Chapter Text
The airport restaurant smelled like burnt coffee and jet fuel, which Wise supposed was fitting for a last meal.
Across the table, Belle was chewing with the enthusiasm of a woman auditioning for a nature documentary about cattle. Loud, deliberate, wet — each bite timed like she was conducting an orchestra of mastication solely for his benefit.
"Could you chew like a normal person for once in your life?" Wise finally said, setting down his fork.
Belle swallowed, entirely unbothered. "I'm giving you a preview. A little souvenir. Something to miss when you're all the way in New Eridu."
"I promise you, that is not going to make the list."
She gasped, a hand flying to her chest with theatrical wounded pride. "Rude. In front of Mom, even."
Carole chuckled into her coffee, not even bothering to look up from the menu. "He's had a year of practice tuning you out already, sweetheart. I doubt he's going to lose sleep over it."
"See, this is what I mean." Belle rounded on her mother, pointing an accusing finger. "You always take his side."
"I have never taken anyone's side." Carole pressed a hand to her chest, mock-scandalized. "I am simply a neutral observer stating facts as I see them."
"Excuses," Belle muttered, stabbing a piece of egg like it had personally wronged her. Then, without warning, she pivoted. "So. The dorms. Tell me about the dorms."
"They looked fine. I saw pictures on the website." Wise shrugged, going back to his food.
"Websites don't get updated, Wise. For all you know those photos are ten years old and the 'modern student lounge' is now a storage closet full of broken chairs."
"It's a big-league school," Carole said, unbothered. "I'd imagine the facilities keep up with the reputation."
"You never know," Belle said darkly, like she was recounting a war story rather than speculating about carpet quality. Then, in the same breath, without so much as a warning shift in tone: "Speaking of things you never know — are you finally going to get a girlfriend this time?"
Wise choked on his drink.
He coughed, thumped his own chest once, and glared at his sister through watering eyes. "Mind your own business."
"Oh, I'm curious too, actually," Carole said, setting her mug down with the calm of someone who had been waiting for an opening.
"Your first year at Helios came and went and you didn't bring anyone home. Not once."
"I was focused on my classes." Wise kept his eyes on his plate.
"Mm-hm." Carole tilted her head. "And what about your lady friend? Truvia?"
"She's my friend. That's it. There was nothing there."
Carole made a small, unconvinced sound in the back of her throat — the universal maternal noise for I don't believe you, but I'll allow it for now — and let the subject drop, though the look she gave Belle over Wise's head suggested the topic was merely on pause, not closed.
The overhead speaker crackled to life, rattling off the usual string of airport announcements in that flat, over-rehearsed tone — gate changes, security reminders, a final boarding call for a flight to somewhere else — before landing, unmistakably, on Wise's flight number and a warning that boarding would begin shortly.
Then it clicked off, leaving the table in a silence that felt heavier than before.
"Well." Carole set down her cup. "I suppose lunch is cut a bit short, then."
Belle's face fell before she could stop it — just for a second, the teasing mask slipping to show something smaller and sadder underneath. Wise caught it.
He felt an unexpected pang of sympathy twist in his chest, and without quite thinking about it, he reached over and patted her on the head, the way he used to when they were kids.
"Hey. We've still got a couple minutes."
"A couple minutes," Belle repeated, swatting his hand away half-heartedly, "and then you're gone. For like a year. Again."
"I have to get back to school eventually." He said it gently. "Let's not spend the last few minutes being sad about it, yeah?"
Belle's expression snapped back into place almost instantly, like a switch had been flipped. "Sad? Please. I was never sad. I was clearly kidding."
"Sure you were."
"I was."
Wise just looked at her, one eyebrow raised, the corner of his mouth curling into a knowing smile.
"Okay, wipe that smirk off your face right now," Belle said, pointing at him. "And go on, get out of here already. Go enjoy your rubbish dorm room."
Carole let out a laugh, shaking her head, and Wise joined her, the two of them chuckling as they gathered their things.
"Oh, sure, laugh it up, both of you." Belle crossed her arms, glaring between them.
"I'm being serious and you're treating me like some kind of joke."
