They sat in melancholic silence for a moment before Naomi cleared her throat, visibly trying to brighten the mood.
"That's why I thought you two were perfect together," she said. "You're like the sun, you know? Bright and warm and impossible not to notice. And Magnus is more like the moon. Less flashy, but… always there in the background, helping people find their way when things get dark."
Naomi laughed nervously at herself but continued anyway.
"So I kept hoping maybe you'd be the first to notice him. And maybe he'd finally have someone bright enough to pull him out of the background a little. And with you being you, maybe he'd finally see someone as more than a face in the crowd." She looked down, embarrassed. "That's how I started shipping you two."
"You really have a way with words." Alex blinked slowly. "Ever thought about a career in writing?"
Naomi immediately made a tiny squeaking noise of embarrassment before covering part of her face with both hands.
"No," she mumbled through obvious mortification. "And now I never will because I think I spiritually died just now."
Despite herself, Alex laughed quietly. Then she glanced at her phone and reluctantly accepted that this conversation was not going anywhere tonight. Naomi wasn't like any of the girls they'd dealt with before. Alex needed time to process and think things through first. She also needed to regroup and update Magnus, on both the good news and the bad. And as agreed, they would tackle this together as a couple.
"Well," Alex said while reaching for her bag, "you probably have finals to study for, so I won't keep you here."
Naomi straightened slightly. "Oh. Right."
Then Alex continued, "Though… do you mind if we exchange contacts?"
Naomi hesitated for only half a second before hurriedly pulling out her phone. "Y-Yeah. Of course."
The exchange itself was awkward in an oddly endearing way. Naomi nearly typed her own number wrong once, apologized for it twice, then apologized a third time for apologizing too much.
After that, they said their goodbyes and parted ways. Alex walked back toward her dorm feeling more unsettled than she had in a long time.
Because something Naomi said kept playing on loop inside her head: "I kept hoping maybe you'd be the first to notice him."
Before tonight, Alex had genuinely believed she'd been the first girl to truly notice Magnus. She'd even felt a little entitled as his girlfriend because she'd been special for seeing him clearly when nobody else did. But now? Now she knew for a fact there had been another girl who noticed him an entire year before she had. Naomi simply never believed herself worthy of pursuing him. So instead, she'd tried helping him find happiness with someone else.
Alex honestly did not know what to do with that information emotionally. It didn't make her want to give Magnus up. Not even remotely. If anything, it only made her more certain she loved him. But she also couldn't ignore the uncomfortable feeling that she was somehow indebted to Naomi among other complicated feelings.
Sympathy, certainly. Gratitude, maybe? Guilt too, somehow, despite not actually doing anything wrong.
If Naomi had pursued Magnus instead, would he have gone out with her? And if he'd had a girlfriend when the System latched onto him, knowing Magnus, he would have—No.
Alex abruptly cut off her own thought. She'd stopped Magnus from spiraling enough times to know exactly where that particular what-if would lead. And she didn't even want to imagine that scenario.
Alex rubbed a tired hand down her face. Personal feelings aside, there was another problem with accomplishing Magnus's quest this time around.
Mia had also been a fan, sure, but she still fundamentally viewed Magnus and Alex as people — real, flawed, approachable people. Naomi… didn't. At least, not entirely. The sophomore had placed the two of them into a strange category inside her head: somewhere between celebrities and something almost sacred. Her "sun and moon," as Naomi herself had put it.
And Alex still couldn't decide whether that made the situation easier or infinitely more complicated.
"Guess that explains the shrine-slash-murder-board part," Alex muttered to herself while walking back toward the dorms.
***
Alex didn't see Magnus again until lunch the next day, after his Intro to Psychology final.
Judging by the exhausted look on his face, there were only two possibilities: either he'd barely survived the exam through sheer desperation… or he'd answered everything entirely on instinct and would somehow score much higher than expected afterward. Knowing Magnus, honestly, both felt equally likely.
He flopped into the seat across from her carrying cafeteria pasta that looked emotionally defeated.
"How bad?" Alex asked immediately.
Magnus stared into the distance. "One question asked me to define four separate therapy models and I'm pretty sure I invented at least one of them."
Alex snorted softly. "You'll be fine."
Then, she updated him on last night's conversation: Naomi's crush and the shipping, the meet-cute engineering and the purse snatcher incident, the fact Naomi had apparently noticed Magnus nearly a year before Alex herself did, the crying freshman story. And finally, the whole sun and moon metaphor.
