The Transfer System Between Us

On the first day of high school, Chloe sprang from behind and threw her arms around my neck, hugging me tight.

Suddenly, a flood of red text exploded across my vision

[Oh my god, this is the 387th time. She still doesn't realize her best friend is the problem!]

[Duck! Get away from her! Just one hug and her beauty stat drops another three points. She was such a pretty, fair-skinned girl in middle school, and now she is being drained dry.]

[Exactly. She had straight A's in middle school and then her grades just vanished. I could literally cry for her.]

The text crowded my vision, line after dense line.

My entire body went rigid.

How did they know?

In middle school, I was consistently at the top of my class. Over the last two years of high school, I plummeted straight to the bottom.

My skin had become rough and dull, my brain felt sluggish, and I hated even looking in the mirror.

Everyone whispered the same thing: Maya peaked in middle school. High school ruined her. She just stopped trying.

But I was trying. I never stopped trying.

Chloe rested her chin on my shoulder, pulling me from my thoughts. "Maya, you have to promise to be my best friend this semester too, okay?"

The floating text said it was because I hugged her.

So... what if I got everyone else to touch her instead?

I instinctively bent down, pretending to tie my shoelace, forcing her to let go.

"Whoa." She stumbled slightly. "Why did you randomly crouch down?"

"Shoelace came undone," I muttered, keeping my head down.

The text was still scrolling furiously above me.

[Wait, did she dodge that? Did she figure it out?]

[No way. She has been clueless for two years. She is not going to suddenly have an epiphany.]

My nails dug into my palms.

In that single instant, it felt like a bomb went off in my head. Everything that hadn't made sense over the last two years suddenly snapped into place.

If what this text was saying was true...

I didn't just 'lose my touch'. I was being robbed.

When I stood back up, Chloe grabbed my sleeve and pulled me toward the cafeteria kiosk.

Walking beside her, I stared at her profile. Her skin was practically glowing, porcelain white, and her eyes were huge and brilliant.

In middle school, I used to look exactly like that.

More text drifted past.

[Look at her. Half of Chloe's face was literally stolen from Maya.]

[Right?! Chloe used to have yellowish, uneven skin. Suddenly she is Snow White? Who actually buys that?]

We reached the kiosk. Chloe bought a strawberry yogurt, pierced the foil with a straw, and pushed it right to my lips.

"Take a sip. It's your favorite."

The text went absolutely ballistic.

[Do not drink it! Sharing a straw counts as intimate contact!]

[Indirect mouth-to-mouth transfers stats just the same! Dodge it, quick!]

I took a half-step back and waved my hand. "I am not thirsty."

Chloe froze. A flash of something unrecognizable darted through her bright, pretty eyes.

"What is wrong with you today?" She pushed the straw closer. "Just one sip."

"My throat is sore. The doctor said no cold drinks."

She stared at me for two solid seconds before her bright smile returned. "Okay, fine. Next time I will get you a hot cocoa."

I nodded.

Right now, the only thing I could do was play dumb.

I had to act like I was still the slow, ugly, clueless Maya.

I mentally etched every single phrase the text had revealed into a draft paper tucked in my mind.

387th time.

Beauty dropped by three.

Intimate contact.

Indirect counts too.

I stared at the words I wrote on the corner of my notebook during class.

If this was how my life had been slowly siphoned away over the past two years

Then what I lost wasn't just good grades and clear skin.

It was two entire years of my life.

I folded the paper tight and shoved it into the deepest zipper of my pencil case.

Watching Chloe's back from a few desks away, a crystal-clear thought formed in my mind.

I had to figure out exactly how the mechanics of this theft worked.

The text seemed to hear my thoughts. A final line floated past.

[Ooh, look at those eyes. That is a dangerous look.]

[Is Maya... finally going to do something about this?]

I didn't know exactly what I was going to do yet.

But I knew one thing for certain: starting today, everything changes.

To play my part convincingly, I had to sift through the last two years of my life, frame by frame.

I lay on my bed, staring at the ceiling.

Who was I in middle school?

A regular in the top ten of the entire grade.

I had skin so pale and flawless the kids nicknamed me 'Vanilla Bean'.

I could run the 800-meter dash and place in the top three. I could memorize vocabulary lists just by glancing at them.

Back then, my mom bragged to anyone who would listen that I was a natural-born scholar.

But then came the first midterms of freshman year in high school. I dropped from the elite tier straight to dead average.

My mom's first reaction was to scream at me. "Are you dating someone?! Are you playing on your phone all night?!"

I told her I wasn't.