They cleared the table together, stacking trays and wiping crumbs, the small mundane motions somehow making the moment feel more final than any goodbye speech could have. Then they were up and moving, joining the slow current of travelers drifting toward the gate.
Belle walked a step behind, arms crossed tight over her chest, jaw set in a way that fooled absolutely no one. By the time they reached the gate, her eyes were glassy, and she was blinking hard and fast like that might somehow reverse the process.
Carole reached over and rubbed a slow circle on her daughter's back. "It's alright, honey—"
"Nothing's happening." Belle's voice cracked clean down the middle, betraying her a half-second before a tear slipped free and traced a line down her cheek. She swiped at it with the back of her hand, refusing to look at either of them.
"I don't know what you're talking about."
Wise watched her, and any last doubt he'd had evaporated.
'Yeah. She is definitely not taking this well.'
He opened his mouth to say something — he wasn't sure what yet, something reassuring, probably useless — but his thoughts snagged and drifted somewhere else entirely: back to what she'd said at the table, about the website photos being old, about never knowing what he was in for.
'I wonder what's actually waiting for me over there.'
------- LATER --------
A couple of hours later, Wise found himself trailing a woman named Venus across a sprawling campus green, his suitcase wheels rattling over cobblestone that looked older than the university's founding charter.
"Boys' dorms are this way," Venus said, gesturing down a tree-lined path without breaking stride. "We'll cut through here."
Wise glanced over his shoulder at the other path forking off in the opposite direction. "What's down that way?"
"That's the girls' dorm area." Venus followed his gaze briefly before turning back around. "Obol Dorm is down there, and Sons of Calydon."
"Sons of Calydon?" Wise repeated, brow furrowing. "That's a dorm for girls?"
"It used to be a boys' dorm, actually." Venus said it like she'd explained this a hundred times before.
"There was a year where the female enrollment ended up outnumbering the male students by a pretty wide margin, so the school converted it over. Name never got updated, though."
"Huh." Wise nodded slowly, filing that away, and kept walking beside her until they came to a stop in front of a house-like building, its brick front covered in ivy that crept up toward the second floor.
He stopped wheeling his suitcase and tilted his head back, taking it in.
"This is you," Venus said, turning around with a smile.
"So? What do you think?"
"Looks exactly like it did on the website," Wise said, and meant it.
'Belle was wrong. It's not falling apart at all.'
"Good to hear. We take our maintenance seriously around here." Venus seemed genuinely pleased by the compliment.
"Call me if anything comes up with the housing — plumbing, roommate issues, whatever it is. Or if you need anything else in general, really."
She gave him one more smile before turning on her heel and heading back the way they'd come, leaving Wise alone on the path, still looking up at the building that was, for the foreseeable future, home.
Wise stared up at the building a moment longer, then hauled his suitcase up the small flight of steps. He grabbed the door handle, pushed it open — and was immediately hit with the sound of male voices shouting at each other somewhere down the corridor.
He blinked. Sighed. Please don't let this be a fight on my first day.
Still, he stepped inside and let the door swing shut behind him, extending the suitcase handle and wheeling it down the hall. The voices only got louder the closer he got, until he found himself just outside what had to be the common room. He leaned around the corner to check.
A cluster of guys were sprawled across a couch, mid-argument about something Wise couldn't quite parse, all volume and no context. Relief hit him first — no fight, just noise — followed quickly by the dawning realization that he had just landed himself the loudest roommates in recorded history.
Before he could decide whether to fully step in or quietly back away, one of them clocked him. A muscular guy in shades tilted his head toward the entrance, and the rest of the room went quiet, all eyes swinging around to the doorway where Wise stood, momentarily frozen.
'Can't look weak in front of a room full of guys I've never met. That's an easy way to get bullied'
He forced himself forward, out of the shadow of the hallway and into full view.
One of the bigger ones muttered something to a lean blond guy next to him — "That the new guy Venus said was coming?" — and the blond just shrugged, tone flat and vaguely mocking. "How would I know."
"You the new guy?" Shades asked directly.
Wise hesitated half a second too long before answering.
"...Yeah. New dorm mate."
Silence. The guys exchanged glances with each other, then back at him, and Wise's nerves spiked right as the room erupted into noise again — apparently the correct reaction to a new arrival, judging by the sudden grins.
