[Retrospection]
Now and then, Jayda liked to take stock of things -her life, her relationships, her grades, that sort of thing. Sitting in the lounge, as was her habit nowadays, with her ever-silent partner, sipping the most fantastic coffee she'd ever tasted and flipping through her chemistry textbook, Jayda took a moment to consider her current state of affairs, forming a list in her mind.
Life: so far so good. No financial problems to speak of, relatively good health –that one issue aside- and a fairly clean, function, and comfortable home.
Grades: damn good. Her GPA was sitting at a solid six-point-nine (out of a maximum of nine) with only mathematics dragging her down, she liked her classes, as well as her peers and professors, and she was handling the move overseas well.
(Romantic) Relationships: god-awful, but that was no surprise. All attempts at dating had been deemed useless and therefore put on hold until her self-esteem improved, or she bumped into Prince Charming at a night club -whichever came first.
(Platonic) Relationships: ... now that was the million dollar question.
Jayda glanced up from her textbook, finding Yuriy watching her, as usual, with his unreadable, calculating stare. Since her bizarre intervention, things seemed to have returned to normal. The stitches were out, finally, her thumb having healed nicely, leaving only a thin red-purple line as a reminder of that strange evening.
Drinking Night was back to being a biweekly event (now with horror movies included) and she still made the five of them dinner, though she was a hell of a lot more attentive when she was cutting things now.
Boris and Sergei went back to ignoring her, and Ivan had even showed her how to make a car side-door bomb with, amongst a plethora of other things, a bunch of wires, a battery, something that might have been an eraser at one point, and a condom.
Jayda wasn't sure what to think about that. Well, no, she did know how she felt, it was just... weird. She knew for a fact that she wasn't too keen on bonding with Ivan over bomb-making sessions, but she seriously suspected that that was Ivan's version of being nice.
She pitied his future girlfriend.
Then again, a week later Ivan still hadn't stopped making fun of her horrified expression when he'd –seemingly randomly- brought out a condom along with all of the other objects sitting on the kitchen table, so maybe he wasn't being all that friendly after all.
That still hadn't cleared up what had happened with Yuriy, though.
Not that she knew what, exactly, had happened, but she was pretty damn sure something had.
Stupidly-absurdly-half-seriously, she hoped that that... incident... wasn't Yuriy's version of being nice.
It wasn't, she knew, but now that the thought had lodged in her brain...
No. Yuriy's version of being nice was... weird, actually. Most people talked to other people –small talk and all that jazz. Friends shared jokes, hung out, went to movies, and maybe exchanged stories.
Not that guy, though.
All Jayda got was a mug of coffee shoved under her nose and a weekly sessions of constantly being watched from across a table –or, on particularly sullen days, from across the room.
And an impromptu rescue.
And a stitched thumb.
Jayda decided not to think about it too much; it was weird.