Slow and Stupid Romance

'Are you having your meals on time?' A mature woman's voice escaped from the Adam's phone as he paced back and forth in the hallway.

"Mom, I am doing fine. It's almost been a year since I started living in the dorms."

'I am concerned because it's you. I wouldn't be anxious if it was your brother or sister.'

"Don't worry. I'll call you if something ever happens."

'You say that but you never call and it's always your mother who has to call you first'

"It's cause nothing ever happens. Besides, why did you call me today? You always call in the mornings or evenings, but you called during the day."

'Now, that you have grown up, your father and I want to go on a vacation. The house will be empty so do you want to stay in Autumn City during the winter break or return home?'

"I don't want to travel to B city if no one will be home. But, where do you want me to stay?"

Adam hated the domestic flights, so he didn't want to take a 6 hour flight back to B city.

'Your father knew you would say that. He rented an apartment for you in the city, I'll text you the number. Call it and decide when you want to sign the contract. Your dad already transferred the money into your card.'

"Okay, Mom. I am hanging up, it's club time right now."

'Bye sweetie'

Adam heard the call disconnect before he put away his phone and walked back into his dorm room.

The room had two bunk beds in the far corner with a large window in the middle. There was lamp desk just below the window with an extension cord connected to multiple charger plugs. There were a pair of human-sized cupboards on the other ends of the beds for the 4 people that shared the room. There was also an Air Conditioner right above the entry door which was turned off.

Adam had lived in this room with his friends for the past year after his parents moved back to B city. His roommates were supposed to be out during this time, but a boy wearing a white shirt and the school's standard issue black tracksuit pants occupied the top bunk of a bed.

Oliver looked up from his phone and watched Adam walk in and look around the room before speaking,

"I really envy how much your family cares about you. Mine wouldn't even notice if I disappeared from the house until someone called to ask for ransom"

Adam ignored Oliver's words as he walked towards the table. His family called at least twice a day, if not more. Even his sister called from time to time, so his roommates used it to tease how his family members babied him.

"Where's James and John? Shouldn't they be back by now?"

His other roommates James and Johnathan were in the football club, but it was already past club time so they should have returned by now.

"James should be out practicing or meeting with his girlfriend. John walked in a while ago when you were talking on the phone and took your prefect badge. Didn't you see him?"

The prefect's badge was actually a card and had a few quirks like the president's badge and other house leader badge. The most useful one was being able to go into any block besides the gender separate dormitory without taking a permission beforehand. That's why his roommates mainly Johnathan enjoyed borrowing it so much.

Adam used to be the Mountain House Leader, but he got changed to a prefect, which was a position reserved for people living in the school housing after he moved into the dorm. He didn't really care for the position other than that it had a lot of nice features and few responsibilities.

That night, Adam returned with Oliver and James from the dining hall and saw Johnathan already lying down on his bed facing the wall. Sensing their presence, he turned around and saw the other three walk in. Adam sat down on his own bed and asked Johnathan,

"Aren't you going to the dining hall?"

Johnathan sat up on his own bed and sat cross-legged while looking at the others getting on their beds.

"I already ate at the cafeteria with the girl from section 2-C. Only used the badge to get inside the elementary school block"

Adam didn't want to know what they did in the elementary school block, but he needed to know where he used the badge since the school kept records of the badge being used in the last two weeks and he might need to match the story. As long as he didn't commit a crime, nobody would check the camera footage whether he used it or someone else.

"Why did you go all the way to elementary block on Sunday? And, where's the badge?"

Adam didn't care about the badge for the entire week except Mondays when everybody with one needed to wear it for the Student Assembly. The badge had a GPS locator inside that worked only inside the school premises, and they required it to inform the Warden immediately if you lost it. Everyone knew about the locator, so people usually returned the badge to the lost and found section if they came across one.

Johnathan pulled a box from under his bed and rummaged around, but after a while he didn't find what he was looking for and smiled sheepishly at Adam.