A tall guy with spiky white hair materialized beside him out of nowhere, throwing an arm around his shoulder before Wise could react.
"Billy Kid. Coolest guy in the dorm, and your new best friend."
"There's no coolest," Shades cut in. "Just bros."
"Buzzkill," Billy muttered, though he was already moving on, gesturing around the room like a tour guide. "That's Hugo Vlad" — the blond — "shades over there is Lighter, the other buff one's Anton, glasses is Shiyuan, and the two thirens are Manato" — he pointed at the biggest one in the room — "and Seth."
Wise nodded along, doing his best to keep the names straight, already fairly certain this was going to be a lot to get used to.
"Yo, that's disrespectful," Anton cut in, sounding genuinely offended. "A true bro doesn't introduce another bro while they're standing right there. A true bro introduces himself."
"It's not that deep." Lighter waved a hand. "Saves time."
"It's a shortcut."
"Everyone takes shortcuts, man." Lighter shrugged, already losing interest in the argument.
"Lycaon's not around right now," Hugo cut in, apparently deciding the introductions needed finishing regardless. "And Harumasa's upstairs asleep in his room."
Wise nodded, filing both names away next to the six he was already trying not to forget.
"Empty room's the last one up the stairs, end of the hall," Manato added, voice low and even.
"Thanks." Wise gave a small nod and turned to head for the stairs — only for Anton to call after him.
"Hey, before you go — you should come back down after you settle in. We'll run a little test. See if you're a true bro."
"We're not barbarians," Shiyuan said flatly, not even looking up.
"This is a civilized dorm."
Anton threw his hands up like he'd been personally betrayed, and Wise let out a nervous little laugh before making his escape up the stairs.
The upstairs hallway was quieter, save for a low, steady snore rattling out from behind one door — presumably Harumasa, still comfortably unconscious in the middle of the day. Wise found his room at the very end of the corridor and let himself in.
It was modest. A single bed, a closet, a ceiling fan slowly turning overhead, and a window that looked out over a stretch of green, the girls' dormitories just visible in the distance beyond the trees.
Wise let out a long breath, dropped his backpack onto the mattress, and sat down beside it. His mind drifted, briefly, over everything that had brought him here — the scholarship, the decision, the whole business of uprooting his life to start over somewhere new.
'Lets just hope things remain calm, at least the guys in here seem to be mostly chill.'
'I'll manage' he told himself, standing back up and reaching for the zipper of his suitcase.
'Time to unpack.'
-------- ELSEWHERE -------
Across campus, in the girls' dormitories, Anby Demara was unpacking her things with all the enthusiasm of someone folding laundry they didn't own, while her older sister Nicole hovered nearby, mid-lecture.
"—and I mean it, act normal. Do not do anything this year that's going to embarrass me on this campus," Nicole said, arms crossed. "And can you please, for the love of god, drop the burger thing while you're here."
"Burgers aren't weird," Anby said, monotone, folding a shirt with the same flat expression she'd had since Nicole walked in.
"Watch that mouth." Nicole pointed a finger at her. "I need you to actually remember what I'm telling you. Don't be weird to people, especially not during orientation week — first impressions matter for the newbies."
"Understood."
"I mean it. No wandering off talking to strangers about random stuff. No showing up to things looking like you rolled out of bed—"
"Understood."
"And absolutely do not—"
"Understood."
Nicole's momentum sputtered out somewhere around the fifth item, the flat, unbothered "understood" draining all the energy out of her scolding one repetition at a time. She sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose.
"Just... behave. Please." She grabbed her bag and headed for the door.
"Night."
"Night," Anby said, already turning back to her suitcase.
Out in the hallway, Nicole exhaled slowly, already dreading the year ahead.
'Sharing a campus with her is going to be a whole new kind of hell.'
She rounded the corner still lost in thought and walked straight into someone — a shark thiren freshman, judging by the large tail.
"Excuse you," Nicole said, barely glancing back as she kept walking.
Ellen Joe clicked her tongue, rolling her eyes hard at the retreating back, clearly unimpressed — while Nicole, entirely oblivious, was already back to dreading the long list of ways Anby was going to test her patience this year.