
She had a short skirt that was all a-rebellion of large pockets. It was earth brown and military green with etched metal buckles. She was going somewhere, looking good, and bringing plenty of supplies.
Shungyosai didn’t know if it was the excitement of the first week being away at college, or the loud music. Maybe the light show cramming the lobby of this dorm center where the administration had invited the new class to an ‘Orientation Mixer’. Or could be the coffee he had been drinking all day. Whatever the cause; he felt awake, his senses tweaked.
Or maybe it was the real, true, earnest attempt he was making the past three days to be awake during the day and in bed during the night, promising himself and the larger world that he was going to do this, make his class schedule. The same guy who knows he does his best work when he stays up for a three day stretch and is half out of his mind, pushing some new concept until it cracks its spine. And then, in the blare of some hazy new dawn, reprogramming the pieces into something… new.
He had actually been asleep last night at a reasonable hour, felt the cosmos aligning to give him this chance. Had laid on the mediocre mattress in the apartment-style dorm, surrounded by adjacent rooms –similarly holding cells, harboring his three new room mates– and slumbered. Dreamt, even.

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