The days just went by like a dream. One day it was Monday, the next, it had flown all the way to Thursday morning.

Leon was already up checking his online statuses on his many social networking sites. Emil, on the other hand, had not been able to fall asleep the night before, and had slept well past breakfast.

"You're finally up, huh, Ice?" his friend chuckled from below. Emil saw that he had grabbed what appeared to be a hot cup of a drink. Knowing Leon, it had to be some fancy tea brimming with hot milk.

"What time is it?" Emil muttered. He had left his phone down on his desk, and his blankets were feeling too comfortable to climb down and retrieve it. It was then that he made a mental reminder to buy a clock for their wall.

"It's ten fifty-eight," Leon said looking at his computer. "It's almost lunchtime. I was going to wake you up so we could do some stretching and cardio, but I thought I'd let you sleep in." He took a sip of his drink. "It's the first day of classes, after all."

"Oh, yeah." Then, he thought it was best to roll out of bed and get dressed for the day. "So do you have any classes?"

"I'm having philosophy at noon," his friend replied. "The teacher was alright, but he looked like he was going to pass out on us. I hope he doesn't do that again."

"Eh, I just hope no one sets something on fire," Emil responded. Before changing, he took a moment to check his computer for any school announcements. He received an e-mail just last night from Professor Bonnefoy telling everyone to have their aprons by the first class day.

"Nothing," he said as he closed his laptop. "I'm going to get changed." With that, he went to his closet space. In Eliatha University, the freshmen dorms all had open closets: one side was reserved for Leon and one side was reserved for Emil. As he was changing, he thought to ask his roommate about his morning.

"So what'd you do while I was sleeping?" he asked.

"I went to the gym with Yong Soo," Leon told him.

"How was that?"

"The guy's pretty fit—for a computer science major. I knew he wasn't out of shape, but he's actually kinda muscular."

"Hmm." Emil changed the subject. "Where'd the tea come from?"

Leon softly chuckled before answering. "Of course you'd know it was tea. I got it from Hatches. When we were there last time, I took a moment to check out the menu. It's not bad. Not as good as the one Cheng makes, but it's not bad."

"Oh. I might get some tomorrow, then." Since Emil's culinary class would be around late afternoon, he would have no reason to stop by for a pick-me-up.

After a few minutes of dressing, Emil took a moment to look into the mirror. Courtesy of Leon's family, they had a full-length body mirror behind their door so they wouldn't have to constantly go to the bathroom. When Emil was finished examining his outfit, Leon sat up and grabbed his take-out cup.

"You hungry, Ice?" he asked.

"Er, yeah," he sheepishly answered.

"Wanna come with me to the D.C.? I figured I'd get some food before class starts."

"Sure," Emil agreed and grabbed his E-card.

Outside, there were already students heading to their first classes. Since the upperclassmen had all settled in, there was a significant spike in the amount of students walking through the sidewalks. Some were on bicycles, others were on scooters, and then there were those like Leon and Emil who would be walking for the rest of the year.

"It's actually nice having a bike around," Leon told him as they were nearing the dining commons. "Mei had one. It's easy to get around, but you have to watch out for thieves. Someone she knew had his tires stolen.

"In my case, though, Yao just didn't want to get a bike for me." He shrugged. "I'm cool with walking."

Emil sighed. "Lukas said walking to my classes and up the stairs would be the only exercise I'd be getting. He's not too far off from that."

This made Leon laugh. "Ice, we haven't even been in college for a week, and you're already saying stuff like that? Don't worry about it. You're going to be fine. I'll make sure you're breathing right next time, okay?"

"And that I'll have better clothes to wear," Emil added. He was still uncomfortable about wearing the fire-spitting unicorn shirt.

When Leon and Emil arrived at the dining commons, they saw that the entire place was already starting to fill up with students, staff members, and visitors from other campuses filling up their plates.

"Damn," Leon whistled. "I've never been here on a school day. So this is what it's really like."

