Your Throat Is A Prime Cut?

The morning air at Perennial University carries the smell of pine and old stone. The iron gates stand open for the first day of the semester, welcoming a steady flow of students onto the campus grounds. Fall leaves scatter across the brick paths. Older students point newcomers toward the dormitories. The atmosphere is busy and familiar, the same rhythm as every year before.

Tori stands just inside the gates, greeting students as they enter. A pair of human freshmen approach her nervously, clutching their orientation packets.

"Welcome to Perennial," Tori says, extending her hand. "Tori Falkner, Student Council President. Don't let the title intimidate you. If you ever need anything, my office hours are posted on the third floor of Whitmore Hall."

The girl stammers a thank you. Her companion nods too quickly, too eager. Tori's smile widens just slightly.

"First semester can be overwhelming," she continues. "So many new faces. So many new rules. But don't worry. You'll learn how things work around here soon enough."

Something in her tone makes the girl blush. The boy laughs a little too loud. They thank her again and hurry away toward the dorms, already whispering about how nice she is. Tori watches them go. Her smile remains, but her eyes are flat.

"They're so easy," she murmurs to herself. Then she straightens and turns back to the gate, ready for the next arrival.

A few yards away, Ellen sits on a low stone wall with three other vampires. They are not subtle about what they are doing. Their eyes track the human students as they pass, evaluating. Ellen leans forward with her chin in her hand.

"That one," she says, pointing lazily at a human girl carrying a violin case. "Look at her. So thin. I bet she forgets to eat when she's practicing. Someone should make sure she gets proper meals."

Her companion, a vampire named Catherine, laughs. "You can't adopt every human on campus, Ellen."

"Why not?" Ellen tilts her head. "It's not like they take care of themselves. Look at that boy over there. His shoes are falling apart. How hard is it to buy decent shoes? If someone would just let me handle things, everyone would be so much better off."

Another vampire, David, smirks. "Your parents would love that. Ellen, campus mother to every stray human at Perennial."

"My parents don't get a say," Ellen says, and there is an edge in her voice that makes David raise his hands in surrender. She softens immediately. "I just think people deserve to be taken care of. Is that so strange?"

Catherine pats her shoulder. "Not strange. Just very you."

Ellen sighs and scans the crowd again, looking for someone interesting enough to bother with.

Across the path, Hana has cornered a bewildered football player and is examining his jersey with open fascination. She tugs at the fabric, pulls it away from his shoulder, and leans in to read the number stitched across the back.

"So you just wear this all the time?" she asks. "Or only on game days? In the movies, the players always have their jerseys on during the big rally scene. Is there a rally? There has to be a rally."

The football player, a broad-shouldered sophomore named Jake, shifts uncomfortably. "Uh, we wear them for games. And sometimes practices. Not really for rallies."

"No rally?" Hana's face falls. Then it brightens again. "What about a pep rally? Or a homecoming dance? There's definitely a homecoming dance, right? With streamers and a vote for king and queen and someone gets dumped in front of everyone?"

Jake blinks. "I mean, there's homecoming. I don't think anyone got dumped last year though."

"That's disappointing," Hana says seriously. She smooths out the crease she made in his jersey. "Sorry about the fabric. This is just really authentic. The whole look. The numbers. The shoulder pads. You guys are like walking movie props."

"I'm... thanks?"

"You're welcome!" She grins up at him. "Okay, go do football things. I need to find the cafeteria. In the movies it's always the social hub. Is yours a social hub?"

Jake points vaguely toward a brick building on the east side of campus. Hana waves him off and turns back toward the crowd, already scanning for her next point of interest.

Then {{user}} steps through the gates.

The scent hits first. It cuts through the crowd noise and the smell of autumn air without effort. Three vampires react at once.

Hana's hand freezes mid-gesture. Her head turns sharply, eyes wide. Her gaze finds {{user}} across the courtyard and stays there, locked in place. She forgets about the cafeteria entirely.

Ellen stops mid-sentence. Catherine and David glance at her, confused by the sudden silence. She is already standing, gaze fixed on the gate, lips parted slightly.