"Must have fallen off sometime when I ran back to our room. I'll find it right now."

"Forget it. Someone will return it to the lost section tomorrow and I'll pick it up from there."

Adam wasn't worried. At most, they'll ask him what he used it for during the day and not to lose it again. His roommates lost the badge so often, he was already familiar with the guy at the lost section.

The next day, Adam woke up to the sounds of someone messing with plastic and saw Oliver going through the cupboard.

"Why are you making so much noise so early in the morning?", Adam groaned as he covered his face with the blanket.

"Wake up! It's 8AM already, you'll be late." Oliver finally closed his cupboard and took out his shoes.

Adam jolted out of his bed after hearing Oliver's words. The morning assembly started at 9, but he had to go report as a prefect at the Green Room today and get his badge before that. Adam quickly went to the showers, came back and got dressed.

His hair was long enough to be tied back, but he didn't bother using a band. The Autumn High School's boys Summer Uniform was a full-sleeved white dress shirt with the school's logo above the heart and black trousers matched with a grey tie with red strips. They also wore black dress shoes during classes or blue sneakers during club.

Adam was rushing to the lost and found section when he heard someone call out to him and saw an unknown student walking towards him.

"Mr. Will wants to see you in his office. He said he has something to give you." The student delivered his message and walked off.

Mr. Will's office in the main building. He walked in and saw Mr. Will going through some papers. When he saw Adam had arrived, he smiled and told Adam to take a seat.Adam had no choice but to take a detour to

Adam was very familiar with Mr. Will since he was the Mountain House's Representative teacher. Adam, as the previous team leader, had interacted with him a lot. He also probably got his prefect position with his recommendation. But Adam clueless to what he wanted to give him.

As if sensing his confusion, Mr. Will pulled out a white card with a long pin attached on its back for securing it on a shirt.

Mr. Will finally spoke, "I found this when I went to drop my kid in the elementary block. I would leave it at the lost section, but the staff there told me it probably belonged to you. Turns out he was right."

Adam was already cursing the library staff and Johnathan for putting him in this position, but still made an explanation without a change in his face.

"It must have fallen out of my pocket when I went to jogging in the evening."

This was a reasonable explanation since he used to be part of the Marathon Runners' Club. Mr. Will also didn't have a problem with Adam's words and returned the badge but gave him a warning.

"Just fasten it on your shirt if it keeps falling too often. If you are having any problems, you can come to me. Your parents told me to take care of you since you are such a clumsy kid."

Adam walked out of Mr. Will office while murmuring about being called clumsy. He really wasn't a klutz but back when he was a kid, he didn't talk so his parents thought he was autistic. He only started talking when he was almost 4 and started schooling late. He also got hurt enough to warrant a visit to the hospital every time he went out. He caught up with people his age after jumping grade multiple times and didn't have any serious injuries in the past few years, but his parents still told his teachers he needed extra care.

"I am just slow, not clumsy" Adam sat down on a random seat and looked around.

Since it was a weekly meeting, there wasn't anything important unless someone had something to report, and the meeting was right before the assembly so it couldn't go on for too long. Even if there was something important, nobody would bring it up here and keep it for an actual meeting after school.

Adam looked around and locked his eyes on a person. This was Elise Edwards, the current vice president and this school's most popular girl. She was wearing the school's uniform similar to the boys except girls wore a black skirt that reached just above their knees and white thigh high socks. She tied her hair in a ponytail with a grey ribbon.

Adam knew her since they were in the same class in their first year and both of them were house leaders in the second year. He had interacted with her a few times before, but he didn't need to after he became a prefect.

After the meeting, Adam sat for the assembly than his morning classes before finally reaching lunch break. He was in the section 3-A along with Oliver while James and Johnathan were in class 3-B. A number and an alphabet represented each classroom, the number represented their year while the alphabet was the section. The students were assigned randomly to sections A, B, C, D while E was for the new students.