Regardless, they stood in line like everyone else, checked into the dining commons, and began to select their desired dishes. Along the way, Emil thought he saw a few familiar faces including Feliks and Toris. While they may have been residential assistants, they were students just like every one else on campus. It made Emil wonder just what sort of classes they were taking this term.

"Ice, I found us a table," Leon called as he gestured towards a booth. As they took their seats, Emil shyly looked around and observed the types of students sitting at each table.

Some of the tables were rather diverse with equal-minded students and different races. Some of them were full of jocks making loud noises and telling stupid jokes to one another. They must have had some sort of hive mind because Emil thought their jokes weren't funny in the slightest. There were also groups completely overrun by girls doing more talking than they were eating, but when Emil saw their plates, he could understand where they found the time to converse. Some of the tables had occupants spread out with individuals; Emil took these people to either be grabbing something quick to eat before heading to class or simply people with no friends.

If Leon wasn't here that might've been me, Emil thought. Then, he felt a light tap on his backside.

"Earth to Emil~" Leon called. "You there?"

"Huh?" Emil blinked. He had been so preoccupied with the other tables that he had not noticed his own tablemate calling for his attention.

"Geez, Ice. You spaced out for a second."

"Th-That was…I was just looking at the other tables."

Leon smirked as he dug into his chicken alfredo. "Yeah, they've got some weirdos hanging out in E.U. if you know where to look."

Emil paused to take a bite of his butter roll. "So is philosophy the only class you have today?"

"Nah, I've got econ later at six," his friend said. "I'm kind of curious as to how he's going to teach. He seemed kind of cool at the time."

Emil narrowed his eyes. "You're not going to be one of those students who just comes to class and plays games on his laptop, are you?"

"No," Leon smirked, giving him an untrustworthy appearance. "Why would I waste my old man's cash goofing off?"

"Leon, you got a scholarship…" Emil reminded him. It wasn't exactly a fair scholarship. Since Leon had come from Hong Kong barely two years ago, he was considered an international student. Added with his grades and his leadership in the Asian club, he was pretty much set for the rest of his college days—that and the rest of his family were fairly wealthy as it stood.

"But, like, if I wanted conventional stuff, I'd have to pay that out of my own pocket," Leon pointed out. "That stuff's not exactly geared towards my education enough."

"Hmm." Emil took a sip of his coffee. It was a little late in the day to be drinking it, but something told him he would need it soon.

"Alright, everyone! Did you all remember to bring your aprons?" Francis, the culinary professor, asked his class.

There was a murmur of "Yes," and so the class commenced. Since Francis had already gone over the safety precautions, he handed out a sheet of paper to each student.

"This will be the only time we'll be doing any written work in this class," he explained as the students shuffled around in their book bags for a writing utensil. "We'll be taking a quiz on the safety components of this facility. If you get more than three wrong, I'm afraid you won't be allowed to participate in today's activity. Next week, you'll be able to test again. The same rules will follow.

Crap, Emil cursed. He hadn't expected the professor to test them on this right away. When he looked wearily over at Michelle, he saw that she wasn't looking particularly prepared for this quiz, either.

"No cheating, everyone," Francis said as soon as everyone had settled down. "You have ten minutes to complete your quiz, and it starts…now!"

Papers shuffled, seats creaked, and pencils and pens set to work as Francis walked around the room. Emil's left hand was covering his answers just in case any of the students here were feeling desperate—not that looking at his answers would be of any help.

In the case of a third-degree burn from scalding water, you should…

Emil dug his hand into his hair. He didn't remember. All he could think about was what sort of dishes they would be running over in the class, not the safety precautions involved. If they weren't allowed to conduct anything while Francis was away in the first place, what was the point of knowing the safety procedures? Shouldn't they have expected their instructor to be in their room the entire time? This wasn't fair.

"Five minutes," Francis announced.

Shit! Emil winced. Five minutes already passed?!

No matter. He had to book it or risk wasting an entire three and a half hours on reviewing Monday's notes again.

