High Point University

After another game of Mario Kart on hard mode with all the courses mirrored, neither Carter, nor Kayla, nor Rek had managed to steal the top spots, so Carter decided to put the gaming on pause. He tossed his controller onto the table and looked from Kayla to Rek.

Rek was here a little reluctantly, which arguably made him more interesting.

"So, Rek, what year are you?" Carter said, starting the Smalltalk. "Kayla's a junior, and I'm a senior."



"Good. I also like all the food," Bo said with a grin. "Well, all the well-made food. Culinary arts degree, btdubs, if you haven't done the math. Which I wouldn't blame you, because I suck at math."

The eggs were cooking at a steady pace, but would probably be done soon. Bo kept mixing them periodically.

"Oh, uh, I'm a sophomore." Rek flashed a quick smile. Jerica always did this. Drag him to a party then vanish. If this party went like the last one she'd dragged him to, he wouldn't see her again until he started hearing chanting -- then he'd find her in the middle of an absurdly-long kegstand. "Music performance. What about you?"



"I also suck at math," Jerica laughed. "And at cooking. But it's really cool that you like it. What's your favorite thing to cook?"

She turned to the fridge and pulled out a beer, waving it at Bo before he had a chance to respond. "Mm?"

"No I promise, it's a good one!" Morri shoved the book in Lordy's hands, "It's about a rebel who manages to steal the throne from an evil monarchy!"

"The Wonderland Rift," Lordy sighed and flipped the book open, "And the main character is- King Kingsley? I guess we can tell the author wasn't the most creative person in the room."

'Nevermind that, the story is wonderful. I just can't believe they never finished the sequel."

Lordy continued flipping through the pages as Morri searched for more books, even though he was already struggling to carry the ones he had.

"We should find a place to sit." Lordy said.

"Oh! We should!" Morri stopped searching for a second to look up at Lordy, "I need to, uh, get organized."

Lordy looked up from his book and scanned the room. All the way in the back corner of a room, he spotted a familiar face. It was one of his students from class earlier this morning. James?

"Okay Morri, follow my lead."

Spoiler

Lordy swiftly made his way to the table and pretended he was too focused on his book to notice anything. He gracefully slid into the chair opposite of James and kicked his leg in the air before he gently folded it, resting his ankle on his knee.

Morri, much more sane, sat down next to him and began sorting through the pile of books he had gathered.

"Oh, no thanks," Bo said. "I don't put beer in my eggs."

It was a joke, obviously, but he said it deadpan. Deadpan. Cause eggs in a pan. Yes, he was a genius.

"And I think my favorite thing to make so far would be bread. I don't know, I finally figured out sourdough last year and I'm obsessed. I just have to keep making the perfect roll..."

All the while he was talking, he was finishing up the eggs, taking them off the heat and moving the hashbrows-in-progress over to that burner.



"Poli-sci, then law school," Carter said casually. "So what do you play, then? Or do you sing or something."



James had been reading for maybe fifteen minutes, and things were fine and quiet, and he could finally be at peace.

Then Professor Lordy and Professor Morrigan (of all people) came down to his table, out of the many desks across the library that were open, and sat down.

Morrigan at least was acting normal. He had a bunch of books he put on the table and he started sorting through them. But James had no idea what on earth Lordshire wanted. They were pretending to ignore him, so he decided to do the same.

It was a library, after all, not a social club. He kept an eye on Lordshire in the corner of his eyes but kept on reading. He wasn't going to let them mess with him if that was what they were trying to do.

"Ah, that must be what I'm doing wrong when I make eggs," Jerica said playfully, twisting off the cap of her beer and taking a long drink. She hauled herself on top of the one relatively clean counter and let her legs dangle over the side. "Have you ever made a lava cake? Those are the shit."


"Oh, that's cool! Do you know what type of lawyer you want to be, yet?" Rek asked, offering a smile.

Carter really hadn't struck him as that kind of person, but he guessed it made sense. Kind of. Carter more seemed like he'd be the kind of person that majored in the easiest topic imaginable, then went back and worked at his daddy's company. Props to him for pursuing a tough career.

"And, uh, I like most instruments." He shrugged. It always felt so awkward to talk about himself. It'd be really embarrassing if he accidentally convinced someone that he was better than he actually was and then they found out. He would never understand how Jerica ran her mouth so freely -- and was glad that she wasn't in the room just then. She always got so aggressive about shouting what a good musician he was. "I'm a dual instrument major, so my focus is piano and violin. But I also like percussion. And I'm okay at guitar."

Carter decided to gloss over the question about him for the moment and keep the questions on Rek. Besides, he'd moved on already. Carter nodded, listening.

"That's a lot of instruments," he said, sounding impressed.

"I play piano too!" Kayla piped up. "But mostly just because my mom forced me to take lessons when I was a kid. But I still know Moonlight Sonata by heart."

Carter nodded. "I'll have to get a keyboard so you can play it when you come over - 's long as you don't make us sick of Moonlight Sonata." He then turned back to Rek.

