Ten minutes passed, and the teacher was still discussing methods to solve the question, the one James finished in one minute. James was not participating in the class, because he was doing his math on his tablet.
"…and the answer is [F=RN/1-R]. Yeah, class good job" the teacher said, and the students cheered happily. However, someone in the class raised her hand. "Yes Sophia, what is it?" the teacher asked, dropping the stylus on the table.
"Teacher, your final answer is still the same as James' final answer" Sophia informed. "That's impossible. The way he tackles the question is already wrong from the beginning, how would his---uhh!" the teacher minimized the page of the question and went back to the page James' had written at.
Sure enough, James' final answer was in fact, similar to her own. The female teacher was shocked, so she subconsciously stared at James' in deep thought, who was oblivious of what was happening.
"Smith, earth to Smith" Sophia whispered and smiled. James looked up from his tablet and stared at the teacher. Hmm, so it turned out the teacher's final answer was correct after all.
"Come to my office after break," the teacher said, unable to shake the surprise from her face. Who is this boy? The teacher asked in her mind before the bell indicated the end of the class.
James packed his tablet into his bag and sighed. There was a new question uploaded on the website "Genius Mathematics", and that question has been giving top tier professors headache.
James naturally wanted to solve the questions but reached a point where he was stuck. This did not frustrate him though, at least he found something that would distract him from all of his depressing thought.
As James stood up from his seat and left for the next class. A girl approached him and waved. "Hi, James. I'm Sophia Adams. Uhh—what you did back there was amazing" the girl said with a hint of shyness.
James could not help but stare at the young girl. The girl had a slightly tiny frame with large, deep blue eyes, long brown hair, and a pointed nose. The girl was the same height as James.
'Is this girl ten?' James wondered, before smiling back. "No, it's nothing at all, seriously. I do a lot of practice at home" James said. Sophia laughed lightly, causing James heart to throb. 'What the f*ck'? James asked shocked.
"Your mom must be proud of you. See you around" Sophia said and skipped out of the class. James watched her go with complicated expressions, before walking out to the next class.
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
The bell rang for break time, and James packed up his tablet to his bag and hung them on his chair, before heading to the cafeteria. After he eats, he would go visit the math teacher in the teacher's lounge.
As he arrived at the cafeteria, his eyes began panning for empty seats, before finding one directly at the edge of the large room. Though he saw empty seats in between students, he knew better than to place his tray and sit down among these students. He had made that mistake before.
James took his meal to the empty seat he saw and sat down. This was a five-seater table, but no one was coming here to eat, which in a way was a blessing.
James was eating when he noticed a shadow hovering over him. He looked up, only to see Daniel in his class. "Look what we have here, the dork of our class." James sighed and stared at the tall boy "What do you want? Come to harass me, or better, throw away my plates to the ground? How about you give me a wedgie?" James asked sarcastically.
James has had enough with these bullies. Just because he appeared short and was intelligent doesn't make him weak. I was born this way people, James said in his mind.
Daniel stared at James in astonishment, before grinning widely and shoving him violently to the ground, causing James to bang his head to the ground. That impact caused James to blackout for a second. A throbbing headache began to torment James, as he struggled to get up.
"Are you still talking? I can't hear you. Yeah, that's what I thought. From now on, I own you in this class. I give you my assignments, you do them. I give you my classwork, you finish them, do you understand Smith?" the tall boy's face came closer to James', who was still on the ground but was disappointed by James reaction.
James' maintained a poker face, despite the pain he was feeling. Not that he was doing it intentionally, but because he couldn't feel emotions as he used to. His EQ was depleting slowly.
"Am I not talking to you Smith?" the boy roared. James attempted to stand up but was shoved down by the floor, further soiling his uniform with dirt. "I don't have to answer you, Daniel, because, for one thing, you don't own me. You're only doing this because you are insecure, and you want people to accept you." James said calmly.
"Oh, is that so? Would an insecure kid do this?" the boy then punched James forehead, further enhancing the headache he was feeling right now. "Ouch" James groaned softly, as his nose was dripping with blood.
"Leave him alone Daniel!" a girl's voice was heard from behind Daniel. The boy turned around to see who said it but was shocked to see who the person was. "Sophia, what are you doing here? You are not supposed to be here" Daniel exclaimed.
Sophia glared at him with cold eyes and shoved him out of the way. "Why Daniel, why did you choose to scrap away your dignity by beating a powerless kid?" Sophia shook her head disgusted, after seeing the state of James. "It's not like that. It's just, he wasn't answering me when I was asking him questions, I wanted—"
Daniel was still talking when Sophia raised her hand in indignation "Zip it Daniel, you are disgusting to me in my eyes, get out of here, otherwise, you would see my bad side" the girl warned, prompting Daniel to leave, but before he did, he turned back and faced Sophia "I'm sorry that you saw this, it will not happen again. Please don't let this sever our friendship" Daniel begged.
"Please just go," Sophia said dismissively, before turning to James. "You need to stand up and defend yourself from these people," Sophia said softly, before taking a handkerchief and crouching to dab the blood from James' face.