Chapter 21
Nicolas wasn't hungry, no matter how many times Azure tried getting him to eat. She even offered to give him her food, to which he immediately refused, but didn't stop pestering him about it.
He knew that if he rolled his eyes any harder they would get stuck.
Ravi finally decided to take bites of his own food. "Isn't that cold as ice?" Patton asked him, staring at his curry that looked especially delicious presently. Ravi shook his head, his mouth filled to the brim with orange-red sauce. Swallowing, he replied, "Rogan josh keeps its heat!"
A sudden hand slammed itself next to Nicolas, whom was thinking about his family. His neck snapped up to Benjamin, who, for some reason, had light shades on. Fountain took them off of his face and smiled. "Scared you, didn't I?" he said smugly. Nicolas belligerently asked him what he wanted, getting angrier at his ever-widening smirk.
"I just wanted to check our friendship," said Benjamin, "because it seems like you've forgotten about me already."
A scoff seeped from Nicolas involuntarily. "That didn't warrant you slamming your hand on the table!" he yelled. The smug quickly faded from Benjamin's face, transforming into an arch of his eyebrows. He quietly walked away, throwing Nicolas into a pool of guilt.
He turned back to the others, who were staring at him in judgement. He tried not to make eye contact with Elise, as her judgmental glare would be too much for him right now. He wished everyone would just go back to their conversations, leave him be for once.
Azure opened her mouth to say something but decided against it. Instead, she grabbed a napkin, gently patted her mouth with it and declared she was finished. Zachary did the same, only his plate still had food on it while hers was clean. Nicolas would ask him about that, but opposing decisions were being made today.
Then, Azure's clear attempts from earlier became apparent to him now. He hadn't eaten! All this time he spent in the dining hall where food was the main theme and he had been daydreaming about nothing!
He sighed, putting his head back in exhaustion. Patton had now said that he was done with his food, then Elise, making Ravi the only one who was still eating. "Why did you just start eating?" Azure asked him irritably. He was still stuffing his mouth, apparently unable to hear over his chews, as he didn't answer.
Nicolas just wanted the day to be over already, he felt that there wasn't any need to still be awake. What time was it, even?
He quickly glanced at the gigantic clock that was centered high up on the same wall as the stage. Its hour hand was halfway between nine and ten, with the minute hand on three. He looked back down to see Ravi's book opened on a page with words he couldn't make out.
He got a little closer, squinting at this strange book. Ravi looked out of the corner of his eye and saw him doing this, still with his curry-stuffed mouth. He swallowed some of his food, "It's in Hindi," he explained.
"Hindi?" repeated Nicolas. Ravi nodded happily, "Yes, Hindi! You see, some of my family is Buddhist, and some are Hindu. They are both religions. I'm learning about both so I can choose which religion I want to worship."
He turned and held the book up to Nicolas to show him the contents. "Hindi doesn't use Latin-based characters like English, Spanish, Italian, etcetera do." He graced his finger below some sentences as if to underline them, showing him the one that wrote, "और विष्णु जानते थे कि उनका पुत्र बहुत शक्तिशाली देवता होगा।". Nicolas looked up at him with confused eyes. Ravi giggled and explained that the sentence was talking about the principal god Vishnu, and how he knew that his wife would bear a very powerful son. He called the book an "epic", although this one was for children to comprehend. The originals, he said, used too much indirect speech.
Nicolas slowly nodded and turned away. His gray-hazel eyes met with Elise's green eyes for a moment that felt like eternity. In almost an inaudible whisper, she uttered, "So you're the other half..."
He was taken aback by this sudden interaction. His stomach must have gone down a black hole by now, the bottomless pit that Elise created herself, with her ignorance. But now... Now she verbalized her thoughts towards him, for perhaps the first time. But what did it mean?
Ravi had exclaimed he was done eating not too long after that and put Nicolas's wonders to a wait. Soon, they all got up from their seats and chatted about what to do next, ultimately agreeing they were all to go to their dorms.
"Cool! First night here and we're all good friends," said a beaming Patton.
Zachary made a quick and forced smile at him, obviously still being effected by something. Nicolas peered over to Benjamin, who was facing the opposite direction and talking to his friends. He decided that if he was going to keep his friendly promise, the approach he was taking surely wasn't doing it.
Taking a big, deep breath, he advanced over to Benjamin and waited until he was finished to talk to him. Benjamin slowly turned to Nicolas with bitter eyes. "What do you want?" he hissed.
"I would like to say I'm sorry. I wasn't feeling the best when you did what you did earlier," replied Nicolas, truly apologetic for his hostile behavior. Benjamin looked him up and down, "Truly?" he asked.
Another deep breath, as he couldn't believe he was about to do this,
"Absolutely," Nicolas responded with a smirk. Benjamin's belligerent scathe morphed into a goofy beam. "I knew you'd come around!" He exclaimed with a pumped fist. Smiling, Nicolas turned away and walked over to his friends, who were now staring giving him respectable looks.
"I didn't think you liked that guy," said Azure once he got close to the group. Nicolas shrugged, and with an even bigger smile, he claimed, "I'm unpredictable."
End of Chapter
Might be the longest one yet :]
Hope you enjoyed.
Love ya'll,
nobodyimportant out—
