Newt comes home ("home" being a relative term here) to find a thick line of duct tape running down the center of the room.
"I even left you your 'Polish Corridor,'" says a voice an inch away from being smug.
Hermann. Fucking. Gottlieb. What a complete and utter bastard.
"I'm going out," Newt says, chucking his backpack onto his unmade bed. He doesn't bother stepping into the room lest he give Hermann fucking Gottlieb the satisfaction of seeing him use the damn "Polish Corridor." "I'll be back around nine. Try not to trash the room."
"At last, some peace and quiet."
"Fuck you too, man."
He finds Tendo (of the "professor" remark fame) in the lounge on the first floor of the dorm building flirting with the cute blonde from their Biochemistry class (that traitor).
"Come on," Newt says as he grabs his new friend's arm and rolls his eyes, carefully turning his face so the blonde can't see his expression. "I'm starving. You said you were going to show me the most mind-blowing dumpling house in the entire downtown area."
"Yeah, I did, didn't I? Well, call me sometime. I'd love to get to know you better." The last two sentences (with the added bonus of a cheeky wink) are directed at the blonde, who graces him with a divine smile and slips a folded piece of paper into Tendo's pocket.
"She totally digs me," Tendo says excitedly as they pass the football field on the way downtown. "I even got her phone number."
"Could be fake," Newt replies as nonchalantly as he can. Nope. Not jealous. At all.
"You're so jealous right now. Don't try to lie to me. I can see it in your eyes."
"Shut up. How far away is this dumpling place anyway?"
"Half an hour? I haven't walked there before. Took me ten minutes by bike last time though."
"Remind me again why we didn't go by bike."
Tendo sighs. "I told you, someone slashed my tires. Third time it's happened, and we just moved in two weeks ago. Dunno what kind of grudge the people here have against me, but I decided it wasn't worth it to keep replacing them."
Newt wrinkles his nose. "Wait, does that mean – ?"
"Yeah, I gotta wake up at seven to get to class on time."
"Crap, that sucks."
"Yeah." They stop at an intersection, and Newt impatiently pushes the crosswalk button several times. A car screeches around the corner, windows all rolled completely down and spilling rap everywhere. The light changes to green, but as soon as Newt takes one step onto the road a second car, almost identical to the first, tears by, horn honking in one continuous, prolonged shriek.
"Shit!" He jumps back onto the sidewalk and takes a moment to collect himself. "Did you see that? What the hell was that? Your dumpling place had better be worth it."
"I'd sell an organ on the black market to eat there," Tendo says, expression comically serious as he pulls Newt along after him. "Speaking as a guy who's spent half his life eating authentic homemade Chinese food, this place is as legit as it gets."
"Ok, but I mean it depends on which organ you'd be willing to sell, right? Is it 'I'd sell a kidney' good or – "
"Oh God, please don't bring your biology fetish into this."
"You brought organ selling up first."
"Can we not do this right before eating?"
"Well if you think about it, when you eat meat you're really eating – "
"Stop."
The dumpling place, Newt decides, is worth at least a kidney, a liter of blood, and a sizeable chunk of his liver.
He gets back to the dorms at 11:35 (technically thirty-five minutes past the start of quiet hour) after a detailed tour of what feels like every shop in the downtown area. Tendo had recommended a small coffee shop by the movie theater (the somewhat larger one that was still about five times smaller than the one in Newt's hometown), and now his head is buzzing with the caffeine of two shots of straight espresso, no cream, no milk, no sugar, nothing but pure bitter bliss.
It's a wonder he's able to unlock the door at all. His hands shake so badly he can't even fit the damn credit card-sized piece of plastic into the slot above the handle, and he's pretty sure Hermann thought someone was trying to break in because when he does finally get the door open Hermann's holding his metal compass like a dagger and there isn't even a pencil in the other end what were you planning on doing with that thing?
"You're back late," Hermann says, shoving the compass back into his pencil bag.
"That's what I said, wasn't it?" Newt says, a bit annoyed but in a good enough humor that he takes the time to navigate the Polish Corridor (which in retrospect was a totally stupid and inaccurate name for that thing; he's calling it the DMZ from now on) to avoid starting a fistfight with his roommate.
Hermann makes a cross noise in the back of his throat. "Tell me you aren't going to do this every night."
Newt shrugs and plunks himself down in the chair in front of his desk. He swivels around to face Hermann (all of the rooms come equipped with swivel chairs and Newt's been having tons of Hermann-condemned fun) and says, "Who knows? I've got the feeling I'm gearing up to have a pretty wild social life. Unlike, you know…" He lets the sentence trail off with a semi-condescending smile and slides over to his bed to retrieve the papers he's supposed to read.
He can feel Hermann glaring at his back. There's no way he didn't get the implication, and Newt feels a twinge of guilt. Maybe he went a little too far with that gibe because when he thinks about it, maybe some people aren't as accommodating of the old-man sweaters or the cane that Hermann really seems far too young to be using or the limp or the way he hunches over his work like he doesn't want the world to judge it. Neither of them says anything about it, which is hardly surprising.
About ten minutes into his reading (which truthfully could hardly be called "reading" at all because his eyes are just going over the first paragraph over and over again) he really, really needs to move around, so his fingers find a ballpoint pen on the desk and he twirls it, but he's bad at that and keeps dropping it all over the place so he starts tapping his feet instead, but that's making a noise and he can feel the glare at his back intensifying so he starts spinning in his chair instead, but that's making him dizzy so –
"Would you stop moving around?"
"But Hermann," he whines, "this is so fucking boring. Ten pages on one protein in the extracellular matrix? Why can't we have homework like piecing together road kill to identify the species of animal or grafting ears onto mice or anything fun like that?"
"Because it's a biological hazard," Hermann says through gritted teeth. He caps his highlighter, sets it down on his open textbook (possibly math? Newt can't see it too well from where he's sitting), and wheels himself painfully to the DMZ so he can look Newt straight in the eye.
"How much coffee did you have?"
"Whoa, what's that got to do with anything?"
"How much coffee did you have?"
He doesn't say anything.
"How much coffee did you have?"
"Fine! God, who are you, my mom? I had two shots of espresso, ok? Two fucking shots. That's it. And don't you dare lecture me about my health or how it's ruining your beauty sleep," he adds, seeing the look on Hermann's face.
Hermann huffs and rubs the bridge of his nose wearily.
"I'm turning off the light. Use the lamp." He picks up his cane and limps over to the light switch on the wall by the door. The room plunges into darkness, and Newt hears the door of Hermann's wardrobe (which is pushed so close to the door it's probably a fire hazard) open and the rustling sounds of Hermann slowly changing.
Newt flicks on the lamp. A faded yellow glow spreads out across his desk, illuminating the papers strewn everywhere. Hermann climbs into bed and settles facing the wall, the lamp casting a soft glow on his blankets.
"Good night," Newt finally says when he can't take the silence anymore. His laptop is so tantalizingly close, but he knows if he opens it the papers will never be read. Hermann doesn't respond, only shifts so he's a little closer to the wall and a little farther from Newt.
It's going to be a long night.
