Joseph was scrolling down his phone, trying to pass the time that he did not have. With his arm stretched out to the end of the table, his left cheek rested on his shoulder, and his eyes glassed over, he was in the perfect position to ignore responsibilities. The looming threat of a deadline was not strong enough for him to hit the books. Instead, he chose to hit his phone repeatedly, scavenging whatever piece of entertainment he could find to cover up reality – that this homework was boring as hell.

Really, what kind of professor assigns homework due in three days when it was made for two weeks? Running over a weekend, nonetheless! A cruel fate, indeed. Even though he already went to the café for free food, Joseph still could not help waste time. If it were not for Celine, he would not have dragged his body to the library.

“…Oh?”

-and as fate would have it, he would keep on procrastinating a bit longer. A notification popped up from the top of his phone.

Miguel Praxedes has sent a friend request.

No thinking was needed – Joseph pressed ‘Accept’ without letting a second pass.

“Do your shit.” Celine sat down across him, with books of varying thickness and length stacked.

“Yeah, sure, BUT” Joseph flashed his phone to Celine, watching her eyes go from left to right.

“Oh, he just made that huh?” Celine said, referring to Miguel’s profile.

“How can you tell?”

“Look,” Celine said, “Just a gray silhouette.”

Joseph looked at his phone. “Oh yeah, just a gray man.” He took a few moments to think before his eyes popped open. He sat upright and forced out a laugh that sounded like a terrible impression of a villain – a sure sign for mischief.

“Do it.” Celine said, keen on whatever he was planning to do.

“…and sent.” Joseph smiled, putting in extra effort to make it wide, and handed over his phone to Celine.

On the screen was a picture of Miguel, with his chin on the counter, a bit of drool hanging out of his mouth and his eyes rolled back showing the full whites of his eyes.

Celine burst out laughing. A person from the back end of the library reprimanded her with an angry 'shh'.

“The man gave you a burger,” Celine said, trying her hardest to stifle what was left of her laughing fit, “and this is how you treat him.”

“He looks cute here.”

“In a possessed way, maybe.” Celine continued to jot down a few more lines on her notes. “Do you really find him cute, or do you just like teasing him?"

“What? When did I tease him?"

Celine glared at Joseph.

"Okay yeah, sending him that picture was definitely teasing. But that's it."

"What about cute then?"

Joseph thought about it, and could not think of an answer. "I haven't thought about it. What do you think though?"

“He has charm, definitely. But I’m more into clean guys.” Celine rubbed her chin, expressing distaste over Miguel's beard.

“So you’re saying he’s dirty.”

“A dirty old man.”

“Hey…”

The tailwind of the conversation petered out until it was just the both of them doing their own thing – Celine jotting down her notes for her research paper, and Joseph scrolling down his phone to avoid doing that.

As if he wasn't distracted enough, Joseph tried to remember the past twenty-two years of his life in just a few minutes.

Joseph was an only child, born to a Caucasian mother and a Japanese father. Being the hard workers that they were, Joseph was taken care of his relatives while they went ahead and pursued their nine-to-fives. 

However, because of this, Joseph grew distant from his parents - or at least he felt there was a gap. He would only talk to his parents whenever he had an achievement to share; whether he wanted to brag about how he got a star for doing excellent on a quiz or how he beat the opposing team in a friendly game of dodge ball. All he got were empty and tired ‘that’s great’s or disinterested ‘wows’. 

Joseph became numb. Clearly, his parents did not pay him any attention, even though he was only asking for two-cents worth of it. He resorted to fishing for compliments in order to make conversation, but his parents would not even suffer themselves for a tiny nibble. The dinner table was quiet, save the clanking of metal utensils against ceramic plates, and the miraculous few seconds of complaints about his parents' co-workers or how their project was going nowhere. Even on weekends, where it was taught to be 'family time' - nothing. It was spent lazing around because they were 'too tired', and even that was spent in total silence.

Not even a bit of recognition.

Nothing.

“Oh yeah,” Celine said, looking up after being pasted down by her work, “I saw your art today on exhibit. It looked great!”

Joseph looked at her and smiled, “Really? What did you like about it?”

“I don’t know. The colors are really my thing – really vibrant, clear, and it just pops. The lines were wonderful too, they’re just so bold, knowwhatimean?”

“Thanks! I gotta say though, I just read your recent article and…”

Not much work was done that day.

But Joseph did not seem to mind - at least until the midnight of the deadline.