"I'm serious, when I first saw this, I didn't get it either," the older student said seriously. "I literally — literally! — stayed up for three days in a row just trying to figure it out. So don't give up."

The younger girl frowned a bit again, trying to go through the notes she had just written down with her tutor about quadratics.

"It's really hard on anyone's mind to think about this all the time," he said. "But we worked hard today, right?" He gave her an encouraging smile.

"I think.. if I practice more.." the girl sighed, taking one last look at her notes before putting her books back into her bag.

"No, I'm serious, you could really be a natural at this," her tutor replied.

She smiled a little this time. "Thanks."

"I'm not a math genius," he replied. "I just practice a lot. There is nothing that someone can't do if they practice enough, ok?"

She nodded, a bit of the tiredness lifted from her eyes.

"How's your cat, by the way?" asked the math tutor, also reshuffling his papers and taking a sip of his drink. "I love your cat, he's so cute."

"He keeps knocking over glasses from the counter," she laughed. "My mom hates it, she's really mad about it."

"Cats are so cute," he said, which seemed not to empathize much with the problems of the girl's mother. "Maybe you should get plastic cups."

"I'm not going to tell her you said that," she said, giggling. She had finished putting all her schoolbooks away. "Thanks for your help today. See you next week." With a tiny wave, beaded bracelets jingling, she headed out the cafe.

Waving back, he watched the high schooler disappear around the corner, hopeful that she would feel a little more confident on the exam she had the next day.

Math is the worst when you don't understand it, he thought. Fighting!!

Taking another sip of his beverage, which was something like a peach and raspberry slushy with sprinkles on top, he opened his email. One of his professors had sent him an article titled "Revival of Animal Still Life in the 20th Century". Staring at unblinkingly at the computer screen, he gazed at the various prints referenced in the article, featuring such characters as a duck standing in the middle of a wide, desolate looking canvas of a moor in afternoon light, or a cat who was looking out a window, a bowl of fruit on the table in the forefront a nod to more classical still life pieces.

Noticing suddenly he had a bit of a slushy mustache, he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and sent the article to one of his friends. Though that friend was doing independent study, he loved this type of artwork.

"I got your email," said a familiar voice behind him. "I didn't know you tutored people on the subject of 'cats staring at grapes'."

"Do you see any student here?" the tutor asked indignantly, not bothering to look up. "They just left and I saw that my professor had sent this to me."

"Can we go eat now? I'm hungry."

"I really thought you weren't going to wait today," he said, laughing slightly. "I told you last time to just go eat without me if you're hungry, I always end up eating on the way home anyways."

"I basically have to wait for you," said the other, pretending to complain. "I'm legally obligated. If I don't wait for you, I could get arrested."

The tutor rolled his eyes. "Let's go," he said. "Aren't we having fried rice today?"

"Yeah. Hold on, I have to put my computer in my bag."

"Is this your revenge?" the tutor replied, looking around the cafe in exaggerated mock astonishment, "The petty revenge of making me wait for you to put your laptop away?"

"I said hold on, not wait five hours," insisted his friend. Shoving his computer in amongst a few notebooks, a hat, a pair of lens-less glasses, and a pair of binoculars, he finally said. "Ok, done."

"Aigooooooo, you're always making me wait," complained the math tutor in the same tone used by someone's disappointed aunt. He clung onto the shoulders of his friend as if all his strength had suddenly evaporated.

"Get off, it's hot," complained the other student, reaching behind to jab his best friend in the ribs.

"You are mean," he mumbled, head butting his friend once before leaning on his shoulder bag instead. It wasn't all play; as soon as he had risen from his spot at the table he had suddenly felt very worn out.

"You are mean," his friend repeated, with a pouty tone. They tried to leave the coffee shop in one piece but because trying to walk normally felt like too much effort, he instead bumped into his friend several times, saying "sorry" each time.

It started to become funny after the third or fourth time, so that every time he said "sorry" he would just burst into laughter.

Reaching the fried rice restaurant, he pulled his wallet out of his bag to choose something at the kiosk for dinner. "I'm going for beef fried rice," said his friend, yawning a bit and punching in his choices on the neighboring kiosk.