She didn't believe me.

By sophomore year, my grades had stabilized at the absolute bottom of the class.

The girl in the mirror became a stranger. My skin turned sallow and broke out in cystic acne. My eyes lost their spark, and my face bloated.

During P.E., I couldn't even run half a lap without gasping for air.

My homeroom teacher pulled me aside for a serious talk. "Maya, you had such a phenomenal foundation in middle school. Why are you regressing? Have you gotten lazy?"

The school nurse prescribed me multivitamins, claiming it was just normal teenage hormonal imbalance.

Everyone found a convenient excuse for my downfall.

Lazy.

Gluttonous.

Undisciplined.

Puberty.

Not a single person considered that my life was being stolen.

Chloe transferred to our school on the first day of freshman year.

When she arrived, she was utterly average. Middle-of-the-pack grades, plain features.

We sat next to each other, and she clung to me. She was constantly holding my hand, throwing her arm around my shoulders, pressing her cheek against mine for selfies.

Back then, I was thrilled. I thought I had made a best friend for life.

But somewhere along the line, she transformed.

Her skin turned luminous. Her eyes widened.

Her grades skyrocketed with every exam. By the second semester of sophomore year, she was ranked number one in the grade.

The teachers worshipped her. The students idolized her.

That was when the title of 'Genius Beauty Queen' started circulating.

And I? I became the ugly, slow sidekick who hovered in her shadow.

As I lay there remembering, the text popped back up to join the pity party.

[All that light she shines with? It is yours.]

[The most toxic part is, the harder she leeches off you, the nicer she pretends to be.]

No wonder every time I bombed a test, she was the first to comfort me.

"It is okay, Maya. Just study harder next time."

Then, right in front of the whole class, she would generously lend me her perfect study notes.

The teachers would praise her: "Chloe is such a supportive classmate."

The other students would say: "Maya, you must have saved a nation in your past life to get a best friend like her."

I would take her notes, feeling a mix of warmth and deep, crushing guilt.

Looking back, it was a sick, twisted joke.

The memory that hurt the most was from last month.

My mom found a photo of me from middle school and let out a long, heavy sigh.

"Maya, look at how beautiful you used to be." She tapped the photo angrily. "Look at yourself now. Are you not embarrassed?"

I stood in front of the mirror, completely unable to speak.

I cried until the sun came up that night.

I genuinely believed I had ruined my own life.

I believed I wasn't trying hard enough, that I lacked discipline, that I deserved to fail.

Now I understood why the text appeared exactly when I was at my lowest.

Because I was at rock bottom.

If someone hadn't told me the truth, I would have fully accepted the identity of the 'ruined, worthless Maya'.

Since the truth was finally out, I wasn't going to hold back.

I rolled out of bed and pulled the folded paper from my backpack.

Under the desk lamp, I re-read the rules I had noted down.

387th time.

Beauty -3.

Intimate contact. Indirect counts.

I grabbed a pen and added a new line:

She transferred here freshman year. My downfall started exactly then.

To steal it all back, I need to find the fatal flaw in her system.

I folded the paper into an even tinier square and shoved it back into the secret lining of my pencil case.

For the first time, I felt a deep, unwavering certainty. The ugly, slow Maya wasn't the real me.

The real me was just waiting to come back.

To find the system's fatal flaw, I had to rely on the floating text.

It leaked info, complained, and insulted people on my behalf.

If I watched it closely and recorded every anomaly, I could piece the puzzle together.

For the next few weeks, I became extremely 'cooperative' with Chloe.

If she wanted to hold my hand, I gave it to herbut I pulled my sleeve down so the fabric separated our skin.

If she wanted a cheek-to-cheek selfie, I tilted my head so my hair created a barrier between our faces.

If she threw her arm around me, I conveniently shifted my backpack to act as a shield.

Every single time, the text tallied the score.

[Ooh, skin-to-fabric contact. She only lost a fraction of a point. Interesting.]

[Smart! She is secretly minimizing her own damage.]

Now I knew for sure.

The more direct the physical contact, the harsher the theft.

If there was a barrier, the transfer was drastically reduced.

That was the first thread I untangled.

The second clue arrived purely by accident.

During the school sports festival, Chloe signed up for multiple events.

After finishing the 100-meter dash, she was swarmed by a massive crowd of students.

Someone threw an arm around her shoulder, another patted her back, and half a dozen others pushed in to high-five her.

In that exact moment, the text hovering in my vision glitched aggressively.

The words overlapped, flashed violently, and spat out a string of garbled code.

[L... Lagging?]

