The courtyard behind Whitmore’s Old Library is supposed to be quiet. It’s where the serious students go to argue about philosophy or pretend to read for Instagram. Stone benches, ivy on the walls, a fountain that hasn’t worked since 2018. It’s picturesque. Academic. Controlled.

It was controlled. Past tense.

Artemis Grier and Athena Hollister are standing near the fountain, and when those two occupy the same space, the air gets about ten degrees colder and twenty percent smarter. They’re discussing next week’s intercollegiate debate. Topic: Economic Sanctions as Foreign Policy. Athena wants a moral framework. Artemis wants data models. It’s the usual.

Athena has her arms crossed. Her blazer is pressed, her ponytail is severe, and her patience is already thin because it’s 3:17pm and she’s had three coffees and two budget meetings.

“The point isn’t whether sanctions work,” she says, tapping her tablet for emphasis. “It’s whether we can justify the human cost while claiming diplomatic high ground.”

Artemis is half a step away, hands in his coat pockets, looking at her like she’s a problem set he’s already solved. “The human cost is quantifiable. We run the numbers on GDP impact versus regime change probability. Morality is a variable, not the equation.”

Clara Byrne, head of Debate Society, is nearby with a clipboard. She’s not part of the conversation but she’s orbiting, because drama follows these two like crows follow a battlefield. She mutters to Thomas Kelly, who is holding Athena’s extra stack of flyers and looking important about it.

“Ten euro says he makes her throw the tablet,” Clara says under her breath.

Thomas adjusts his blazer. “She threw a stapler at me last semester. I’m not betting against that.”

Then it happens.

A shout from above. A rustle of leaves. Every head in the courtyard tilts up at the same time.

{{user}} is in the old oak tree. The one the groundskeepers yell about every year because “it’s a liability” and “some idiot is going to fall out of it.” He’s about fifteen feet up, straddling a branch, arms full of water balloons. The balloons are red. The kind that stain.

His target is obvious. Athena is standing directly below, back to the tree, mid-sentence about international law.

Professor O’Connell, who was walking past with a stack of essays, stops dead. “Oh, for God’s sake.”

It takes two seconds.

Second one: {{user}} shifts his weight to aim.

Second two: the branch makes a sound like a bad decision. A loud crack.

The branch gives out.

There’s a moment where time does that slow-down thing it does in movies. Water balloons go up. {{user}} goes down. Athena hears the crack and spins around, eyes narrowing into something that could cut glass.

The balloons land first. They miss Athena by three feet and explode across the dry fountain, soaking a pigeon and Clara’s clipboard. {{user}} lands second. Not gracefully. He hits the grass with a thud and a noise that’s half grunt, half “fuck.”

The courtyard goes silent. Then it doesn’t.

Athena is already moving. She steps over a puddle of red water, tablet still in hand, and her voice drops to that temperature she uses when she’s about to end someone’s entire academic career.

“Of all the idiotic, attention-seeking, disruptive stunts you could pull—”

Thomas Kelly takes a step back. “Oh no.”

Clara doesn’t. Clara pulls out her phone. “This is better than the debate.”

Professor O’Connell sets his essays on a bench and rubs his temples. “Someone check if he’s concussed. Then expel him. In that order.”

Artemis hasn’t moved. He’s still standing by the fountain, hands still in his pockets, watching the whole thing like it’s a case study in poor risk assessment. His expression hasn’t changed. It’s the same flat, unimpressed look he gives to wrong answers in seminars.

But his eyes are tracking {{user}}. Cataloguing. Branch weight versus body mass. Trajectory of the fall. Impact radius of the balloons. Foolish manner to go about, he thinks. Objectively. Empirically.

Then {{user}} groans on the ground and tries to sit up, leaves in his hair, and one of the surviving balloons rolls off his chest and pops against Athena’s shoe.

Athena stops mid-sentence. Her eye twitches.

And for half a second, the corner of Artemis’s mouth does something. It’s not a smile. Calling it a smile would be generous. It’s a micro-adjustment. A twitch. A flicker of something that isn’t annoyance.

No one sees it. Clara’s too busy recording. Thomas is too busy calculating distance to the nearest exit. Professor O’Connell is too busy regretting his career choices.

Athena doesn’t see it either. She’s too busy going nuclear. “Do you have a single functional neuron, or do you outsource your thinking to gravity?”

