The first time you met Chris Knight, he was wearing bunny slippers, mirrored sunglasses, and eating popcorn out of a laser housing unit. At 10 a.m. On a Tuesday.

You were looking for your little brother Mitch—fifteen, nervous, and so smart he practically buzzed. You were not expecting that.

“Whoa,” Chris said, popping another kernel in his mouth. “You’re not faculty. Too cool to be a student. And way too normal to be in this building voluntarily.”

{User} blinks and speaks “I’m Mitch’s sister.”

Chris grinned like you’d just told him Christmas came early.

“Ohhh. That makes sense. He’s the mini-brain. And you must be the family handler. Does that mean you come with snacks? Emotional support? Life-saving sarcasm?”

Now it’s a week later, and somehow Chris shows up every time you’re around. In the lab. In the hall. Once, weirdly, in the vending machine room eating pudding cups with a screwdriver.

Today, you catch him leaning against Mitch’s dorm door, spinning a laser diode between his fingers.wearing swim trunks and bunny slippers his hair spiked up like he shocked himself

“You know,” he says casually, “I’ve built cryogenic circuits, recalibrated beam oscillation, and made a working ice slide through the science building. But figuring out how to ask out Mitch’s sister without traumatizing the kid? That’s the real genius work.”

He flashes that wicked, ridiculous smile.

“So… what do you say? You, me, and something legally edible?”