Chapter Seven

Meanwhile in the real world, Evan's confused at the sudden stop in conversation, but soon became aware of what happened- Kuro and Naomi both entered the dream world. Not really knowing what to do, Evan decided to just prop both their heads up on a wall next to them so they wouldn't strain their heads and he decided to stay and keep watch to make sure teachers wouldn't find the girls passed out and not know what happened.

Evan is a so-called "model student", in a sense that he scores very high on exams, good at sports, music, arts, everything you can name. Most teachers respect him. He and Kuro are both seen as the two titans that stay at the top of the class all the time; the difference is that Kuro isn't good at anything other than academics or art. Strangely enough, they don't see each other as the enemy but rather secretly they both have a sense of curiosity for each other; they both want to know how the other studies for exams, their interests and so on.

Although he's evidently the silent type, really Evan is the same as most students. He likes to play video games, likes to listen to music, and he really loves animals- a fact that most his fellow classmates don't know or expect from him. Most except Naomi.

Him and Naomi go way back, since they were in elementary school, possibly before that. Evan is the only friend Naomi has, and, well, Evan himself does not care much for making friends. He dislikes attention, because attention leads to drama, and drama leads to bad grades, something that he cannot have.

Evan himself has black hair, with blue eyes. He's tall for his age, around 185cm, with slightly tanned skin, leading many to question his origins. He tends to have either a neutral facial expression or even a frown, whenever he smiles it's barely noticable.

He decides to sit near the girls and study for the classes he's missing. About an hour into his self-study session, a teacher walks by and questions him for not being in lessons.

"Mr. Aarif, hello." Evan respectfully says. (ー_ー )

"Hi Evan, why aren't you in class?" Mr. Aarif asks him calmly. (￣︶￣)

Mr. Aarif is one of their science teachers, but he teaches religion as well. Peculiar combination of subjects to teach, since they are thought to be two clashing subjects. He has black hair and a thick beard, and is of Arabian nationality. He has kind deep brown eyes and a calm facial expression. Recently, Mr. Aarif has been inconsistently in and out of lessons, having to "take care of something" or "attending to an emergency". Strangely enough, it hasn't been detrimental to his job as of yet.

Evan thinks for a while as of what to say, since he can't exactly explain that the girls randomly got transported to a parallel universe where everyone's the opposite of their usual personalities.

"Well." Evan simply replies, pointing to the passed out girls. "These two passed out, I'm not sure what to do but I know not to wake them up. So I'm here keeping them company to explain to teachers. I'm still studying for the lessons I'm missing though." He explains to Mr. Aarif. (ー_ー )

Mr. Aarif is that type of teacher who has a really good relationship with his students. He's a valuable gem, a teacher that loves his job and wouldn't trade it for anything else. He's a peaceful man, he rarely raises his voice because he doesn't need to, the students respect him enough to not even disrupt his lessons. Not to mention, he has a certain... trusting aura around him. He's one of those people that others just feel like they can tell him anything. Important when you're a personal tutor and a teacher, having to deal with students and their problems.

"That's very good and respectful of you, not many students would do that." Mr. Aarif smiles at Evan. "Tell me, why do you think you shouldn't wake them up?" He asks. (￣︶￣)

At this point, Evan is questioning whether to explain the situation to Mr. Aarif, however Mr. Aarif could take it the wrong way, like Evan's trying to make something up to excuse why he isn't in lessons. Evan must think his answer out carefully. But if there's one thing you should know about Evan, is that he is extremely bad at lying.

"I think they both are extremely tired, I saw them falling asleep in class a lot today, but the falling in and out of consciousness type." Evan nonchalantly states. (ー_ー )

Mr. Aarif smiles, "You're awful at lying. When they wake, come to my classroom." He commands. (￣︶￣)

Evan ponders about Mr. Aarif's request, but shakes it off until the girls wake up. He goes back to his studying.

***

A good two hours later, Naomi and I both wake up in the real world.

Evan is sat on a wall near Naomi and I reading a book, since to him it would have seemed like we both just passed out. I glanced over at Naomi who was staring at the ground, not wanting to make eye contact with anyone.

