THE DANCE SYSTEM

My name is Darren Potter, and I have a system. Not too surprising, is it? I am not dead, nor I have reincarnated. I wasn hit by lightning, nor did I get run-down by our favourite truck-kun. Not even, was there some mistake by some heavenly being. I got this system, just like that. Not understanding, why I have a system with an AI to assist me, I am carrying this system with me. Unlike some people who might think, having a system is a dream come true. I am an otaku kinda guy, who mostly spends his time in his small apartment, and read novels online and plays games. Cursing hundreds of players online, daily. So it is also a dream come true for me. And I was excited when I got the system. But when the AI introduced the system to me, I knew I was damned.

Like every other day, I woke up at ten in the morning and immediately went to the washroom to get ready for the school. Well, I still have to go to school, even though I am an otaku. When I reached at the school, our class teacher, I don know what others call her, but I call her class teacher, took the attendance to check who all were present.

It is just some kind of formality, though it doesn have any serious issues. The school officials try to frighten the students by saying, ”If you don have a seventy-five attendance percent, you won be able to write the examination, and you won be able to go to the next year. But I have known many people, who might hardly have about forty or fifty percent attendance, getting promoted to the next class. At least thats how it goes in my school. Like every day, our first lecture was of Mr. Hank Shaw.

Hank is our mathematics teacher. He has an experience of twelve years of teaching mathematics. And he says it many times, that he was a graduate from Oxford University. But obviously no one takes his words seriously. Because it is unlikely for him to be a graduate from Oxford. Think about it carefully. He is a single man, who has been in the city for over twelve years, and he hasn thought of going to any other institutes, which pay a lot better than our school. How come an Oxford graduate would think of working in this terrible school and accept low salaries? If it were me, I wouldn .

He was good at his job, so I had no problems with me. Neither of us had much interaction with each other. Thanks to my poor mathematics, I was just another average student in the class. So, like every other day, I sat on my desk, placed at the end of the class. I sat there with my best friend, Christine. We had been friends since we were children, thanks to our parents being friends. Both of our fathers were friends with each other and so were our mothers. So we would be friends. Her parents took care of me, as I was their child, and the same was the scene with my parents caring about her.

Christine is a cool girl, and she enjoyed reading mangas, watching animes and playing games. So we hit it right off from the start. I was there dozing off, beside Christine. Christy snorted when she saw me dozing off. She then grabbed something from her back pack and placed it on my hand. Then she shook me slightly, and I opened my eyes groggily.

Thats when I saw something lying on my hand, and the next moment when my eyes cleared, I screamed, ”Shet, son of a shet faced fk! ” I screamed literally, causing the entire class to fall silent. I looked around and sat down, while trying my best not to attract any more attention than I had already gained. The next moment, everyone started snickering at my actions, and some even began passing out comments, ”What curses were those? ” ”I am laughing to death, haha. ” The maths teachers face was red with anger and a blue vein was clearly seen on his forehead.

He looked at me with glaring eyes and said, ”You? Who are you again? ” I whispered softly, ”Darren. Darren Potter. ” The maths teacher snorted and said, ”Whatever your name is, I don care. How dare you speak such words in the class? Is this what your parents had taught you? Imbecile. ” Gritting my teeth, I said, ” Sir, it would be better if you don bring my parents between our talk. ” He shouted and asked, ”Why shouldn I? They should understand how irresponsible they are. Some people just give birth to their child, but forget to teach the child some manners. If it were me instead of your parents, you wouldn have dared to speak such words in the class. Look at yourself, you look like a gangster. ”

I had already lost my control, and I directly said, ”First teach your child. Remember the online class you were going to take on Saturday? ” He didn reply, but I continued, ”Yeah, well I gave him a few dollars and he agreed to cut your Wi-Fi cable. Teach your own son. He sold himself in a few dollars. Now what do you say for that? Is it because you didn teach him better? ” The entire class was silent. I could feel the tug of Christy on my shirt. I looked down to find tears flowing out of her eyes. Sighing, I whispered, ”Its alright. He doesn seem to like me from the start. I am just helping him out. ”

I raised my head to look at the maths, sir. He was angrier than before. His entire face was purple. When he saw my eyes on him, he immediately yelled out angrily, ”Get out of my class right now. You aren allowed to stay here. ” I packed my bag, and gave the bag to Christy, while I walked out of the class, with no remorse for what happened in the class.

