Since earlier that morning, Kurin had been attempting to read their new book. It hadn't been easy focusing when every interruption, mostly from their roommate Noah waking up and talking to them about the crazy dream he'd had; then tripping over a wire, knocking their lamp over and pulling the plug out of the socket as he fell, pulled their focus away and regaining it was a struggle against their thoughts about what they'd heard in the library.
Once Noah had left to meet up with his friends for the day, Kurin had managed to force their focus back on their book only to be interrupted by a loud knock on the door.

They glanced up at the clock on the wall, right on cue. Hastily they opened the door, not wanting to keep their energetic green haired friend waiting any longer.

"Kurin! You know what time it is?" Callie grinned and cheered as the door to Kurin and Noah's room was opened.

A relaxed smile spread across Kurin's face, any other day those words from Callie might worry them but today they knew exactly what those words meant. "The time you force me to eat lunch because I always skip breakfast on Sundays?" They answered stepping outside the door, book in hand.

Callie grabbed hold of Kurin's arm, pulling them down the hallway, "Lunch time!" She agreed excitedly.

Every Sunday since the two had become friends they'd made a habit of both going to the school cafeteria together to get lunch. It worked well because Callie was a late riser on Sundays, usually sleeping in until midday; while Kurin would get up early and skip breakfast to get more reading time, both of them ending up in the cafeteria around twelve thirty. Since they'd discovered this they'd decided to meet up so they could eat together. Honestly, it was quite nice.

They made their way to the cafeteria and chose their food, discussing different topics along the way. Once they'd finally picked out their sandwiches, they turned to start looking for a table to sit at only to instantly get waved over to one in the corner of the room by Dan.

As the two approached, they noticed the other two at the table Dan was sitting with his partners Magnus and Ajit. For some reason, Ajit had his laptop out which he seemed to be more focused on than his lunch while Magnus was looking at his phone while chewing slowly on the crust of his sandwich.

"Hey you guys!" Dan greeted happily as Kurin and Callie took their seats at the table. Ajit offered a small wave and smile before refocusing on his laptop while Magnus barely bothered to look up. "How have you been?" He asked, biting into his burger.

The two new arrivals to the table gave their answers about how they've both been fine. Kurin explained a little about the plot of their new book to Dan while Callie talked about the new art project she'd been working on last night.

Just as it seemed like Dan was about to ask another question about one of their answers, he was interrupted by Magnus huffing out a frustrated breath and cursing. "This game is fucking rigged." He complained.

"Let me see?" Ajit murmured, still seeming more focused on his laptop but when Magnus angled his phone towards him, Ajit looked over at it for a few seconds before nodding and turning his focus back to his laptop. "Yeah, it's definitely rigged." He agreed.

Kurin raised an eyebrow at Dan in question as the azure eyed boy laughed at the interaction between his partners. "Games." He explained noticing the confused looks on Kurin and Callie's faces. "Ajit's playing Genshin and Magnus is playing an extremely rigged game of solitaire." He giggled as Magnus rolled his eyes.

The two friends nodded slowly, that made sense. Magnus and Ajit were extremely into games, puzzles, mysteries or riddles of any kind. Ajit tended to prefer RPGs such as Genshin Impact, his current obsession while Magnus preferred logic or luck based games like solitaire or the one RPG he played by choice Your Turn To Die. The pair were always starting challenges over stupid things like that riddle they couldn't solve all day, from their classes, to the detention they'd gotten from Miss Sykes for talking about the riddle during her class, to the common room where they'd sat discussing it for another few hours until finally with one minute to go until midnight, they'd gotten it and messaged the academy group chat the answer; earning themselves nothing but a sarcastic comment from Athena who had figured out the answer hours ago but had kept it to herself not to ruin their fun.
Sometimes Kurin thought the academy pairing Magnus and Ajit up as roommates was the worst decision they could've made. Other times they thought it could be worse; at least the academy only put the two less chaotic thirds of the polycule together. If Dan was paired with either of his partners, Kurin was fairly sure he'd start conversation after conversation about how amazing their other partner was and then convince them to start a prank war or something far more chaotic than simply playing games online until two am every night.

Dan himself wasn't as into games as his partners were, usually because he could never win any of them, but he often enjoyed watching them play games and got interested in the plots of the RPGs they'd play. The red streaked boy took another bite out of his burger as he watched Ajit seemingly fight some opponent in Genshin.

"So..." Kurin turned their head to watch Callie as she began to talk, "What brought on the solitaire?" She prodded, leaning in slightly towards the table. Magnus raised an eyebrow at her then put his focus back on his phone, beginning to tap and swipe the cards in his new game of solitaire, blatantly ignoring the girl. She frowned half jokingly, "Rude!"

Ajit laughed, seemingly done with his battle as he pushed his laptop gently aside to start polishing his apple on his sleeve. "Well, this morning we were looking for my missing locker key, which we still haven't found.. And we came across a pack of playing cards and somehow that set Magnus back on his old solitaire obsession." He shrugged.

