Another day of class sitting by myself. I knew no one would talk to me, I had given up on making any friends after my first few weeks at my new school. So instead I focused on the handheld game in front of me, where a character moved around tile by tile with big portraits around them. Checking which ones were just pictures and which ones hid giant monsters in them was more entertaining than sitting in study hall being reminded that no one wanted to communicate with me.

Why was I so repellent to every student around me? I had a few guesses. I had skipped a few grades, which sounded great when they first told me I was smart enough to do so, but then it put an immediate target on my back that said either to bully or to not engage.

I also had the kind of neutral expression that turned people away, and the personality that did much the same. This particular study hall was just used by the other students as a break time for chatting, and the teacher didn't care enough to stop it.

I wasn't expecting anyone to pay any attention to me, so it took me by surprise when someone actually did.

"Is that the Gameglorb Mini?"

She had to ask it like three times, because I was certain she wasn't talking to me. There was no way Amvery knew I existed.

I thought Amvery Astrell was an idiot at first, spending most of class scribbling doodles of her OC fighting dragons and junk, but she passed all her tests. I learned later that she was an idiot, yes, just in a different way than I first surmised.

"Y-yeah," I said.

"Louise!" Amvery yelled. Across the room, Louise Lumi was at the front, head buried in a textbook.

Unlike Amvery, I didn't think Louise was an idiot. I thought she was probably the smartest student in our entire grade. I didn't know how she juggled all the stuff she did, she just seemed so cool. I later learned that she was also an idiot, but still smart in her own way.

Louise wasn't thrilled about setting her book down, and immediately got in an argument with Amvery.

"I'm busy," she said.

"Just stop being a boring bookworm for three seconds, Riho has the Gameglorb Mini!" Amvery said.

She actually knew my name? I was bracing for her to be all "who the hell are you" about it.

Louise finally relented and walked over. This was more than I was prepared for, but I bit my tongue so I didn't show it.

"That's incredible," Louise said, eyes widening at the game console. "What do you think of it?"

"I like it!" I said. "I wish the touchpad on the back was used in more games, but I like the launch lineup."

"I heard it gets super uncomfortable to hold," Amvery said. "You get that grip addon dealie?"

"Nah, I got tiny hands," I said.

Both Amvery and Louise laughed. At first I thought they were laughing in a "we're actually making fun of you way," but the more I talked, the more they...actually laughed at my jokes?

"Kay, after class meet us at Room 310," Amvery said after a rousing talk about what games we were looking forward to.

"Why?" I asked.

"We run a game club in the afternoon," Louise said. "I think you'd love it, and there's lots of other gamers there, too."

"That...sounds pretty cool, yeah," I said.

Louise wrote it down with some incredibly detailed directions to boot, and Amvery drew herself on the paper for some reason. The two also asked for my console usernames, and added me almost immediately. I still wasn't sure what just happened, but I made sure to go to that game club.

Just like that, I ended up stuck with those two idiots across lifetimes.