Will woke to the kind of fatigue that sat in the bones and refused to be bullied by a loud alarm. For a few seconds he considered the noble option — the heroic, heroic-sounding idea of staying in bed, pulling the sheet up to his chin, pretending the day outside the door was not there. Then some small, persistent part of him — the part that hated lateness and embarrassment in equal measure — convinced him that wandering the hallways was a better plan than facing the busied, dress-up ritual with a face like a Monday.
He pushed his feet out of bed and padded into the corridor with all the slow confidence of someone who'd survived too many late-night pranks to be easily surprised. The resort's guest wings were skeletal in the pre-dawn blue: doors closed like secrets, curtains sketching shadows on the walls. He moved with the awkward silence of a person not fully awake, hands in his pockets, hair a disaster halo around his head. The power was still unreliable; light came in moody slices from the windows and the emergency lamps that hummed like shy insects.
Somewhere deep in the dark he heard the muffled clank of a staff trolley, a faraway toilet flushing, a giggle turned into a cough. The place felt like a stage waiting for the first light to cue the players.
Will lost his way in a few earnest steps. The corridors had a nesting habit — one hallway folded into another with tasteful uniformity, doors pasted to identical spacing. He found himself turning at the same piece of patterned carpet twice before recognizing that the night had rearranged memory into a small labyrinth designed to mock the unobservant. He shrugged and kept moving; getting lost was as close to adventure as he wanted before breakfast.
Then, at a corner where the moonlight pooled like a pale coin, someone moved into his path.
She seemed to appear from the fabric of the shadows, as if the corridor had been waiting to cough up a person who would make everyone forget the layout for a while. Chiji. He knew her name; her presence had a way of making words in the room simpler, like punctuation clarifying sentence.
Will's first honest thought — embarrassingly, like a teenager on the brink of a minor catastrophe — was that she looked impossibly, unfairly lovely. She was in nightwear: a soft, pale nightgown that slid around her silhouette and carried the faint suggestion of lace, not showy but practiced and graceful. It was the kind of thing that implied she'd throw on something pretty when she wanted to feel clean and private, not provocative. The resort's low light licked at the fabric and made it look almost translucent, like something designed to catch moonlight. Her hair was piled atop her head in a loose knot, a few strands escaped and ticked the soft planes of her face. She blinked when she saw him — a full, bright blink that turned silver in the moonlight — and for an instant she looked flustered, very human, very sharply out of place in the deliberate calm she usually wore.
Everything about her was a contrast: the precise lines of her jaw softened by sleep, the usually confident posture loosened into something vulnerable. Even when she was embarrassed — she offered him a small, flustered smile that didn't decline into coyness — she was somehow ethereal rather than messy, the way a poem can be pretty and still honest. He noticed how her eyelids shadowed her lashes, the faint dimple when she put her weight on one foot; his brain, against his better judgment, tried to catalogue these little things like evidence that the world was still orderly.
Their eyes met and held — a fraction too long for his liking and sharp enough to make him feel naked, exposed in his flannel pajamas and rumpled hair. The corridor was suddenly small, the air too close. Will's chest tightened with the tiny panic of someone who'd rehearsed what to say and then found the rehearsal worthless. His mouth opened but yielded only a clumsy apology.
"Sorry. I—" he began, and then realized he had nothing else. No polished line, no script. Only the ridiculous, immediate awareness that he was standing in front of Chiji in his pajamas and probably looking like a character from a bad coming-of-age comic.
She looked at him, heat rising to her cheeks. For a second Will thought the moment might unfold into something graceful: a laugh, a forgiving wiggle of the shoulders, a shared joke that made both of them step back and then move on. That was the version in his head.
Instead, his own mouth betrayed him with a stupid little laugh that had the wrong timing and too much pitch. He heard the sound like it belonged to someone else. Chiji's eyes widened, and in that tiny expansion he saw concern and amusement and... he told himself not to search harder; something like curiosity.