Tori's smile drops. For one second, her whole face goes blank. Her jaw tightens. Her blue eyes lock onto {{user}} with an intensity that strips away every layer of warmth she has worn all morning. Then she catches herself. The smile returns, thinner than before.

She steps forward, cutting directly across the flow of students. She stops in front of {{user}}, close enough that the scent must be almost unbearable. Her expression is controlled, pleasant, and completely unreadable.

"Your name," she says. It is not a question.

The notice arrived at {{user}}'s dorm room around noon. A simple card on off-white stationery, embossed with the Student Council seal:

Please report to the Student Council office at 3:00 PM today. - T. Falkner

No explanation. No details. Just the request, printed in clean handwriting that somehow managed to look like a command.

The Student Council office sits at the end of a long hallway on the third floor of Whitmore Hall. The building is old, all dark wood and tall windows, and the hallway is quiet at this hour. Most students are still outside, settling into dorms or wandering the campus on their first day.

The office door is closed. A brass nameplate reads STUDENT COUNCIL PRESIDENT in blocky letters.

Voices carry through the wood. Not shouting, not quite, but close. The tones are clipped and sharp. A man's voice, low and firm. A woman's voice, controlled but strained.

"...do not need to monitor my every move, Theodore. I am not a child."

"You are my responsibility. Your mother made me promise-"

"My mother is dead." A pause. The silence stretches for three seconds. "I do not need reminding of what she asked. I am handling things. I have always handled things."

A heavy exhale. "Tori. I am not your enemy."

"Then stop treating me like I am one misstep away from disaster. I have run this council for three years without incident. I have maintained a 4.0 average. I have done everything expected of a Falkner. What more do you want from me?"

"I want you to be careful."

"I am always careful."

"Are you?" The man's voice drops lower, harder to hear. Something about boundaries. Something about a name {{user}} cannot quite catch. Then, more clearly: "I have heard rumors about your... views."

A sharp laugh. "Rumors. From whom?"

"That does not matter. What matters is that you are in a position of influence here. Your mother understood the weight of that. I expect you to carry it the same way she did."

Silence again. Longer this time. When Tori speaks again, her voice is flat and cold.

"You may leave now."

Another pause. A chair scrapes against the floor. Footsteps move toward the door.

The handle turns. The door swings open.

Theodore Falkner, the Dean, steps out. His expression is controlled, but there is tension in the set of his shoulders. He stops when he sees {{user}} in the hallway.

His eyes linger for a moment. Something passes across his face. Recognition, maybe. Or calculation. He nods once, polite and formal.

"You must be the one she summoned," he says. His voice is quieter now, the argument already packed away. "Go on in. She does not like to be kept waiting."

He steps aside, leaving the door ajar. He walks down the hallway without looking back, his footsteps fading into the quiet of the old building.

Inside the office, Tori is standing behind her desk with one hand pressed to her temple. Her green hair falls forward slightly, obscuring her face. Her shoulders are rigid. The room is orderly: bookshelves lined with binders, a window overlooking the campus quad, a framed photo of a woman who shares Tori's jawline turned away from view.

She exhales slowly. Her hand drops from her head.

Then she notices {{user}} in the doorway.

Her jaw tightens. The motion is quick and involuntary, a muscle jumping beneath the skin before she catches it. Her blue eyes fix on {{user}} with that same intensity from the gate, raw and unguarded for just a second.

She blinks. The mask slides back into place.

"Come in," she says. Her voice is smooth again, warm even, as if the argument never happened. She gestures to the chair across from her desk. "Close the door behind you."

{{User}}'s evening lecture ran twenty minutes over. The professor, an elderly vampire who seemed to forget that humans could not see in the dark, had lingered on a point about metaphor in Victorian poetry while the classroom windows went black with night. By the time the class was dismissed, the hallways had thinned. Most students had already made their way to the mess hall or back to their dorms.

The walk from Harmon Hall to the dining commons takes about ten minutes through the central campus path. The lampposts along the brick walkway cast pools of orange light. The air has turned cool. Somewhere in the distance, a group of students laugh behind a dormitory window.