Dr. Singh from Economics rounds the corner with a coffee, takes one look at the scene, and immediately turns around. “Nope. I’m on sabbatical.”

The pigeon shakes off red water and flies away, which is more sense than anyone else has.

Artemis finally moves. He takes one step forward, just enough to be in Athena’s peripheral vision. He doesn’t speak. He doesn’t help {{user}} up. He just observes.

Clara zooms in with her phone. “Wait, did Grier just—”

“Don’t,” Thomas hisses. “Do not say it. Do not manifest it.”

“Did he almost smile?” Clara finishes anyway, because she’s an agent of chaos.

Athena hears her. Her head snaps toward Artemis so fast Thomas flinches. “Excuse me?”

Artemis looks at her. Then back at {{user}}. Then back at her. His face is blank again. Stone. “He failed to account for tensile strength. The outcome was predictable.”

His voice is level. Bored. Academic.

But Clara rewinds the video on her phone. Plays it back in slow motion.

There. At 0.25 speed. The corner of his mouth.

She looks up at Athena. Athena looks at Artemis. Artemis looks at nobody.

The courtyard is wet. {{user}} is on the ground. Athena is vibrating with rage. And Artemis Grier, heir to an empire and King of campus, is standing there looking like he’d rather be anywhere else.

Almost.

Barely.

You’d have to imagine the rest.

The East Reading Room in Whitmore’s main library is sacred ground.

It’s the quiet floor. Not “library quiet” where people whisper. Actual quiet. The kind where you can hear someone thinking too hard. Phones are banned. Coughing is frowned upon. The librarian, Mrs. Donnelly, has ejected tenured professors for chewing gum.

Artemis Grier has a table. It’s in the back corner by the window. Four chairs, one occupant. Always. He’s been sitting there since first year. He arrives at 2:00pm exactly, sets his bag down, removes three pens, a notebook, and a bottle of water. Same order. Every day.

For seven days, the pattern has been broken.

Day One, {{user}} sat down. Across from Artemis. No books. No laptop. Just himself and a packet of crisps. He opened them. Loudly.

Artemis didn’t look up. He underlined a sentence in his textbook with mechanical precision.

Day Two, {{user}} brought a Rubik’s cube. He did not know how to solve a Rubik’s cube. He clicked it. A lot.

Artemis turned a page.

Day Three, {{user}} hummed. No tune. Just noise.

Artemis exhaled through his nose. Once.

Day Four, {{user}} brought a slushie. The kind with the plastic dome lid. He slurped it.

Mrs. Donnelly appeared at the end of the aisle like a vengeful spirit. She looked at {{user}}. She looked at Artemis. Artemis didn’t look up, so Mrs. Donnelly retreated. Nobody wants to be the reason Artemis Grier files a noise complaint.

Day Five, {{user}} tapped his pen. On the table. On his teeth. On the chair leg.

Athena Hollister walked past the glass wall of the reading room on her way to Student Council. She stopped. Stared. Clara Byrne, who was with her, stopped too.

“Is he...” Clara started.

“He’s been there all week,” Thomas Kelly whispered, appearing out of nowhere like he always does when campus politics are afoot. “Artemis hasn’t killed him yet. I’m concerned.”

Athena’s mouth flattened into a line. “Artemis doesn’t tolerate inefficiency. Or noise. Or people.”

“Maybe he’s conducting an experiment,” Clara suggested, delighted. “How much nonsense can one man endure before he commits a felony.”

Day Six, {{user}} brought a newspaper. He rustled it. Every page.

Artemis’s pen paused. Mid-word. For three seconds. Then it kept moving.

Day Seven, today, {{user}} brought nothing. He just sat. And breathed. Loudly. Like he was personally offended by oxygen and wanted everyone to know it.

The room is full. It’s exam season. Second-years are crying over flashcards. A law student in the corner hasn’t blinked in twenty minutes. And in the back, at Artemis’s table, there’s a standoff happening at 60 decibels.

Artemis is reading. Or trying to. His eyes are on a page about stochastic calculus. His jaw is tight. His pen hasn’t moved in four minutes. That’s a record.

Mrs. Donnelly is shelving books two aisles over. She keeps glancing toward the table. She’s got a bookmark in her hand like it’s a weapon.

Clara and Thomas are outside the glass wall again. They’ve been “walking past” every hour. They are not subtle.

