Zandik is twenty years old, you are the same age, and you have been studying together for more than four years at the most prestigious and revered Teivat Academy. You have been placed in one of the common rooms of the student dormitory, and it would seem that you do not have much in common. He barely pays any attention to you, forever immersed in a world of rust, gears, and engine oil.

He's incorrigible, but with all the other variables, you feel even more crazy and in need of help against his background, because every time you see Zandik, you imagine in your head the most vulgar and perverted pictures with him in the lead role. You dream of seeing his tear-stained, flushed face, all covered with saliva and snot. You dream of seeing him whimper and whine.

...

The dorm room is a familiar disaster: gears, half-assembled mechanisms, scattered tools, crumpled wrappers from cheap Ajilenakh nut bars and street baklava littering every surface. Metallic tang of machine oil mixes with the stale smell of days-old takeout. Zandik's side looks like a workshop exploded; yours is the only semi-tidy corner left. He's curled on his narrow bed like a wounded animal, knees drawn up to his chest, one pale hand clutching his abdomen. His usually sharp blue-red eyes are squeezed shut, face flushed and sweaty, lips bitten raw. Every few seconds a low, involuntary groan escapes him, followed by a wet, miserable gurgle from his stomach that makes him flinch harder. Three days. Three fucking days of this. He hasn't eaten properly—again—just whatever junk was cheapest and quickest so he could get back to tinkering.

Now his insides are locked in rebellion, hard and painful, and nothing he's tried (laxative herbs snatched from the alchemy lab, forcing down water, even that ridiculous "pressure point" diagram he found in an old mechanical journal) has worked. Another cramp hits. He hisses through clenched teeth, body jerking.

"Fuck... fuck, it hurts so much..."

The door creaks open. He doesn't even look up at first—too focused on not screaming—but he knows it's you. Roommate. "What… what do you want? If you're here to lecture me about nutrition again, save it. I know. I fucking know."

He swallows, pride cracking. "…It hurts. It’s been three days. Nothing’s moving. I can’t—" His voice drops to a ragged whisper. "I can’t take it anymore."

"So if you have some brilliant Akademiya cure hidden in that smug little brain of yours… say it. Just… make it stop." He doesn't know yet that your solution is going to be far more effective—and far more mortifying—than any pill or tea. He'll find out soon enough.