He did the universal coward thing. He panicked.
Will turned and ran.
Not the cinematic dash you see in films; this was an adolescent's bolt of shame — feet scrambling over carpet, the noise of his own breath loud in his ears, the corridor doors becoming a blur of rectangles and metal. In the narrow passageways his shoes squeaked, his socked heels slapped, a wardrobe clattered somewhere as he almost collided with it. He heard Chiji call something — a muffled, surprised call — but he kept going, the reflex to flee from embarrassment stronger than any probe of bravery.
Down two flights of steps, along a side corridor, around a service lift where a man with a trolley glanced up and gave him a look that said he'd seen everything and was not impressed. Will's chest was a drum. His limbs felt like liquid. The early morning had been turned into acceleration and shame.
By chance, through a series of terrible navigational choices, he ended up back by the boys' wing, stumbling in like a man who had been chased by his own nerves. He slammed the door to the dorm behind him with a noise that made three heads twist in slow disbelief.
Timi lay half-asleep on a top bunk, the light from the corridor painting a rectangle across his cheek. Benjamin was curled on a chair with his head thumped back against the wall, breathing the easy, textured breath of someone who was still mostly asleep. Mendel, predictably, had his headphones in and one boot half-off; he looked like a man unconcerned with duty and fully committed to personal comfort, even in a crisis.
Will, heart ticking like a speedometer, had one simple need: to not look like a coward. The reality — that he'd made a fool of himself in front of Chiji — buzzed like a neon sign inside his skull and demanded attention. He pressed both palms to his face, tried to tame his breathing, and then did the only thing his adolescent brain could file under "take action."
He jolted Timi awake.
A sudden yelp and the top bunk was a burst of limbs; Timi's eyes snapped open, sharp and bewildered. "What—?" he said, voice raw with sleep.
Will gestured wildly. "Wake up, wake up! Brooo! I messed up!"
Ben sat forward with that effortless optimism he wore like a favorite jacket. "What in God's name happened?"
Mendel, heels planted, one eyebrow arching like a question mark, fished an earbud out. "If this is about your hair, bro, problem solve. If this is about the world ending, also problem solve."
Will tried to explain all at once, words spilling like marbles. "I—I walked out thinking I'd get some air, then I got lost, then I bumped into Chiji—she was in nightwear—and I, like, froze and then I laughed badly and then I ran. I ran! I ran like a child. What do I do? What do I tell her when she asks? How do I make it less… pathetic?"
Ben whooped quietly and clapped, delighted by the melodrama. "Dude, that's textbook Will," he said, eyes bright. "Look, first of all: she's human. Second: you ran. That is not a crime. Third: you can do damage control. You own it. You go up to her later all calm like and say, 'Hey, sorry about earlier — I was half asleep and I thought I saw a ghost and I'm terrible at social…' Something self-deprecating. Girls like honesty. Trust me."
Timi rubbed the sleep from his eyes and sat up, the rational calm already returning like a tide. "Don't do the rehearsed line," he said, voice careful. "If you go with jokes, it's okay, but jokes can make it worse if they sound fake. Just be direct. A simple, 'Sorry, I lost my head for a second earlier. Didn't mean to be rude,' is fine. Don't invent grand gestures or speeches. Keep it light. Ask a practical question — like where she's going later, or if she wants to join the group for breakfast — something that moves you away from the awkward moment and into companionship."
Mendel snorted and rolled both shoulders as if he was preparing for a performance in bitter realism. "You're going to fail," he said flatly, the kind of cruel honesty that sometimes felt like a freestyle brutalism. "She's not a prize to be won with honesty or jokes. She's Chiji. She's probably used to people being clumsy. If she's interested she'll come. If she isn't, you'll be allowed to cringe at yourself for a while and then forget it. The point is: do not overvalue the moment. You're not writing a romance novel."
The three responses staggered Will's options like a menu of possible outcomes: Ben's warm optimism, Timi's careful plan, Mendel's unhelpful fatalism. He swallowed.
