Project: Socialize

My name is Alevian Enzel, an ordinary high school boy in the metropolis of Palisia located within the great Vilheim Empire. I'm not the best at socializing, which is the reason for my lack of friends. Because of that, I rarely speak so I've encountered moments when people couldn't tell that it was me speaking when they hear my voice. In addition to that, since I sit at the back corner of the class, I'm often just "there". I'm like those background characters, just existing and not serving much purpose.

I yawned and leaned my head on my desk, feeling slightly drowsy after finishing lunch. It was lunch break time so I still had plenty of time before class began. Just when I was contemplating whether or not I should fall asleep, the sound of a chair being pulled out from underneath a table disturbed my train of thought.

"Looks like you're still rotting away," a cold yet beautiful voice said to me.

Still determined to rest my head against the desk, I turned my head to face the owner of the voice while raising my head as little as possible. The voice had came from the girl, Muria Edel who sat by me. In my honest opinion, she's one of the prettiest girls at my school. Her long black hair that went to her lower back suited her exquisite face, and her blue eyes, crystal clear as if they see through all lies, were fixed on her notebook as she reviewed the day's lessons.

"I don't consider relaxing rotting away," I yawned. "Besides, why're you studying? This is break you know?"

"It's that attitude of yours that contribute to your laziness," she responded with an apathetic voice and didn't look over.

"Hmm..."

I stared at her face, appreciating the delicate lines of her nose and her lips. As if in a trance, I studied her face similar to how she studied her notes. This further solidified my judgement that she is one of the prettiest students at our school because honestly, I can sit here and just look at her for the whole day and I won't be tired.

"Are you done staring?"

Muria's sudden question startled me, causing me to be slightly flustered and forced me out of my comfort zone. Immediately after lifting my face from the desktop, I sighed and leaned back on the backrest of my seat in order to simply look up at the ceiling.

Often times, I would wonder why someone like Muria would even speak to me. Despite her attitude towards me, she treats others in a way that isn't friendly, but still polite. Combined with her way above average appearance, she's quite popular at my school. Maybe it's because she sees me as an inferior so she speaks to me without the same respect as to others, which I understand. If I'm her, I wouldn't even bother speaking with myself. Maybe my status as someone who sits next to her is what prompted her to make conversation with me, although these conversations are often short and meaningless in the long term.

I'm also quite proud of myself for being able to see through this truth. If I was just a bit younger and a bit more naive, I would've thought that she must have a crush on me and that is why I'm treated differently by her. Maybe I did think like that in the past, but I've grown. There's no way someone as perfect as her would even see me as a potential boyfriend. I think to her, I'm more of a servant.

From the corner of my eyes, I see some girls coming over to Muria, smiling and chatting with her. From their conversation, it seems that these girls are asking to see her notes. Intrigued by this, I secretly glanced over at her opened notebook. It's true that her notebook is possibly the neatest out of everyone at this school. Her handwriting is clean and precise and her arrangement is easy to understand and appealing to the eyes, similar to Muria herself. She's a person that is clean and neat, straightforward and not afraid to say what she truly thinks of people, and visually appealing. Like VERY visually appealing.

Lunch break ended not too long after and the boring lectures of resumed once again. I yawned as I sat there, twirling my mechanical pencil in my right hand while my left hand merely rested on my notebook. Some tears formed in my eyes from my drowsiness, blurring my vision, and forced me to wipe them away with my fingers. With now crystal clear vision, I looked down at my notebook and observed my bland and boring penmanship. In my mind, I was suddenly reminded of Muria's notebook.

I let out a sigh of defeat. I've lost. Her notes are just so much better than mine. I peeked at her from the corner of my eye, taking in her beauty as she sat there, focused on the lecture, in the traditional summer school uniform of my high school. The white short-sleeved button-up blouse looked perfect on her. When my eyes accidentally wandered to her slender legs, they were attracted by the navy blue skirt that girls had to wear as part of their uniform that revealed the perfectly proportioned legs and thighs of this girl that sat next to me.

She seems to not have noticed me staring, but I never know with her. She's always so observant, so cautious to the point that I could never be sure that what I'm doing she might be seeing. That is why I immediately looked away just in case. With nothing else to look at and nothing to do, I decided that I might as well focus on the lecture. However, not long after, I yawned once again. Why does history have to be so boring?

***

The bell that signaled the end of the school day finally rang, releasing me from my prison and to the freedom of the outside world. I'm not in any clubs or sports so I usually head straight home from school. Others that do not participate in any school programs or activities usually just hang out with their friends, but I don't have people that I could truly consider a friend that I can do things with.

