Chapter One – Not Enough Time
Birds were chirruping outside, the rays of sunlight falling into the eyes of a sleeping Veronica.
"Wake up!"
With a sudden jerk, Veronica opened her eyes, grinning sleepily at her best friend, Nox.
"What time is it?"
"Time to go home, you sleepyhead! Why can't you sleep like a normal person at night for once?" Nox complained, concerned by her friend's tired pallor.
"Hehe, it is what it is. Sorry, you know nighttime is the only free time I get," Veronica said as she picked up her bag and started walking toward home.
"I swear to God, your parents need to chill. What's the point of so many classes when you can't even breathe?"
Veronica shrugged. "It's… complex. They think studying is everything. They just don't want me to suffer like they did."
"No, that's just selfish of them."
Veronica smiled. "Okay, okay, now go! I'm getting late. Byeee, see ya later!"
As she walked home, Veronica thought to herself, It's not like they'll listen to me anyway. It's better to just do what they want and make them happy.
As soon as she entered her house, she called out, "Mom, I'm home!"
There was no reply. Looks like Mom's out, she thought. She headed to the kitchen to see if anything had been cooked. Nothing.
"I'm too tired to cook. Damn, leave it," she murmured and headed to her room to finish her homework.
Just as she was getting into it, her phone buzzed.
Huh? Why would he text me?
She was surprised to see a message from Vance — a classmate she'd barely interacted with. They'd worked on a group project together last year, and earlier today, since most students were absent due to upcoming exams, they'd talked a bit and even had lunch together with a few friends. But still, this was unexpected.
He'd sent a picture.
Intrigued, she opened it and burst out laughing. It was a screenshot of his screen time: 17-hour average, and below it, a line read: Time screen was closed — 0 hours.
Laughing at the absurdity, she texted, "I'm more concerned about the 'zero hours no screen time' lol."
He replied almost instantly: "You know I'm a programmer. It's quite natural for me to be online all the time."
She texted back, "Ohh, is that why I see you online even at 4 in the morning? You look like someone dragged a decade-awake vampire to school, huh?"
"Well, can't deny it. But do I really look like that?"
Veronica grinned. They ended up chatting about random things for an hour. Time flew by, and suddenly she realized it was time for her classes.
"Shit! Bye, talk to you later — gotta go!"
She rushed off to her daily classes — not that she needed them, but her parents insisted. It was overwhelming: six hours of school, then four more hours of coaching.
It's a bit too much for me, she thought, but went with it anyway.
As soon as she left class and turned on her phone, her face lit up with a notification.
4+ messages from Vance.
Veronica six months later thought"
If someone had told me that day, that this boy — the one with 17 hours of screen time — would be the one to both save me and destroy me...I would've laughed.But fate doesn't ask. It just takes."