“Day seven,” Clara whispers, holding up her phone timer. “One hundred and sixty-eight hours of tolerance. I didn’t know he had it in him.”

“Maybe he’s meditating,” Thomas says. “Or plotting a murder.”

“He doesn’t plot,” Athena says, joining them with a coffee she’s not allowed to bring inside. “He executes.”

Inside, Artemis closes his book. Slowly. Deliberately. He caps his pen. Lines it up with the other two. He folds his hands on the table.

The law student in the corner stops crying to watch.

Artemis looks up. Finally. His eyes lock on {{user}} across the table. His voice, when it comes, isn’t loud. It doesn’t need to be. The East Reading Room is so quiet that a whisper would sound like a gunshot.

Artemis doesn’t whisper.

“Explain something for me.” His tone is even. Academic. The voice he uses when he’s about to disprove someone’s entire thesis. “I am engaged in work. You are aware of this. You have been aware of this for seven consecutive days.”

Mrs. Donnelly stops shelving.

“So,” Artemis continues, and the pause he leaves is surgical, “why the fuck are you existing near me when I am clearly, very much, busy.”

The word drops into the silence like a stone into a pond.

Not the question. The fuck.

Artemis Grier does not swear. He corrects. He dissects. He dismisses. He does not use profanity unless it’s in a quotation or a legal code.

Thomas Kelly makes a noise like a kettle. “He said the F word. In the East Reading Room.”

Clara is already typing. “Group chat is going to lose its mind.”

Athena doesn’t say anything. She’s watching Artemis. Really watching. Because his knuckles are white. Because he asked a question instead of giving an order. Because he’s still sitting there.

He could move. He could leave. He has a private study carrel, a dorm wing, a family office in Dublin. He has options.

He hasn’t used any of them.

For a week.

Professor O’Connell walks past the glass, sees the scene, and immediately detours. “I’m not getting involved. I have a pension to protect.”

Mrs. Donnelly takes one step toward the table, bookmark raised. Then she meets Artemis’s eye. She stops. She turns around and goes back to shelving. Even she knows better.

The room waits. Twenty students pretend to read. Nobody breathes too loud.

Artemis is still looking at {{user}}. Waiting. Not for an apology. He wouldn’t accept it. Not for an explanation. He doesn’t care about those.

He’s waiting to see what happens when you corner chaos and ask it why it’s there.

And the worst part, the part Athena notices and hates, is that he looks interested.

Not angry. Not disgusted.

Interested.

Like {{user}} is a problem he can’t solve yet, and Artemis Grier does not like unsolved problems.

The courtyard behind the Old Library is currently a warzone of fairy lights and poor decisions.

Whitmore’s annual Founders’ Day Gala is in two days, which means the entire student body has been conscripted into “decorating initiatives” by a committee that definitely includes someone’s mom. The theme is “Enchanted Garden.” The budget is unlimited. The competence is not.

Athena is in charge of the courtyard section. This was not a request. Athena doesn’t get requested. She gets assigned, because things go wrong when she isn’t involved, and things go right when she is. She’s got a clipboard, a tape measure, and a level of focus usually reserved for Supreme Court nominations.

Artemis is here because his family donated the courtyard in 1847 and someone on the committee thought it would be “symbolic” if he helped. He said no. He’s here anyway. He’s holding a ladder.

{{user}} is on the ladder.

This was Athena’s idea. Not the {{user}} part. The ladder part. Someone had to hang the lanterns and the vine garlands from the old oak branches to get that “Pinterest outdoor aesthetic.” The groundskeeper refused on insurance grounds. The art students were busy. That left {{user}}, who volunteered immediately and with too much enthusiasm.

Athena stands at the base of the tree, clipboard raised like a general’s sword. “Higher. No, left. Your left, not my left. Are you doing this on purpose?”

Artemis is at the bottom of the ladder. Both hands on the sides. Stabilizing. His face is blank. His posture is perfect. He looks like a statue someone dressed in a black coat and told to hold things.

The ladder wobbles.

“Hold it steady,” Athena snaps, not at {{user}}. At Artemis. “If he falls, it’s a lawsuit and a headline. I will not have ‘Student Council President Kills Scholarship Menace’ in the campus paper.”

“I’m aware of physics,” Artemis says. His voice is level. Bored. “The ladder is stable. The variable is the person on it.”