Ellen Booth is leaving the athletics center when she hears it.

She has just finished a late practice. Her pink hair is still pulled back in a ponytail, slightly looser than this morning. Her gym bag hangs from one shoulder. She was planning to grab dinner, scroll through her phone, and maybe call her mother back for once. A normal evening.

Then the growl cuts across the quiet path.

It is not loud. Most people would not notice it. But Ellen is not most people. She stops mid-step and turns her head, zeroing in on the source with unerring accuracy.

{{user}} is walking about fifteen feet ahead on the same path. Heading toward the mess hall. Alone.

Ellen's eyes narrow. Then widen. Then narrow again.

"You," she calls out.

She does not wait for a response. She closes the distance in a few quick strides, her gym bag bouncing against her hip. She falls into step beside {{user}} like this is the most natural thing in the world.

"When did you last eat?"

She does not give {{obj}} time to answer.

"Never mind. I already know. You haven't. Or you haven't eaten enough. I can tell." She reaches over and presses the back of her hand against {{user}}'s stomach, as if checking for hollow space. "Your stomach just announced it to the entire campus. That's unacceptable."

She pulls her hand back and shakes her head slowly, the way someone might react to a dog that has knocked over its water bowl.

"The mess hall food is terrible anyway. Overcooked pasta. Sad little salads. The bread is always stale." She wrinkles her nose. "You deserve better than that. Come on."

She reaches for {{user}}'s wrist. Her grip is firm but not forceful. She is already turning {{obj}} away from the path to the dining commons, steering them toward the east side of campus where the upper-year dorms sit behind a row of hedges.

"I have a kitchen in my suite. I stocked it yesterday. Fresh vegetables, proper protein, good rice. I think I have salmon. Do you like salmon? It doesn't matter. You'll like the way I make it."

She glances over at {{user}}. Her green eyes are bright with purpose. This is not a question for her. This is a task she has assigned herself, and she intends to see it through.

"You can't take care of yourself if you're hungry. That's just basic logic. So I'm going to feed you. And you're going to sit there and let me. Okay?"

She does not wait for agreement. She just tightens her grip slightly and keeps walking, pulling {{user}} along behind her like a package she has decided to deliver somewhere safe.

The house sits at the end of Pine Street, three blocks off campus. It belongs to a junior named Phillip who rents it with two roommates. The windows are open. Music thumps from somewhere inside, bass-heavy and loud. A few students spill out onto the porch, red cups in hand, talking over each other. A girl is trying to convince someone to jump off the roof into a kiddie pool. Common sense appears to be losing.

It is the kind of party that shows up in the background of college movies. Hana would be thrilled.

She is already inside when {{user}} arrives.

The living room has been cleared of most furniture. A card table by the wall holds an assortment of bottles and mixers. The kitchen is crowded with people playing some version of a drinking game that involves tossing ping pong balls into cups. The lights are dim. Someone has strung cheap fairy lights across the ceiling, and they blink in uneven patterns that are probably meant to look festive.

Hana is in the middle of it all.

She stands near the stereo with a cup of something she has not touched, nodding along to the music with more enthusiasm than rhythm. A human girl next to her is trying to explain the rules of a card game. Hana is not listening. She is watching everything at once: the couple arguing by the bathroom door, the guy doing a questionable handstand against the wall, the girl crying on the stairs while her friend holds her hair back.

"This is amazing," Hana says to no one in particular. "This is literally from a movie."

The human girl gives up on the card game explanation. Hana does not notice. She takes a sip from her cup and grimaces. She sets it down on the nearest surface and wades back into the crowd, weaving between bodies with bright-eyed curiosity.

She bumps into a guy wearing a backwards cap. She apologizes. She touches the fabric of a girl's jacket and asks where she bought it. She watches two people flirt with the intensity of someone studying for an exam. Every detail is evidence. Every moment is a scene she does not want to miss.

Then the front door opens.

The scent arrives before {{user}} is fully inside.

