"The address was pretty boring, wasn't it Jules?"

I looked over at Alaric who had promptly flopped onto his bed the moment we entered the dormitory. I shrugged.

"I guess so."

At B University, there was a ceremonial address for each grade at the start of each semester. It was mostly to reinforce the university policies.

"You're no fun," he said.

"I'm just tired, honestly."

It was as if I had I had pulled a trigger. Alaric suddenly jumped up from the bed and started bombarding me with questions about how I was doing, if my wounds reopened, etc. Without giving me a chance to speak, he then ushered me around the dorm, forcing me to brush my teeth and go to bed.

"Al, you don't have to worry about me so much."

I was used to being alone and doing things by myself so I was a bit bothered with the mother hen-like behavior from Alaric.

He turned over on his bed to face me. His serious expression stopped me from continuing on.

"Julien," he began in a soft yet resolute tone. "When your parents called me and said that you got in an accident, do you know how worried I was?"

Taking my silence as a no, he continued on. "If your parents hadn't reassured me that they would give me updates about how you were, I would've flown back on a plane from Germany to check on you. You were in a coma for a week, Julien! My best friend was in a coma for a week!"

My heart ached a little when I saw his eyes water. After seeing Al as a confident guy who could handle anything, I forgot about how he felt about Julien, well me. I had never consoled anyone when I was Emiko since I hadn't been close enough with anyone to encounter such a situation. I was even more unsure how guys comforted each other. I decided to just sit on the floor next to his bed, my head leaning against the side of the mattress. It was something Julien would've done.

"I'm sorry, Al," I said.

He shook his head, wiping the tears off of his face harshly. "It's not your fault, I know that. Just be more careful, Julien. You were so close to dying."

"Well, I'm alive now."

I mentally slapped myself. That was obvious, you idiot.

Al looked at me with a deadpan stare before he started laughing. He laughed even harder when he saw how confused I was.

"You know, you always seem to be around when I'm crying," he said between his laughs.

I smiled fondly, glad that he wasn't upset anymore. "Yeah, except you can speak English really well now."

At his exasperated look, I added. "And you're really popular with the girls."

It was true. His confident and gentle demeanor attracted many girls.

He blushed before shooting back, "I'm not! You're the one that girls always swoon over."

As we started bickering, I felt my heart lighten. Al, just like my parents, gave me a sense of belonging that I was starting to believe in.

***

I got up the next day, refreshed and full of anticipation. It was the day that classes started, and I was looking forward to college life as a business major. I had looked over Julien's notes for the last semester, so I was confident that I wasn't going to be behind on anything.

It was pretty interesting. More interesting than I thought, really. As I got ready for the day, I noticed that Al hadn't woken up yet. I decided to wake him up because if I didn't, he was definitely going to be late. He had a habit of sleeping in. I shook his shoulder gently until he met my gaze with a sleepy one.

"Let me sleep," he said, turning to face the wall. "Five more minutes."

"Do you want to be late, Al?"

"Five minutes, please."

Fifteen minutes later, I was waiting by the door watching Alaric scurry around the room.

"I told you to wake up, man," I said, amused when he almost wore his shirt backward.

He glared at me hatefully as he fixed his shirt. "Shut it."

When we finally left the dorm, I turned to him and said, "We're not actually late. I just wanted you to wake up earlier so we could get breakfast together before class starts."

Al's gloomy face was replaced by a grin. "Well? What are you waiting for?"

Chuckling, I hurried after Al who was almost sprinting to the dining hall.

After breakfast, we walked into our Business class, settling in the seats next to the window. Thankfully, we had made it before the professor arrived.

I turned to Al. "We were actually going to be late because of you, you know."

He shrugged. "I like food. The dining hall has good food. What are you gonna do about it?"

Before I could respond, the door opened again, a dark-haired lady walking into the room.

"Good morning," she said, "I'm Professor Walker, your Business 108 lecturer for this semester."

She looked around the class, pausing occasionally on a face before she continued. "This semester's going to be a little different from your previous class."

I gulped, sharing a look with Al.

"Your entire grade will be based on a single project."

Protests filled the room. She waited until the clamor quieted down.

"You're going to work in groups to come up with a pitch for a business and start the business. The timeline for the project is in the syllabus."

A student in the front spoke up. "What if the business fails? Do we fail the class?"

After handing out the syllabuses to each column, she replied. "It depends. Everything will be taken into consideration. As for budgeting, the university has provided funding for each group. It will be the same amount. That is the only amount you are allowed to use."

Professor Walker continued before anyone could protest. "This project is to test your decisions with a fixed budget and how you can start a company with your own means, not your parents'. No outside funding. Okay, now I'm going to tell you which groups you will go in."

I turned to Al. "It sounds interesting, don't you think?"

He nodded. "I hope we're in the same group. It'd be a blast."

"--Group Two is James Walberg, Maria Hakon, Claire Falkner, and Dean Sanchez."

In my excitement, I almost forgot that Claire was in my class. Looking at the group, I saw her sit down with her group. The girl who ran into me was also in that group.

That's interesting. The male lead is there, too.

"Hey, what are you thinking about?" Al asked, tugging on my sleeve. "Stop spacing out again. Our group has been called."

