Chapter 61: First Day Of College Prep. Hopefully The Day Goes Well
The television was still going.
Adrian opened his eyes to a scene he didn’t recognize from an episode he hadn’t watched, which meant the show had moved on without him. The ceiling was familiar. The crick in his neck wasn’t.
5:39 a.m.
He stared at the number for a second before his stomach made its position on the situation very clear.
The hunger came the way it always did after a full night’s sleep with the Nutritional Multiplier involved; not politely. Just immediate, demanding, and already irritating. He’d learned by now not to negotiate with it.
He tried to sit up. The remote was wedged underneath him somewhere between his hip and the cushion, which was nobody’s fault but his own. He dug it out.
The television finally went quiet.
He sat there for a moment, neck stiff, stomach loud, the apartment dark enough that he couldn’t see much past the coffee table.
His phone buzzed.
He opened it.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
DAILY TASKS
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
☐ Eat one proper meal. Preferably in the company of another person. ⓘ
☐ Maintain personal hygiene. ⓘ
☐ Accumulate 90 minutes of physical activity. ⓘ
☑️ Get at least 7 hours of sleep. ⓘ
□ Have at least one meaningful social interaction. ⓘ
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
He’d completed one. That didn’t feel like much now, but it was still something.
He set the phone on the table and stood up.
He opened the fridge and stared into it, hoping a plan in what he could eat would pop up in his head. It didn’t.
He just started eating.
Three eggs, leftover rice that was still fine, whatever bread hadn’t gone stiff at the edges, a glass of water, then a second because the first one wasn’t enough.
He stood over the counter the whole time, not bothering with a plate for most of it, eating faster than he would’ve liked to admit.
The Nutritional Multiplier let him know it wasn’t happy until he’d made a second trip.
He cleaned up and went to change. He still had some time left. Might as well make the most of it.
First was the ninety minutes of physical activities.
He was used to the number, oddly enough. Adrian passed through the reps with ease and Enhanced Physique decided to do what it did best.
Next was the shower. Surprisingly it felt better than he’d expected, considering the day was going far differently than he had planned. He lingered longer than necessary beneath it, then he turned it off.
He brushed his teeth, got his hair back into something intentional, and pulled on the white polo before reaching for the black buttoned jacket. Good jeans. Bag by the door.
He came back to the mirror to check the collar.
And stopped. Not for long. Just a moment.
There it was again. His face looked different.
The jaw line looked cleaner. His skin had surprisingly gotten clearer than it was yesterday and his features had gotten more defined somewhere between two hours ago and now. It felt more like a cheat code at this point.
He stood there a second longer than he meant to. Then, a thought came to him. First day of college. The day he’d planned to spend Maya.
Friday morning he was depressed and still hoping for her call.
Now he barely felt any feelings. Not completely gone. He knew himself well enough not to dress it up as that.
But the hold that version of things had on him wasn’t the same hold it used to be. That was real. He’d felt it.
He picked up his bag.
She was coming to see Rose today. But that didn’t matter right now. He had bigger fish to fry in the case of the sophomore who he needed to confront today. That’d probably go well. Hopefully.
He left the thought there and headed for the door.
===
7:28 a.m.
He knocked on 201 twice.
Silence.
He stood there for a moment and listened. Nothing moved on the other side.
He thought about texting her. Held the phone for a second, then put it away.
If Rose had wanted a ride, she would’ve said so the night before. She wasn’t the type to forget things like that and then wait around for someone to offer.
Maybe she’d just gone out early. Weird.
He headed downstairs.
The drive was quiet. He didn’t bother with the radio.
He found a spot in the same general lot he and Drew had used before, killed the engine, and sat for a second with his hands in his lap.
Then he got out.
The campus looked completely different with everyone in it.
That was the simplest way to put it. Students moved in every direction; groups gathered near building entrances, people cutting across the walkways without any urgency at all.
Adrian recognized the expression. He’d probably made some version of it himself.
He kept walking. And somewhere between the parking lot and the first set of walkways, something shifted.
This was real.
Not in the way it had been before, when he’d walked in with Drew and Jenna and the whole thing still felt like he was visiting rather than arriving.
This felt different. A campus full of people who were all here for the same four years, none of them waiting for him to catch up.
Northgate.
He was actually a student here, with a system which still promised to make him a billionaire.
He pulled out his phone and checked the group chat.
Drew: yeah I’m coming. brother already told me where everything is so I basically don’t need orientation at all lmao
Drew: also if you see a smoothie stand tell me where it is
Jenna: I probably missed it. Already at the administration building. Where are you guys?
Adrian’s mouth curved slightly before he caught it. He typed back.
Adrian: Walking from the lot. Five minutes.
Jenna: Took you long enough.
Drew: save me a spot im almost there
Drew: also seriously about the smoothie stand
He pocketed his phone and kept moving.
The administration building came into view past the next stretch of walkway, a slow queue of students already forming near the entrance, lanyards and printed schedules and all of it.
His phone buzzed. He pulled it out.
☑️ Maintain personal hygiene. ⓘ
☑️ Accumulate 90 minutes of physical activity. ⓘ
☑️ Get at least 7 hours of sleep. ⓘ
Adrian looked at the message. Then at the building ahead of him.
Two more check boxes and he’d be closer to getting more billionaire points. Today’s gonna be a long day. He put the phone back in his pocket and kept walking.
He spotted Jenna before she spotted him, which was unusual enough that he almost said something about it.
She was sitting on the low wall beside the entrance, one leg crossed over the other, phone in her lap but not looking at it.
Her eyes were on the queue of students filing through the doors for a moment. Then, she turned to him as he got close.
She looked up when he got close enough.
"Adrian..." Jenna raised a brow. "You’re earlier than I’d expected."
"New week, new me." Adrian smiled.
She stared for a moment, then stood and brushed off the back of her jeans. "New you... well, you do kinda look like you slept on a couch."
"I did sleep on a couch."
Jenna opened her mouth, and shut it. "Um. I don’t think I wanna know."
Good. He wasn’t gonna give her an honest answer anyway.
Jenna started forward towards the queue of students. "C’mon, the orientation is about to start."
Adrian paused, then fell into step beside her toward the entrance. Then his phone buzzed. He pulled it out.
Rose: Hey.