Use logic, he told himself. In the act of flambé-ing a crêpe—why would this guy even expect amateurs to be able to cook with combusting wine in the first place?

"Three minutes," Francis counted down.

Emil bowed his head and set to work scribbling answers down as fast as he could. There were twenty answers and nearly seventy percent of his quiz was blank. He would have looked up, but he didn't want to look too suspicious on the first real day of instruction.

Finally, the ten minutes was up, and Francis told everyone to switch papers with the person diagonal from them. Then, the instructor went through all of the answers in fair amount of detail. As he called out each one, Emil would wince at a few of the responses; he couldn't recall if he put anything remotely similar to the correct answers.

And, when his paper was returned, he nearly breathed a sigh of relief when he saw that he had missed the maximum amount of three answers.

"Raise your hands if you have not earned a seventeen or higher," Francis called out. To Emil's surprise, nearly half of the class raised their hands. Apparently they had been unprepared for something such as this quiz. Then, the instructor cleared his throat. "I would normally force you to study over the week to come, but since this is an art class and not a math or science class, I am expecting you to learn as you go. Regardless of your scores, you are welcome to partake in today's studio. Now, get your aprons and textbooks and open them to page seventeen…"

"Oh, shit," someone breathed. "I thought he was going to kick us out."

"Dumbass," another person responded. "We're paying for this class. He doesn't have a right to kick us out."

"Oh, yeah."

Then, Michelle leaned over to Emil. "I thought I was going to fail…" she sighed in relief.

Emil forced a reassuring smile. "Relax. You heard that guy. We're paying for this class so he has no right to remove us from instruction."

"Yes, but I was really scared," she whispered. She seemed to be trembling in place, the poor thing. Emil would have comforted her, but he was shaky with words as it stood.

Nevertheless, pass or not, everyone put on their aprons, tucked their hair back, and opened their recipe books to the seventeenth page.

Crêpes, Emil thought with an amused smile as he looked at the details. There were no pictures inside the recipe book, he recalled when he had purchased it. Perhaps it was to take away the students' expectations of what a successful dish looked like. At least there was no cheating in cooking.

"Now our first lesson will be on crêpes," Francis announced. "The ingredients are simple, but the dish, itself has an infinite amount of uses. Getting the technique for getting the perfect thinness as well as the confections will be your main challenge for this instruction. Until I have evaluated your mastery level for this first dish, you are not allowed to garnish your crêpes in any way, understand?"

No one protested so he continued. "Moving on: I will first to a live demonstration—no crowding around the tables, please! Make sure those in the back are able to see."

Despite his request to let everyone see, the students couldn't help but watch their instructor work on their first assigned dish. An egg, some thin milk, a thin well of flour in a ceramic bowl, and a whisk. Emil was unsure if the crêpes they would be making were savory or dessert crêpes. They could go either way.

Then, everyone watched in silent awe as Francis mixed the egg and milk together until it turned a consistent creamy yellow color. Then, grabbing the bowl of wet ingredients, he began to carefully pour the contents into the flour well and started to mix it until it was even.

"The key is to avoid making any lumps by mixing thoroughly," Francis explained. "Normally, the cheap way would be to put everything into a blender, but the messes that follow as well as any cleaning are too disastrous and time-consuming. Oh, and before I forget: the person sitting next to you will be your partner. If you have not introduced one another, do so now, please."

While Francis was still mixing the milk, egg, and flour, the students took a moment to introduce themselves. Michelle giggled when Emil turned to her.

"Nice to meet you, Emil," she smiled.

Emil chuckled. "Nice to meet you, too, Michelle," he replied.

After introductions, Francis readied his grill and explained the process to his students.

"You have to do some test runs first," he explained. "The first ones are always discarded. Your firsts will be there to show whether or not your grills are hot enough and efficient. Regardless, we discard these. Please toss them in the labeled waste bin, please. Our university has a special waste depository for food and compost items."