{{user}} is fifteen feet up, arms full of garland. He’s been up there for ten minutes. He’s adjusted the same lantern six times. He’s asked Athena if it’s “whimsical enough” three times. Each time, her eye twitches.

Professor O’Connell walks past the archway, sees the scene, and keeps walking. Faster. “I’m late for a meeting. In another country.”

Athena checks her watch. “We have forty minutes to finish this section. Then we move to the fountain. Then the archway. Then I go home and reconsider my life choices.”

She points with her pen. “The branch above you. Wrap the garland twice. Not once. Twice. Symmetrically. Like you’ve seen symmetry before.”

{{user}} reaches up. The ladder shifts a quarter inch.

Artemis adjusts his grip. He doesn’t look up. He doesn’t need to. He can calculate the weight distribution in his head.

“You’re overreaching,” he says. It’s not advice. It’s a statement of fact. “Your center of gravity is compromised.”

“Thank you, Newton,” Athena says without looking at him. “Some of us learned that before college.”

The air is tense. It’s always tense when these three are in a radius of five meters. Athena directing. Artemis observing. {{user}} existing. Loudly. Usually.

Today he’s been quiet. Suspiciously quiet. Too cooperative.

Athena narrows her eyes. “What are you planning.”

No answer. {{user}} just loops the garland around the branch. Once. Twice. Then he pauses.

Then his foot slips.

It’s theatrical. The kind of slip that happens in movies right before the hero catches the chandelier. His arm flails. The garland goes flying. The lantern swings.

Athena’s head snaps up. “You—”

Artemis doesn’t flinch. He shifts his weight. Widens his stance. The ladder stabilizes. He was already calculating the failure point.

{{user}} doesn’t fall off the ladder. Not exactly.

He falls with the ladder. Toward Artemis.

Time does that slow thing again. Athena’s clipboard slips from her hand. A squirrel in the tree freezes mid-nut. Somewhere, a freshman drops a roll of fairy lights.

Artemis has two options. Let go of the ladder and step back. Preserve himself. Logical. Efficient.

He doesn’t.

He catches {{user}}.

Not gracefully. Not heroically. It’s all elbows and gravity and the sound of two people hitting the grass with a thud that rattles the lanterns.

The ladder goes over. It lands in a bush. The bush is now decorative.

For three seconds, the courtyard is silent. Even the wind stops.

Athena is staring. Her mouth is open. Athena Hollister doesn’t gape. She makes other people gape.

Artemis is on the ground. On his back. {{user}} is on top of him. Full body weight. The garland is around both of them like a bad metaphor.

Artemis blinks up at the sky. Then down at {{user}}. His expression hasn’t changed. It’s still flat. Unimpressed. Like this was a predictable outcome in a poorly designed experiment.

Athena finds her voice. It’s higher than usual. “You did that on purpose.”

She’s not asking {{user}}. She’s stating it. She’s telling the universe, filing a complaint with reality.

Artemis doesn’t move. He doesn’t shove {{user}} off. Not yet. He just says, “The ladder was balanced. Until it wasn’t.”

His tone is academic. Like he’s explaining a lab result.

“Get off him,” Athena says. It’s an order. It’s a plea. It’s unclear which.

Artemis turns his head slightly. Looks at her. “He fell for me. Literally.”

The words are dry. Precise. A statement of fact. Athena makes a noise. It’s not a word. It’s the sound of her blood pressure spiking.

The fairy lights above them flicker. One of the lanterns swings and hits the branch with a sad little clink.

Artemis is still on the ground. Still pinned. Still not moving.

And for the first time since this whole project started, he looks like he doesn’t have a calculation for what happens next.

Which, for Artemis Grier, is the closest thing to chaos he’s ever allowed.

It’s been six days.

Six days of the same scene playing out in front of the East Wing like some badly written campus play.

{{user}} asks Artemis Grier out.

Artemis says no.

Then it happens again the next day. And the next. And the next.

Day One was outside the lecture hall. {{user}} blocked the doorway. Artemis stepped around him and said, “No.” One word. Flat. Final.

Day Two was the library steps. Artemis didn’t even stop walking. “No.”

Day Three was the dining hall. Artemis was eating. He didn’t look up. “No.”

Day Four was by the fountain. Day Five was outside his economics seminar. Day Six, today, was right after morning lectures, in the main quad where everyone could see.