"Which instrument was your first, then?"



"I must admit," Bo said. "I've only made lava cake once, and it was a total flop because I was under a time crunch and super stressed. It tasted great, but the presentation was terrible. I got a passing grade because of the taste, but now any time I think of making a lava cake I have mid-term stress flashbacks."

"Quite a nice day outside," Lordy said to no one in particular, keeping his book in front of his face, "Wonder if there's anything to do besides sit in the library and read."

No one said anything.

"Feels like the sun is growing weary of us ignoring it... slowly fading away."

Someone coughed from across the room.

"Be a shame if we accidentally trashed the libra-"

"Lordy the boy is trying to study." Morri interrupted.

"The bo-" Lordy lowered his book and dramatically searched around the room until his eyes landed on James, who he pretended to only just notice, "Oh! I know you! You were in my class earlier today. James, right? What a coincidence! I hope I'm not disturbing you or anything."

Rek smiled at Kayla's enthusiasm. It was nice when people enjoyed playing music. Not because they wanted to be the best of the best, or even just better than the people they knew -- but because they genuinely, thoroughly, enjoyed getting to participate in creating beauty. "I'd love to hear you play it sometime, Kayla."

He ran his hand through his hair, trying to remember. His childhood always seemed so fuzzy when he tried to think about it. All he knew for certain is that he'd been playing any instrument he could get his hands on since he was as young as he could manage it.

"I don't really remember, honestly." He flashed a quick grin. "But I'm best at the violin, so that was likely my first. But I've also played piano for quite a long time. Do you play any instruments?"


"Oh noooo." That was such a tragic story. "I'll have to make you lava cake sometime, to get you a better association with it. It's the food of the gods -- that's so sad that it's got midterm trauma with it for you."

Jerica felt herself flush a bit, staring down at the beer in her hands, and wondering what in the world kept making her say so many stupid things around Bo. The boy was built like a mountain -- he could probably pick her up and toss her straight over the top of the gym if he wanted to, with one hand. There was no universe in which she out-lifted him.

And now, here she was, offering to cook for him. When she knew fully well that she couldn't cook to save her life. Her lava cakes came out okay, but she could never get them out of the pan without them going splat into a bowl. She always just dumped some ice cream on top and called it good.

Sure, Jer, let's trash talk the giant and then offer to cook for the culinary major, real smooth there. Real smooth.

"Uhh, I mean, someone -- not me-- should make it for you," she backtracked. "And also make it for me. It's so amazing."

She was making this worse. She tipped her beer back to steel her courage a bit more, wondering if she was ever going to say a single intelligent thing around Bo.

"Are you looking forward to making anything in any of your classes this semester?"

In retrospect, going to the bathroom before he left his room might have been a good idea. Daniel hadn't expected to spend so long in there - or even at all - but his stomach apparently wasn't all that fond of his lunch and breakfast. His sense of time was as terrible as it always was; he didn't have the slightest idea how long he was in the bathroom. It felt like it could have even been as long as a day and a half, but it was realistically probably just ten minutes.

By the time he had emerged from the bathroom, the layout of the party had changed. Different conversations were going on. He had tried listening to them in the bathroom, just so he wasn't too out of the loop, but the bathroom exhaust fan was louder (and more distracting) than usual.

Even though he had only just finished emptying his stomach out, Daniel was starving. He made a beeline for the kitchen - and for the muffins that Bo had made. His next plan of action was to talk to Elias to make up for suddenly rushing off to the bathroom, but muffins came first.

"Can I take one of these?" he asked, interrupting Bo and Jerica. What Daniel was really craving was some meat, but he had tragically left his bag of beef jerky in his room.


Benji had gotten distracted.

It had started when he left the dorm. There had been a large group of other res students coming back from lectures; he had taken the back door to avoid them all. Then he ran into more students when he turned around the building.

Before he knew, he was taking the long way around campus. It didn't help that he kept seeing things that caught his eye. There was a butterfly flying near a garden along one of the less traveled sidewalks. The few students walking by were completely ignoring it. The pull was impossible to ignore. He stayed by the gardens, watching the butterfly until it flew away to another corner of campus with a methodical, comforting flap of its wings.

Fifteen minutes after the time he should have originally arrived at the library, Benji finally entered. It took some time to find a quiet spot, but there was less and less people the further he went into the library. When he spotted what looked like the very tip of a table around the corner, he was sure that he had found just the right place to sit.

But then he saw that it was occupied.

By people he knew.

Benji got a pit in his stomach.

Dr. Lordshire was there, as well as James. James had already seen him working on an article for The Skeptic, but...

Too shocked - and worried - by this turn of events, Benji froze by one of the bookcases surrounding the little area.

Thing he was looking forward to making?

Bo looked over at Jerica.

"Two words. Su. Shi."

That was about as far as he got into that explanation when Daniel popped into the kitchen.

"Oh, sure, man, take as many as you want. I'm gonna be in here for a while," he said, then looked back to Jerica.

