PSEUMINO, VENTO AUREO.

✦.⁺ preamble.

═ ☆. FOR THE THIRD TIME, YOU ERASED the sentence you'd been writing. Even in the library, you couldn't focus on your assignments. You had three days' worth of work to catch up on, but your thoughts kept going back to your Stand and Trish and Giorno. The past few days felt like a fever dream.

If you were being honest, you wanted to try summoning your Stand again to see what it could do, even if you were a little scared. Was there really a way to control it? You couldn't shake the feeling of something unspooling in your chest, the sight of Narancia's face losing colour. If Bruno and Trish hadn't arrived when they did, you might've choked Narancia to death.

Thinking about your Stand also got you thinking about Fugo. He had said he'd never done the lighter test, but if he'd hung out with Giorno and Trish, why was that? Had it been during a time before they'd gotten Black Sabbath's lighter?

It was unspoken, but you and Narancia had agreed not to bring up going to Giorno's meeting with Fugo. He was obviously going to tell you not to go. You wished he would just tell you why he disliked Trish and Giorno so much. You had a feeling he knew more about Stands than he let on. And he must have been lying about the lighter test. Or not telling the entire story.

Didn't he warn me about it in the library? Sure, he could have heard about it from other students, but the way he talked about it made it seem like he'd done it before.

You fixed your gaze firmly on the textbook questions, feeling a headache begin to pound at your temples. You just wanted to go back to that ride in the Maserati, with the wind blowing on your face and your profile tagged in a beautiful picture. Why were things becoming so complicated?

"That's the new student that was in Giorno's picture, right?" You didn't look up from your textbook, but you heard the two female students clearly. They were only sitting a table away and not bothering to whisper.

"Yeah, it is. I didn't expect that face under those glasses."

You bristled when the two of them laughed.

"Do you think they own those glasses? I'd kill for a pair."

"Of course, they don't. Trish was probably just nice enough to lend them."

Be the bigger person, damnit. Slapping a student is not going to look good on your record.

When the two girls couldn't get a reaction out of you, they tossed their heads and left. You breathed a sigh of relief. Just as you were beginning to focus on your work, someone bumped into your table. You cut your eyes in the person's direction.

"Sorry about that. Didn't mean to interrupt your studying." The guy's tone made it clear he wasn't sorry in the slightest. Your skin crawled at his smile. He smoothed back his hair, bringing your attention to the weird lime-green colour and ponytail it was in. Something about him made you uncomfortable.

"It's fine," you muttered.

You watched the guy saunter away through your periphery, meeting up with someone else near the entrance. His hairstyle was just as weird, his ginger hair pulled up into spikes.

A freshman brushed past the dodgy pair. He was in one of your classes.

"Can you move? You're blocking up the whole damn library."

The two guys parted, giving the freshman mock-apologies. Ponytail craned his neck to follow the freshman entering the library. He nudged his friend, telling him to watch. As the freshman headed to one of the tables, Ponytail stared intently at him, eyebrows slightly raised. To anyone who noticed nearby, it must have looked like the freshman ran into a chair and launched his books all over the floor. The duo cackled, leaving the library when people gave them dirty looks. A few students helped pick up the freshman's books, asking him if he was alright.