I used to think rebirth was my big ticket out of responsibility. I figured I'd spend my days taming dragons or brooding on a throne made of my enemies' bad decisions. Instead, I'm sitting at a wooden desk that's definitely too small for my ego, staring at a chalkboard that looks like a crime scene of geometry.
Turns out, no matter what dimension you're in, someone is always going to try and make you solve for x.
"Merlin? Are you with us?" Professor Halloway asked, his voice sounding like sandpaper on a hangover.
"Physically? Yes. Spiritually? I'm currently on a beach in a world where homework is punishable by exile," I replied, giving him my best 'I'm the protagonist' smirk.
The class snickered. Halloway didn't. He pointed a chalky finger toward the window. "Focus. Or you'll be the first student to experience a personal Skyfall from the third-story balcony."
I looked out the window. The sky was a ridiculous shade of Gold, this world really overdoes it with the aesthetics, but the view didn't make the Pythagorean theorem any better. I looked at the guy sitting next to me, some noble kid named Cento who looked like he'd been carved out of premium tofu.
"Hey, Ben," I whispered. "Does the 'Magic' in this world cover 'Common Sense'? Because I feel like we're missing a unit on that."
"Quiet, Merlin," Ben hissed, staring intensely at his parchment. "The walls have ears."
"And the floor has feet, and the ceiling has eyes. We get it, the architecture is judgmental," I rolled my eyes. "But seriously, I died for this? I went through the cosmic tunnel of light just to get a C-minus in 'Intro to Alchemical Balances'?"
I slumped in my seat. Reincarnation is a scam. They show you the flashy trailers, the destiny, the swords, the epic capes, but they skip the part where you still have to pay for lunch and remember which way the sun rises.
"I'm a legendary hero in the making," I muttered to myself, doodling a stick figure kicking a textbook. "I should be out there fulfilling a prophecy, not wondering if I can bribe a gargoyle to take my midterms."
*BELL RINGS*
'Onto my next class' I said in my mind.
As the class about to start the teacher said "Today we will have a sitting arrangement, make sure you sit on the chosen seat number you pick on this box,"
The line for seat selection felt longer than my previous life expectancy. One by one, students reached into the box, pulled out a slip of paper, and shuffled off to their fates.
Finally, it was my turn. I reached in, my fingers brushing against the cold parchment of destiny. I pulled it out.
Seat 42.
I looked at the grid on the chalkboard. My heart skipped a beat, but not in the "I found my soulmate" way. More in the "I'm about to have a heart attack" way.
Seat 42 was in the back. Far left. Right against the window.
I stared at it. The sunlight hit the wooden desk in a way that looked suspiciously cinematic. A stray breeze ruffled the curtains nearby, even though the windows were closed. It was the Sacred Seat. The "I-don't-pay-attention-because-I'm-busy-having-flashbacks" chair. The throne of every over-powered, brooding reincarnated teenager in history.
before I walk toward to the seat, I realized many protagonist sits there because of course, they're protagonist, that's they sacred sit everytime they get reincarnated. So I did something different.
"Is there a problem, Merlin?" the teacher asked, her eyes narrowing behind her spectacles.
I looked at the seat. Then at the teacher. Then back at the seat. If I sat there, a dragon would probably crash through that window by mid-afternoon. I'd be forced into a training montage. I'd have to develop a 'mysterious' past.
"Ma'am," I said, my voice echoing with the gravity of a man refusing a death sentence. "I must decline this seat."
The room went silent.
"Decline?" the teacher repeated, her voice climbing an octave. "It's a randomized draw, Merlin. You don't 'decline."
"I understand the risks," I said, stepping away from the Window of Main Character Syndrome. "But that seat... it's too powerful. Too much responsibility. I'm a man of the people. I belong in the trenches. I belong... there."
I pointed a trembling finger toward the very first row. The "Blast Zone." The place where you can smell the teacher's morning coffee and get hit by stray chalk dust.
"The front?" she whispered, looking at me like I'd just admitted to eating paste.
"YES THE FRONT." I said.
"Nobody wants the front. You can't even doodle up there without me seeing your lack of talent."
"I accept my fate," I declared, marching toward the front desk with the pride of a fallen king.
I sat down. My knees hit the teacher's desk. I was so close I could see the individual pores on her nose. It was perfect. No one would ever expect the legendary hero to be sitting five inches away from a lecture on Alchemical Ratios. I was invisible in plain sight.
I leaned back, or tried to, before realizing I had no legroom.
Take that, destiny, I thought. Try starting a plot point now when I'm busy staring at the back of the teacher's head.
Also, for your information, I have really bad eyesight. From this distance, the chalkboard actually looks like a chalkboard and not a blurry smudge of white lies.
"Before we begin," The Teacher announced, gesturing toward the door, "we have another transfer student. Try to be welcoming, or at least pretend to be."
Another one? I thought. What is this, a revolving door for the Destined?
A boy stepped in. He had the kind of symmetrical, brooding face that belonged on a book cover. He looked like he hadn't smiled since the dawn of time.
"My name is Cedric Myward," he said, his voice as flat as a pancake. "Nice to meet you."
Before the teacher could even point, I already knew. I felt it in my soul.
He didn't even look around. He walked straight past the empty middle seats, and marched right to the back corner. He sat down in the Window Seat, and stared out at the golden sky with the intensity of a thousand tragic backstories.
There it is, I thought, leaning over my front-row desk. The Backseat. He's me. Or rather, he's the 'Me' I refused to be.
I had successfully pawned off my Main Character status on a guy who looked like he'd enjoy a good prophecy. I was safe. I was a background character. I was...
"Merlin!" the teacher barked, right in my ear. "Since you're so eager to be in the front, why don't you solve this equation for the class?"
Crap. I forgot the front row has its own set of problems.