It was late afternoon as Ryvan arrived at the old residential building. In the warm glow of the receding sunlight, the house looked more inviting than before. Yet it was a deceiving warmth; it was late September and the trees had started changing, leaving their marks in the form of red-brown leaves on the ground. Already, Ryvan could feel the chill of autumn creeping in. While closing the ebony buttons of his trench coat, he checked his phone for the time. People didn’t usually make him wait.   

But Taren had never specified a time so he didn’t know whether it was late enough to count as later. Maybe he should wait another five minutes before texting him? Ryvan didn’t want to appear over-eager and like he had nothing else to do but at the same time, he was looking forward so much to seeing the Crow.

To avoid potential encounters with Colton and Leander, he stepped away from the entrance, finding a vantage point between the shrubs that threatened to overgrow the small path leading to the dilapidated building. 

However, in the end, it was Taren who found him. He walked—luckily alone—down the small path. “If you’re playing hide and seek, you’re pretty bad at it.”

Ryvan felt a sudden heat in his cheeks and a coppery taste in his mouth. Only now did he realise that he probably looked like a creep. “I was waiting for you, that’s all.”

Taren seemed to accept his excuse and wordlessly opened the squeaking front door, a noise that made Ryvan flinch. Inside, the single lightbulb in the otherwise dark corridor flickered and he silently admired the shadowplay on Taren’s picture-perfect face, while the other looked for his room key. 

“The fuck are you staring at?”

Ryvan realised he had stared at the other student and quickly averted his gaze. “I- I need to talk to your roommate, Mick. Would you mind letting him know that I’m here?” 

Taren slowly turned around and looked at him. Ryvan couldn’t help but look back. The Crow stood near the single light source, illuminating his face but leaving the rest of the corridor engulfed in eerie darkness. It didn’t help that he was wearing all black clothes. 

“Mick? What do you want from that loser?” Taren’s voice wasn’t friendly but he pointed towards one of the doors nonetheless. 

Despite his sudden coldness, Ryvan knocked on the door. After all, he had to repay him for the cola. 

A moment later, a boy peered at him through the slightly opened door, shy like a deer that assumed a wolf had come. In the weak light, Ryvan couldn’t fully make out his features, other than that he wore glasses and was smaller than him.

"My name is Ryvan, nice to meet you,” he introduced himself. “You must be Mick?”

The student briefly looked at the Crow before replying. “Oh, hello. Actually… I’m Florian—but you can call me Mick. Taren always calls me Mick.” He sounded as if he was sorry that Mick wasn’t his real name.

“Florian, I would like to reimburse you for the cola Taren gave me. I should have said something at the time." Without waiting for a reply, Ryvan took out his wallet and found some notes. "I sincerely hope this will make up for the expense."

Florian looked at him, his eyes wide in shock and his fingers cautiously running through the money. "This… this is enough to buy enough drinks for a year…”

“If you are throwing money around like a fucking clown, the whole campus will know that you’re filthy rich,” Taren interrupted. For some reason, his mood seemed to have taken a turn for the worse. “Go and buy drinks or something, Mick.”

The bespectacled student hastily grabbed his bag and scurried away, nodding towards Ryvan as a quick goodbye.

“His name is Florian,” Ryvan remarked as he followed Taren into his room. The Crow seemed to be really bad at remembering names, to the degree that it was disrespectful. It was also cute.

“I invited you, why do you think you needed to repay that idiot? Did you come here to see Florian?” 

Unsure of what to do, Ryvan stood by the entrance. “I came because I wanted to see you,” he said, realising the meaning of his words only afterwards. Hadn’t he come to learn how to fight? “I mean- I came because you invited me.” 

“Whatever.” Taren shrugged as if he had never cared about the topic. He then pointed towards the bed. “Sit.”

Surprised by the change in attitude, Ryvan followed the instruction. Seeing that Taren had calmed down, perhaps now was the time to ask the question burning in his mind. “By the way, this morning your friend called me ‘rich kid’. Did you tell them about my background?”

“Didn’t need to,” Taren replied. “After you have lived on the streets for a few years, there are things you can tell just by looking at a person. I guess that’s why Leander and Colton don’t like you. Can’t blame them for that.” 

Satisfied with the explanation, Ryvan wondered what Taren was planning. His confusion only grew when he handed him a black game-console controller. It had been well-used before, the labels on the buttons had long fainted and the plastic felt sticky upon his touch. 

Then, the Crow sat down next to him, dangerously close. Ryvan’s heartbeat accelerated and he had to force himself to calm down. Taren’s woody scent didn’t make it any better.

The black-haired student seemed to have no clue about Ryvan’s questionable inner state, turning on the TV that stood on a small table not too far away. It was a lot smaller than any TV Ryvan had seen before and although it was a LED TV, it looked like the oldest model in existence. “You can learn to fight from the game. If you can beat me, I’ll teach you for real.”