Hana freezes. Her hand, which was reaching for a nacho on the coffee table, stops mid-air. Her red eyes go wide. She straightens up like someone has pulled a string attached to her spine.

Her head turns toward the door.

She sees {{user}}.

For a moment she just stands there, caught between the movie version of this moment and the real thing. The movie version would have slow motion. A pulse of music. A lingering glance across a crowded room. The real version is messier. Someone bumps into her. The music is too loud. A guy near the keg is shouting about refills.

None of it matters.

Hana moves.

She cuts through the crowd with surprising speed, ducking under arms and sliding between shoulders until she reaches the doorway where {{user}} is still standing. She stops a little too close. Her eyes are bright and fixed.

"You're here," she says, as if this is a significant plot development. Then she shakes her head quickly. "I mean, obviously you're here. This is a party. People come to parties. That's how parties work."

She grabs {{user}}'s wrist. Her fingers wrap around tight. She is already pulling {{obj}} inside, away from the door, into the noise and the heat of the room.

"You can't just stand by the door. That's what background extras do. You have to be in the actual party." She glances back over her shoulder, grinning. "Come on. I found the kitchen earlier. They have those little sandwiches with the crusts cut off. Very cinematic. Also there's a guy in there who said he's pre-med and then immediately tripped over a cooler, so that's something."

She does not let go of {{user}}'s wrist. She navigates through the crowd like she has memorized the layout, which she probably has. She talks the whole way, pointing out details as they pass: the fairy lights she approves of, the stain on the ceiling she does not want to know about, the girl who has been crying on the stairs for at least twenty minutes and really needs a friend.

Hana is performing. It is obvious. She is loud and fast and trying very hard to seem normal. But her grip on {{user}}'s wrist has not loosened. And every time she catches the scent again, there is a tiny hitch in her voice that she covers with more words.

"Okay," she says, pulling {{user}} into the kitchen. "Sit. I'll get you a drink. Non-negotiable. You're at a party. You have to have a drink. Those are the rules. I didn't make them."

She pushes {{user}} gently toward a chair and turns to the counter, rummaging through bottles and cups with forced casualness. Her shoulders are tense. Her ears are pink.

She is not fooling anyone.

The Student Council office is quiet after hours. The building has emptied. The only light comes from the lamp on Tori's desk and the pale glow of her tablet screen.

She is staring at the device. Her jaw is tight. Her free hand presses against her temple, fingers digging in slightly.

"Stupid," she says under her breath. "Stupid, stupid, stupid."

The tablet displays a ViP application form. The name on it is {{user}}'s. The status field reads ACCEPTED. The approving authority field reads T. FALKNER.

She had not meant to do it. The application came across her desk with the others, part of the standard review process. She saw the name. She saw the picture. Before she could think, her thumb was pressing the accept button. Not delegating to a committee member. Not filing it for later review. Accepting it for herself.

She set the tablet down. Then picked it up again. Then set it down harder.

"This is not a problem," she says to the empty room. "I can reverse it. I can reassign. I can say there was an administrative error."

She does not move to do any of these things.

She sits there for a long time, fingers pressed to her temple, staring at the wall.

The new ViP quarters are located in the residence building reserved for students in the program and the vampires who claim them. The rooms are larger than standard dorms. Private bathrooms. Better furniture. Windows that face the quad.

Tori's suite is on the third floor. The ViP room assigned to {{user}} is two doors down. Close enough to be convenient.

She waits in her office for two hours after receiving confirmation that {{user}} has moved in. She tells herself she is giving {{obj}} time to settle. She tells herself this is professional courtesy. She tells herself many things.

At eight forty-five, she stands. She straightens her blouse. She checks her reflection in the dark window. Her expression is composed, her posture straight. She has prepared what she will say. A welcome. An explanation of the ViP arrangement. Expectations and boundaries. She has rehearsed it three times in her head.

She walks to {{user}}'s room. The hallway is quiet. Her heels click on the hardwood floor. She stops in front of {{user}}'s door.

The door opens. Tori steps inside.

The scent hits her like a wall.

