The hallway was chaos.
Students everywhere. Pushing, laughing, shouting like the world depended on being loud. A river of noise and movement, and I was just a rock trying not to get swept away.
I pressed against the wall. Let them flow past. Counted seconds between heartbeats to stay calm.
Twenty-three. Twenty-four. Twenty-five.
Why are they always so loud?
In Aventic, loud meant danger. Loud meant Dumans. Loud meant someone was dying.You learned to be quiet. To move without sound. To breathe without making a single noise that might attract attention.
But here, loud just means... being normal.
Normal.
I still don't understand that word.
I watched them pass. Groups of friends. Couples holding hands. Kids shoving each other for no reason other than it was fun.
They've never known fear.
Not real fear.
Not the kind that lives in your bones and never leaves.
"Hey! Nams!"
A voice cut through the chaos. Familiar. I'd heard it somewhere before.
I looked up.
A boy was pushing through the crowd toward me. Dark hair falling over one eye. Slightly out of breath. Grinning like he'd just found something precious.
He stopped in front of me. Bent over for a second, catching his breath.
"You remember me, right?" He straightened up. "From yesterday? First day? I introduced myself? Vjaret? Yaret? The one who—"
"Calm down,Vjaret, I remember you."
The boy with the name everyone makes fun of.
The one who thanked me for not laughing.
The one who seemed almost as lost as I feel.
"Good! Good."
He nodded rapidly.
"I was worried you'd forgotten. You had that look—you know, the spaced-out look—and I thought, 'Great, he probably doesn't remember anyone from yesterday, I'm going to have to reintroduce myself, that's going to be awkward—'"
He was still talking. Rapid. Nervous. Like he needed to fill every silence with words.
Why is he so nervous?
Or it's just me.
"—and then I saw you standing here and I thought, 'Now or never, Vjaret, just go talk to him,' so here I am. Talking."
He stopped. Looked at me expectantly.
I stared at him.
What am I supposed to say?
Is there a script for this?
"Okay," I said.
He blinked. "Okay?"
"Okay, you're here and talking."
Like an Idiot.
I smiled inside.
"Oh." He processed this. Then grinned again. "Right. Okay. Good. So—walk with me. I need to get to class and I hate walking alone."
It wasn't a question.
He just started walking. Like he assumed I'd follow.
Why would I—
I followed.
Why am I following?
I don't know.
But here I am.
We walked through the hallway together.
He is talking.
And I'm listening.
That seemed to be our rhythm already.
"So yesterday," he said, dodging a group of girls who didn't look where they were going,
"After you left, Geo mam gave me a whole lecture about being late. Again. She said if I'm late one more time this week, she'll make me write lines for a full month."
"Sounds harsh."
"It's Geo ma'am. Everything is harsh with her." He sighed dramatically. "But whatever. Worth it."
"Worth it?"
"Yeah." He glanced at me. "I got to talk to you. New guy. Mysterious guy who spaces out mid-conversation and doesn't laugh at weird names."
He noticed that.
He noticed me spacing out.
And he still wanted to talk to me?
"That's worth a month of lines?"
"Totally." He grinned. "I'm good at writing lines. I'm bad at making friends. Trade-off."
Making friends.
Is that what this is?
Is he trying to be my friend?
I thought about Marcus. About the real Marcus. About how easy it had been to be friends with him. How natural. How much it hurt when I realized that thing wearing his face wasn't him anymore.
Marcus would laugh at this.
He'd say "Boss, you're overthinking again. Just talk to the kid."
But Marcus isn't here.
The real Marcus isn't anywhere.
I thought about Cari. About how someone could be that much of an idiot in the most serious situations. About how he never cared who had higher authority—he'd joke with anyone, anywhere, anytime.
Cari would've already made ten jokes about this conversation.
About me standing here like a statue while someone talks at me.
Can I do this again?
Can I let someone new in?
What if they die too?
What if they get replaced?
What if I need to leave them again?
We reached his classroom. He stopped at the door.
"This is me." He pointed inside. "Room 9. Boring classes. Mean teachers. Occasional fire drills from when I 'accidentally' set things on fire."
He set things on fire.
Of course he did.
I nodded. Started to turn away.
"Hey." His voice changed. Quieter. "Nams."
I looked back.
"You eat lunch alone, right?"
I blinked. "How do you—"
"I saw you. Yesterday. Under that tree near the back field." He shrugged, suddenly awkward. "I eat alone too. Usually. My spot's on the roof, but sometimes they lock it and I have to find somewhere else."
The roof.
Of course he eats on the roof.
"Maybe..." He hesitated. Actually hesitated. Like he was afraid of the answer. "Maybe we could eat together sometime? If you want. No pressure. Just... company."
Company.
Someone to sit with.
Someone to talk to.
Like some normal things.
I thought about it. About the tree. About eating alone. About the silence that felt comfortable but also... empty.
"Sure." The word came out before I could stop it.
His face lit up. Like I'd given him something precious.
"Yeah? Tomorrow? Lunch?"
"Okay I guess."
"Great! Awesome! It's a plan!" He was already backing into the classroom, still grinning.
"Tomorrow, lunch, my roof if it's open, your tree if it's not. I'll find you. See you, Nams!"
He disappeared into the room.
I stood there for a moment.
I just agreed to eat lunch with someone.
Voluntarily.
A person I barely know.
What's happening to me?
The bell rang. Loud and sharp.
He talks too much. Unlike Yesterday.
I walked to my next class.
Maybe nothing.
Maybe something.
I don't know.
But for the first time in a while...
I'm curious to find out.
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