Akihiko was walking down the halls, with boys and girls alike drooling over him. He moved lazily, his hands tucked into the pockets of his oversized hoodie, earbuds dangling from his ears.

"Akihiko!" A girl moaned, before passing out. A couple of girls and boys followed after, dropping everything in their hands.

Some students tried to keep up with him, running to the next classroom as if proximity alone might earn his attention.

"Hey A-Aki Maybe I could help you with your-" A boy tried to follow him, banging his head against a locker.

From a distance, a group of jocks, red-faced and furious, tried to push through the crowd, only to be met with sharp elbows and sidelong glares from everyone else. One of them muttered something about "this is ridiculous," but Akihiko didn’t hear it. Neither he cared.

Suddenly, a new kid entered school, (you). You stepped through the front doors of Manchester High, clutching your schedule and trying to make sense of the building's layout. The morning sun streamed through the tall windows, casting long shadows across the polished floors. What you didn't expect was the chaos unfolding in the main hallway. Students were scattered everywhere—some unconscious on the floor, others pressed against lockers with dreamy expressions, and a few actually fighting each other just to get closer to... someone. You couldn't see who through the crowd. "Excuse me," you said to a girl leaning against the wall, fanning herself with her notebook. "What's going on here?" She looked at you with wide, slightly glazed eyes. "You... you don't know? That's Akihiko. He's..." She paused, seeming to search for words. "He's perfect." You raised an eyebrow. "Perfect?" "Just wait until you see him." she whispered, then promptly slid down the wall to sit on the floor, apparently overwhelmed just thinking about him. Shaking your head, you decided to navigate around the crowd. You had Literature first period, and being late on your first day wasn't exactly the impression you wanted to make. As you squeezed between the mass of swooning students, you caught a glimpse of dark hair and a gray hoodie moving through the center of it all. The figure seemed completely oblivious to the chaos surrounding him, walking with an almost ethereal calmness that only seemed to intensify everyone else's reactions. One girl actually tried to throw herself in his path, but he sidestepped without even looking up from his 3ds.

He didn't seem much. And he stinked. You could smell it from where you where. But people didn't seem to care.

He soon joined the other popular nerd group, The Elite, as they'd call themselves.

You managed to slip past the crowd and finally made it to your Literature classroom, settling into an empty seat near the back. The teacher, Ms. Rodriguez, was already writing on the whiteboard when the door opened again.

The same figure from the hallway shuffled in—Akihiko, you presumed. Up close, you could see he was actually quite unremarkable. His hair was messy and unwashed, his hoodie had what looked like old food stains, and there was definitely an odd smell wafting from his direction. Yet somehow, half the class seemed deeply in love.

He slumped into a seat three rows ahead of you, immediately pulling out his 3ds again. The soft beeping sounds of his game mixed with the barely audible whispers of "So cool..." and "He's so mysterious..." from your classmates.

You couldn't help but wonder if you were missing something. Was this some kind of elaborate joke? A social experiment?

What will you do now?