A week went by before their quarantine was lifted and Lu found Adon waiting for him on the forbidden balcony at the Academy, flipping through a disappointing pile of failed worksheets on his tablet with hopeless self-criticism, “they’re all going to fire me if their kids score like this. What is going on?” He muttered through the questions he’d designed and jotted down notes, outlining a review session targeting intentionally misleading language. 

Lu hovered over Adon, his defensive glare still in place, but pausing at Adon’s easy nonchalance as he waved his pen. Adon neither flinched nor straightened nor smiled in his presence. Lu relaxed, falling against the cold cement wall and sliding down beside him, “when’s your CAPT group?”

“Next week,” Adon grunted, unphased. 

“And you’re here?” Lu gaped. Most kids were kept under lock and key the month of their test, even the lowest in the Well, in hopes of the coveted state-sponsored positions that got shuffled and raffled after the Uppers had their draws. Lu had thought he was the only exception. 

Adon shrugged, mumbling to himself, “I guess if I score well enough, they’ll still trust me.”

It took Lu a second to realize Adon meant the parents of his students. “If you score well enough, you won’t even need them,” he stretched, frowning at Adon’s mocking face and dropping his arms, “what?”

“I like tutoring.”

Lu snorted, “yeah, I bet it’s awesome compared to a ramen cart.”

Adon elbowed him lightly, eyes still on his academy-sponsored tablet as he slashed red crosses through an alarming amount of answers, “the ramen cart isn’t bad either.”

Lu returned the mocking face subtly, his voice barely a whisper “that’s because you have the cake hole to compare it to.”

This time Adon did look at him. Lu smiled an apology, remembering Mess’ long list of favorite cakes, in order. He thought of asking about his brother, but instead nudged Adon back when his stylus was off the tablet screen, “what do you like about tutoring?”

Adon pulled his eyes from the failed worksheet, letting his head fall back against the wall harder than he meant, contemplating. “I guess… I feel like, if all these people believe that I’m smart enough to help them, and they prove it when they bring me improved scores or their parents become more invested in their struggles, or they suddenly get the idea in the middle of a session, if they believe in me, then I must be worth something.” He ruffled his hair self consciously, his attention drifting back to the tablet as Lu nodded. 

They let the hours fly past, Adon remaining resolutely focused on grading and redrafting his worksheets while Lu napped, tossed concrete pebbles over the railing and threw out random names and numbers for Adon’s test questions, skipped around the balcony in a series of squats and restless pushups, then finally settled back beside Adon to draw his latest assignment, still too fidgety to hold a steady pen. He shook out his hands and scowled at the rubric on his phone. Any subject, conflicting materials. If he used too much emotion, his teacher would report him to the counselor again, like the original draft he’d turned in for his Mother portrait. Too little and she’d fail him, stupid Janes. 

Before he’d decided on a safe emotion to depict, sketching circles, lines, and boxes to relax his hand, he was briefly hypnotized by the syncopation of his pen against Adon’s. He barely blinked, hardly a minute could have passed, but Lu shifted his numb butt to find the solar lamps dimmed to dust-light and Adon asleep on his shoulder, holding a phone flashlight lighting Lu’s sketchbook. Adon’s alarm was beeping progressively louder and Lu reached over, tapping the dismiss button several times before the ancient brick shut off. He looked down to find a shockingly detailed ink portrait of Adon in profile, buried under a pile of electronic worksheets, the image full of infatuated questions Lu would absolutely never ask. 

Adon stirred and Lu flipped his sketchbook closed with a blush, letting Adon nestle into his warmth, holding too still. In the still quiet of the stark shadows and Adon’s sleepy even breaths, the roaming of the falling flashlight and the heat rising off the cooling cement, Lu looked at Adon and let his questions peek heads around corners, wondering what it might feel like to follow Adon onto every rail, to sling on that ridiculously orange apron and serve warm noodles to mean customers. He imagined Adon at home. Did he fall asleep? Did he keep laughing at home? Was he warm there too?

When a second alarm beeped, Adon sat up in half a panic, gathered his work into his bag, and jogged toward the east exit to pick Messenger up from the Navy elementary. He checked his old nav system to see if Aphro was at home, his brow furrowing slightly at her shared location that was nowhere near their unit. He looked it up and relaxed when he found it was just another cafe. She was probably on a date or studying with friends. At the door, Adon waved back at Lu with a sigh. It would be nice to have time for dates. 

Lu watched Adon jog down the hall through the slowly closing door, shuffling up and in the opposite direction. He swiped his rail-request pass and hopped on the personal shuttle when it arrived, sitting in the seat with his name scrolling over its marquis. He was home within minutes despite the distance. If he’d traveled like Adon, it would take him over an hour. 

He waved to Benny in the greenhouse and took the stairs two at a time to his room. It was cold. 

He looked at his grav-suit, last season’s model by J-Corp, chewing his cheek. He’d grown five inches since summer. If he raised his arms in the tunnels or didn’t fasten his gloves in the outer city, he was toast. He looked down at his phone and district ID band, his district alert and credit ID all integrated into the single wristband that could notify him of alerts in multiple districts at the same time. It even buzzed on his wrist when he set an alarm. But like the grav-suit, it was last season’s model, Gideon had been hounding him about image lately. Since the Pits. He’d said no son of the Flock should look like a Grounder, then launched into some rant about strategic positioning Lu never listened to enough to understand. 

He smiled to himself and texted Benny the models he wanted. 

The new ID band was pre-programmed and waiting beside his bed the next morning, but it took Lu all day to figure out how to set the old one to alert for Navy, Indigo, Violet, and the Arcade. Plus he’d had to annoy Adon into giving his District ID to sync it to his alert, residence unit, and credits accounts. He was surprised to find Adon didn’t even have an AIE database, but didn’t ask, it seemed like a rich kid thing to ask, especially after he looked up the cost of AI Entertainment’s basic content packages. Adon seemed more like a reader anyway. Syncing the old band to all of Adon’s accounts and locations took another few days as Lu deleted his own history and debated if Adon would accept an AIE subscription if he pitched it as educational. By the start of the next week, the week of Adon’s CAPT, Lu ran to school early, jumping off the train and striding directly toward the greenhouse, fixing his face into passivity, hiding the embarrassing amount of effort he’d put into the gift.

☆