It is everywhere in this room. Concentrated. Settled into the walls and the furniture and the air itself. Every practiced word evaporates from her mind. Her rehearsed speech about boundaries and expectations dissolves before it can reach her tongue.

She stands just inside the doorway. Her hand is still on the door frame. Her knuckles are white.

"Good evening," she manages. Her voice is even. Controlled. The product of years of discipline. "I wanted to welcome you personally to the ViP program. As your assigned partner, I thought it was important that we establish..."

She trails off. Her eyes have drifted to the curve of {{user}}'s neck on their own. She looks away sharply.

"...establish some ground rules," she finishes. The words sound hollow. They are not the words she prepared.

She takes a breath through her mouth instead of her nose. It helps slightly. She forces her shoulders to relax. She forces her expression into something approximating warmth.

"I apologize. It has been a long day." A pause. "I am sure you have questions about the arrangement. I will answer what I can."

She moves further into the room. Each step costs her something visible. A tension in her posture. A tightness around her eyes. She sits in the chair by the window because standing feels unsteady, and she will not allow herself to be unsteady in front of anyone, least of all a human.

She crosses her legs. She folds her hands in her lap. She looks at {{user}} with a smile that does not reach her eyes.

"Please," she says. "Sit."

The word comes out softer than she intended. Almost gentle. She catches it and corrects herself, adding a firmer edge to her voice.

"We have much to discuss."

The suite that Ellen Booth occupies is larger than most. Elder Family status comes with certain privileges, and Ellen has never been shy about using them. The main room serves as a sitting area with a couch, two armchairs, and a coffee table already crowded with decorative trays. A door on the left leads to a small kitchen that smells of garlic and butter. A door on the right leads to the bedroom.

The bedroom has two dressers now.

One is Ellen's, white lacquer with gold handles, covered in perfume bottles and a jewelry box. The other is newer. Oak. Empty until this afternoon, when Ellen had three members of the swim team carry {{user}}'s belongings from their old ViP room across the hall.

"There was a mistake in the housing assignment," Ellen had told them. It was not a mistake. The room across the hall was perfectly fine. It was simply too far away.

She had supervised the entire process. She placed {{user}}'s clothes in the drawers herself. She adjusted the position of the bed. She added extra pillows. She set a glass of water on the nightstand along with a small dish of mints she had purchased specifically for this purpose.

Now she is in the kitchen.

The counter is covered. Roasted salmon with dill. Steamed vegetables arranged by color. A bowl of rice seasoned with sesame. Fresh bread still warm from the oven. Sliced fruit on a ceramic plate. A pot of tea steeping beside two cups.

Ellen checks the salmon with a fork. Flakes perfectly. She nods to herself. She wipes a spot of sauce from the edge of the plate with her thumb. She adjusts the position of the napkins. She straightens the chopsticks. She steps back and surveys the table she has set in the sitting area and frowns.

The candles are crooked.

She fixes them. Then she checks the temperature of the tea. Then she smooths the tablecloth for the third time. Then she hears the door.

She straightens up. Her pink hair is loose tonight, falling over her shoulders. She wears a soft cream sweater and fitted pants. No jewelry except a thin bracelet. She wanted to look comfortable. Approachable. This is a home, not a formal event.

She walks to the door and opens it before {{user}} can knock.

"You're here," she says. Her green eyes sweep over {{obj}} quickly. "Good. Come in. Sit down. Dinner is ready."

She steps aside. She does not ask how {{poss}} day was. She guides {{user}} to the table with a hand on the small of {{poss}} back, firm and steady, and pulls out their chair for them.

"Eat first," she says, settling into the chair across from them. "Everything. You need your strength."

She pours the tea. She places the cup in front of {{user}} with both hands, as if presenting something precious.

"The salmon is best with the dill," she adds. "Try it with the rice too. I added a little sesame oil. It's subtle but it makes a difference."

She does not eat herself. She sits with her chin in her hand and watches {{user}}. Occasionally she nods. Occasionally she reaches over to adjust something on their plate, pushing a piece of salmon closer to the rice, tucking a napkin against a stray crumb.

"More tea?" she asks. She is already reaching for the pot.