[Too many people touching her at once! Is the system bottlenecking?]

[Holy crap, the screen is tearing! It is going to crash!]

I stood up straight, my heart hammering in my chest.

When the crowd finally dispersed and Chloe walked out alone, the text slowly stabilized.

I stared at the smooth red letters, my pulse racing.

It couldn't handle crowds.

I immediately wrote it down in my notes.

Multiple simultaneous contacts System lag.

I drew a heavy, dark circle around it.

From that day on, I started testing the theory.

When the photography club took a group picture, twenty or thirty people squished together around Chloe.

The text stuttered, but recovered quickly.

[Not too many people this time. It held up.]

During a surprise birthday party the class threw for her, over twenty people took turns giving her a hug.

The text merely shivered. It didn't break. This proved that simultaneous contact and rapid consecutive contact had the exact same effect on the system's bandwidth.

A number slowly began to take shape in my head.

Twenty or thirty people? It could handle that.

But what if there were more?

What was the absolute limit?

Did it crash the second it hit the ceiling, or did it need a massive overflow to completely break?

The text seemed to read my mind, drifting by at a leisurely pace.

[This girl's observation skills are getting terrifying.]

[Is she... counting the crowd?]

[Shhdo not spoil it. Let her figure it out.]

I ignored them.

I just added one more line to my notes.

It has a hard cap. If the crowd exceeds a specific number, it will crash.

To find that exact number, I had to bide my time.

The perfect opportunity arose during the midterm awards assembly.

Chloe was called to the stage as the top student in the grade.

The crowd went wild, and students rushed the stage, demanding group selfies with her.

A massive mob of about forty students swarmed her at once.

The text began vibrating violently, the words blurring into an illegible, pixelated mess.

I stared at it intensely.

At peak density, I counted roughly forty-five or forty-six people touching her in some capacity.

The text was so distorted it was practically unreadable, but the screen never went completely white.

When the crowd cleared, it slowly stitched itself back together.

I let out a long breath.

Forty-five or forty-six. It could barely endure it.

The breaking point had to be hovering right around fifty.

I scribbled the number down. As I wrote it, my hand was shaking.

I had finally found the door.

All I had to do was get more than fifty people to physically touch Chloe at the exact same time

And the system that had leeched off my life for two years would gorge itself until it exploded.

A final line of text drifted quietly by.

[Maya, you are not stupid at all, are you?]

I smiled.

Now that I knew the fatal flaw, I just needed a completely justifiable, public event where everyone would willingly swarm her.

And most importantly, I could not be anywhere near her when it happened.

If the stolen talents snapped back to me, I needed to be in proximity, but far enough away that she wouldn't immediately suspect me.

I flipped through the school calendar.

The Annual Arts Gala.

It was the most prestigious event of the year.

Awards, performances, bouquets of flowers, absolute chaos on and off the stage.

And Chloe was essentially guaranteed to win this year's 'Campus Star' award.

It was a title voted on by the entire female student body.

Beauty, academics, popularityshe ranked first in all three.

I stared at the date on the calendar, a slow smile spreading across my face.

Over the next two months, I executed three specific tasks.

First, I kept playing the fool.

I was clingier with Chloe than ever before.

If she wanted to hold hands, I held them. If she wanted a hug, I gave it to her.

Except every single time, I sneakily ensured there was a layer of clothing between us, keeping the stolen stats to an absolute minimum.

The text scrolled by, laughing at my sabotage.

Second, I built her hype.

I actively pushed Chloe's campaign for 'Campus Star'.

I praised her in the class group chats and canvassed for votes on the school forums.

"Chloe is beautiful inside and out. She deserves this."

"She is the pride of our class! Everyone vote for her!"

My classmates constantly talked about how fiercely loyal I was to my best friend.

Chloe was so moved she teared up, pulling me into a tight hug. "You understand me better than anyone, Maya."

I hugged her back, making sure my thick winter coat was wedged between us.

The text drifted by: [The higher you build the pedestal, the harder the fall. Fatten the pig before the slaughter.]

Third, and most importantly, I executed the final move.

I tracked down the student council member in charge of the Gala's itinerary.

I pitched an idea.

"For the Campus Star award this year, why don't we add an interactive segment?"

"Let the winner stand center stage, and have the entire grade line up to hand her flowers, give her a hug, or shake her hand."

"We can film it as one massive, continuous panoramic shot. It would be an unforgettable memory for the yearbook."

The council member's eyes lit up. "That is brilliant! It is engaging and super wholesome."

And just like that, the segment was officially added to the schedule.