The more she explained, the more Magnus's expression shifted from confusion into complete system failure. By the end of it, he looked at her like she'd started speaking another language halfway through the explanation.
"I know all the words you just said," he told her carefully, "but why does none of it make any sense to me?"
"It makes perfect sense to me," Alex snapped without meaning to. Several nearby students glanced over briefly. She lowered her voice with visible effort. "She imprinted on you because you helped her when she was at her worst."
Magnus immediately choked on his drink. Then he raised both hands defensively.
"Okay, first off, 'imprinted' is a terrifying word choice."
Alex glared at him.
"Second," he continued cautiously, "I'll admit that all those things sound like things I'd say and do. But what I don't get is, why would she overreact like that over something literally anyone would've done?"
Alex stared at him. He continued, completely sincere:
"I mean, someone's crying alone during finals week. Obviously you stop and help. That's just basic human decency. The whole purse snatcher incident too. You see someone committing a crime, you help the authorities apprehend them. That's just fulfilling your civilian duties."
"You don't even remember doing either of those things, do you?"
He paused.
"…No," he admitted quietly. "But I mean, I don't even remember what I had for breakfast yesterday. And these are just things anyone would do. I don't understand why they'd be significant to her. From what you said about her, she doesn't seem like someone starved of human interaction."
The worst part was that he genuinely believed that. He wasn't fishing for compliments. He wasn't even being humble. He actually thought the things he did were ordinary. That anybody would do them. Even though, over and over again, almost nobody else ever actually did. Yet Magnus seemed incapable of understanding that most people simply didn't do the things he considered normal.
It was one of the reasons she'd fallen for him so quickly in the first place. Right now, however, it mostly just made her want to strangle him.
Alex closed her eyes and took several slow breaths before changing the subject for the sake of her own blood pressure.
"Anyway," she said, "after talking to Naomi, my initial concern and reason for wanting to take this slow is no longer a problem."
Magnus blinked. "Meaning?"
"She's not dangerous. Or obsessive in the way we expected. She's not going to become possessive afterward or try to complicate our lives."
"Well, that sounds good."
"It would be," Alex said flatly, "if the actual issue wasn't somehow weirder."
Magnus looked alarmed again.
"I genuinely don't think convincing Naomi to sleep with you is going to be easy." Alex rubbed her temple. "Hell, I'm not even sure she can be in the same room with you for extended periods without emotionally combusting."
He still looked deeply confused by the entire situation.
Alex sighed. "First step is probably talking to her again and somehow convincing her we're just normal people."
"I mean…" Magnus rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly. "I kind of get where she's coming from."
Alex stared at him in disbelief.
"When the System assigned you as my first target," he explained, "I thought that was insane too. I was just some random nobody and you were basically campus royalty."
"You are not helping your case."
"I'm making a comparison!" Magnus protested. "What I mean is, after getting to know you, I don't find you that intimidating anymore."
"I've never been intimidating."
"You kinda were. Well, are, actually." He ignored her glare and went on. "Anyway, point is, we are normal people."
He paused. "Well. I am." Then he pointed at her. "I'm still not fully convinced about you since technically speaking, you remain campus royalty."
Alex shot him a flat look.
"Oh, trust me," she said, "once you meet Naomi, you'll discover that in her eyes, I'm somehow the more normal one between us."
Magnus frowned. "Then she's living in a completely different reality."
Alex leaned back in her chair and stared at him.
While she didn't disagree with him out loud, Naomi was absolutely right — Magnus was the more extraordinary one between them. And maybe the most unnerving part was that Alex understood exactly why Naomi had fallen for him. Because Alex had fallen for him for the exact same reason: once you noticed Magnus Chane properly, really noticed him, it became almost impossible not to.
***
After carefully comparing everyone's finals schedules and available free time, Alex eventually invited Naomi to visit the animal shelter on Wednesday afternoon. Officially, it was because Alex volunteered there regularly and wanted to hang out. Unofficially, it was because she and Magnus had mutually agreed that the best way to make Naomi understand they were completely normal people was to expose her to their everyday lives in a controlled environment.
Operation: Normal People began in what could only generously be described as an inauspicious manner, and less generously so as an immediate catastrophic collapse.