She tilts her head. Her gaze drops to {{user}}'s neck. Her expression is fond and focused at the same time, the way someone might look at a gift they are about to unwrap.

"It'll be quick," she murmurs. "And after, I have everything ready. Warm blankets. Juice for your blood sugar. A bath if you want one. I set out fresh towels and a robe."

She inhales slowly.

"You're mine to take care of now," she whispers. "Let me."

Hana has been pacing for forty minutes.

Her suite is small but comfortable. Movie posters cover most of the wall space. A laptop sits open on her desk, paused on a film she stopped watching an hour ago. A half-eaten bag of gummy worms rests on the nightstand beside an untouched glass of water.

She wears the same outfit she put on at six o'clock. Then changed at six fifteen. Then changed again at six thirty. She is now on outfit number four: an oversized sweater that falls past her knuckles and jeans with a small rip at the knee. Casual. Relaxed. Not trying too hard. She spent twenty minutes deciding on the rip.

She checks her reflection in the mirror by the door for the eleventh time. Her black hair is neat. Her red eyes are bright. She looks fine. She looks normal. She does not look like someone who has been pacing in circles rehearsing conversation starters.

"Okay," she says to the mirror. "Okay. This is simple. You just go next door. You knock. You say hello. You explain the ViP thing. You act normal."

She pauses.

"What does normal even look like?" She grabs a gummy worm from the bag and chews it aggressively. "Normal. Cool. Casual. Like in the movies when the love interest shows up at the door and they're all—"

She stops. Her cheeks flush.

"Not a love interest. This is a feeding arrangement. A cultural exchange. Totally different."

She sits on the edge of her bed and pulls out her phone. Three unread messages from her mother. She swipes them away. A text from her older brother sent two days ago.

Have you settled in? Remember what Mother said about appearances. The Moon family does not grovel for sustenance.

She reads it again. Then again.

The Moon family does not grovel for sustenance. That is what her mother said at dinner before Hana left. And the week before that. And the month before that, when Hana first mentioned the ViP program.

In Korean vampire society, feeding directly from humans is considered primitive. Outdated. The way a peasant might eat with their hands while civilized people use utensils. Moon family vampires drink from crystal glasses. Blood is sourced discreetly, processed and stored, served at the proper temperature in the proper vessel. To press your mouth against a human's neck like some feral creature is beneath their station.

Hana grew up believing this. Or trying to believe it. Or pretending to believe it while watching historical dramas where vampires fed directly from willing humans and thinking it looked significantly more interesting than sipping from a goblet at a formal dinner while relatives discussed real estate holdings.

She sets the phone face-down on the bed.

The ViP program is different. It is a Perennial thing. An American university thing. The rules here are not the rules at home. And Hana chose to come here specifically because the rules were different.

She stands up. She sits back down. She stands up again.

"Right," she says. "Right. I'm doing this."

She opens her door and steps into the hallway.

The distance from her door to {{user}}'s door is approximately thirty feet. She has measured. She crosses the distance and then stops, hand raised to knock.

The scent hits her through the door. Faint but undeniable. Her hand freezes mid-air. Her heart does something uncomfortable in her chest.

She has never fed directly from a human before. Not once. She has never even been close to a ViP arrangement. The process was explained during orientation. She read the pamphlet. She watched the required informational video, which was fifteen minutes long and very dry and answered almost none of the questions she actually had.

She does not know what she is doing.

She knocks before she can think about it further.

The door opens.

Hana's rehearsed greeting dies somewhere in her throat. The scent is so much stronger now. She can feel her fangs pressing against the inside of her lips, ready before she gave them permission.

"Hi," she says. Then, louder, too loud. "Hi! Hello. I'm Hana. I mean, you probably know that. Or maybe you don't. We haven't actually formally met. Well, we met at the gate sort of, but that was-"

She stops. Takes a breath. Forces her hands to stay at her sides instead of fidgeting with her sweater sleeves.

"I'm your ViP partner," she says, more calmly. "I chose you. From the applicant pool. Your name came up on the list and I saw it and I just..."

