Rencontre Fortuite

It was the wrong one again!

Kagami huffed out in frustration as she turned away from the building she had just exited. She gritted her teeth in annoyance as she checked the printout of the campus map for what felt like the millionth time. Her annoyance and confusion only grew as she was sure that, at least according the map, the building she was looking for was right in front of her. Stalking away, she decided to abandon her search for that particular lecture room and look for another one.

With her face buried deep in the campus map and her class schedule that she pulled up on her phone, Kagami failed to notice someone else moving up the narrow steps while she was going down. The sudden sensation of something knocking past her shoulder startled her, causing her to miss a step. Without a handrail to steady herself, Kagami was sure she would have to use both her hands to catch herself on the ground. However, she felt an arm around her waist steadying her from her slip. Before she could process what was happening, her hand instinctually shot out to catch her phone which she had let go of.

"Nice catch!" she heard a male voice complement her before it shifted to an apologetic tone. "Are you okay though? I'm sorry about almost causing you to fall. I should have been looking where I was going."

"That's okay," Kagami stiffly replied as she gingerly removed the man's hand that lingered on her waist. "Thank you for catching me." She moved down towards the bottom of the stairs where her footing was more secure and gave a small bow of appreciation.

"No prob– attends, Kagami?" The sudden switch from English to French, as well as the mention of her name caught Kagami off guard.

Her head snapped back up to look at the person who had called her name. For a brief moment, she couldn't quite make out his face because of the sun being directly behind him, obscuring her vision. Soon, she was able to clearly see his features.

"Luka?" she sounded as equally surprised as he was when he had first realised that it was her.

"Qu'est-ce que tu fais ici?" they asked each other simultaneously.

Chuckling, Luka quickly descended the steps to speak to her. Kagami soon realised that it was the guitar case that he was carrying on his back that struck her shoulder as they passed each other on the steps.

"I've been attending this university for the past year," Luka explained. "And I guess you just started here too?"

Kagami nodded, not fully processing the fact that she would (literally) bump into someone she knew in Paris, in a university in England.

"I hadn't realised when Juleka said that you went to study outside of Paris, that she meant outside of the country as well," she mused.

"Yeah," Luka acknowledged. "I had always wanted to study at this school. It's Jagged Stone's alma mater."

"I see." Kagami was unimpressed.

"What about you?" he questioned. "What made you decide to move here of all places to study?"

"Well, the varsity fencing team here is one of the best in the world. Not to mention, I'm attending lessons at the fencing club in the city."

"That's cool."

An awkward silence passed between the two.

"So…what are you studying?" Luka asked after a brief pause.

"Business administration," Kagami responded. "And you?"

"Music."

"Figures."

Luka gave an amused smile at her blunt response.

"How are you finding things so far?" he questioned. "Do you have all your classes figured out as yet?"

The frustrations from her earlier endeavours suddenly returned to Kagami as he asked his question.

"No," she sighed. "I've been trying to find my classes ever since the program orientation let out at noon, but I have been pretty unsuccessful so far."

"Really? Maybe I can help," Luka offered.

"Can you?" Kagami immediately brightened. "I'd really appreciate it."

"No problem." Luka took the phone Kagami handed him and peered at her class schedule.

"I have been having trouble finding this building," she pointed to the name indicated on a time slot on her phone. "According to the map, it's supposed to be this one in front of us. However, when I went to check, that doesn't seem to be the case."

Luka zoomed in on the building abbreviation that Kagami pointed to before turning to the map printout.

"Ah, I see what the problem is," he said after a brief moment. "The actual building you want is the annex to this one," he pointed to the building in front of them. "It's actually behind it, and it's connected by a passageway on the third floor."

"Really?" Kagami seemed incredulous that that would be the cause of her confusion.

"Mm hmm," Luka confirmed. "You see, the map just labelled the two of them under the name of the main one so it's hard to tell."

"I see."

"Come, I'll take you there, and then we can find the rest of your classes pretty quickly," he handed her back her phone and started to make his way back up the stairs.

"If it's not too much trouble," Kagami said gratefully, "Weren't you headed somewhere before?"

"I was just going to cut through these buildings back to my dorm but I didn't really have anything planned to do," Luka shrugged. "I just came from band practice."

"Oh, so you're in a band here too, then?" Kagami noted.

"Yeah, it's nothing like being in Kitty Section though. These people are nice and all but… it nothing compared to being with the people who are like family to me."

By this time, they had made it inside the building and were trudging up the stairs to view the lecture hall. Kagami crossed off the room from her list while Luka peeked over her shoulder to see where they'd need to go next.

"Ooh, that one would be hard to find on your own." Kagami raised her eyebrows in question. "It's on the second floor of the library building," he started to lead the way there as he explained.

"You see, the library starts on the first floor and goes up to the sixth floor, but for some unknown reason, the second floor is made up of classrooms that are not connected to the library at all. You can't take the elevator at all once you're already inside the library; you have to take the stairs from the ground level to reach that floor."

"Really? That sounds so confusing," Kagami commented. "It seems to be good fortune that we bumped into each other." Luka smiled at that.

"Yeah, that way you don't have to end up trapped in a library elevator wondering why the button for the 2nd floor doesn't work, like I did last year."

Kagami gave a dry chuckle at that.

The rest of their time spent finding Kagami's classes passed swiftly, with Luka taking the quickest routes to get there, all while explaining the ins and outs of the campus to Kagami.

When they finished, it was late in the day and the sun had just begun to set and it was time for them to part ways.

"Thanks again Luka, I really appreciated your help today," Kagami bowed.

"No problem," he shrugged casually. "It was fun catching up with you."

"Likewise."

Even though she and Luka were never close back in Paris, she always was grateful for the hospitality his family had shown to her and the several other teenagers that seemed to crowd their houseboat almost every other weekend. She appreciated his presence on campus the most, because, even though its unlikely that their paths would cross in such a chance encounter like this, it was reassuring that she knew at least one person (besides her roommate) who would be in the same city, even more, the same school. It felt like she wasn't so alone in this place.

After exchanging numbers, Kagami started to head towards her dorm. luckily, she had a good sense of direction and her head wasn't too turned around from traipsing the entire campus for half of the day. She had only gone a few metres when she heard Luka calling her name again.

Turning around, she saw him rushing back to her.

What could it be? Kagami wondered.

"Is everything okay?" she asked aloud. Luka nodded.

"I forgot to bring this up before, but I was just wondering if you were free this Friday night?"