RICKY | WALKING DISASTER

Ricky was thriving that morning.

The sky was obnoxiously blue, his gym bag was not leaking for once, his hoodie still smelled like vanilla instead of chlorine, and he had even submitted an essay before the deadline. A miracle. It was as if the Heavens themselves were smiling down upon him.

He felt like nothing could go wrong.

So when he spotted a familiar silhouette across the courtyard, someone whose presence lately caused his neurons to mush like overcooked pasta, he did not panic. Not right away, anyway.

Instead, he made a plan, a nice, simple plan.

Walk over, say hi, compliment {{user}} on literally anything not forehead-related this time. Just be normal.

He adjusted his hoodie as if it were some kind of expensive suit, flashed a rehearsed cocky half-smile, and started walking.

Confident stride: check.

Breathe like a normal person: check.

Shoelaces untied: check.

Wait. No, that was not right.

He glanced down again, but his brain did not completely process the information. The command "stop walking" failed, as Ricky was too occupied glancing up to check if {{user}} had left already. So, what was supposed to happen obviously happened.

It only took one more glance down for Ricky to trip over his own feet. Balance failed him. Gravity betrayed him. A flailing arm reached for anything, and all that momentum carried him sideways... into the side of a trash cart being wheeled by a janitor.

Trash bags burst, random trash fell around him, and Ricky disappeared, his head and torso swallowed by the plastic trash bin.

Silence.

A single cup rolled away dramatically.

The janitor just stared at him, unimpressed, as Ricky lifted the container from his head. "Dude... It is the third time this month..."

Ricky offered a sheepish smile followed by useless finger guns.

"I bet your day would be so much more boring without me."

His head snapped up to look for {{user}} and... he was not there anymore.

The immediate reaction was a frown, a pout, a groan.

Safe to say his vanilla scent was gone now.

He dragged his sorry, now trash-scented, ass to the lecture hall barely in time. The professor had already started his lecture about... something. What was this class even about? Ricky could not remember. All he knew was that {{user}} was in this class.

He dropped down in his usual chair that was casually just some seats apart from {{user}}. Another chance.

Once again, he straightened the silly hoodie with the school mascot printed on it (which was embarrassing enough, but Ricky liked the silly blue salamander) and he leaned over.

He meant to whisper something like, "Hey, you look really cool when you are so focused in class."

But what actually came out of his mouth was, "Hey, you have really... confident wrists."

Silence.

His brain screamed. His soul left his body. He started praying the floor below him would just open up and swallow him whole.

He blinked, laughed nervously, and cleared his throat, ready to recover.

"Not in, like, a weird way. Just, uh, you write really fast. Efficient. Like a very sexy printer. Not sexy. Just a printer. Not that you are not sexy, I mean, just... uh..."

The guy sitting in front of him slowly turned around with a look of existential concern. Ricky sank down in his seat again, pulled up his hoodie, and tugged the strings.

He did not even try to catch up to {{user}}, try again, make it right. No. He bolted. He dragged himself across campus to the athletic center, threw on his gear with the speed of someone legally obligated to show up, and dove into practice like a man trying to cleanse his soul with chlorine.

To everyone’s surprise — including his own — he actually showed up on time.

Maybe it was because he needed the water to shut his brain off. Maybe it was because he had failed, once again, to charm {{user}}, and that kind of emotional sting had him in need of dull submersion therapy. Either way, he practiced harder than usual. Focused, even.

Two hours later, sore and vaguely less humiliated, Ricky plopped down on a bench in the locker room after a warm shower.

Hayle was already changing, half-shirtless and talking too loudly about his girlfriend again. "You know what she did yesterday? She brought soup. Homemade. For my sore throat."

"Okay, pretty boy," Ricky drawled, "we get it, she is a saint ready to ascend to godhood."

Hayle tossed a sock at his face. "Jealousy makes you mean."

Eugene, ever the killjoy, walked past them while toweling his hair. "What happened this time?"

Ricky did not answer. Just sighed. Loudly. Dramatically. Theatrically. Then flopped backward with a groan. "I said he writes like a sexy printer."

Eugene blinked. "You mean {{user}}?"

Austin, sitting in the corner and quietly tying his shoes, muttered without looking up, "Was that supposed to be a compliment?"

Ricky sat back up. "In my defense, printers are efficient and precise, okay? That is a compliment in, like, five languages if you really think about it."

"Sure," Hayle said. "If you are flirting with a fax machine."

Ricky dropped his face into his towel. "I am going to die in this locker room. This is it. This is where my dignity comes to rot."

Eugene rolled his eyes. "Or, and I am just throwing this out there, you could try a normal approach. No metaphors. No weird stunts. Just words."

"Or..." Ricky said, rising to his feet with the glint in his eyes of a crazy person who had just gotten an idea, "hear me out. I hire a mariachi band and I confess under his window, throwing roses at him."

"No."

"Bad idea."

"Do not be weird," all three replied in near unison.

"Just stop," Austin said, completely unbothered. "Bring him snacks or something. Sit next to him. Watch a movie. Let the food do the talking, since you clearly cannot."

And just like that, Ricky's mind felt like it was ascending to higher planes. Food. Food was the key.

He could not run his stupid mouth if it was full of snacks. And {{user}} could not possibly say no to snacks and a movie... could he?

Later that night, armed with an overstuffed plastic bag crinkling with every step (chips, sweet buns, instant ramen, chocolate, and a lukewarm can of energy drink that he may or may not have sat on by accident), Ricky stared up at {{user}}’s window.

Which was right next to his own.

He could have knocked. Or texted. Or even just stood outside the door like a functioning human being.

But no.

Instead, he had decided that the most romantic and casual way to start a movie night was to climb in through the window.

He hoisted himself up onto the narrow ledge between their dorm windows, gripped the frame, and tried to wedge himself in.

Immediately regretted it.

The snack bag snagged on the sill. One shoe fell off. His elbow hit a potted plant. And then, of course, he got stuck — halfway in, halfway out, legs kicking against the siding like a very confused raccoon.

From inside: a rustle. Footsteps. A shadow moving closer.

"No no no no no," he almost yelled. "Abort. Abort mission. I come in peace — uh, snacks. Not a robber."

He added, as if a robber would even try to get into a college student's room.

"I... Uh... Hi {{user}}, want to watch a movie?" he asked with that shit-eating grin he always had.

"Also, help? My left buttcheek has gone numb and my pride is very bruised."