The girl gasped loudly, "Wait, you're missing your locker key too? Mine went missing about a week ago, I've been checking lost property and my room almost daily but no luck!" She explained. It wasn't the first time Kurin had heard about that, she'd been complaining about it all week.

As Callie and Ajit spoke about their missing locker keys and Magnus ignored everyone in favour of solitaire, Dan turned to Kurin. "Hey Kurin, I was meaning to ask." He frowned slightly, "Why are you ignoring my texts?" He asked.

Kurin shrugged, adjusting their guitar pick necklace, "Because your messages about Callie getting a date were followed up with such a stupid comment that I decided you didn't deserve a response." They shot back, honestly and casually, knowing Dan could take it. Them lightheartedly bickering with Dan wasn't unusual, neither was other people deciding Dan's messages weren't worthy of a response.

"Not those ones," Dan held his hands up in front of him in mock defence. "I didn't really think you'd respond to those ones, honestly. I meant the ones I sent around ten this morning? I didn't think those were annoying."

A light frown of confusion graced Kurin's face, "I haven't checked my phone since really early this morning." They replied, "I don't think I even remember hearing a notification sound all day." It was true, the only notification sounds they remembered hearing that day were Chet's ringtone in the library and Noah's phone going off multiple times while its owner was in the bathroom getting dressed.

Beside them, Callie wrinkled her brow. "Actually, I messaged you too around eleven thirty and you didn't respond to that either. I guess you must've had your phone on silent?" She suggested.

"As if." Magnus spoke up, his phone on the table, screen up so that everyone could see he'd won his game of solitaire. "Kurin never turns their phone on silent. They love their annoying-ass notification sound too much." He commented, rolling his red-violet eyes. The non-binary felt slightly bitter at their notification sound being called annoying but they couldn't deny Magnus wasn't wrong, they never put their phone on silent because of how much they liked hearing the notification sound they'd picked out.

Ajit shrugged, "Maybe they did it by accident? I never put my phone on silent on purpose either but I do it sometimes by accident." He hummed in thought, "Or maybe Noah put it on silent to mess with you?" He looked towards Kurin to see what they thought.

They shook their head, "Couldn't be. Noah didn't go near my side of the room all morning. He was in too much of a rush to get out and meet Julia, Paul and Felix, especially since he was running late after knocking over the lamp." They explained.

Magnus snorted with amusement, "Noah did what?" He asked. Before long, Kurin was recounting the story of how Noah had tripped over the lamp's wire and knocked the lamp onto the floor while miraculously not breaking it. Honestly, how their roommate did these things, they had no idea. It made for some good stories though.

Just as they were coming to the end of the story; a light hand gently tapped their shoulder, surprising them. They turned around to see who it was.

Cerulean blue met olive green and then both averted eye contact as quickly as it had been made.

"Chet! Hi!" Callie exclaimed, happy to see her friend. "Come join us!" She offered, gesturing to the seat next to her.

The boy faltered, glancing over to the offered seat but ultimately shook his head. "No thanks, I haven't even gotten my lunch yet and as you can see, the queue is quite long." His focus returned to Kurin, both of them refusing to make direct eye contact, an awkward silence entailed for a moment before Chet coughed quietly and broke it again. "I think this is yours?" It wasn't really a question as he pulled Kurin's phone out of his hoodie pocket and held it out towards them. "I found it-.. You left it in the library." He rephrased halfway through his sentence.

Momentarily Kurin's eyes flicker down to look at their phone, confirming that it really was theirs then back up at Chet, widening slightly. "Ah, thanks.." They murmured, slowly reaching out and taking their phone from Chet, their mind a haze.

They could hear Dan laugh, "Oh so that explains why Kurin didn't respond to our messages!" But it didn't really register in their mind because whilst it did explain that, it definitely explained that, it also meant something else.

They could remember it now, momentarily putting their phone down to check out their book, then only leaving the library with their book and satchel. They must have left their phone behind... And Chet had found it.

The realisation rang around Kurin's head like a loud clanging bell. Chet had found their phone in the library, Chet knew they were in the library that morning, Chet...

Eye contact was made again, the final pieces clicking, likely for both of them. They both knew Kurin had heard Chet's private vent in the library that morning, they both knew Kurin knew Chet's secret, they both knew.

After what felt like an entire millennium they broke eye contact. "I'll.. Uh, see you." Chet stumbled over his words, backing away from their table back over towards the lunch queue. Kurin turned back to sit properly at the table, facing the others again as Dan began to insist they check their messages and while Magnus gave them a weird look. They went along with the motions of checking their messages, their mind still hazy as all their ability to think went towards the one huge thought clogging up all the space in their mind.

Holy fuck. This was going to be awkward. Chet knew that Kurin knew and they were probably, likely, definitely going to have to talk about it at some point. This was going to be so awkward.