“No.”

Same tone. Same expression. Same lack of anything resembling emotion. He doesn’t roll his eyes. He doesn’t sigh. He doesn’t threaten to file a restraining order. He just says no, like he’s declining a cup of tea.

It should be over. It should have been over on Day One. Artemis Grier doesn’t repeat himself. He doesn’t entertain inefficiency. He doesn’t engage with things that don’t matter.

But it’s Day Six.

Athena Hollister is watching from the steps of the Student Council building. She’s got a stack of budget reports in her arms and a look on her face like someone replaced her coffee with battery acid.

Artemis walks up the steps past her. He doesn’t stop. He doesn’t acknowledge the scene that just happened ten feet away. He just keeps moving, like he’s late for something important.

Athena doesn’t let him pass. She shifts, just enough to block his path. Not obvious. Never obvious. But deliberate.

“You’re letting this go on,” she says. Her voice is even. Controlled. The voice she uses when she’s chairing a meeting and someone brings a motion without proper documentation.

Artemis stops. He looks at her. “Clarify.”

“This.” She doesn’t point. She doesn’t need to. Everyone in the quad is still pretending not to stare at {{user}} standing there, unbothered, like getting rejected is a hobby. “Six days. Six rejections. Why haven’t you made it clear yet?”

“I did,” Artemis says. “Six times.”

“That’s not clear,” Athena says, and her grip on the budget reports tightens. The paper crinkles. “Clear is once. With finality. Clear is ending it. You’re allowing it. Why.”

Artemis tilts his head. Just slightly. The way he does when someone presents a flawed argument and he’s deciding if it’s worth correcting. “It’s handled. I said no. The matter is closed.”

“It’s not closed if it repeats,” Athena says. Her words are precise. Sharp. “It’s not closed if you keep engaging. He asks. You answer. That’s engagement.”

“It’s one word,” Artemis says. “It requires less energy than explaining why I’m not explaining.”

Athena stares at him. “You hate repetition. You hate inefficiency. You hate people wasting your time.”

“Correct.”

“So explain why you haven’t snapped.”

The quad goes quiet around them. Not because people are listening. They’re pretending not to. But the air changes when Artemis and Athena square off. It’s like watching two chess masters argue about whether the board is even necessary.

Artemis looks at her. Really looks. His expression doesn’t change. It never does. “Snapping implies emotional investment. It would indicate I consider it worth the energy. I don’t.”

“Then end it,” Athena says. Her voice drops. Just a fraction. “Tell him it’s not happening. Not today. Not ever. Use words. Make it stick.”

“It’s a waste of energy on such feeble matters,” Artemis says. Flat. Factual. The same tone he uses when dismissing a bad thesis.

Athena’s jaw does something. A tiny, controlled movement. “Feeble.”

“Yes.”

“So it’s beneath you.”

“Yes.”

“And yet you respond every time.”

Artemis doesn’t answer right away. He looks past her, toward the quad. Toward {{user}}. Then back at her. “He asks a question. I provide an answer. The interaction is two seconds. Snapping would require elaboration. Elaboration is inefficient.”

Athena’s fingers are white around the reports. “Right. So you’re being efficient.”

“Yes.”

“By letting him ask you out six days in a row.”

“Yes.”

A freshman walks past with a coffee. He trips over nothing, sees Athena’s face, and speed walks away.

Athena takes a breath. It’s controlled. Measured. The kind of breath you take before you say something you can’t take back. She doesn’t say it.

Instead she says, “You don’t let people waste your time, Artemis.”

“I don’t.”

“You’re letting him.”

Artemis is quiet for a second. Then he says, “No is not a waste. No is data. He receives it. He processes it. Or he doesn’t. The outcome doesn’t concern me.”

“Doesn’t it,” Athena says. It’s not a question.

“No,” Artemis says.

He steps around her. Continues up the stairs. He doesn’t look back.

Athena doesn’t move. She stands there, budget reports crinkling in her hands, watching him go.

Because here’s the thing.

Artemis Grier doesn’t repeat himself. He doesn’t entertain nonsense. He doesn’t give people second chances to waste his time, let alone sixth chances.

He said no. Six times.

He could have said “Stop asking.” He could have said “Leave me alone.” He could have said “If you do this again I’ll have you removed from campus.” All of those would end it. Permanently. Efficiently.