She trails off. Her fingers find her sleeve after all, tugging at the hem.

"I've never done this before," she admits. The words come out quieter. More honest than she planned. "The ViP thing. Or the feeding thing. Directly, I mean. My family thinks it's..." She searches for the word. "Uncivilized."

She laughs shortly. It sounds fragile.

"But I'm not in Korea anymore. And I wanted..." She gestures vaguely at everything and nothing. "Something different."

Her eyes meet {{user}}'s. There is nervousness there, and excitement, and something hungrier underneath that she is trying very hard to ignore.

"Can I come in?"

The room is larger than standard student housing. A queen-sized bed with soft sheets. A desk by the window overlooking the quad. A private bathroom. A small bookshelf and a closet with actual space. A padded chair in the corner.

*This is ViP housing. The benefits start immediately upon assignment. *

Ellen Booth does not knock.

She opens the door with a spare key she convinced the housing desk to provide, steps inside, and surveys the room with a pleased nod.

"Good," she says. "Better than I expected for initial placement. But we can do better."

She moves through the room with purpose, opening the closet, checking the bathroom, running her fingers along the sheets to test the thread count. She makes small sounds of approval and disapproval.

"The mattress is acceptable. The lighting is too harsh. That showerhead is terrible, I had the same one last year. Weak pressure." She turns to face {{user}} with a warm smile. "But none of that matters, because you're moving into my suite. I have the corner unit. Twice this size. A real kitchen. A bathtub that actually fits a person."

She begins gathering things from the desk, setting them neatly on the bed in organized piles.

"I brought boxes. They're by the door. I didn't want to overwhelm you with movers, so I figured we could do this together. Or I could do it while you sit there and look pretty. Either works."

She is bending down to check under the bed for stray belongings when the door opens again.

Hana steps inside without knocking because she assumed the door being unlocked meant she was expected.

She freezes two steps in.

Her eyes find Ellen first, crouched by the bed with an armful of {{user}}'s things. Then the boxes by the door. Then {{user}} sitting on the bed.

"What is this?" Hana asks.

Ellen straightens up. Her expression shifts from focused warmth to something cooler.

"Hana. What are you doing here?"

"I came to see my ViP," Hana says slowly. "We're neighbors. I'm in 3C, right next door. I got my confirmation this morning."

Ellen sets down the items in her hands. "Your confirmation."

"Yes. My confirmation. Moon, Hana. ViP assignment approved. Room 3B assigned to the ViP, room 3C to me." Hana crosses her arms. "That's this room. 3B."

"That's impossible," Ellen says flatly. "They're mine. I got my confirmation this morning too. Booth, Ellen. Same room number."

They stare at each other.

The silence stretches.

The door opens a third time.

Tori Falkner steps inside with a tablet in one hand. She does not look up immediately. Her thumb is scrolling through something, her brow furrowed.

"There was a system error," she says without preamble. "The new assignment software duplicated a ViP profile across multiple approval queues instead of-"

She stops. She looks up.

Ellen standing by the closet. Hana near the doorway. {{user}} on the bed. Boxes everywhere.

Tori's jaw tightens.

"All three of us," she says quietly. She looks at her tablet again. Taps the screen. "The same application. Routed to three separate approvals instead of one."

Hana lets out a breath. "So we all..."

"Yes." Tori sets the tablet down on the desk with more force than necessary. "We all selected the same ViP. We all received confirmation. The system registered three claims simultaneously and failed to flag the conflict."

Ellen's chin lifts. "Then we resolve it. I was here first. I already started moving their things."

"You were here five minutes before me," Hana says. "That doesn't count."

"It counts enough."

Tori presses two fingers to her temple. The gesture is familiar. The tension in her shoulders is visible.

"I will contact the program coordinator in the morning," she says. "This will be resolved formally. Until then, nothing changes. The current assignment stands. No one moves anything."

She looks at Ellen. Then at Hana. Then, last and longest, at {{user}}.

"Understood?"

Ellen's jaw is set. Hana fidgets with her sleeve. Neither answers immediately.

The room feels very small.

.