With a sigh, I forced myself up from my seat and picked up my bag. As I looked up, I saw Muria leaving the classroom.

Is she in a club or a sport? I don't think so and I've never really paid attention to those things. If I truly wanted to know, I could always just ask the girls in the class, but then I would most definitely be labeled with the title of a Stalker or a Creep so I restrained myself. Besides, what she does is none of my business.

Since my school isn't too far from the nearest station, walking there only took me about five minutes. There, I passed the ticket gates, took the escalator to get to the underground platforms, and waited for my train. Once it arrived at the station, I got on, took a seat, and just stared at the screen of my phone with a bored look.

I stared blankly at the home screen of my smartphone, dazed and unwilling to do anything else while I leaned back on the seat. People around me must think that I'm waiting for an important text message or something, but I'm not. I'm just doing my best to past time and avoid eye contact with the others. It's not that I don't have anything to do on my phone, it's just that I'm bored, and when I bored, I often remain bored.

My life can be summarized with three words: Boring and gloomy. That describes my life and me perfectly. My parents died in an accident four years ago when I was twelve, so I was raised my byLoriana, someone who I call my "aunt" who is only nine years older than me. The reason for my parents' death I do not know for sure. All I was ever told is that it was in a horrible accident and that both died. However, I never saw their bodies. Every time I were to ask to see their corpses, I was told that it was mutilated so badly that seeing it would scar me for life so I was never allowed to see their bodies.

When I had snuck into the morgue that year, I only found the body of my father. It was badly mutilated just like my aunt had told me. However, I was never able to locate my mother's body. In fact, in the records at the morgue, she never died. That is what led me to believe that my mother had ran off with some other guy that she had an affair with, and that pushed my father to commit suicide by jumping off of a building.

I could've done something to prevent it all since I had known that my mother was in an affair for some time prior to my father finding out. One day when I walked home from school after being pranked that it was a school day when it was still break, I saw it. My mother was on the couch, naked with some other man that isn't my father. I forced myself to remain silent as I looked in through the crack of the door before I slowly backed off and ran out crying.I had told her about going to school earlier that day, which is possibly the reason why the man was there at my house.

My father was the one who came looking for me after being told by one of our neighbors who was out walking his dog that I was crying while sitting on the swings of the local park. He had left work just to find me. He comforted me and asked me why I was crying, and I was unable to get myself to tell him the truth. I was afraid that if I spoke up, our family would be ruined. That's why I lied and told him that it was because I got pranked.

I could still remember clearly, that day when I got home, I could never look at my mother the same way as before. She was disgusting. I didn't even want to eat anything she gave me in fear that I would become tainted. That is why I suddenly distanced myself from her and became unwilling to socialize with others in fear that if I were to discover something about them, that would ruin our relationship.

That story is all of the past now and I've gotten over it already. I'm sad that my father died and I'm sorry that I was unable to prevent it, but I can do nothing about it. My father would probably want me to not dwell on it and move on with my life.

Now, I live with my aunt on my father's side. She's his step-sister, meaning that the two aren't related biologically, but she still took me in. She was quite young when she offered to take care of me since she didn't want to trust me into the hands of the relatives of the woman that had caused the death of my father. Therefore, she's quite inexperienced when it comes to taking care of kids for she's not married. However, the two of us still managed.

My daydreaming was interrupted by the sudden notification that popped up on my phone. It says that something was successfully installed, but I never downloaded anything. This peaked my interest, causing me to scroll through my phone in search for the mysterious application that was installed.

"What's this?" I murmured to myself as I stared at an unfamiliar icon that was never in my phone before.

"Socialization."I held down the icon with my thumb and deleted it. "Don't know how that got on my phone, but now it's gone."

I didn't give it much thought afterwards, attributing the incident to me possibly accidentally clicking download on an ad that I possibly clicked on. I went on with the rest of my day, which is go home, do my homework, prepare dinner, and wait for Loriana to return home from work, her occupation being a professor at one of the more prestigious universities in Palisia.

"Welcome home, Lori." I greeted her as I finished setting the table.

The woman with long, blonde hair yawned in response as she walked past me and placed her purse on the couch before walking over to the dinner table.

"How's work today?" I asked her as I sat down in my chair.

"Like always," she responded.

