“Class, now turn to Chapter 4 page 327. You are given 10 minutes to read this passage. The time starts now.” The Chemistry teacher said as he started his precious antique stopwatch.

“Another 10 minutes wasted”, I mumbled. While other students were all focused reading and trying to understand the passage fully, I couldn’t be bothered. Instead, I was spacing out, doodling and doing unnecessary things like making silly faces to your seatmate in order to distract him. 

“Kris Wu! Stop it, wouldn’t you? Read the passage before the 10 minutes end! I highly doubt that I could even finish reading this passage in 10 minutes time and now you’re not even making the effort to read a sentence?” my seatmate whispered in a frustrated tone. 10 minutes? It felt like a decade to me. It was peculiar that the 10 minutes were sufficient for me to take a nap, compose a song, produce an artistic work and still I managed to finish reading the entire passage which contained more than a thousand words. 

As soon as I completed reading the passage, I slightly lifted my head and veered my gaze towards Mr. 10 minutes. Yes, that was his nickname. Everyone in the school addressed him by the name Mr.10 minutes because all this while, he has been giving students 10 minutes to accomplish a task be it reading a passage or completing a workbook. He and his 10 minutes had changed people’s perception towards him. Through his actions and behaviors, many presumed that he was hostile, dangerous and unapproachable. His birth name is Tao, which basically means path and according to the Chinese, Tao is like a flow that is everywhere. 

My blood ran cold when Mr.10 minutes or Mr.Tao noticed me staring at him. He gave me a peculiar look as though it was so difficult for him to believe that I actually finished reading the passage. I just couldn’t look him in the eyes. His stare was somehow intimidating. In order to avoid his stare, I quickly lowered my head and pretended reading; yet I could feel that his eyes were still upon me. 

In no time, I nudged my seatmate. “Lay..that teacher is giving me creepy stares.” To my dismay, Lay seemed too absorbed in reading the passage that he didn’t hear a word from me. I turned my head and looked around ; all the students were still focusing on the passage apart from myself and my best friend, Chanyeol who was closing his eyes enjoying some good music.

“Chanyeol!” I whispered. He didn’t respond. It was expected. He wouldn’t have heard me due to the loud music blasting into his ears. So I decided to give his chair a good kick. “Bangg.” It left my foot aching and Chanyeol landing on the floor. 

“DUDE ! Problem huh?” Chanyeol raised his voice as he stood there, infuriated. To my surprise, none of our classmates lifted their heads. They seemed so concentrated that they went to another world. The only person who seemed rather startled was Mr.10 minutes. He glared at both of us as though something serious was happening. He then frowned as he looked into his antique stopwatch. 

“Now pick up your chair and sit down. I have something to tell you but you couldn’t hear me so I had to give your chair a kick. I didn’t know that I had such strong legs. Sorry brother.” I said as I giggled. 

Chanyeol gave me an irritated look and said, “What you’ve got to say? You’d better make sure that it’s something important or no I’ll give you a kick in your after class. All thanks to you, Mr. Kris Wu Yi Fan, my aches. Ouchh.” 

I can’t help but laughed soundlessly. 

“Chanyeol, don’t you think that time is passing really slowly? Seriously, these 10 minutes feel like a decade to me. It’s torturing. I’m wondering when will these 10 minutes come to an end. I don’t know about you but I can sense that something is wrong. Look, only 3 minutes has passed!!” I said in a stern voice.

“ Oh god. I only came to a realization when you mentioned about it. Is it us being abnormal? Haha! I gues