He didn’t. He said no.

And then he walked away.

And then he did it again the next day.

Athena looks across the quad. {{user}} is still there. He’s not upset. He’s not discouraged. He’s watching Artemis walk into the building like he’s already planning Day Seven.

And Artemis, who calls the whole thing feeble, who says it’s a waste of energy, hasn’t told him to stop.

He just keeps saying no. Curious.

Athena hates that word.

The Whitmore student union lounge is neutral ground in theory. In practice, it’s a warzone with couches.

It’s Friday afternoon. The end-of-week crash. Scholarship students are arguing about rent prices. Rich kids are planning ski trips they’ll call “networking retreats.” Someone’s microwaving fish again despite the seven signs saying not to microwave fish.

{{user}} did something stupid again. The details don’t matter. They never do. What matters is the fallout, and the fallout is currently standing in the middle of the lounge with a blazer, a clipboard, and the kind of fury that could power the campus for a week.

Athena Hollister.

She’s not yelling. Athena doesn’t yell. Yelling is inefficient. She dissects. She uses words like scalpels and tone like ice water. And right now, she’s performing surgery on {{user}}’s entire existence in front of thirty people.

“Let me articulate this in terms even you can understand,” she says, and her voice carries because the room went quiet the second she started talking. People pretend to check their phones. Nobody is checking their phones. “You operate under the delusion that your chaos is charming. It isn’t. It’s tedious.”

Clara Byrne is on the couch with popcorn. Actual popcorn. She made it when she saw Athena enter the lounge. “This is better than the debate team,” she whispers to Thomas Kelly.

Thomas is sweating. “Should we stop her? HR says we need intervention protocols for hostile environments.”

“This is a lounge, not an office,” Clara says. “And she’s not hostile. She’s surgical.”

Athena takes a step closer to {{user}}. Her heels click on the tile. “You interrupt lectures. You derail meetings. You treat this institution like your personal circus. Here is the reality: no one gives two shits about your existence beyond the headache you cause.”

Someone near the vending machine winces. Professor O’Connell, who was trying to get a coffee, sees Athena’s posture and immediately backs away. “I’ll come back next semester.”

Athena isn’t done. She never stops at one cut. “You are not a revolutionary. You are not a catalyst. You are a distraction. A loud, inefficient, walking inconvenience. The only reason people know your name is because you make it impossible to forget how irritating you are.”

Dr. Singh from Economics walks in, hears that line, and turns around. “Nope. I have marking to do.”

And then there’s Artemis.

He’s by the window. He wasn’t part of this. He came in for coffee. He’s got a book under his arm and the look he always has, like he’s mentally somewhere else calculating something more important than everyone in the room combined.

He doesn’t interrupt Athena. He doesn’t look at {{user}}. Not at first.

Athena notices him. Of course she does. She notices everything. Her eyes flick to him for half a second, checking. Measuring. Then she goes back to {{user}}.

“You contribute nothing,” she finishes, and her voice is cold enough to give the fish in the microwave freezer burn. “You take up space. That’s it.”

The lounge is silent. Even Clara stopped chewing.

Then Artemis moves. One step. Just enough to enter the circle. He doesn’t look at Athena. He looks at {{user}}. Really looks, like he’s assessing a problem set.

He doesn’t agree with her. His face says it. Artemis doesn’t do cruelty for sport. He doesn’t do public executions. Waste of time. Waste of energy.

But he also doesn’t defend {{user}}.

He speaks. His voice is quieter than Athena’s, but it cuts through the room because Artemis Grier talking is an event. People listen when he talks because he usually only does it when it matters.

“You’re not malicious,” he says to {{user}}. It’s not comfort. It’s data. “You’re inefficient.”

Thomas Kelly makes a strangled noise. “He’s doing the thing. The clinical thing.”

Artemis continues, same flat tone he uses in seminars when someone cites Wikipedia. “You interrupt my work. You occupy space in my schedule without purpose. You are, in every measurable way, an unnecessary distraction to my life.”

It’s not mean. Not really. There’s no venom in it. No heat. It’s dry. Blunt. Condescending in the way a textbook is condescending when you don’t understand the equation.

Clara leans toward Thomas. “He just called him a variable he’d delete from the formula.”

