But it didn't stop at Dhaka, oh no, this thing was a runaway train. It hopped onto national basketball forums, those dusty corners of the internet where hardcore fans debated zone defense and free throw percentages until 3 AM. Then, bam, Facebook groups dedicated to South Asian sports picked it up, shared it, dissected it, and memed it into oblivion.

  And then? The unthinkable happened. It breached the normie wall. It jumped from niche sports circles into the mainstream. It spilled over into general news feeds, onto Twitter timelines, even into your grandpa’s forwarded emails (probably with the subject line "FWD: YOU WON'T BELIEVE THIS BASKETBALL"). Your aunt in Sylhet was probably seeing it. Grandma in Chittagong was probably getting forwarded links with fire emojis.

  Suddenly, everyone, and I mean everyone in Bangdesh with an internet connection, was talking about the Banani High vs. Motijheel High game. And let's be real, nobody was debating the finer points of Motijheel's offensive strategy. They weren't analyzing Banani's defensive rotations. Nope. They were talking about him. James. The name was suddenly everywhere. Trending on Twitter. Exploding in comment sections. Becoming a hashtag.

  James. The legend was born, pixel by pixel.

  This confident dude, right? The sports newcomer who seemed more at home in the Judo club than on a basketball court, the guy who was just dipping his toes into “taste of sports” like it was some kind of exotic ice cream fvor? Yeah, that guy. He was now Patient Zero of a full-blown internet pandemic. He was smack-dab in the eye of a social media hurricane, caught in a whirlwind of online and offline chatter like he’d accidentally become a meme and couldn't escape. It was like he’d tripped and fallen directly into the center of the internet’s attention vortex.

  His name? Trending. Like, capital T, trending. Nationally trending. His face? Blurry, pixeted, often obscured by motion blur in that low-quality video, yeah, but somehow, impossibly, still recognizable. It was becoming a thing. People were pausing the video, screenshotting frames, zooming in on his face like they were trying to decipher ancient hieroglyphics.

  His impossible moves? Repyed, analyzed, dissected frame by frame like the Zapruder film of basketball. People were making GIFs, reaction videos, highlight reels set to trap music, the whole internet starter pack. The internet was obsessed, completely and utterly. James-mania had officially arrived.

  Back at Banani High, lunchtime in the cafeteria was usually just a cacophony of cttering trays, booming ughter, and the general teenage static noise. But today? It was dialed up to eleven. The usual din was still there, sure, but now it was overid with a yer of pure, unadulterated James-excitement. It was punctuated by excited shouts, fervent debates, and the constant ping-ping-ping of notification alerts as everyone refreshed their feeds for the test James updates.

  Students were huddled in tight circles around phones in every corner, eyes glued to the screens, thumbs furiously scrolling, liking, commenting, and sharing. They were re-watching those video clips, again and again and again, their voices rising in pitch with each impossible shot that swish-ed through the net. It was basketball mania, James-edition, and Banani High was ground zero. The cafeteria air practically vibrated with the collective energy.