"I think I want egg fried rice with cheese," he replied, scrolling through the menu. "I still have the tastes of a 5 year old."

He realized suddenly that what he was clutching was not his wallet but just the holder where he kept his student ID. He reached into his bag again, rummaging around.

"What?" said his friend, looking over at his fumbling with raised eyebrows. "You left your wallet somewhere??"

They looked at each other for a second, and finally he looked off to the side and burst out laughing, his friend simultaneously realizing the crisis and saying "Ah, seriously, you—"

"Just get a table, can you?" he said, still laughing with a mixture of embarrassment and amusement. "Ah.. I think I need to get better glasses or something.. just wait, ok? I'll literally be right back." He was already backing out the door and running to the cafe near campus where he had been a few minutes ago.

He ran in through the door of the cafe and looked for the table where he was last sitting. Coincidentally, Sunny was sitting there now, a guy who he had spoken to on a few occasions in one of his required electives. That writing class, he thought. "Uhh.." he said, standing there. The guy, whose computer screen reflected on the lenses of his yellow glasses, looked up without moving much of his head, his eyes barely showing under his blonde hair.

"Uh huh," the guy replied, looking up briefly. In addition to the blue reflection on his glasses, he saw a flash of recognition in his face. "Hey, long time no see," he added.

"Hey, Sunny," he replied. "Have you worked on the paper much lately?"

Sunny yawned, stretching backwards and taking a sip of a large size iced coffee. It looked like most of the ice had melted, though.

That can't taste very good, he thought to himself.

"I thought I finished it last week," Sunny said, tilting his head a little bit and looking off to the side. He seemed to be laughing about it.

"Bro, you really finished it two weeks in advance?" he replied, astonished.

"I said I thought I did," Sunny replied, still laughing as if he shared an inside joke with himself. "I was wrong, I haven't even started."

He tried to look exasperated but just started laughing instead. "Bro— bro," he laughed. "The paper is literally about bad habits. In case you don't have a topic—."

"I was going to write about people's dependence on caffeine," Sunny replied, pointing accusingly toward his iced coffee as if it was its fault that people got hooked on Starbucks.

"Bro, aren't you a perpetrator right now?" he asked incredulously, also pointing to the iced coffee.

"That's mostly water," he said defensively, "I always get a large iced americano with only one shot so that I can decrease my body's dependence on caffeine but still get my work done."

"See, so you admit people have a reason for drinking caffeine," he said pointedly. "I literally thought it was just melted."

"No, I just bought it five minutes ago," Sunny replied plainly.

He laughed again, running a hand through his hair and looking around, almost expecting other customers, who were literally there to drink coffee, to look up at this comment. Man, this guy. Really interesting logic.

"Anyways, dude, I was just sitting at this table and I left my wallet," he said, suddenly remembering why he came in here in the first place.

"Your ID picture is really dumb," said Sunny without preamble, pulling his wallet out of his backpack and thrusting it at him. "I was going to give it to you in class tomorrow."

"You looked at my ID picture?" he said, pouting. "I look really bad, it was the day before I got my hair re-dyed and it looked kind of like straw..."

"Yah, how else am I supposed to know who to give this to?" said Sunny incredulously, leaning back in his chair and jabbing a finger at him. "Can I sense people's auras around their wallets now??"

"Ah ok, I'll admit that," he relented. "But my hair looked so much like straw."

"Stop dyeing it then, it's going to fall out and then you'll look even worse."

"Are you saying I look ugly?" he said, again making a sad pouty face, in the hopes that this would sway him to say something nice.

"Just wear a hat next time if you don't like it," Sunny said, by way of answer. He had gone back to ignoring his sulky facial expressions. His efforts thwarted to invoke pity for his old ID photo, he decided he was probably spending too long here when he was supposed to be eating dinner with his other friend.

"I'll see you in class," he said, crouching down so only his eyes showed above the back of Sunny's laptop.

"Ahhh.. you seriously," groused Sunny, reaching out to swat him away. He deftly avoided the offensive attack and half spun-half walked over to the door, calling out "Thanks for my wallet!" as he left, jogging back towards the fried rice restaurant.