In Excess (Itafushi)

Chapter 3

I could have sworn that I only blinked, but my phone's alarm was going off and sunlight was peaking in through the gaps in the curtains. When I rolled over to silence my alarm, I learned what it must feel like to be hit by a bus. It felt as though a thousand wasps had been unleashed in my skull, and they were furious. I gracelessly slid out of my bed and miserably made my way to the showers so that I could look halfway alive by the time I made it to class.

As soon as I went to wash my hair, I doubled over, gagging. The cheap shampoo I had bought from the campus convenience store was coconut-scented and smelled all too similar to the drink from the night before. I attempted to hold my breath for as long as I could as I lathered the soap in my hair. By the time I made it back to the dorm room, Will had returned from his early morning class.

"You're alive," he said, almost shocked when I entered the room. I only groaned in response. I didn't feel very alive. "Barely hanging on?" I nodded solemnly while I packed my bag with the random papers and pens on my desk. Surely, some of it would be useful. I was about to head out when Will placed a baseball cap on my head. "The whole world doesn't need to know you're hungover," he said with a too-cheerful smile. I glared at him before pulling the hat down further to obscure more of my face.

I kept my eyes on the ground while I walked to my class. The sun bouncing off the sidewalk was enough to send piercing jabs to my brain. My first class for the day was one that I hadn't been to before, so I was dreading the first impressions I was going to make. I couldn't believe I had made such stupid decisions the night before. At least the class I had just after was one that met on Monday, so the people in my class knew I wasn't a trainwreck all the time. I found the correct classroom, and it was much bigger than I had anticipated. I felt a wave of relief. The class was big enough that I could just sit next to different people during the next session.

I found an empty seat in the middle of a long table with chairs on either side. I figured I would be more visible if I sat at the end of a table than somewhere in the middle, and today my goal was to be invisible. More people were shuffling in, and slowly but surely, the seats around me were getting filled. I was half-heartedly listening to the girl next to me who was telling me where she was from, why she chose this school, why she chose her major, and everything else in her life that led her to this moment. Her nonstop chatter at least meant that I didn't have to talk. My brain wasn't clear enough to form coherent thoughts yet.

I glanced at the seat directly in front of me when I saw someone setting their bag down out of the corner of my eye. I winced as I jerked my head up when I realized I recognized the person in front of me. He cocked his head to the side and sat down with a smile.

"Small world, huh?" So much for being invisible. I laughed uncomfortably, hoping that the professor would start class and divert his attention from me. "I like your hat." I searched for any hint of sarcasm in his voice, but I found nothing.

"It's my roommate's," I muttered, bowing my head a little lower.

"It looks good on you. You should ask him if you can keep it." The beginnings of a blush started creeping up my face.

"Do you guys already know each other?" the girl beside me asked.

"We met earlier this week," the pink-haired boy replied politely. "I didn't know we'd have a class together, though." He gave me a look that I couldn't quite interpret. I wondered what I had told him during my lapses in memory.

"Lucky, you guys can totally work on assignments together, then," the girl whined. The boy pulled his phone from his pocket, unlocked it, and started sliding it in my direction.

"Just add me on Snapchat, and I'll make a group chat." He only looked at me as he spoke, but he was talking to both of us, right? I fumbled with my phone, struggling to figure out how to add a friend on the app I had yet to really use. It was only by adding him as a friend that I learned his name was Yuji. I hoped he didn't realize I didn't know his name all this time.