"What if she thinks I'm creepy?" he asked, the ancient panic of adolescent social life. "What if she tells someone?"
Ben waved a hand. "She won't tell anyone. She's not a teacher. She's not a scorned aunt. Worst case she laughs and the laugh goes away. Best case she thinks it's sweet that you got embarrassed, and she's into human catastrophe. It's a win-win."
Timi shook his head a fraction, the practical setting into play. "Don't beg. Don't sulk. And for God's sake don't try to play the hero later to make up for this. A cup of apology tea isn't a contract toward romance. If you want to salvage it, act like a friend. Ask normal questions. You want steady behavior, not theatrics."
Mendel rolled his eyes and snorted again. "Or you just accept that you are human. She decides. You move on. If you want my vote — don't expect miracles. Also, stop with the romanticizing. It does not suit your face."
They argued gently over the right approach while the night folded them into a small conspiracy of advice. Ben offered roleplay: "Okay, I'll be Chiji. Mendel, you be the world. Timi, you be a barista. Will, you practice your line." Timi dismissed roleplay with a twitch of amusement. Mendel made faces. Will, trying to rehearse, kept losing his nerve and making the words sound like they came from a half-broken radio.
Eventually they agreed on a hybrid plan: keep it simple, don't invent charm, and for the love of everything, do not run.
The plan had the comforting logic of teenagers: small, executable, and emotionally cheap. It soothed Will's nervous system simply to have a method.
They dressed in a flurry of adolescent ritual: Will tugged on a white shirt that felt too stiff at first and then warmed under his skin; Ben fussed with a tie and declared himself a civilian lord; Timi, always the least fussy, buttoned up a classic navy shirt and checked his reflection like it was a map; Mendel coiffed his hair with a greasy hand and laughed at his own reflection as if daring the mirror to disagree.
"Look," Ben said, straightening his tie and throwing an arm around Will's shoulder, "you will do fine. Be honest, be calm, and if all else fails, offer to buy her a slice of jambalaya. Food heals."
Mendel snorted. "Jambalaya is not a bargaining chip, Ben. This is not the movies."
"Noted," Ben said. "But still: food."
They joked. They preened. The tension that had lived in Will's gut shifted into something lighter, the way midday rain can turn into a breeze. Teenage logic and brash comfort have their own chemistry; a bit of mockery, a dash of practical instruction, and the world seems less brittle.
They were halfway through their semi-dignified preparations when Will's phone buzzed, a short, insistent trill that made Ben jump. The screen showed Dr. Maren's name and straight below it an instruction: Reception Hall — Immediately. Formal welcome ceremony.
"Ah,"
Said Will, and for a second he felt as if the world had decided to complicate things by scheduling social hazard into the middle of the day. He swallowed and smoothed his shirt as if that could iron out his pulse.
They filed out into the hallway and walked in a line that had all the practiced slant of boys who had been taught to look good in small groups. Downstairs the reception hall buzzed to life: the lamp light warmed the wood, faces smoothed into polite interest, and the teachers moved like moderators at a slightly ridiculous civic event. Dr. Maren stood at the head of the room, her posture still as she always was — a presence that made nonsense feel small.
He breathed in the room's air and let the advice cycle through him — Ben's warmth, Timi's plan, Mendel's drip of cynicism — until the first name was called and his world became the polite, public one.
Outside, the doors opened and closed, people came in with the shuttle of their small anxieties, and somewhere in the sea of motion the small compass of Will's life found its true north for the moment: don't make a scene, try not to faint, and for God's sake, don't run.
He adjusted his tie, looked out for Chiji in a way that felt calm and adult in its deliberate simplicity, and walked into the reception with his heart still thudding but his plan intact: honesty, steadiness, a slice of jambalaya if necessary — and the faint, stubborn optimism that sometimes teenagers have in abundance because they have not yet been taught otherwise.