3- HARPER

The weight of their stares pressed against me like a physical force—Jane's eyes bright with barely contained curiosity, Asher's gaze sharp and probing, both of them leaning across the cafeteria table as if the answer I held was the key to some great mystery. I let out a quiet sigh, the sound barely audible beneath the ambient roar of the cafeteria, and finally surrendered the title they had been pressing for since we sat down.

"The name of the novel is 50 EROTICA COMPILATIONS," I said, my voice dropping to a near-whisper despite the noise around us, "written by WORLDCUP."

Asher's eyebrows lifted the very second the words left my mouth, arching upward in a smooth, dramatic arc of recognition.

He leaned a little closer across the table, his forearms knocking against his half-empty tray, interest clearly sparked in his dark eyes.

"Wait… I think I've heard of that book before." He paused, his thumb absently tracing the rim of his plastic cup as he searched his memory.

"Isn't that the book people keep whispering about? The one with the crazy forbidden stories?."

A faint flush crept up the back of his neck as he spoke, and he rubbed at it self-consciously, already reaching for his phone with his other hand, his fingers itching to search. "Yeah, I'm definitely checking it out online later," he added,

Jane didn't even wait for him to finish his sentence. She cut in quickly, her body leaning so far forward that her elbows nearly knocked over her drink, her eyes bright with a curiosity that bordered on hunger. "Yes—including me. I'm going to look it up too." She said.

Before either of us could say another word, the sharp, metallic ring of the break-over bell sliced through the hallway like a blade, jarring and insistent. The sound echoed off the cafeteria walls, and around us, students began the familiar scramble—chairs scraping against linoleum, bags zipping shut, conversations fragmenting into hurried goodbyes as everyone started gathering their things and moving toward classrooms.

But the three of us stayed rooted in place for a few more seconds, the conversation still hanging in the air between us like smoke, thick and impossible to ignore.

Jane turned to me with a sly little smile, the corner of her mouth quirking upward in that mischievous way she always used when she wanted a reaction. Her voice dropped into that teasing lilt that had gotten me into trouble more times than I could count, low and playful and deliberately provocative.

"So…" She drew the word out, letting it stretch and linger. "You meant that if I also read the novel, I would be fucked by an unknown person in my dream?"

She let the question sit there, playful and deliberate, her eyes locked on mine with an intensity that made my cheeks burn.

She was watching my face for any sign of embarrassment, any flicker of discomfort she could latch onto and tease me about for the rest of the semester.

Asher let out a low laugh beside her, the sound rumbling from his chest as he shook his head, his earlier flush deepening. "Most people who read it say it makes them feel aroused. But this Harper experience about the book is what is still making me laugh."

He turned to look at me directly, his expression a mixture of amusement and genuine bewilderment. "How is it possible to be fucked by an unknown person in your dream and wake up wet and dripping like it is a real life experience?" he added, his voice dropping to a hushed whisper on the last few words, conscious of the students milling past our table.

Jane bit her lip, her teeth sinking into the soft pink flesh, still looking at me with those bright, inquisitive eyes. The teasing edge in her voice softened just enough to show she was genuinely intrigued beneath the banter, her curiosity winning out over her need to embarrass me.

"Well then… maybe I should start tonight and have the same experience like Harper."

"Hmmm!!!" I cleared my throat, tearing my gaze away from hers and gathering my bag with deliberate slowness. "I think we should start going to class now before the next subject teacher enters," I said, trying to cut the conversation.

(MOMENTS LATER)

The classroom had settled into its usual mid-morning rhythm—the soft scratch of pens against paper, the occasional cough and the drone of the ceiling fan turning lazily overhead.

Sunlight poured through the tall windows in thick, golden columns, illuminating the dust motes that danced in the air. I was halfway through copying notes from the board, my mind still drifting back to the cafeteria conversation, when the door to our classroom slammed open with a violent crash that rattled the windows and startled everyone.

Before we could react, Peter was already in the doorway, breathless and disheveled, his shirt untucked on one side, his hair standing up in wild tufts as if he had run the entire length of the corridor to get to us. His chest heaved with exertion, and his eyes—those perpetually bright, information-hungry eyes—scanned the room with the fervor of a preacher about to deliver a sermon.

"Hello! Hello everyone!" he announced, his voice pitched a little too high and a little too fast, cracking slightly on the second hello. It was the way his voice always got when he had information he believed the whole class needed to know immediately—the kind of news that couldn't wait, that burned inside him until he released it into the world.

"I have urgent news for you people," he said, and without waiting for anyone to respond, without pausing for breath, he stepped fully inside. His eyes were bright with that particular excitement that only appeared when Peter had overheard something significant and was now burdened with the sacred responsibility of telling it. He stood in the center of the aisle, chest still heaving, basking in the sudden attention.

We all turned in our seats because that was Peter for you—he never delivered news in half-measures. From the way he was speaking and the excitement radiating from his face like heat, it was clear he had just eavesdropped on something important. The news he was about to tell was already fully formed in his head, polished and dramatized, ready for delivery.

"Just say what you have to say and don't keep us in suspense!" Mark, the class captain, shouted angrily from the back, his voice thick with irritation and a chorus of agreement rippled through the room.

"I was at the principal's office earlier during break-time to return a folder," Peter finally spoke after a few moments of dramatic silence, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper that somehow managed to carry to every corner of the room. "And I saw a man who carried himself with the kind of quiet authority that makes people straighten without being told to."

"So what else about him?" I interrupted him immediately, my patience worn thin by his theatrics. "Is that why you ran into the class that way and startled everyone?" As I spoke, a majority of the class hissed at him, the sound rising and falling like a wave—frustration and curiosity warring in equal measure.

"That's not all," Peter said, his expression hardening with indignation when he noticed the majority of us had started losing interest in what he had to say. "You all should be patient and hear the full gist," he added angrily, his hands gesturing emphatically like the very act of withholding the information gave him power.

"The principal kept addressing the man as 'Sir Martins,'" Peter continued, and he said the name twice, spacing it out deliberately, just to make sure it registered with us, just to let the weight of it sink in. "Sir Martins."

A murmur rippled through the classroom. Sir Martins. The name hung in the air like incense—heavy and impossible to ignore.

"Sir Martins is not a name you hear every day," Peter went on, his voice taking on a reverent quality.

"Sir Martins is the owner of that very popular, prestigious company whose billboards we pass on the expressway and whose name comes up whenever anyone talks about donations, scholarships, and the kind of influence that can change how a school runs." He paused, letting the magnitude of it settle over us. "The kind of man whose signature on a check could build a new science lab or fund every student's fees for a year."

The room suddenly gone quiet now.

"I didn't hear their conversation very well," Peter continued, his voice dropping even lower, forcing us to lean in. "But it was clear enough from their conversation that his son would be joining us, because I heard SSS-2 in their conversation."

The silence that followed was absolute, broken only by the distant sound of a bird outside the window.

"So what you mean in essence," Asher asked slowly, his voice carefully measured, "is that a philanthropist's son is coming to our school and also going to be joining our class?." As the words left his mouth, almost everyone in the room gasped in shock, the sound sharp and collective, like a single breath drawn by thirty people at once.

"Let's hope so," Peter replied, a smug satisfied smile spreading across his face as he drank in the reaction he had craved. He rushed to his seat the very moment our subject teacher came in.

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