Giving him a sheepish smile, I muttered an apology.

"My absentminded friend here," he said patting my back, "is Julien Deichert. I'm Alaric Bauer. You can call me Al."

I waved at the group members in front of me. The sandy-haired boy waved back hesitantly, reminding me a bit of a younger Al. "Hi, I'm Tyler Halderman."

Facing the last member of our group, she only said, "Mallory Erxleben."

Oh, seems like she's a bit cold. A cold beauty, then.

It was a bit nostalgic. I had been quite standoffish in my past life as I had a lot of trouble trusting anyone so I felt a bit of kinship to this blue-haired girl.

Giving her a warm smile, I said, "Nice to meet you."

I could tell that she was taken aback, but she quickly returned to her frosty demeanor and simply responded with a stiff nod.

"Alright, so for the project..."

With Alaric kicking off the project for our group, we soon came up with a basic outline. With Tyler's suggestion of cleaner energy and Al's enthusiasm for engineering, we had settled on a design for a new mode of transportation.

"Alright, so Tyler and Al will be in charge of designing the modified scooter bike," I said. "Mallory will handle the pitch and I'll get started with the budgeting."

They nodded just as the Professor dismissed us.

"Wanna meet up for lunch?" Al said, packing his bag.

I saw that Mallory was about to shake her head so I added, "We can discuss our project."

Al gave me a questioning look before I subtly tilted my head towards Mallory who gave a hesitant nod. He let out a quiet 'oh' as we left the room.

Calculus passed by quickly. The stern professor had immediately jumped into the coursework. It wasn't difficult for me since I had already taken Calculus before, and I liked mathematics. It was calming and assuring. The answers were black and white, right or wrong. Math was a constant in my previously unstable life.

Anyways, it was pretty important in architecture since wrong calculations could collapse a structure.

I saw Mallory help Tyler with the problems and smiled a bit. The girl spoke succinctly, but she was helping him nevertheless. She also didn't seem to mind when Al or I asked her to compare answers.

"Hey Mallory," Al said as we sat down in the cafeteria. "You're pretty good at math."

"Yes."

Before an awkward silence made its appearance, Tyler surprisingly jumped into the conversation.

"Her parents are in the tech industry. Her older brother is a pretty famous mathematician."

Mallory, Mallory, Mallory Erxleben! How did I not notice sooner? The girl calming cutting her steak in front of me was one of the girls that the male lead collected into his harem. The Erxleben family didn't own a company or anything, but they were pretty influential as they made cutting-edge technology. That had caught the hungry eyes of the male lead. His efforts did pay off as his persistent charming and seemingly caring nature melted Mallory's cold exterior. She would help him gain influence over the tech industry as she would persuade her parents to help develop software exclusive for his company. However, she was the only one in his harem who met a terrible ending later on because she couldn't accept the

whole harem situation. I mean, it's a reasonable objection. Who wants to see the one you love with other people?

I was determined to help Mallory find someone better now that I had met the girl who seemed so much like the past me.

Noticing that I had been silent for a bit too long, I quickly turned to Tyler.

"How do you know that, Tyler?" I asked when Mallory nodded.

He flushed. "Our parents know each other. We grew up together."

Al and I shared a look. The two could not make a more unlikely pair. I dug into my spaghetti before I asked Tyler another question.

"What about your family? What do your parents do?"

"My family's mostly in politics," he said. "You may have heard of my father. He's running for Mayor this year."

"Wow, that's pretty cool," Al said.

I nodded before Al and I answered questions about our families and their jobs. Suddenly, the cafeteria became quiet. I looked at Al and my new friends questioningly, but they shook their heads.

What is going on?

As if to answer my question, a shrill voice pierced through the silence.

"You bitch!"

Damn, someone is angry.

Turning to the owner of the voice, I saw a girl clutching her face while another girl stood in front of her with a red face. Although they were a few tables away from where I was sitting, I could hear them clearly since it was so silent and the girl was screaming.

"Stay away from him!" The red-faced girl shouted. "I know you're trying to steal him from me!"

Oh, it's a cliched campus drama moment. Wait, this wasn't mentioned in the novel.

"—talking about? He likes me, not you!"

I refocused on the scene in front of me. The girl who was slapped was retaliating, pulling on the other girl's hair. Soon their friends got involved, trying to pull them apart, but they also soon got into the fight.

The whole thing was getting extremely out of hand.

I turned to my friends. "Who are they fighting over?"

Surprisingly, Mallory was the one who answered my question. "James. James Walberg."

I did a double take. "The guy in our Business class?"

She nodded.

I knew that the male lead would start his playboy and soon philandering, ways, but as despicable as he was, he was also really good at covering his tracks. The two girls that had started fighting were probably his earlier targets since he didn't start building his harem until the summer of freshman year.

So why was this happening at all?

I turned around, scanning the cafeteria as if to find some sort of clue, but I saw nothing. I then glanced at the entryways to see if anyone would step up and stop the catfight since the people around me didn't take action. Instead, many took out their phones and started recording the whole thing. I sighed as I stood up. Al seeing the motion, quickly understood and stood up with me. As we made our way to where the girls were still fighting, I missed the flash of blonde hair walking past the cafeteria.