CHAPTER 4

Ryan is probably some kind of protagonist

Pike closed and locked his door, preparing to set out for one of the cafeterias. As he turned to make his way, he spied a very dejected-looking Ryan Belmont sulking in front of someone else’s room. The door was closed, and the simple name card taped on it indicated Erika Bast as the occupant.

“Oh man…” Ryan murmured gloomily. “Worst first day ever.”

Pike’s footsteps approached and stopped beside him. “Are… you okay?”

“I’m fine… Just making the worst first impression on one of the most beautiful girls I’ve ever met—”

As Ryan spoke, he turned to face Pike directly—and was immediately taken aback at the pair of deep-set eyes staring ghoulishly up at him from behind a pair of large eyeglasses. If looks could radiate their own aura without chaotic energy, Pike’s would certainly give off an air of something dark and uneasy.

“Gah! Your face!”

“Yeah, not a surprising reaction.”

In contrast to his radiant best friend, Pike didn’t exactly have appealing features. It wasn’t to say he was ugly or even nondescript (maybe). But if one were to be asked if he were an attractive specimen, they would almost certainly say not my type, or there's certainly someone better-looking, or most likely of all, who's that? Mindie, ever his most adamant defender, might object to such sentiments. However, she’d be one of very few.

Well, perhaps it didn’t help that the dark circles around his eyes made him look perpetually gloomy.

Pike’s straight-faced expression eased into an embarrassed but decidedly genuine smile as he scratched his head self-consciously. “Well, I’m no pretty girl. But I am heading down to the cafeteria for dinner if you want to join me. You know, to eat your woes away. Or something.”

Ryan took a moment to consider the invitation from this exhausted-looking neighbor of his. As a newcomer to the university, he was still lacking friends to spend time with. This dorm mate was nearly a full head shorter standing in front of him (it was hard not to notice). Questionable physique and features aside, at least he seemed friendly.

“That’d be awesome.” He grinned and held out a hand in formal greeting. “Ryan Belmont. I just transferred here.”

Pike graciously shook it. “Pike DeSanto. Nice to meet you, Ryan.”

=-=-=

One of the campus cafeterias was serving curry and rice as its special tonight, so that’s the one Pike opted to bring Ryan to. Ryan himself wasn’t too fond of a meal that was swimming in thick sauce of some unknown variety, so he decided to wait in line for a bowl of stir fry. The two new friends found some open seats at one of the long picnic tables that were lined up in rows across the room.

“So, what made you want to transfer to Halo Ridge?” Pike took a bite from his curry plate.

“Well, I was attending a more normal university before I became luminescent. It suddenly happened one time when some chaos thing was causing a ruckus during a basketball game.”

“That would be a Shade.”

“Right, a Shade. It was causing the hoops and stuff to fall off the walls. The lights kept flickering. Stuff out of a horror movie, you know? It was making everyone panic. No one knew what to do… and neither did I.”

Ryan clenched his fists and made a wringing motion, gritting his teeth to add some dramatic effect to his anecdote. “I was so frustrated that like, the entire world became background noise, and all I could see was this… thing. I remember thinking, I just want to set it on fire.

“So, I did. Somehow.” He snapped his fingers to punctuate the point, then shoveled in a few bites from his stir fry. “After I beat it to a pulp, it turned out to be some punk kid with an attitude problem. Some Stars showed up and took him away.”

Pike quietly ate his curry as he listened to Ryan’s tale. He made a bit of a face as he swallowed one of his mouthfuls. The curry wasn’t so great after all. He was still going to finish eating it though.

Ryan swallowed his own mouthfuls and continued. “My previous university does have a Luminescence Department, but it really just preps students like me to transfer to Halo Ridge. Once you’re a luminescent and want to do something about it, there’s really no other place that’s better. You could probably say this is the only university in the world that actually takes people’s luminescence seriously.”

“Makes sense. Luminescence isn’t exactly something you see every day.”

“Right? But when I became one myself, and realized I could fight all the bad stuff that affects the real world… I just knew, you know? I knew what I had to do.”

Ryan stood up, taking his now-empty bowl of stir fry. “I’m going to join the Halo Tour and finish on the Leaderboard. I’m going to become a Star and get rid of all the chaos out there.”

Pike looked up at him, quirking his eyebrow. The blond cut an impressive display and speech. Not to mention he finished his entire bowl of stir fry before Pike was halfway through his curry. It must’ve been good stir fry. Pike made a mental note to choose stir fry over curry next time.

Suddenly, Ryan took his fork and pointed it at Pike in a gesture of declaration. “In fact, I’m gonna be the brightest Star in the whole world!”

Ryan Belmont. First-year transfer student of Halo Ridge University. Status: civilian luminescent (but, by his declaration, certainly not for much longer).

It was a bold statement. It made Pike smile an uneasy smile. Not a bad uneasy smile; it was just déjà vu. He was getting some serious Mindie vibes from this guy.

=-=-=

"Thanks for the company, dude. Super appreciate it.”

“Thanks too.”

Pike and Ryan walked side by side back down their hallway. It was just about that time of night where more responsible students were turning in and retreating into their rooms, while less responsible ones would surely be out late for one reason or another. They idly passed one of their female neighbors, who had boy-cut dark blue hair and only sported trainer shorts and a black sports bra. She yawned and dragged herself towards the bathroom.

“I guess I’ll try apologizing one more time to that Erika girl…” Ryan heaved a sigh.

The blue-haired girl looked over her shoulder. “Huh? You’re looking for Erika?”

She turned more fully around to address the interrupted pair, throwing a thumb behind her in a general pointing gesture. “She left about five minutes ago to go downtown. There was a Shade sighting reported earlier. It was snapping powerlines and tearing up fire hydrants.”

Pike looked at Ryan, who seemed at a loss for what to say. “Erika is one of the Stars participating in the Halo Tour—oh, but you already knew that. If they’re not on the scene already, the way Stars find out about incidents involving chaos is through the news.”

As Pike spoke, Ryan pulled his phone out of his pocket and opened one of his news apps. Pike pointed to some of the headlines. “This is a news page that feeds from the bulletin board next to the Leaderboard in Central. It’s kept pretty up-to-date, so luminescents looking for chaos keep tabs on it.”

Ryan beamed at Pike. “Super helpful. I’ll need to keep that in mind when I’m part of the Tour too.”

The blue-haired girl yawned again and continued on her way to the bathroom. “I’d go there myself, buuut I’m beat after today. She should consider herself lucky…”

Pike watched as the girl disappeared into the bathroom and locked the door. Did that door always have a lock? He couldn’t remember. If it did, he must’ve missed it all this time. It would’ve been helpful that one time one of his neighbors rushed into the bathroom to take a dump while he was in the shower. On the other hand, he supposed he didn’t mind too much since the shower curtain had obscured them from each other. When you gotta go, you gotta go, after all.

 “Huh. Well, I guess it’ll have to wait until tomor—” He turned to Ryan, who was no longer there. “—row.”

He shrugged with a resigned smile. Then again, why waste the chance when you could be a hot-blooded protagonist instead?