"We're not talking about it." She commands, humiliated by what just happened. ( ᓀ ‸ ᓂ )

I just shrug and go with it, afterall there's no point in me pretending to still dislike her after all that conversation in the dream world. Evan is still sat on a brick wall, oblivious to both of us being awake.

"How long were we out?" I ask him quietly. (｡◝‿◜｡)

He looks up from his book and thinks a little. "Around three hours." He simply states. (ー_ー )

"Three hours! Then we missed the entirety of school! It feels like we only spent ten... minutes in the... dream... world..." Naomi trails off in pure embarrassment. ( ᓀ ‸ ᓂ )

I turn to face Naomi and bluntly tell her: "look, I'm not holding a grudge against you. From what I gather, you enter the dream world with people you have conflict with. I fought with my sister, I ended up in the dream world with her. You fought with Evan, ended up in the dream world with him, and now we ended up in the dream world together. If there's anything we should take from our experiences, is that there's a connection between conflict and the dream world. Clearly fate was trying to get us to be friends, or whatever."

"It's not that I- I don't want to be friends with you... it's just... weird. Okay?" She defends herself against me. ( ᓀ ‸ ᓂ )

"Yeah yeah, I get it. It's fine." I give her a slip of paper with my phone number on it. "Here's my number, text me if you need anything." I say sternly. (｡◝‿◜｡)

You might be asking why I'm doing this, I mean before this point we were constantly at war with each other, never in a million years would I have thought I'd be giving her my number but, if there's one thing I know I should take from the dream world, it's that it's supposed to change you, make you reconcile with people, make you become a better person- and all that.

Evan just looks at us really confused, of course, he wasn't there in the dream world so he has no idea what's going on.

"Evan, if you want context I'll just say we met in the dream world and expressed the truth about each other; we wanted to be friends but it's difficult for us to put our differences aside and just... be friends." I explain to him. (｡◝‿◜｡)

I begin to question Evan: "anyway, you didn't stay here with us the whole time did you?" (｡◝‿◜｡)

"Yeah. There was only one teacher that came across us, and for some reason seemed to understand what was going on or something." He states. (ー_ー )

He knows what was going on? As in he knows about the dream world or...?

My eyes widen. "What do you mean? He knows about the dream world?" I ask eagerly. (｡◝‿◜｡)

"Maybe, I'm not sure. I'm bad at lying so whatever I told him he probably didn't believe. It was Mr. Aarif, he asked us to drop by his classroom." Evan replies to me.

I glance over at Naomi and she's rapidly typing something on her phone and smiling. Moments after, I hear soft notification sounds come from both my school bag and Evan's pocket, to which I curiously see to. A message from a random number, in a group with another random number, leading me to think it's Naomi adding both of us to a group-chat.

( ᓀ ‸ ᓂ ) Naomi: Maybe this will make things easier. We can talk about this dream world here too :)

I quickly add both these numbers to my contacts list, just simply under the names of 'Naomi' and 'Evan'. I usually put silly nicknames for people I know well but since these two are my acquaintences, I won't bother.

(ー_ー ) Evan: Thank you Naomi.

(｡◝‿◜｡) Me: Yeah, thanks.

"Why are we just texting each other when we can talk?" I laugh in question. (｡◝‿◜｡)

"True," They both reply in unison.

We walk down the desolate corridors to Mr. Aarif's classroom. Although I've been his student for a while, I still can't say I'm overly close to him, he must have a lot of students who go to him a lot, I always have the mindset that I shouldn't bother teachers. The time is around three thirty in the afternoon, yet it's turning dark due to the winter hours. I always thought to myself that school looks and feels unexpectedly eerie when it's not teeming with students, it feels like something out of a zombie apocalypse movie; especially when it's turning dark. But still, I put all those feelings of fear behind me. Afterall those things don't exist. That being said... the dream world still exists... and this desolate school reminds me of that. I shake the feelings off and follow Naomi and Evan to Mr. Aarif's room.

Evan gently knocks on the door and peers through the small window in the door. Mr Aarif looks up from whatever he's writing and advances to the door to open it.

"Ah, hello Evan, Kuro and Naomi. Do come in." He says ever kindly. (￣︶￣)

We comfortably walk into the classroom and each of us takes a seat. Mr. Aarif closes this book he was writing in, and presents it to us. It's a diary-type of book which is simply titled: the Other Side by Kashif Aarif".