The friends Jacob mentioned were indeed lefty and righty from that day. They were already waiting in a cafeteria with an alcoholic beverage in front of them. Despite it not being evening, they were already a bit tipsy … which I could certainly get behind.

“Hey, your new girlfriend?” Righty, coincidentally sitting on the right side this day as well, asked.

“Uh, I´m not? … do I know you from somewhere?” I asked, while slowly tilting my head towards the left.

“You were the girl with the maid?” Lefty said, slightly louder than he probably should have.

“Ohh … now I remember …” I mumbled and looked at Jacob who had a rather conflicted expression at the moment. “Uhm … I think I better go now … maybe my neighbour is already back.” I stated and slowly turned to leave.

“Hey, Lucy, wait.” He gently grabbed my arm, while looking at his two friends in anger.

“Oh, the first relationship crisis?” Righty chuckled in amusement.

“Would you two please keep quiet for a second? Lucy, it isn´t what it looked like.” I loved to see Jacob squirm beneath my thumb. So much in fact, that I couldn’t simply agree to his statement.

“I don’t know … it looked like he was quite cornered by you.” I said and looked away from him.

“He is … he is a necromancer. And he … he revived a rat in my room.” He stumbled over his words quite badly, but I didn´t want to push it too far.

“A rat?” I asked in disbelief.

“A rat.” Jacob said, exhaling loudly.

“Eww … but I really don’t know. The researchers always told me I wasn’t allowed to drink alcohol.” I stated.

“Oh, don’t worry, I wasn’t planning to drink any alcohol either.” He claimed, but I could see how his friends could barely contain their laughter. “So what do you want to eat? We have pancakes, savoy cabbage, and noodles.” He pointed towards a sign at the nearby counter. The selection wasn’t the greatest, but I expected nothing more from a cafeteria for students.

“I´ll take the pancakes.” Less to fuck up than the rest. Even though I was entirely conscious about the fact the cooks couldn’t even make this dish.

“Right away!” Jacob exclaimed as if it was some achievement to order food. I sat down at the table and presented myself as incredibly uncomfortable with the situation as the other two stared at me for quite some time.

“Uhm … is there something on my face?” I asked, right before Jacob came back with two plates filled with pancakes.

“No, no. Hey, buddy, where did you find her?” Leftie asked the moment Jacob sat down right next to me.

“In the library. Why are you asking?” He said, already raising an eyebrow as I started to dig into my food.

“Liar. She is clearly a ten, why would she be at the library?” I blinked a few times, hoping I had misheard, even though I knew this wasn’t the case. Were these two idiots grading my appearance? And why only a ten? Was I that ugly? Why not a hundred? Or at least a ninety …

“A ten?” I asked with a wavering voice.

“… D-Don’t worry about that. Just ignore them. That’s … probably better anyway.” Once again, his friends were creating situations he absolutely didn´t want to be in. He stumbled over his words, looked away from me and was fumbling with his fingers.

“O-Okay …” I said and began to eat my next pancake. Jacob was quite relieved by my answer, and chose to dig in as well. While the other two had fun with their beverages, I ate my food timidly and quietly. It was quite obvious that Jacob wanted to get away from them as fast as possible, so I wasn’t entirely surprised when he stood up abruptly as his friends made another blondes joke.

“Could you please stop embarrassing me?” Jacob said, getting angrier by the second. I honestly didn´t expect these to be such idiots, but I wouldn’t mind a little argument between them. I would come off as more generous and timid if I didn’t mind them too much after all.

“What? Are we unpleasant, now that you have a chick?” Leftie asked.

“What´s a chick?” I interjected, only to be met with three people in disbelief.

“What? How old are you even?” Leftie said, leaning forwards to look at me closely.

“Fourteen…” I claimed and looked down again.

“Stop questioning her like this. You are making her uncomfortable.” Thank you, Mr Knight for standing at my side. Truly, thank you. You are making manipulating you incredibly easy.

“I … thank you for the meal, Jacob, but I don’t feel very welcome here.” I said and stood up, my plate in hand. I even took the map and the compass with me as I didn´t want to go too overboard with my clumsiness.

“See ya around!” Righty said on his own road to becoming completely and utterly wasted. Truly, alcohol was a fascinating product, but I simply couldn’t see how he got this drunk from so little.