Adam saw Oliver go out the room while he packed his bags. He and Oliver didn't interact with each other much in class because they were always together in the dorms. Instead, they had their own circle of friends.

"Adam, borrow me your assignment for a bit."

Adam looked behind and saw Logan taking out his own math notebook. Adam knew Logan since he was the first friend he made after transferring to Autumn. The guy liked to copy his math assignments, and they became friends. Adam knew this guy was good at playing the guitar, and enjoyed boxing. Also, he liked Elise since last year.

"You had two days to do this and yet you rush during the lunch."

"I was too busy thinking about her I forgot about the assignment."

Logan talked like he didn't care if others heard him, but his eyes darted around to see if someone did. Even though it wasn't uncommon to find someone that liked Elise, it was uncommon for them to be friends with her. Logan was friends with her, so he was extra careful when talking about her he didn't dare take names. Last year, a guy called Ethan told Elise that everyone was meeting up at a restaurant but didn't invite anyone else. Elise showed up with Rachel, who out of spite told everyone in their group. The guy ended up transferring to the high school's branch in E City this year. As for how Adam knew about this, Logan told him with glee when he was talking about one of his rival disappearing.

Adam left Logan to do his assignment and went out to bask in the sun when he saw May waving at him while standing next to Issac and Harry. Adam knew May Nikolai from last year when he was preparing for the Unification Festival. He was a member of the Drama Club. As for why he was a member of the drama club, it was because Elise was in it. After talking with them a few times, he realized May liked Elise while Issac and Harry enjoy egging him on. Sometimes Adam felt that their entire friendship revolved around her until May told him he, Issac and Harry were childhood friends.

Logan and May also knew each other. After interacting with both of them for a year, he could see a lot of similarities with the two. They both liked Elise, they both seemed to have some weird trust in him when telling their secrets, they were both cowards and both of them loved asking Adam for love advice even though Adam knew little about romance. Adam didn't think he knew as much about himself as he knew about Elise from these two.

'Too bad Logan won't give up on his hobbies and join the Drama Club, otherwise I would give up being a prefect just to watch these two' Adam mused to himself.

Adam escaped by making an excuse of having lunch and spent the rest of the break in his classroom. After finishing the rest of his classes, Adam was returning to the dorm when he saw Oliver standing outside their room looking haggard.

Oliver must have been waiting for him as he stood outside the door and said,

"Wait outside for a minute while Johnathan calms James down."

Oliver wasn't talking about calming an angry James down. Adam knew James before becoming roommates, so he knew that James got very emotional sometimes. Most of the time, he could calm down on his own, but sometimes he was prone to doing stupid things.

"What happened?" Adam hadn't seen James lose control since he met him again in high school, so he knew James had gotten better than before, but for him to become like this, something big must have happened.

"I heard James say that Juniper was cheating on him. As for how he found out, Ryan, his classmate told him he saw Juniper and Ethan making out behind the bird statue."

Adam knew Ethan was also in the football team since James and Johnathan were friends with him and had brought the name up from time to time. He didn't think James would just believe someone's word and come to the dorms instead of asking his girlfriend or Ethan, so the guy called Ryan must have shown something.

As Oliver finished speaking, the door opened, and James and Johnathan walked out. James had red eyes, and he didn't even look at Oliver or Adam as he went to the bathroom. Johnathan watched James walk away before turning around. Adam saw that Johnathan was just moments away from rushing out and caving someone's head in.

Johnathan didn't wait for others to ask before he talked.

"That bitch. She was the one who chased James around until he agreed to go out with her 4 years ago. James thought the relationship was doing great, but who knew that bitch had gotten together with Ethan behind his back. At least have the decency to break up with someone before getting together with someone else."

"What did Mark show James?" Adam asked.

Johnathan didn't seem surprised that Oliver told Adam and replied,

"He has a photo on his phone. The guy's room is down the hallway."

Adam knew Johnathan might just beat Ethan up if they met today, so he told him to look after James and forget practice while he and Oliver got the photo from Ryan.