Naomi arrived just in time to witness what appeared to be a small-scale animal uprising in progress: three dogs were barking at each other from opposite sides of the room while a cat had somehow climbed onto the highest shelf in the supply closet, gotten itself into a bag of treats, and was refusing to come down. And Magnus was in the middle of it all, barking at the dogs to stop and hissing aggressively back and forth with the cat. That went on for about ten minutes before the dogs settled and the cat reluctantly climbed down.
Then the couple finally noticed Naomi at the entrance and froze. But the look on Naomi's face was not the look of someone witnessing something strange: she wasn't disturbed or concerned. If anything, she was unfazed and… a little impressed? Like she was witnessing something wonderful.
"He's an animal whisperer," she breathed, to no one in particular.
Alex closed her eyes briefly. Magnus rubbed the back of his neck. Naomi pulled out her phone and took a photo before either of them could object.
Naomi: 1 — "Normal" People: 0.
Things somehow deteriorated further from there.
Alex attempted to salvage the situation by simply doing her actual volunteer work normally. Which should have helped, in theory. She cleaned enclosures, restocked supplies, handled intake paperwork, and brushed fur off herself every five minutes only for more fur to magically appear afterward.
Yet, infuriatingly, despite all reasonable expectations, she still apparently looked like she'd stepped out of a luxury fashion magazine cover. Naomi watched her with the expression of someone taking mental notes for a future fan edit.
At one point, a golden retriever leaned its entire body weight against Alex while she laughed and scratched behind its ears. Naomi visibly clutched her own chest.
"That," she whispered softly, "might actually be the cutest thing I've ever seen."
Alex stared at her in exasperation.
Naomi: 2 — "Normal" People: 0.
Meanwhile, Magnus attempted his own contribution to Operation: Normal People in the only way he knew — the direct approach. Which mostly involved apologizing for not remembering Naomi and trying to explain to her that she'd dramatically overestimated him as a person.
Unfortunately, Magnus Chane was perhaps the single least qualified individual alive to successfully convince another human being he was normal.
"I really am sorry," he said awkwardly while helping refill water bowls. "I didn't mean to be rude. I'm just kind of bad with faces and names sometimes."
"You weren't rude," Naomi said quickly.
"I kinda was though."
"No! I mean—" Naomi stopped herself, then looked down at her hands. "You just… help people."
Magnus frowned slightly. "Yeah, but that's just normal."
Across the room, Alex physically stopped moving for a moment. Because she already knew exactly where this conversation was going.
Naomi looked at him like he'd just personally rewritten the laws of morality.
"No," she said quietly. "It really isn't."
Magnus blinked at her in confusion.
"It is, though? It wasn't anything special." He smiled sheepishly. "I mean, anyone would've done it."
Naomi's eyes somehow sparkled harder.
Alex felt her soul leave her body. Because every single thing Magnus said in an attempt to sound normal somehow only made Naomi look at him with even more impossible levels of affection and admiration. It was like watching somebody accidentally dig themselves deeper into a hole made entirely out of emotional sincerity.
At one point Magnus scratched the back of his head awkwardly and muttered:
"That still feels like a normal thing to do. I honestly think you're giving me way too much credit."
And Naomi looked so emotionally overwhelmed afterward that Alex briefly became concerned the sophomore might actually ascend into another plane of existence.
By the end of the conversation, Magnus himself was starting to look unsettled. He wasn't entirely sure when Naomi's eyes had stopped being eyes and started being searchlights, but somewhere in the middle of that conversation, the transition had definitely occurred.
Naomi: 3 — "Normal" People: 0.
By the time the shelter closed for the evening, both Alex and Magnus were emotionally exhausted in completely different ways.
Naomi, meanwhile, looked like she'd just experienced the greatest day of her academic career.
"Thank you both so much for inviting me," she said while preparing to leave. "I had a really wonderful time."
"You're welcome," Alex replied weakly.
Magnus nodded. "Good luck with your remaining finals!"
Naomi stared at him for half a second too long before nodding rapidly.
"You too!"
Then she hurried away before she could embarrass herself further.
Silence. A long one.
Then Magnus turned to Alex. "Well, that didn't work…"
Alex groaned into her hands.
"No," she agreed tiredly. "I think we may have accidentally made it worse."
"Well, you, I get," he said as he picked dog fur out of her hair. "You look unfairly gorgeous even covered in fur."
"But me?" Magnus continued. "I'm completely normal. She just has really weird standards for what normal means!"
Alex just stared at him, too exhausted to even think about strangling him.
Final Score:
Naomi: 3 — "Normal" People: Utter and total defeat.