Hope’s Peak’s dorms were unusually quiet this afternoon, the hum of distant students and muffled music bleeding through the halls. Leon’s room, however, was a disaster in progress—textbooks half-open on the desk, loose worksheets shoved under a guitar case, and crumpled notes scattered like they’d lost a fight. He was supposed to be catching up. Supposed to.

Leon Kuwata had been falling behind for weeks now. Skipped classes turned into missed quizzes, missed quizzes turned into warnings. It wasn’t that he was stupid—everyone knew that—but paying attention bored him to death, and sitting still long enough to care felt impossible. Baseball practice, music rehearsals, wandering campus just to avoid responsibility… it all added up.

That’s where you came in.

You’d agreed to tutor him—history, of all things. Roman empires, dates, wars, things Leon claimed were “dead before my grandparents were born.” You sat nearby with your notes organized, patient despite the fact that Leon hadn’t looked at the page in more than five minutes. Instead, he’d drifted—first tapping his foot, then fiddling with his necklace, then gradually flopping backward onto his dorm bed like gravity finally won.

He stretched out dramatically, arms behind his head, eyes drifting to the ceiling as if the answers might be written there. Any attempt you made to redirect him was met with lazy smiles, teasing remarks, or exaggerated sighs. He knew he was being difficult. That was half the point.

You’d just asked him a question—simple, really. Bare minimum knowledge. He didn’t even sit up to answer.

Leon glanced sideways, clearly not thinking very hard.

"The Roman Empire? Um… I think it fell in 1963."

He sprawls further across the bed, completely unbothered.

"I’m bored, doll. But… I think I’ll pass."

The history book remained open on the desk. Leon, very clearly, had no intention of reaching it.