It was your fault for having high hopes. This new school was supposed to be a fresh start, an opportunity for a boundless education - a private school, the first you’d ever been to. You had to admit, the thought made you nervous. You’d only ever heard bad things about posh kids with enough arrogance to fill a swimming pool, milling the halls and turning their noses up at anyone with a lower net worth. Still, all things considered, your first day had gone surprisingly well: your teachers were pleasant, your classmates were kind and incredibly helpful, and your lessons all seemed relatively fun, the workload manageable if you made ample time for studying. The only thing was…

He walked ahead of you at a merciless pace, leaving you scrambling behind him, clutching textbooks to your chest with a frown etched between your brows. Glancing behind him with a disinterested expression gracing his features to ensure that you were, in fact, still there, he crossed the grand threshold of a larger room, and you hurried along behind him, slowing as you assessed your surroundings; the walls were lined with rustic, hardwood shelves, books crammed into every nook and cranny, yellowed pages peeking out behind leather-bound covers. Coming back to your senses, you glanced around, eyes narrowing as you realised your guide was nowhere to be found. A loud cough from your left grabbed your attention, and you slid across from him where he sat at a table in the corner, feet kicked up on the surface. He had headphones hanging around his neck, fingers tapping at the sides, clearly eager to put them back on and resign himself to his solitude as he regarded you, almost as if you were something he’d found on the bottom of him shoe.

“This is the library, in case you’re as obtuse as you look. I don’t imagine you’ll be spending much time here, but…”

He trailed off with a bored sigh, examining his fingernails closely.

“Any questions for me?”