I nodded, walked towards the tray for used plates, and then towards the exit while observing the quarrelling trio in the corner of my eye. I knew very well how this would play out.

With a slight smile on my lips, I left the cafeteria slowly and then began to count.

1…

2…

3…

“Lucy!” Jacob called out, just as I was walking down the stairs. I turned around quickly, blinked a few times and then checked the map and compass in my hands.

“Yes?” I asked, feigning to be completely surprised.

“Where do you want to go?” Jacob asked, going down a few stairs until he stopped a few steps below me.

“Uhm … you guys seem to have planned something for today, don’t you?” I asked and looked straight into his eyes.

“No! I mean … yes, but they are already drunk, they probably won’t miss me anyway.” Yeah … they probably wouldn’t. As far as I could see, these two were assholes while Jacob was … weird.

“That´s kind of sad.” I said.

“No, I didn´t mean it like that … let´s say they won´t even realize I am away.” Once again, I feigned to be completely dumb as if I wasn’t even sure what he was getting at.

“I … don’t know if that is any better.” I muttered.

“What I want to say is that I have time. And I want to spend time with you today.” So sweet of him. It nearly touched my cold heart. Nearly. What would have been even sweeter of him was to tell me where he lived as he was younger … but it was too early for that.

“With me?” I exclaimed.

“Yes.” He said and nodded enthusiastically.

“Why?” Well, I knew why. The question is just if he wanted to realize as well.

“Because you are my friend, aren’t you?” I tilted my head to the side. A friend? He was still within the range where most humans made my emotions go haywire, but for him specifically, I barely felt anything.

“A friend? I only had three friends so far…” I claimed, which was kind of right.

“Then let us make it four!” He exclaimed and tried to grab my hands. Awkwardly, I pulled backwards and had to find some shitty excuse for my weird behaviour.

“I … I don’t know. Most people don’t like me … I´m clumsy, some even say I´m stupid.”

“You aren’t stupid! You just easily explained economics!” Wow. Everyone with two hundred years of a lifetime could explain demand and supply.

“Yeah but that’s … different. Jacob, I am not like you. I´m different from anyone around here.” I stated, already quite happy to have made such quick progress. Because I knew exactly what would come.

“So am I.” Bingo. “Really, I swear. The others and I … don’t have much in common.” Yes, please, dig your own grave little doggo. I didn´t need any more to confirm he was a werewolf. Maybe I need to sniff him once the night had begun, but that was about it. Strangely enough, he didn’t smell that much like a dog … it was weird. Maybe he wasn’t a full werewolf yet?

“Okay, I´ll be in your care.” I smiled happily as I said that and hopped down the last few stairs. “Where are we going?”

“I don’t know? Where do you want to go?” Where did I want to go? Preferably a place where I could be all lovely dovely with him … somewhere were nobody could see us.

“Uhm … so actually … this is really my first time on campus. Otherwise, my maid or the professor was always close to me.” I mentioned.

“Which professor?” He asked, now that I mentioned that mysterious professor twice already.

“Hmm … I´m not sure if I´m allowed to tell you that … but I think he is crazy.” It looked as if a light was turned on above Jacobs head. Tom told me about the crazy professor, but I didn´t think he would be this wildly known.

“You shouldn’t be around him.” Jacob stated as if it was general knowledge.

“Why? He is really nice, he is just a bit weird sometimes.”  I said in defence of the mentally insane person.

“I heard his students went crazy.” I couldn’t see why. Seriously, the demons were everywhere, especially when I looked in mirrors.

“Hehe~ maybe I already am~ … jokes aside, he is doing tests on me. On Monday, I will return back to the institute … can you forget that?” I said, holding my hands close while tippling from one foot onto the other.

“What?” He asked, slightly confused about the last part.

“Everything … preferably.” I stated and turned around to cut off any attempts to push any further. I would let him ask his questions, but not right now.

“Okay.” He uttered, slightly defeated by the sudden heavy atmosphere. “You said you were going to leave Monday?”

“Yeah … it has always been like that. I was either alone, or by someone who knew how to handle me.” I revealed and began to walk away from the cafeteria.

“How to handle you?” Even for me, that went a bit too far. I wanted him to think I was opening up to him, but I couldn’t risk telling him everything at that time.

“I … I want to go to the library. Let´s talk about books, alright?” I asked and turned around to salute playfully. Even then, I tried to give my pose a hint of sadness, which he luckily didn´t miss.