  “What kind of logic is that?”

  “It makes sense when you think about it.”

  “IN WHAT WAY.”

  I got in a fighting stance. “Let’s go.”

  “Wait. We’re doing it in the hallway?”

  “Do you want to take this outside?” I told him.

  “Oh my god we’re actually doing this,” he said with a laugh.

  “Of course. If you’re not going to listen to us then the best thing I can do is kick your ass and drag you to the teacher myself.”

  “Ok you two. Just calm down.” Four stood in-between us but it’s no use. You can’t stop the rush flowing through our blood.

  “Well, at least you’re speaking my language. Fine! If you win then I’ll come with you. But if I win then you’ll leave me alone and never try to recruit me ever again.”

  “Hey, Five? Maybe we should think a bit more about this—”

  “Deal.”

  “Alright. Let’s take this outside.”

  “…Oh brother.”

  The three of us stepped out of the main building and into courtyard.

  “I’ll be in charge of overseeing the fight,” Four said.

  “Thanks.”

  “Fine by me.”

  Me and Six separated from each other by five inches. Once we’re properly separated, we got into our battle stance.

  “Just so you know, just because you’re a girl doesn’t mean I won’t go easy on you.”

  “Likewise. Just because you’re a boy doesn’t mean I won’t go easy on you.”

  “What the hell does that—”

  Four raised his hands up in the air. “Battle…start!”

  “HOI! I’M NOT DONE TALKING!”

  As soon as Four gave the signal, I rushed to Six and swung my fists at him, attacking him with consecutive punches.

  Six, despite having a slightly larger body than me, decided to completely focus on dodging my attacks. There’s no hint of him going for a counter attack at all.

  So, I kept up with my assault. Throwing one punch at him after another. If I can get one good clean hit on him then it’s over. Six seemed to have understood that fact which is why he’s hell-bent on evading me this whole time.

  “…Oh!”

  Six tried to land a counter for once. But with such a half-hearted counter all I have to do is dodge and continue my assault.

  …At least, that’s what I planned to do. But Six appeared to be faster than me. The moment I dodged his attack, he attacked me again and again. The situation has reversed. I’m the one dodging while Six is the one on the attack.

  I’ve been trying to find an opening for the past 5 seconds but Six is not giving them to me. I would be able to notice if he’s attacking me wildly but that’s not what he’s doing here. Each and every single one of his attacks is a calculated assault. It’s to the point where I wonder if I should take the risk and let myself get hit just so that I can get a hit on him.

  One of his punches barely grazed my cheek. I can’t keep up any longer. My stamina’s going to drain without me doing anything. So I grit my teeth and threw a punch at him at him as soon as I dodged his attack.

  But…the moment I do so, he dodged my attack and punched me in the face. My body fell to the ground in an instant.

  “Match end!” I heard someone’s voice. It was Four. He just declared that the fight has ended.

  “Wait a minute.” I tried to stand up but my body won’t let me. That was a cleaner hit than I thought. “I’m not done yet.”

  “Your body fell on the floor,” Four said. “That’s enough for it to be considered a loss.”

  “But I can still keep going.”

  “Yes,” Four said. “You can keep going. That’s what heroes do. But tell me, Five. What would happen if you two kept going?”

  “…Eventually, either the both of us would get hurt really badly or we’ll get in trouble by the teachers for fighting in the courtyard.”

  “That’s right. So let’s end it here, Five.”

  Yeah…I perfectly understand what Four is telling me. And a hero should be able to make a sensible choice like that. But…

  “…But!” I tried to stand up. “I made a bet with Six. And I’m not going to lose that bet now!”

  “…Unfortunately, my decision is final,” Four said. “Six is the winner of this match.

  The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  I can hear Six scoffing. “Heh. You’re a much more reasonable person than I thought. I was certain you’re going to have revenge on me or something dumb like that.”

  “About that.” There’s a small on his face. I can only think of one moment where he would smile like that. “You should probably look where are you going.”

  “What are you talking about—”

  Something rammed into Six and pushed him to the ground. It appears to be…a sandwich cart?! How did it…

  “Four!”

  “Rather unlucky, don’t you think?” Four suddenly said as he approached Six who was still lying on the ground…and locked his hands with a pair of handcuffs. Where did he even get something like that?

  Six seemed to have realized what’s going on and started squirming like a worm. “How…you damn cheaters!”