Despite both of us being not the most talkative type, that doesn't mean we don't care for each other. In fact, Loriana's care isn't expressed through words, but rather through action. For example, she was super patient with me when I first moved in to her house. In addition, when it's my birthday, she would always make sure to have the day off to spend with me and prepare a gift for me. That is why I feel comfortable around her, knowing that she cares about me.

However, she's not the most...conservative in her actions. For example, she would often walk around in her underwear after showering or bathing even when I'm in the house. Even when I complained to her, she would simply respond with a simple "Oh," and that is all. It's not like I'm...complaining...or anything. It's just that...I feel like I would...you know...sexualize her even more...

That night, after showering, I retreated to my room to check on my phone's battery percentage. After seeing that it is at a hundred percent, I unplugged it and walked over to my bed and laid on it. With my phone held above my face, I scrolled through it out of boredom and my eyes immediately focused on the same familiar yet mysterious icon I saw earlier.

"I thought I deleted it..." I muttered as I held down on the icon and deleted it once again.

Just when I thought it was gone for good and was about to open up my web browser, the icon appeared once again, in the same spot that it was in before as if nothing had happened to it.

"Don't tell me my phone's got a virus?!" I panicked and began the deleting process once again. However, just like last time, the application appeared once again despite my best efforts. "Should I click on it?"

I hesitated for a few seconds, but my curiosity got the best of me so I pressed the icon with the words Socialization as its application name. Immediately, I was greeted by a simple but visually appealing user interface that displayed to me all my personal information. Then, at the bottom of the screen was a button that says confirm. I pressed it since if the application was able to acquire all my personal data, its creator must be able to acquire all my data if her or she wanted so what's the worse that could happen?

Welcome and thank you for using the Socialization APP, a special program designed to help you.

"The hell is this?" I clicked the proceed button.

We shall give you objectives/missions that you should complete in order to help you become more social. We advise that you cooperate and complete each objective before its deadline. Any objectives not completed by its deadline will be determined void and the rewards will not be able to be granted. We sincerely recommend that you complete each task for your own sake.

"There's rewards?"

Now, let us begin.

--

Current Objective:

Call a female and chat for at least ten minutes.

Time Limit: 30 min

Reward: 5 SP

--

"That's impossible for me," I sighed. "I don't have friends in my contact list so obviously there won't be a girl on me to call."

I exited APP and tossed my phone on my bed. Instead of using my phone, I walked over to my desk and turned on my laptop. Once that is on, I entered a popular video sharing website called UTube and began just clicking on videos that peeked my interests. Time flew by as I watched and when I next looked at the clock, it has been thirty minutes.

"It's not like I have to complete the tasks," I leaned back on the backrest of my computer chair, relaxing every single muscle in my body.

Suddenly, my phone rang which caught me off guard for I have no friends that should call me at this time of the day. Curious of who it is, I crept over to my bed and read the name that showed up on my phone.

[The True God]

I've never registered anyone into my contact list under this name so I was genuinely shocked and scared. Who could it be?

Slowly, I swiped right on the screen prompt to answer the call and brought the phone to my ear.

"Hello?" a voice said. "This is The True God."

"Who are you?" I asked in a cautious and hushed voice in fear of alerting Loriana. "I don't remember adding you to my contacts."

"You never did," The True God said. "I added myself. I am The True God you know?"

"What do you want from me?" I asked.

"Nothing much," he said. "Other than complete the objectives."

"Why should I?"

"Because I'm bored and that if you don't you'll be punished."

"Punished?" I said in a doubtful tone, but The True God immediately responded to my suspicions by granting me terrible headache.

"I know you felt that," he said. "This is just the beginning. If you don't complete the assignments, the punishments will become worse and worse. I hope you understand your position."

"Fine," I gasped for air after the headache alleviated.

"Alright," The True God said in a satisfied voice. "Now go complete your assignments."

"Wait!" My sudden inquisition prevented The True God from hanging up.

"What is it?" he asked in an annoyed voice.

"Why are you doing this?" I asked.

"Didn't I tell you earlier? I'm bored. Don't think that all gods are busy. We're like humans and get bored easily."

"Is that seriously it?"

"What else do you expect? Like some Demon King is awakening and these objectives are tests to choose the Hero to defeat him? No!" The True God said in a sarcastic tone. "These tasks are just for fun. Entertain me human."

He immediately hung up the call, leaving me by myself.

"Looks like I better do what it wants me to do," I sighed.

A notification suddenly popped up on my phone.

--

Current Objective:

Caress Loriana's thighs.

Time Limit: 1 hr.

Reward: 10 SP

--

I stared at my screen, dazed and in shock.

"WTF is this?!"