He was sat at a table in the corner, closest to the window and furthest from any other people - even his posture was directed as far away as possible from everyone else. Thick, dark hair hung down in front of his face, as he rested his sharp jaw on his hand, using the long, thin fingers of the other to turn the page every now and again. She sat down opposite him. Nothing in his physicality suggested he'd seen her sit down. He brushed his curled fringe aside with his thumb, and continued reading. She read the title of the page upside down; "The forensic examination of human remains", shrugged, and reached into her bag for her Biology book. Opening her notebook, she turned to the correct page and started working through the set questions, finding the first three reasonably easy, and still without acknowledgement from the boy she shared her table with. At the fourth question, she got stuck. It sounded familiar from the lesson, but she couldn't remember the correct terms, and flipped up the corner of the page, to search back though the book for the answer. "It's the carboxyl group" said the boy, without looking up from his book.

"pardon?"

"'The components of an amino acid are the hydrogen group, acid group, variable region and which other?' it's the carboxyl group"

"I… thanks, how did you-"

"We're in the same biology class, so I know what you're doing. This morning you answered two questions at the start of the lesson, but fell quiet after he started discussing the structure, meaning you understood the properties but found the structure harder. You finished your notes before 70% of the class this morning, so you're a reasonably fast writer, meaning that you'd finish the first 3 questions in 5 minutes, as they were on the properties, so you found them fairly easy. That girl Susie introduced herself to you at the start of the lesson, so you'd clearly never met her before and you didn't speak to her at all after that, but when she dropped her books on the way out you said "sorry, Susie" - you remembered her name without any interaction which shows you have a good memory, at least for words, so without fully understanding the concept you can still remember several of the terms quite easily when prompted- acid, hydrogen and variable are all mentioned on that page which would jog your memory- but carboxyl isn't and without that reminder you couldn't quite remember what that was called. Oh, and you've misspelled deoxyribonucleic, there's an I before that last c" he said, and returned to reading his book without further acknowledgement.

"Wow. How did you do that?" she said. He glanced up again, sharp blue-green eyes meeting hers.

"I just told you." he said, with a quick flash of patronising smile, and went back to his book.

"…Would you do the rest of my homework for me?" she asked

"If you pay me." He didn't even look up this time.

"Huh?"

"I do everyone's homework. £5 per sheet, £10 for every thousand words of an essay."

"Oh." she said. She still couldn't see much of his face behind the hair, as he wound one finger through his fringe, eyes still glued to the book.

"Well, never mind then."

"Hmm?"

"I mean, if you're doing everyone else's, I shouldn't trouble you really"

"Oh" he said. He looked surprised. "Uh, ok." the eyes went away from her and back to his book again. "What are you reading?"

"You already know what I'm reading, you read the title upside down."

"That's the title of the page, not the title of the-" He flashed the cover at her for a second "Forensic Science - Second Edition" then dropped the book back to the table, never taking his eyes from the words on the page.

"Huh. Looks interesting." no reply. "Looks difficult." He snorted.

"It's a University textbook. Postgraduate. I should imagine so."

"Hmm. Where'd you get that from?"

"My brother's at University."

"Studying Forensics?"

"Studying Politics. He got it from a friend."

"Which University?"

"Oxford."

"Hmm, clever family. You gonna go there too?" He snorted again.

"Cambridge, obviously. They're better at science, I'm not interested in any of that artsy-fartsy nonsense."

"Oh." they fell silent for a second.

"So… what subjects do you take?" finally he slammed his book closed, glaring at her with cold, pale eyes.

"Has it not occurred to you that I don't really want to talk to you?"

"You don't really talk much, do you?"

"How very observant."

"Who do you talk to here, anyway? I never see you with anyone."

"That's because I'm never with anyone."

"You haven't got friends?"

"Nope."

"Why not?"

"Because they don't like me, and I don't like them." He looked like he was about to say more, but instead started to look in his bag for a different book.

"Oh. I'm sorry." she said, worried she might have stumbled onto a sensitive subject. The derisive snort flared up again - nostrils flaring, he looked almost horse-like for a moment.

"Don't be, they're all awful." She said nothing "Well look at them! They're all so dull and pointless and shallow. And all they talk about is nonsense like phone calls and trainers and boyfriends and girlfriends and… sex." The last word sounded awkward in his mouth. "They think things matter the world to them but give them two days and they don't even care any more, they just move on to some other nonsense." A small group walked past them, and she vaguely recognised one of the girls from a class earlier that morning.

"Only seat left was beside the freak, eh?" she said. He had quickly flopped his fringe in front of his eyes and returned to his book.

"He's alright actually" she called back, with a shrug. A few of the group cackled to each other.

"Finally found someone to put your dick in, Sherly?" they all laughed and wandered off. When she turned round he was still looking intently at his book with his face fully obscured, but the back of his neck had turned red.

"Sherly?" He started, the red flush flaming across his face too when he looked up.

"Huh? Oh, uh. short for… Sherlock."

"Hmm, nice name." he sniffed unappreciatively.

"Ignore them, by the way. I can't stand people who do stuff like that, they're cunts." For the first time, a smile twitched at the corner of his mouth. She smiled back.

"I know." He said. Slamming her textbook shut, she said

"Right, I'm done. You have a free next?" "Nope." "Ah. Well, thanks for the Biology help. Bye, Sherlock!"