  “Sorry, Six. But I don’t want this play to fail because of you.”

  02

  We kept our promise and brought Six to the teacher in the faculty room. But when we brought him inside, the teacher looked at us with a concerned look on his face. Well, I couldn’t blame him. The way we brought him inside made Six looks like a criminal.

  “Why is he like that?” The Teacher asked why Six is in such a state. “And what happened to your face?!” Now he questioned how I ended up like this.

  Four had to explain to him what happened. After he was done explaining, the teacher looked at us with a furrowed brow. “Can you people…PLEASE don’t jump into violence when things don’t go your way?”

  “We’re sorry.” That’s all we can say to the teacher at this point.

  The teacher sighed. It looks like he wanted to say something more but he decided to leave it at that. “So, Six.” He turned his attention to the handcuffed boy. “While this is not how I would like you to show up, it’s still nice to see you here.”

  “Yeah, yeah, let’s just get this over with,” Six said. He seemed to have understood the situation and just let things go their way.

  “Right.” The teacher pulled out a stack of papers from the table. “As we already discussed before, you are the only student in this class without a role in the play. Normally, giving you a role should be easy since we can just hand you a role that isn’t occupied. But…”

  “…But?” I asked.

  “Well, basically, Six went for so long as a truant that it’s difficult to give him a role now. He can’t be with the actors since all the roles have been taken, he can’t be with the stage crew because of the time it would take to teach him won’t be enough, and he can’t be with the costume crew since all the costumes are done, same goes for the music crew.”

  “In other words,” Four said. “Because of how long Six went by doing his own thing, we ended filling in the gaps where he was supposed to be.”

  “That’s an apt way to describe the situation,” he said with a dry laugh.

  “If there’s no place for me then there’s no longer any reason for me to get involved, right?”

  “Now hold on to your horses, young man. Even if that’s the case, that doesn’t mean I won’t find one for you. In fact, I already did.” The teacher went through his papers and turned his eyes to Six. “You’ll be Ms. E’s assistant in writing the script.”

  “…What?”

  “What!” I got up from my seat.

  “Why are you surprised?” The teacher asked me in complete confusion. “The others told me that you were having trouble trying to shorten your script. So, I thought that maybe having Six help you would speed things along.”

  “But can he really help?” I tried to reason with the teacher but all he did was shake his head.

  “Five. I tried to be lenient with you since you’re passionate about this but the Autumn Festival is two weeks from now and we have at best two weeks to get ready by then. With Six’s help, I want the script to be done by today.”

  “To-today?!”

  “Yes, today.” The teacher turned his eyes to Six. “How about it? You would only have to do your duty for a day. Is that enough of a compromise for you, Mr. F?”

  Six could only sigh. “Fine. I guess I can bear with it for one day.”

  “Excellent!” The teacher pressed his hands together. “The two of you can start as early as this afternoon if you want to. I’ll be waiting the whole day for you, don’t worry.”

  We have no other choice but nod at the teacher’s suggestion. It may not seem much, but in an instant, well fell victim to the teacher’s persuasive prowess.

  03

  Following the teacher’s suggestion. Six and I decided to work on the script in the school’s cafeteria while Four went back to the classroom to help with the others. Since the Autumn Festival is coming up, our class is temporarily exempt from taking any classes.

  Six is currently going through my script with a serious look on his face. It feels embarrassing having my in-progress work being studied by one of my classmates.

  “So? How far did they go?”

  “Yes? What do you mean by how far did they go?”

  “What else could I be talking about other than the play? You and the teacher said that the script is in the middle of being shortened and yet they are already rehearing their lines and getting their costumes ready. I really don’t understand the workflow you people are doing right now.”

  “Oh! So that’s what you mean,” I said with a nod. “Well, I guess I should clear that up.” Especially since that Six sounds like he hasn’t been involved much with the whole process. “Basically, the script everyone is following is something that we consider to be the first half of the story.” I showed him the parts of the script that we agreed is the first half. “This part of the story is fine as it is and that’s what everyone rehearsing at the moment.” I then showed him the remaining parts of the script. “These one, however, are way too long to be used in a 30-minute play so I’m trying my best to make it shorter for the play.”

  “And how did it go?” Six said as he tried going through the script. “In trying to make it smaller?”