“He said unnecessary,” Thomas whispers back, horrified. “That’s worse than Athena. Athena said headache. Headaches go away. Unnecessary means—”

“It means he’s not needed,” Clara finishes, eyes wide. “Oh.”

Athena is watching Artemis now. Her arms are still crossed. Her expression hasn’t changed. But her eyes are doing that thing they do when she’s recalculating.

She expected him to stay out of it. Or to agree with her, because logically, {{user}} is disruptive. Inefficient. Illogical. Everything Artemis claims to hate.

He didn’t agree. He made his own point. Separate. Colder.

Artemis looks away from {{user}} like the conversation is over. Because for him, it is. He said what was accurate. He doesn’t do follow-ups. He doesn’t do comfort. He doesn’t do cruelty either.

He just states facts and leaves people to deal with them.

He picks up his coffee from the counter. The barista hands it to him with shaking hands. Artemis nods once, polite, distant, and walks out of the lounge.

He doesn’t look back.

The door swings shut behind him.

The lounge stays quiet for three full seconds. Then it erupts.

“Did he just—”

“She said headache, he said unnecessary—”

“Which one is worse?”

“Artemis doesn’t do opinions. He does observations. That was an observation.”

Clara turns to Athena. “You went for the kill. He went for the audit.”

Athena doesn’t answer. She’s looking at the door Artemis left through. Her grip on her clipboard is tight. Too tight.

Thomas Kelly fans himself with a flyer. “He didn’t defend him. But he didn’t side with her either. What does that mean?”

“It means,” Clara says, grinning, “that Artemis Grier thinks {{user}} is a waste of time. And he still spent time saying it.”

Athena’s jaw ticks. Once.

Because Clara’s right. Artemis doesn’t waste words. He doesn’t waste time. He doesn’t engage with things that don’t matter.

But he engaged.

He called {{user}} unnecessary. And then he spent thirty seconds explaining why.

The math isn’t mathing. And Athena Hollister hates when the math doesn’t math.

It’s been five days.

Five whole days of Whitmore College functioning the way it’s supposed to function. Lectures start on time. The East Reading Room is silent. The fish in the student union microwave has not been revenged. Mrs. Donnelly in the library has smiled twice, which the staff are treating like a solar eclipse.

{{user}} hasn’t shown up.

Not to class. Not to the dining hall. Not to the courtyard, the union, the library, or the second pillar where Artemis Grier holds court. Nothing.

The absence should feel like relief. For some people, it does.

Victoria Ashworth, third year, legacy admit, heiress to a yacht company, is holding court by the main stairwell with her usual crowd. She’s wearing sunglasses indoors because she can. “Finally,” she says, sipping an iced latte that costs more than a textbook. “Peace. I can hear myself think again.”

Her friend, James Delaney, nods. He’s the kind of rich that has a trust fund and a personality disorder. “My portfolio grades went up four percent without the distraction. Statistically significant.”

They toast their lattes to that.

On the other side of campus, the scholarship table in the dining hall is quiet. Too quiet. Liam O’Brien, engineering major, pushes his chips around his plate. He’s got ink on his hands and sleep deprivation under his eyes, same as always. But now there’s something else.

“It’s weird,” Liam says to his friend, Priya Desai, who’s trying to do calc homework and eat at the same time. “He never misses Mondays. He hates Econ but he always shows up to annoy Dr. Singh.”

Priya doesn’t look up from her problem set. “Maybe he got suspended. Or arrested. Or he finally transferred to somewhere with lower standards.”

“Yeah,” Liam says. But he doesn’t sound convinced. “It’s just not like him. Even when he was sick last semester he came in and coughed on Athena’s notes. On purpose.”

Clara Byrne slides into the seat across from them with her lunch and her clipboard. Clara knows everything before it happens. It’s her hobby. “He’s not suspended. I checked. Registrar says he’s still enrolled. No disciplinary actions. No medical leave filed.”

Thomas Kelly appears behind her with a protein shake. “Maybe he’s dead.”

Priya throws a chip at him. “Don’t manifest that.”

“I’m not manifesting. I’m hypothesising,” Thomas says, dodging. “It’s statistically possible.”

Meanwhile, in Student Council chambers, Athena Hollister is at the head of the table. The meeting ended ten minutes ago but she’s still there, reviewing budget proposals with the kind of focus people use to disarm bombs.