I stood outside the class, leaning on the wall, when Mr. Arthur, our principal was on round. This was one of the mandatory things that the educational board had decided on. There were many cases of students being abused or teachers not teaching students, and doing whatever they want. So it was made mandatory for someone to monitor all this. And that someone was to be appointed by the education board of each state. Since the education board of the country cannot appoint everyone alone. So they were appointed by those members of the education board.

And the most important thing was that, Mr Arnold and I, know each other. He is my neighbour, and he is the one who takes me to school and leave me home, after school. And he also is a close friend of both mine and Christys parents. So technically we used to call him uncle, when not in school. When he saw me standing outside the class, he asked me, ”Darren, whats wrong? Why are you standing outside the class? ” Seeing his worried tone, I felt guilty. This guy trusted me. What would happen if he were to know that I had cursed in front of the entire class and even had argued with the teacher?

So I remained silent, looking down on the ground. Seeing me like this, Arnold took a deep breath and said, ”If you don want to say it, so be it. ” I sighed in relief. Thankfully he had given up on this topic., I thought. But my thoughts were obviously wrong, because he instead entered the class directly. Unknown to him, the maths teacher immediately scolded, ”Mr Porter, I asked you to leave the class. Now there is no point to apologise to me. ”

But he did not know that it wasn me, it was the principal standing at the door, and he was the one who had opened the door, not me. Arnold raised his eyebrows and looked around the class. Everyone stood up, greeting him. Thats when our maths teacher realised that it wasn me, who was at the door. But it was our principal, Mr Arnold. He looked at the students at the first bench with an angry face, which would have screamed, ”Why didn you tell me it was our principal? ”, if the principal weren present here. Because if he did, it would cause the principal to think, he was a bad guy, who always scolds his students for his own mistakes.

The maths teacher immediately walked down the small podium and bowed to the principal and said in a flattering tone, ”Mr Arnold. Its a pleasure to meet you. ” From outside the door, I saw his smile. It was so stretched that it made his entire face look weird and I even felt like I might puke if I continue watching his face. So I instead turned around, not daring to face him again.

Arnold simply looked at the maths teacher and asked with a frown, ”Max, why is Darren standing outside the class while you are teaching here? ” Maxs face scrunched in disgust and he replied, ”Mr Arnold, he is a stupid child. He doesn pay attention in the class and always disturbs the class. Even today, he cursed and even dared to scold me back… ” With every word he spoke, Arnolds face became solemn, as if he was going to frown. Before Max could speak anything more, Christy interrupted and said, ”Uncle.. Sorry Principal sir, he is lying. Darren disturbs no one in the class. ”

Then she looked down and whispered, ”Today it was my fault. I placed a toy spider on his hand, while he was busy.. ” Even though she was whispering, the class was entirely silent, so her voice was heard clearly. Even I heard it, and I couldn help but look at her. When our eyes met, I shook my head, showing her not to tell about that. But she just smiled bitterly and continued, ”Because of that, he cursed. You know how he is always afraid of spiders, ever since he was small. ”

Thats when Max shouted angrily, ”Ms. Palmer, you are lying. You are already a student who is good in mathematics. Why do you have to sit with a dumb fellow like that, Darren? Instead, sit with John here. He is smart and you can take his help to learn, instead of spending time with a fool. ” His words had just escaped his mouth, that he received glare from many people. Although I was an otaku, but I had a good relationship with most of the students in the class. One of them stood up and said, ”Principal Arnold, it was because Mr. Max spoke about Darrens parents, that he argued with him. Although Darren is not the best in studying, he always helps others who always used to fail before. Most of those students have passed now, thanks to Darren. ” I peeked inside to see the face of the person who spoke about me.

It was Carol Red. She was the flower of our school, who was pursued by many students, even the higher and lower classes. She was the most perfect school girl with blonde hair, and a sweet smile.

Obviously, she was beyond my reach because of her rich family. But I still maintained a friendly relation with her. She had been friends with me and Christy for almost four years. We first came across each other, when Christy was being bullied. This small girl came out of nowhere and punched all those bullies. When I heard Christy was bullied, I reached there to take care of those bullies. Only to find they were already beaten. When I went up to Christy, I was punched straight in my face.

Thankfully, there was Christy who cleared her doubts that I was her friend, not a bully. Carol apologised to me and since then our friendship deepened.