First: Square and circle, square, circle, triangles three times, X.
Second: Square, triangle, square, circle two times, X three times.
Third: Circle, X, square and triangle five times.
Effectiveness: 1. 80%, 2. 90%, 3. 85%
The pen fell from my quivering left hand after the fifty-second combination of fastest moves to eliminate your enemy was written onto the last line of the current page. Only when I flipped the page I discovered the end of my notebook. This wouldn't have been a problem, if I could have gotten my hands on a new one immediately, but under the given circumstances of our caretaker's absence regarding an important meeting with the founder of this institution and my recently received warning, I was in no position to do so. In order for students to get access to new school material their caretaker must approve that the notebook was used for something productive. In addition, if you had gotten a warning before, you cannot ask for anything in the following two weeks. They only decided on the latter rule about a year ago, when the next generation came to be after the former one dissolved by many of the orphans being old enough to leave or having simply failed the means of this school. Rumour has it the reason for the warning would often have been staying up beyond the times we were supposed to go to bed. Nowadays it didn't happen all too often, thanks to the new compact sleeping pill every insomniac got. Only possibility for many kids was "crime". The Wammy's House, whose inhabitants are only the best geniuses from around the globe, still developed their system with each generation. This was the 4th one already.
A sigh fell from my dry lips as I put the portable game console back into the drawer right next to my bed. To my left stood the neatly done bed of my roommate, who was introduced to the orphanage only a few months ago, yet still became one of the most important people with time. Said roommate's name was Mello. It may sound unrealistic, but around here we weren't supposed to use our real names no matter what. This had a reason, but I couldn't bother with thinking about it at that moment so my thoughts wandered back to the blonde sitting at his wooden desk on the right side of the room. Blond, blue-eyed, lean – probably a lot of girls' dream guy. Except for the little fact that there were barely any girls anymore, due to the high expectations our founder, Quillish Wammy, confronts us with. Linda, the last female genius had to leave soon after entering, because she turned out to be out of the spectrum this school wanted to focus on and couldn't keep up with the stress geniuses like us had to deal with daily. Unlike Mello, who achieved his spot as the second best – and therefore pushing me back to the third best – in only 3 months and that was more than astounding for a newcomer.
We tried to improve every day, through unspeakable amount of homework and extra work, which would eventually pay off. So Mello sat at his desk, writing away with the exercise he came up with to train his brilliant mind further and I decided to leave him to his work. Meanwhile I only relaxed on my bed and glanced out of the window. The sunset had long passed and the night sky showed itself in all its beauty. At night we would see the same setting as we lay in our beds opposite of each other: The moon shining into our room when it was pitch black inside and the stars keeping him company.
Mello put down the pen and I laid my eyes upon him. He was done apparently and packed up his utensils into his book bag, without a single word. The guy needed his space and time; I would be in no position to take that from him, not even as his best friend. It's been around nine months since I've met this genius in front of me, when our caretaker Roger had introduced him to me as my new roommate. This was quite curious considering that I had gotten a room for myself because of my insomnia and the danger of "socializing" too much if I were to have a person living in the same room as me. I knew I could be quite hyperactive sometimes, but by no means would I have gotten "too social" with someone. One day I passed two nurses talking about Mello and they said that he seemed to be too passionate about things he should not be. At the beginning I didn't understand what they had been referencing too, but it took me no longer than 3 weeks to notice that Mello, despite being a calm and reasonable person on the outside, is an emotionally unstable person like no one else in this whole orphanage. As his best friend it was expected of me to be able to tell certain things about him, but I still felt like there was so much more to explore about this fifteen year old guy. Things, which were beyond my current reach.
"Matt?" he said in a low tone as he pulled the waistband of his sweatpants a little higher up and seated himself on his bed. Looking back at him in response, I straightened my posture and held my knees to my chest. Imitating my actions, he continued to speak. "Do you think Roger will be back soon?" I didn't believe so. "He probably won't make it, Mello. Why do you ask?"
In a hushed whisper, with his dim light of the desk lamp putting us into a mysterious atmosphere, he suggested something no orphan dared to suggest in the last 10 months. "Would you like to stay up with me?"
It was quite wondrous why I didn't hesitate one second and replied with a soft, excited "Yes."
Only later I would truly understand why this was the most important "Yes" of my life.