Then, using a ladle, he took a careful spoonful of his crêpe mixture and began to pour it into the middle of the pan. Using a specialized spatula, he began to spread the batter evenly around the circular pan until it was completely covered.

The students held their breaths as Francis then took the spatula and began to carefully trim the edges until the entire crêpe was free. Next, he used a quick lifting motion and flipped it effortlessly over and let it sit.

"The second side does not need as long," he explained as he tapped the golden brown side down. "Wait a few seconds and soon, you will have a wonderful crêpe. The fillings will be up to you, but like I said: the first one is always scrapped. Secondly, until you get my permission, you are not allowed to use fillings. Fresh ingredients are paid for, and if you waste them, we'll have to charge you extra."

Some of the students groaned.

"But," Francis piped up, "as your reward, after I've evaluated your performance and presentation, you are free to eat your crêpes if you wish—or you can scrap it, too. Whichever you like. The ingredients you are permitted to use have already come out of your wallets."

"It looks so easy…" Michelle sighed. "What kind of crêpe are you going to make, Emil?"

"Um, well, I guess an ice cream crêpe is out of the question…" he murmured. He just stood by and watched as Francis folded the scratch crêpe into a neat triangle and set it aside.

"Golden finish, no loose batter, thin texture, and voilà! A perfect crêpe! If you read the book, you'll find that you may also put a dash of vanilla for sweet crêpes. It's really your preference. Cooking is an art, and your food is your expression. Be inspired, be creative!"

On that final note, he led the students to the storage where their own supplies were already prepared. All the while, Emil and Michelle were discussing what sorts of crêpes they might make when they perfected their techniques.

A few hours earlier, Leon was stuck in philosophy. In consistence with his earlier observation of his professor, he noticed Professor Karpusi wasn't doing any better than when he had last seen him.

"As you can see, the world's concepts can be based on cats," he said, pointing his laser pointer to a picture of a common house cat. All the while, Leon was doing his best to prevent himself from whipping out his laptop and checking some of his statuses. If this was the first real class, what sorts of things was he going to except down the road?

"…Cats are awesome," the professor yawned. "They…they are…Ah…"

"Sir?" someone from the front spoke up. "You alright?"

"Didn't get much sleep," came the reply from the droopy-eyed professor.

Leon didn't mean this to sound romantic, but he thought if the damn professor would straight his posture out and drink some coffee, he wouldn't look half-bad. After doing some research, he had found out his professor was Greek. With Greece supposedly holding one of the top results for sexual activity, Leon was wondering if this particular professor was anything like the generic Greek stereotype.

Even if he was, he sure doesn't look like he has the energy, Leon thought with a flat expression. Bored, he took out his phone, tucked in under his seat, and began to surf through the net. The professor was going on about his philosophy with cats, anyway. It didn't sound like it was following any of the course's criteria so he continued to flip through his messages. That being said, he couldn't help but wonder if Professor Karpusi earned his post-doctorate degree in philosophy through some wacky application of cats. He'd be damned if that were the case. If getting a post-doctorate degree was that easy, anyone might as well have been doing it.

But, in the end, the class continued on without any follow-up. A few students even got up and left, grumbling something about how they were sure they wouldn't miss anything if they only came to class to take the tests.

Halfway through the lecture, Leon noticed the professor was practically begging for a chair. Since it was a medium-sized lecture hall, there were no seats provided on the direct set. Then again, if the professor sat down, Leon had a feeling he would crash and burn right then and there.

Oh, well, he thought. Might as well see if there's anything to be had. But in all seriousness, he was starting to think this class was a waste of his money and time. How Cheng was able to double major in a subject such as philosophy was beyond him. If these were the generics, what would he expect if he delved deeper into topic?

Leon didn't wait around to find out. After another grueling twenty minutes of getting nowhere with his notes, he became lost in his Hetalia Fantasia game. Pride prevented him from leaving—that and the nagging fact that he would be throwing money away by walking away.