meraki.

That's Not My Name

"Why do you need to know all these things?" - Harry breathed out, while filling the fifteenth question of the form. 

"To understand how I should choose the studying method." - Anna explained, not even lifting her eyes from the book she was reading. 

"And you need to know if I work because....?" - he looked up at her, biting the inside of his cheek. 

"To know how much time you can devote to the subject." - she looked up too, and shrugged. - "It seems like nothing, but it's really important. It helps me divide the whole program in small blocks, so it's easier for you to learn and memorize everything." 

"Mhm." - Harry nodded. He almost didn't want to admit it, but it was a pretty smart thing to do. So he wrote down his part time job, his shifts, and everything else that came to his mind. - "Does any other mentor do this?" - he asked, gesturing towards the papers on the table.

"No, I'm the only one. The others usually work on your notes. The ones you take during lectures. Do you take notes?" 

Harry reached for them in his bag and proudly placed them on the table, where Anna could see them. He was really proud of them: he had spent a couple of hours at home, fixing them and making them understandable and readable, completely different to the rushed mess he was forced to take during lectures, due to the teachers never stopping to let students take a breath or even consider raise their hand from their notebooks, not even for a second. 

"Good. Now throw them away." - Anna's tone was absolutely emotionless as she said the words. 

"What?!" - he just stared at her in disbelief. 

"You heard me." - she said, her voice still as serious and uninterested. 

"It took me ages to write them! I'm a slow writer, I won't throw them away!" - Harry shook his head, retrieving his carefully-written notes, and putting them where Anna couldn't hurt them - which was in his bag. 

"Trust me, you won't need them." 

"De Angelis said that a lot of what he asks at the exam isn't on the books, and that we better take notes if we want to pass it." - Harry shook his head, clearly surprised that the girl in front of him - whom claimed to be the best student around, mind you - was telling him these things. Did she even attend De Angelis lectures?

"De Angelis lied." - Anna rolled her eyes.

Harry wetted his lips again. - "Why should I trust you?"

"Uhm, hello? Who, between us, has passed the exam with the highest marks? Yeah, exactly, that was me. I'm the one mentoring you, not the other way around." - Anna rolled her eyes again, not quite believing that De Angelis was still feeding lies to his poor students. - "You might be a prick, but I wouldn't let you fail, I have a reputation to live up to. Plus, I'm not that sadistic. So, if I say something about the classes, it's because I know it's true. Throw. The damn. Notes. Away." 

Harry started at his small notebook, sadness slowly covering his features. He then looked up, biting the corner of his mouth. - "You do that, I don't have the courage to do so." - he then proeeded to hand the notebook to Anna. 

"How.. dramatic... It's just notes." - she rolled her eyes and took the notebook from his hands, noticing the small cross tattoo, near his thumb. She put the notebook on her suitcase, making a mental note to remind herself to throw it away as soon as she was out of uni. 

They remained silent for a while, and Harry finished filling up Anna's forms. He then handed them to her, a solemn expression on his face.

"Thank you, Harold." - she smiled, taking them and putting them in front of herself on the desk.