  “Ugh…not great.” I slammed my head against the table. ‘I can think of a few ways to make it shorter. But…”

  “But…?”

  “But I don’t want to throw away everything I made too…!” I scrambled my brain. Trying to think of a way to keep everything while keeping it short. But any idea she could think of just makes the whole story very awkward to tell.

  Six seemed to have ignored everything I said and is completely focused on reading my script. I didn’t think he would be the type to enjoy something like this. “I see what your problem is.”

  “…You do?”

  “Yeah. You’re not killing anyone off.”

  “…Pardon?”

  Six sighed. “The reason why your story got so bloated is because you’re not killing off any of the villains that frankly, should be killed off. Instead, you’ve been giving them tragic backstories that supposedly justifies their actions while giving them a path for redemption, which ended up slowing your stories to an absolute crawl. This is a 30 -minute play, it’s alright to have a simple villain that the audience can hate.”

  “…I see what you’re talking about. And I get it. But I find it a bit unfair. That anyone that’s called a villain gets killed because they’re a villain. I believe that even they have a chance for redemption.”

  Six snickered at my words. I wonder what does he find so funny? “I can understand what you’re talking about if we’re talking about real people but this is fiction we’re talking about. How these characters act depend entirely on us.”

  “I guess you’re right. But can we at least redeem one of the villains? It would be sad having to kill all of them off.”

  “Despite calling yourself a hero, you have a soft spot for villains, don’t you? I guess that’s fine. Having a traitor from the villain’s side is already a common trope. And having one is sure to spice up this almost bland story we’re going to make.”

  “Hm…” We got to work with condensing the story. Following his suggestion, we made the villains much simpler than how they were before. It feels weird doing this, it’s like I’m cutting out everything that makes a person and turning them into robots that could only say one-liners. But because of that the story and the pacing are now turning to something that can be finished within 30 minutes.

  “So…ugh…” Six started saying something. It feels like a question.

  “What is it?”

  Six sighed. “This is going to be a dumb question but why are you named Five? Feel free to not answer if you find it stupid.”

  “…” I can’t help but smile when he said that. Because it means that he’s trying to get to know me better. “I don’t mind telling you. It is a random name to give to your child, after all. The thing is, the reason why I’m named Five is because my parents wanted me to be a normal person living an ordinary life.”

  “…I see. But what does it have to do with 5?”

  I smiled. “What do you think is the passing score for a 10-question quiz?”

  “That would be…5.”

  I nodded. “And when something is running at 100% what would be the half of it?”

  “…50%.”

  I nodded again. “On a scale of 10, the number 5 have been used to describe as the middle ground. The mundane. The bare minimum. That’s what my parents wished me to be. A child that’s not too smart or too dumb, living an ordinary life that’s not too easy but not too hard. It’s a great wish, really. Too bad they ended up with a daughter who wanted to be more than mundane.”

  “Yeah, I can see that.”

  “So? What about you?” I turned the question to him. “Why did your parents named you Six?”

  “That’s…a secret.”

  “That’s not fair. I told you mine.”

  “That’s because you wanted to. Remember that I gave you a choice.”

  “I know that but it kind of feels unfair that you know the meaning of my name.”

  “Maybe when we’re better friends, I’ll tell you.”

  “Oh? You think of me as a friend?”

  “…In a sense that we’re in the same class. You can say that everyone in my class is my friend.”

  “You know if you want to make more friends, there’s always the Numb—”

  “Not interested. And besides, didn’t I win the match? You can no longer recruit me.”

  “…Drat.” I guess I have no choice but to use my secret weapon. One told us not to use it since it’s very likely that one would believe us but it’s worth a shot, right? “Please join us, Six. With you around, we might be able to save the world.”

  “What the hell are you talking about now?”

  “You see, there is a being that goes by the name Zero that will destroy the world on October 1. And the only thing that can defeat them is when 9 heroes gather. Six, you’re one of the heroes so can you please join us?”

  When I told Six the story that sounded like a premise of long RPG, I thought he would call me crazy, but he looked at me as if something clicked in his head.

  “Hah. So that bastard finally decided to make his move."

  “…What?”

  “I know about Zero. They’re quite a bastard.”

  “…So you went through the same thing as us? Why didn’t you say so!”

  “Simple. I don’t need the Number’s help. When it comes to handling Zero, I can take care of them all by myself.”