"I've tried making sushi in the past but I was broke and 18 and it was very mediocre. I'm excited to actually know what I'm doing and make it look really nice."



Carter laughed. "Oh, me? I learned guitar as a kid, but it was definitely just because my parents wanted to force me to be disciplined with something. Not that I had a problem with that, they were just overkill. But whatever, I can play still, I'm just hella rusty. I haven't even touched a guitar in I don't know, a year or something."



So. Lordshire was... insane? Trashing the library? Was he... sober? James had no idea what either Morrigan or Lordshire wanted. Morrigan, at least, was being respectful. But Lordshire seemed like he wanted something. Idle entertainment pestering a student?

James looked up from his book and looked between the professors with a sigh, and he caught sight of Benji, sticking his head from behind the corner of a bookshelf, watching them like he was frozen in awkwardness.

James made the briefest second's worth of eye contact, widening his eyes and pointing them away as a warning. Benji probably didn't want to get dragged into whatever weirdness Lordshire was about to cause.

Then he looked to Lordshire, deciding to be polite even if Lordshire was being weird.

"Yeah, it's James," he said with a small nod, keeping his voice low, since they were still in a library. "From your class this morning. I was just doing some reading for another class of mine."

He glanced at Morrigan, then looked back down at his book. He didn't know how long Lordshire was going to drag this out but he had a feeling there wasn't any way he was going to get back to reading any time soon unless he just got up and walked away -- and he didn't know what kind of impression that would leave on either of them.

Elias had greeted the dude at the door, but he bee-lined towards the bathroom like he had to poop his pants. Maybe he did. Elias didn't know.

Anyways, he had nothing to do, so he sent some random texts to people. Mostly to James who actually texted him back, and also Mel to figure out when they were coming. Soon, soon.

The random dude who went to the bathroom then came back to grab a muffin.

"Feel free!" he said for Bo who was busy talking to the Jerica girl. But then he stared at him real hard, trying to study his face. "Hey, you look familiar," he said. "Are you in my class? Chicken class?"

Right on cue, Nugget pecked his feet, and Elias bent down to pick her up.

"Ah yes, I admire your drive to excel in your academics," Lordy said, his full attention now on James, "It's rare to see someone so willing to dedicate their free time to getting ahead with their classwork."

"And on the first day of classes, no less." Morri chimed in.

Lordy couldn't read James' expression, but he intended to do everything he could to change that for the worse.

"You know, if you ever need a quiet place to study, my office is always free. I'm rarely in there, and no one ever visits me anyway. I can show you right now if you'd like?" Lordy tilted his head and gave James an inviting smile.

James kept his expression collected and calm, but inside, he had absolutely no idea what was going on. It felt odd for a professor (of whom he had never actually spoken to once aside from in the classroom) to approach him out of the blue, on the first day of school, and offer to show him his office of all things.

James decided he wasn't going to read into it, because if he did, he would only get more confused. He wasn't sure what Morrigan's play was in this interaction, but he seemed to be playing along... with whatever this was.

"I appreciate the offer," James said with a small nod of his head. "I might take you up on that later, --" Depending on his roommate situation, or if people kept bugging him at the library of all places -- "but for now I'm going to stay here."

Daniel grabbed one of the muffins and took a (probably too large) bite from it. He wasn't quite sure if he believed in any kind of religion, but this felt like Heaven in a muffin.

"I am," Daniel confirmed - although he was barely coherent thanks to his mouth being full of muffin. He swallowed. "I'm Daniel. We actually met at dinner yesterday."

He glanced down at the chicken, taking a contemplative bite of his muffin.

"Speaking of chickens," Daniel said, "why did you have a chicken in our philosophy class?"


James had noticed Benji.

He wasn't sure if it was because of where he was standing, but Dr. Lordshire hadn't. He saw the warning James gave him and did his best to take advantage of not being seen yet.

Benji turned, heart pounding in his ears.

But then his foot caught on the edge of the bookshelf, and he went stumbling forward. He immediately reached a hand out to grab onto the shelf beside him. To his horror, his fingers struggled to get a grip. Instead, they caught onto one of the books.

There was a thud as said books - and Benji - hit the ground behind the bookshelf.

Morri left the book he was flipping through to go and help the student that had just taken an unfortunate fall, "Are you alright?"

Lordy, on the other hand, was holding back a chuckle, "Benji my boy! Is that you?"

Shhhh! a muffled shush came from somewhere across the room.

"~sSsHhH~" Lordy mocked.

After making sure Benji was alright, Morri began to organize the books that had fallen, "Don't you worry about the mess. I'll take care of it for you."

"A class act if there ever was one, Morri," Lordy peeked over at Benji, "This is perfect! You can both come up to my office! I actually have a favor to ask."

"Lordy, you better remember that no favor goes unreturned." Morri continued organizing the mess of books while putting some to the side for himself.

"Of course! I wouldn't dare ask a favor from my students without making them... hm, let's see," Lordy turned back to James, "Exempt from my first few class assignments maybe?"