It was finally Friday, and Seluna could not have been happier.

She walked into her morning Calculus class ready to start another day. As per the usual, only Anthony was already seated when she walked in. As she walked between the two rows of tables to where hers was at the far side of the room, she glanced over at the only table that only seated one student, Derek. Derek was an unusual person, to say the least. He hated the majority of his classmates, Keith in particular, and was known for not only being exceptionally intelligent, but also being an exceptional asshole. He sat alone at his table in the middle of the front row, watching an indie anime on his school issued laptop, laughing occasionally with a deep chuckle that would have also suited someone with a double-digit IQ. Seluna passed by him, masking what could be best described as scorn.

Why do you seem to hate him so much? Quinn asked Seluna.

Seluna took a moment to think before responding. It's a long story. She returned.

We have time. Quinn retorted, clearly not willing to let the subject drop. Every day we come into this class, and you look at Derek as if his presence personally offends you. I know that he's a little weird, but I don't think that alone warrants your spite.

She sighed, finally deciding to tell the tale. At the beginning of the year, there used to only be six tables in this class.


Seluna recalled walking in on the first day of school, and finding that she had no friends in her class. Dismayed and realizing that every other table was already full, she was forced to sit with Derek. Anthony had come in only a few minutes later, and since he found himself in the same predicament, he joined them. A week after school started, Keith transferred to their class, after he had opted to exchange his AP Chemistry for AP Calculus. For the next two weeks, the four of them sat in civil silence. None of them disliked each other, they simply were not friends. Eventually, though that all changed.

The day that things changed was a day unlike any other, and after Mr. Robinson taught his brief lesson on taking the derivative of a polynomial, he gave them all some minimal classwork to complete. At this point, Keith and Derek sat across the table from one another. Keith was a tall guy, so he decided to stretch out his legs beneath the table. While they were working on their classwork, his leg must have brushed Derek's, for Derek loudly declared, "Keep your feet on your side of the table."

"It's not that big of a deal," Keith said quietly, "move your feet where you want them, then I will adjust mine so I don't accidentally kick you." The idea would have seemed perfectly reasonable to any normal person, Seluna and Antony had a similar unspoken arrangement, except Derek was nowhere near normal.

"No," he exclaimed, "this is not acceptable. You have to keep your feet on your own side of the table."

By now, they had attracted the attention of Mr. Robinson, who walked over to the table with the hope that his presence would cause Derek to settle down some. It did not.

Derek proceeded to become infuriated despite Keith's best attempts to quell his anger. Derek kicked Keith several times to move his feet to the other side of the table. Eventually Mr. Robinson, fearing that the boys would come to actual fisticuffs over something as trivial as foot positions beneath the table, finally spoke up.

"Would you like for me to get another table?"

Seluna had been considering asking this of Mr. Robinson for quite some time. She had always found sitting with Derek to be insufferable, and she always assumed that they had felt the same way.

So it was really no surprise when all four people seated at the table unanimously said, "Yes."


The argument had ended after that, and Mr. Robinson (with the help of Keith) had moved one of the unused tables from the back of the room in formation with the other six which seated students. Antony and Seluna had both joined Keith at the new table, and that was where they had sat ever since.