Room 202 was shoehorned into one of the far corners of the labyrinth of corridors that surrounded the quadrangle on three sides, right next to the landing of the creaky old spiral staircase that led up to the clock tower, a tiny nook that smelled of an odd combination of musty old carpet and fresh paint. Its two distinguishing features were its sweeping view of the soccer field, and that many years ago, someone had somehow managed to get a book up on the ledge of one of the clerestory windows. Many people had since attempted to get it back down, out of enterprise or sheer boredom. None had succeeded.

Titus stooped as he passed under the archway leading into the room, walking headlong into the chaos of a classroom two minutes before the bell rang. He neatly dodged Arthur Yang reliving his weekend travails to a crowd of enraptured onlookers, and headed for his usual seat, directly under the aforementioned book, second from the back row, only to see a bag slung across it in front of him just as he approached.

"Sorry. Frase's running a bit late." Fraser Sinclair's best friend, Julian Thompson. He and Titus didn't cross paths that often, but those few occasions were usually amicable.

He was not surprised. Fraser was not exactly renowned for punctuality. "No worries." He scanned the room. The last empty table was the next one up. So he took it. Hopefully, this would be the only change from the norm today. Changes in routine tended to cause entanglements, and he liked to keep entanglements to a minimum.

Mr Darvall strode in soon afterwards, like he owned the place. He practically did, considering this was where most of the classes in his thirty-odd years of teaching had taken place. He closed the door behind him. He was holding his usual glass of water.

Everything proceeded like clockwork. The class fell silent. They opened their copies of Prairie Park to where they had left off and started reading.

That was, until the beginning of the third paragraph of page 181, when there was a faint knock on the door. A smiling, long-haired face appeared in the door's window. Mr. Darvall, who had his back to the door and had not heard the knock, continued to power through his mini-lecture on the symbolism of the hearth in Frank Lloyd Wright's architecture, and its significance to the scene they were reading about now, where Frank was a guest in the Levinsons' living room. A few people in the back row were already starting to giggle.

Mr Darvall paused and peered at the back of the classroom. "What's so funny, Spike? It would be very considerate of you to share it with the rest of the class."

Spike was Darvall's nickname for Julian, for reasons that nobody had ever been able to fully comprehend, and nobody was ever likely to. He had coined it several years ago out of seemingly nowhere, and simply continued to use it, seemingly unaware that nobody else did.

"Nothing, sir."

"That didn't seem like nothing. You seemed to be awfully amused just then."

The face in the window stayed there. "Spike" relapsed into mirth.

"Quiet!" People tried to hold back their laughter. "Spike, are you alright there? You want to stand outside for next 20 minutes?"

"No, sir."

"Then pull yourself together." He sighed, a deep, lingering sigh that seemed to last several minutes. "It's Week Six now, boys. You have your second major assessment coming up in just a week and a half. Now is not the time to be faffing around and bursting into utter hysterics at absolutely nothing at all. This is not on."

A fist with an unfurled middle finger appeared in front of the face in the window, directed at the back of Darvall's head. The entire back row cracked. The giggling was starting to spread to the front row. Thompson was clutching his sides.

"Just get out-" Darvall turned to gesture at the door, and there was a moment of complete silence as he and Fraser stared each other down through the door.

Then then entire room burst once again into raucous laughter. Darvall looked like he might explode as he opened the door, finally revealing the rest of Fraser, who stood, guilty-faced."Mr. Sin-clair," Darvall drawled. His face had returned to its usual state. "How nice of you to make an appearance."

"Sorry, Mr Darvall. Just a slight delay on the oval." There was some more snickering in the back row.

Darvall didn't bat an eyelid. "Just a slight delay on the oval. Is that right?" 

"Yeah."

"There's always an excuse, isn't there? Always. The day before, slept in. Yesterday, ticket inspector. Today, just a slight delay on the oval. What's it going to be tomorrow? Abducted by men in black?"There was some more syncopated sniggering, mostly from the back row. "Alright. Just sit down and get Prairie Park out. And please tuck your shirt in."

Fraser mumbled a thank-you for the speedy conclusion of his public humiliation, and made for the spot that his friends had saved for him.

"Uh-uh," Darvall continued. "Not so fast, Mr. Sinclair. You're not sitting with that lot at the back. You're just going to get distracted and do nothing."

His friends almost immediately issued an objection. "But Mr-"

Darvall didn't skip a beat. "From now on, your permanent spot is there." He pointed to the only other spare seat, third table from the back.

He knew better than to protest, and so did his friends. Now was not the time. He sat down at the allotted seat and got his book out.

Rant over, Darvall shifted neatly back into english teacher mode, like someone had turned a tap off somewhere. "Now, where were we up to?"

Fraser dared to look at his new deskmate. Titus was staring very intently at his exercise book, scribbling away. Taking notes, probably. He didn't even seem to acknowledge he had sat down. Oh well. He was meant to be some kind of genius, according to the rumours.