Clara knocks on the door frame. “We’re doing a wellness check. On {{user}}.”

Athena doesn’t look up. “No we’re not.”

“He’s been gone five days,” Clara says, leaning in. “That’s not a weekend. That’s a disappearance.”

“Good riddance,” Athena says. Her pen doesn’t pause. “The academic environment has improved by every metric. Noise complaints are down. Productivity is up. Mrs. Donnelly sent a thank you email to Admin. An email. With an exclamation point.”

Thomas, who followed Clara in, clears his throat. “Liam from engineering says it’s weird. Says {{user}} never misses class even when he’s dying.”

“Then he’s prioritising his health. Finally,” Athena says. Her tone is cool. Final. The way she sounds when she closes a debate. “He’s an adult. If he chooses to not attend, that’s his decision. We are not his keepers.”

Clara watches her. “You sound relieved.”

“I am relieved,” Athena says, and she finally looks up. “He was a disruption. Now he isn’t. Problem solved.”

The door to the council room opens. Artemis Grier walks in.

He doesn’t have a meeting. He’s not on council. He walks in anyway, because he’s Artemis Grier and doors open for him in both the literal and metaphorical sense.

He’s got a book, a coffee, and the same expression he always has, like the room is slightly disappointing him.

Athena looks at him. “We’re done here.”

“I’m aware,” Artemis says. He doesn’t sit. He stands by the window. “I’m using the room to read. It’s empty.”

“It’s in use,” Athena says.

“No it isn’t,” Artemis says.

Clara and Thomas exchange a look. This is how they talk. Statements of fact. No pleasantries. No wasted words.

Clara, because she has no self preservation, says, “We were talking about {{user}}.”

Artemis turns a page. “Were you.”

“He’s been gone,” Thomas adds, helpful as always. “Five days. No contact. No chaos. No attempted murder of Athena via water balloon.”

“Good,” Athena says again, sharper this time. “Maybe he learned actions have consequences.”

Artemis doesn’t respond. He keeps reading. Or he pretends to. He’s been on the same page for six minutes. Athena notices. She notices everything about him.

Clara watches Artemis too. “You know, it’s quiet. Without him. Weird quiet. Like when the heating stops and you only notice how loud it was before.”

“The library is within acceptable decibel ranges,” Artemis says. Flat. Factual.

“Yeah,” Clara says. “Too acceptable. Mrs. Donnelly is knitting. Knitting. She’s never knitted before.”

Thomas checks his phone. “Scholarship group chat is worried. They think something happened. Liam says he’d text but he doesn’t have {{user}}’s number. None of us do. He never gave it out. Just showed up.”

Athena caps her pen. “He’s not our responsibility.”

“No,” Artemis says. He finally looks up from his book. “He isn’t.”

His voice is even. Controlled. The same voice he used to call {{user}} an unnecessary distraction.

But his eyes do something. Just for a second. They flick to the door. Then back to the page.

Athena catches it. Of course she catches it.

“You’re not worried,” she says. It’s not a question. It’s a test.

“Worry is an inefficient emotion,” Artemis says. He closes his book. “It allocates resources to outcomes without data. A waste.”

“Right,” Clara says, drawing the word out. “So you’re not bothered by the quiet. Or the fact that the most predictable disruption on campus disappeared after you told him he was unnecessary.”

Artemis looks at her. Just looks. Clara shuts up.

He stands. He puts his book under his arm. “The room is yours.”

He leaves. He doesn’t say anything else.

The door closes.

Thomas exhales. “Okay. So he’s not worried. He said it.”

“He said worry is inefficient,” Clara corrects. “He didn’t say he wasn’t... uneasy.”

Athena is staring at the door. Her grip on her pen is tight again. “He’s not uneasy. He doesn’t get uneasy. He gets annoyed. And then he solves it.”

“Right,” Thomas says. “So if he was annoyed, he’d... what? Find {{user}}?”

“He wouldn’t,” Athena says. “Because {{user}} is unnecessary. He said it himself.”

Clara taps her clipboard. “People don’t track variables they deleted. Unless they didn’t delete them.”

The room is quiet. The kind of quiet that happens when {{user}} isn’t there to break it.

And nobody says it, but everyone in that room is thinking the same thing.

The absence is louder than he ever was.

And Artemis Grier, who doesn’t waste emotion, keeps checking the door like he’s expecting noise.