I stared at the printed itinerary, my heartbeat slow and steady.

Campus Star Interactive Congratulatory Segment Entire Grade Participation.

The entire grade.

That was a hell of a lot more than fifty people.

The night before the Gala, Chloe came to my room.

She was holding a bouquet she had prepared, her eyes sparkling with excitement.

"Maya, if I actually win tomorrow, you are the very first person I am going to hug."

I smiled warmly. "I will be waiting."

She leaned in, arms open to embrace me.

I twisted sideways, letting my backpack take the brunt of the impact, allowing her to graze only the fabric of my sleeve.

The text cheerfully reported a microscopic decimal of a stat loss.

[No biggie, just a drop in the ocean.]

Chloe didn't notice a thing and skipped away happily.

I stood there, watching her bounce down the hallway.

Tomorrow was going to be the absolute peak of her life.

I went back to my desk and opened my notebook.

Hard cap is highly likely 50 people.

Exceeding the cap guarantees a crash.

I took my pen and pressed hard into the paper, writing the final line.

Tomorrow, the entire grade will line up to hug her. We will see exactly which number blows the system to pieces.

I closed the notebook.

The text drifted slowly across my vision.

[Is tomorrow the season finale?]

[I am literally rubbing my hands together in excitement.]

[Good luck, Maya.]

The auditorium was packed on the day of the Gala.

Chloe had applied a flawless, light layer of makeup. Under the stage lights, her skin looked translucent and radiant.

The text mocked her: [Tsk, that entire foundation was robbed straight from the girl sitting in the back row.]

I kept my expression perfectly blank.

The performances cycled through, one after another.

I only cared about one thing: when the award ceremony was going to start.

Finally, the host stepped up to the mic and called her name.

The auditorium erupted in thunderous applause.

Chloe covered her mouth, acting utterly shocked, and gracefully walked up the stairs to the stage.

The spotlight hit her, and she smiled like a blooming flower.

The girls cheered, the boys whistled.

She took the trophy and leaned into the microphone, delivering a perfectly humble, rehearsed speech.

"Thank you all so much... I am just lucky to be surrounded by people who constantly help and support me..."

The text fired up again.

[People who help you? You mean the host you drained dry?]

[Keep acting, sweetheart. The curtains are about to close.]

I smiled gently at her from the crowd.

The host took the mic back. "And now, for a very special segment this year"

"We invite the entire grade to come up to the stage, present a flower, give our Campus Star a hug, and capture the most beautiful group photo in school history!"

The crowd roared in approval.

The hospitality team, already prepped, took their places on both sides of the stage holding baskets of individual roses.

The student council began directing the traffic, forming a massive, winding line.

The crowd surged forward.

Chloe stood center stage, slightly overwhelmed by the sheer scale of it, but her radiant smile quickly returned.

She probably thought this was her absolute coronation.

The first student walked up, handed her a flower, and hugged her.

A number popped up on my screen.

[1.]

The second, the third.

[2, 3...]

The line stretched longer and longer.

Some handed her flowers, some hugged her, some shook her hand, others slung an arm around her shoulder for a quick selfie.

The text started ticking upward, digit by digit.

[15, 16, 17...]

[Ooh, we are cooking now.]

When it hit the twenties, the font on the text began to vibrate slightly.

I stared unblinking at Chloe on the stage.

She was still smiling, hugging person after person, completely oblivious.

No one in that auditorium knew that every single embrace was dragging my stolen life back to me.

The numbers ticked faster and faster.

[35! Incoming visual glitches!]

[Look at the text! It is getting pixelated!]

The crowd kept pushing forward.

The student council members were shouting into megaphones, "Do not push! Single file! One at a time!"

But the excitement was completely out of control.

Everyone wanted to touch the 'Campus Star' and get some of her good luck.

[42! 43!]

[It is gonna blow! It is actually gonna blow!]

Chloe's smile began to stiffen.

She probably felt something was wronga heavy, suffocating weight, like something anchored deep inside her was violently rattling loose.

She instinctively took a half-step back.

But the center of the stage was mobbed. She was trapped.

[48! 49!]

I shot up from my seat.

The fiftieth student handed her a flower and stepped away.

The entire wall of text in my vision began flashing blinding white, like a television losing its signal.

[50! Max capacity reached!]

[One more and it]

The fifty-first student, grinning ear to ear, threw her arms wide open and tackled Chloe in a massive bear hug.

In that exact fraction of a second.

The entire wall of text shattered with a deafening, silent SNAP and went completely, blindingly white.