He held out his hand. "Titus Walker. The man, the myth, the legend. How are we?" Titus didn't react. He just kept on with the furious scribbling.

"Oi, Fraser, leave him alone," Julian piped up from the table behind. "He doesn't want to talk to you."

"Shut up."

"See, you're making him uncomfortable." Julian turned his attention to Fraser's new deskmate. "Is Fraser making you uncomfortable? He's annoying, isn't he?"

"I said shut up," Fraser replied. "We're getting along just fine." It wasn't like they were complete strangers. There were only around two hundred people in Year 12, total, and it was almost impossible to entirely not have crossed paths with someone at any point, even if they had never really talked. "You remember me, right? Year 10 French?"

"Yeah. I remember," Titus turned around to face his new de facto study partner, speaking in a quiet voice. Fraser realised his eyes were hazel, not brown as he had previously assumed, and that he had freckles. "You called me a freak and a weirdo."

Fraser's face turned the exact same shade as Titus' hair. His mates in the back row burst into laughter again, earning a black look from Darvall. They fell silent immediately.

Seeing that Titus had returned to the furious scribbling. Fraser decided, wisely, to put off any further attempts at conversation for the rest of the lesson.

***

Twenty to four. The tram stop on St Kilda Rd was a sea of blazers, blue, green, red, purple, black, streaming across from the pedestrian crossings.

The tram was already packed, but more people kept on squeezing in, despite the fact there were two more pulling in behind it. Being on a tram directly trailing another tram was quite the torturous experience.

He nudged his bag, on the floor between his feet. Somewhere, somebody yelled "move down the aisle!"

The tram driver made the usual passive-aggressive announcement about not standing on the steps. The culprit realised their mistake and hopped up. There was some more squeezing. He felt something soft crowd his chest. The doors finally folded shut.

He mentally blocked out the people around him, listening to the sweet thyristor whine of the tram as it moved off, and looked upwards. No. 2043 was evidently a recent transplant from Essendon Depot, given the Route 59 maps still plastered over the ceiling panels.

The B2 was a bit of a chimera as trams went. Essentially it was two A class bodyshells joined with a central articulation tunnel, with dimensions loosely based on the German Stadtbahnwagen-B of the 1970s, and the door arrangement of the aforementioned A Class stretched over the extra eight metres of length. In other words, it was longer than it was supposed to be, and it had fewer doors than it was probably supposed to have, the product of muddled political visions and cost-cutting. The doors were wider than usual, but that didn't help you once you got on; three doors for a 23-metre tram was stretching it, by any measure.

Given that Commonwealth Engineering had been circling the drainhole, financially speaking, at the time of its conception, it was entirely imaginable that they simply couldn't afford to put in a fourth door on each side. They'd even shrunk the seat cushions to save money. Designing the centre articulation joint in-house would have been enough of a drain on resources. And what a fine mess they'd done of that.

The tram began to slow down for the stop at the Shrine of Remembrance. Someone tapped him on the shoulder. He assumed it was someone who wanted to get off. He automatically shuffled to the side, then he realised who it was.

Fraser, again. Holy shit. It was him again. He had his earphones on. He found himself staring for longer than he wanted. He'd seen him before on the tram to Flinders St, but they had never had any reason to talk.

"Hey."

"Hey. You getting off at Flinders?"

"Yeah."

"Which train line?"

"Actually, I'm walking up to Elizabeth St and catching the 19."

"Oh, well, I'm catching the Hurstbridge."

"I thought so. I've seen you on Platform 1 a couple of times."

"Very observant."

"I had a weird experience on the Hurstbridge line once," Titus said. "The station announcements were in a French accent, for some reason. Jo-lie-mont. Den-ny. Aig-le-mont. And it was pouring outside, and the train was rocking and bouncing like crazy, which only made it more of a fever dream."

"That is weird, man." Fraser was still staring at him. "You live up north too?"

"Coburg."

"Hang on. If you live in Coburg, wouldn't the Upfield be faster than the Route 19?"

"If you factor in the 17-minute wait, no."

"17 minutes?"

"The 3:42 just left three minutes ago. We're the only train line with a twenty-minute schedule in peak hour. Also, we don't have expresses. I mean, I could also just stay on this tram to the end of the line and then walk. But it's slower than the 19."

***

They disembarked at Federation Square. As they waited for the green light at the pedestrian crossing Fraser scanned the next-train display screens at the entrance to Flinders St. "Shit. My train is in two minutes. See ya." 

Titus watched as he went through the fare gates and ran for Platform 1. 

***

Lying in his bed at night, Titus looked up Fraser's name on Instagram. He could hear the bickering of his parents in their bedroom, opposite the corridor, not quite loud enough for him to understand what they were saying.

In the distance, the faint roar of DC motors. A train. A Comeng, to be specific. He tried to determine which way it was going.

This account is private. Follow this account to see their photos and videos.

Well, that was a dead end. He briefly considered chucking him a follow, but decided against it. Damn it, he was too tired to think straight. He closed his eyes and tried to get to sleep.