“Dude, rewind! Rewind! Right there!” one student shrieked, practically bouncing off the walls with adrenaline, jabbing his friend’s arm so hard the friend nearly unched his pte of aloo puri across the table. His eyes were practically ser-focused on the phone screen, like he was witnessing the second coming of Michael Jordan in glorious pixeted form.

  “Bro, chill, chill! My arm is going numb!” his friend groaned good-naturedly, rubbing his assaulted limb, but his own eyes were just as glued to the phone, hypnotized by the repy. “Dude, I’ve watched it like, twenty times already, I swear! He just… yoinked it out of the air! Like it was a freaking fly buzzing around his head! Like it was nothing!”

  He punctuated "nothing" with a dramatic air-grab, narrowly missing a passing tray of samosas. “It’s… it’s defying physics, man! Straight up defying physics!”

  “Seriously, man,” the first student continued, voice still buzzing like a live wire, “it’s like he’s got magnets in his hands or something! Or maybe he’s secretly a Jedi? Using the Force to snatch basketballs? Has anyone checked if he can move stuff with his mind?” He squinted thoughtfully, like he was genuinely considering the possibility of James being a secret Force user.

  “Jedi? Dude, that’s so st century,” the friend scoffed, but a wide grin was pstered across his face. “It’s all about the basketball superpowers now. Speaking of superpowers…” He paused for dramatic effect, pointing a trembling finger at the screen. “The threes! Take me to the threes! Rewind to the three-pointers from downtown Dhaka!”

  Another student leaned in, eyes wide. “And the no-look pass! Don’t forget the no-look pass! That was straight up witchcraft!”

  “Fair?” a third voice scoffed, cutting through the excited babble, dripping with a healthy, almost obnoxious dose of Banani High pride.

  “Who cares about fair? Fair is for participation trophies. We won! We freaking beat Motijheel! On their own court! And who do we have to thank for that miracle, huh?”

  He puffed out his chest, acting like he personally trained James in the mystical arts of basketball domination. “Him!”

  He jabbed a thumb, with exaggerated emphasis, towards a quieter corner of the cafeteria, nodding like a woodpecker on speed. Over there, amidst the swirling chaos, James was sitting retively calmly with Kiyoshi, Ahsan, and a few other basketball team guys. They were deep in conversation, heads bent together, probably dissecting game strategy, maybe pnning their victory celebration, or you know, just talking about normal team stuff like pizza toppings.

  James himself looked remarkably unfazed, almost serene. Dude was just calmly eating his daal bhaat, like the entire internet wasn't currently combusting over his basketball skills, like he hadn't just become the hottest topic in Bangdesh. He was radiating an aura of complete, Zen-like obliviousness.

  Even outside the cafeteria, the James-mania was inescapable. In the cssrooms, during those precious few minutes of break between lessons, the whispers, now louder and bolder, continued to swirl. Teachers, bless their increasingly stressed-out hearts, were making valiant, but ultimately futile, attempts to regain some sembnce of order, trying to unch into lectures about the Pythagorean theorem or the Mughal Empire.