Out of Sight

Angels, Arby's, and Rebound Hunting

Author's Note: Trigger Warning. May edit out if it's too big a deal.

Saturday really was one of the only days I had to run my tests on the Science building. I had to gather up my measuring tools and camera and get to it, no matter how I felt. Besides, this...this shouldn't be bringing me down so much. People went through it every day.

God, people went through it every day. And lived. I was going to live through this. Ugh.

At Ayako's worrying noise, I begged her to leave it be and left with my eyes sore, but dry. At least I had my own pants on again. I'd thrown Naru's sweats in the corner as though they'd turned into a deadly viper. Maybe once I had done as much as I could, I'd ask Ayako to introduce my virgin liver to some booze and see how well that worked, though I wasn't too fond of the getting sick part I always heard. Maybe she would know some tricks. Too bad I'd left my cell phone behind at Professor Heartbreaks, I could have just texted her.

I had already wasted most of the day when I reached the nigh-empty science building and made my way to the west side to measure angles of wall junctions. I also had a stud finder and a screwdriver to test for wet spots or weakened drywall, as well as a little black baggy of other useful tools, such as a leveler. Those stupid doors that the president claimed kept opening and closing on their own were probably off balance.

I measured the two floor. First the other three sides away from the sinking corner. Each was at least a partial degree off. When I got to the side with the weakened corner, the sky had grayed outside and a light drizzle sprinkled across the windows.

"86 degrees?" I said out loud, rather amazed. "Frick, the whole building's going leaning tower of Pisa."

I found that keeping myself engrossed in work helped tremendously. Though the ache was always there, at least I wasn't thinking about it.

Once I'd looked over the numbers I had recorded for the walls, I turned to the doors with my handy dandy leveler. I had to kidnap a chair from inside one of the classrooms, but I was right about the doors. Hardly level at all.

"Man, Mason, have you been slacking?" Mason was a coworker of my boss, Jeff. While Jeff was the supervisor for the maintaining of the heat plant and maintenance room, Mason was supervisor of the overall upkeep of things such as level doors and leaning walls. Even so, he managed to balance out some of Jeff's laid back-ness, such as that time he gave me a subpar mask for cleaning a maintenance room still insulated with asbestos. It was odd seeing my always nice and smiley boss being told off by usually equally jovial Mason. Jeff had looked like a wilting tulip.

This didn't seem like him. If I had my phone on me I could've called Jeff for Mason's number and gotten his take on all this. Maybe he had already written a report on it and the president had just overlooked it. That would save me tons of trouble.

Frick, I was missing my phone more and more. I could have been even listening to sappy break up music and everything.

With that in mind, I skipped down to the first floor, assuming the walls were at least straight or at similar angles.

I had just gotten my handy dandy chair and my angle measurer into the first wall junction when a hush of rain and breeze opened and closed behind me.

"Mai!"

I turned about to see none other than the brown fluffy head of Chance, lanky in his youth and smile wide.

I mirrored the smile instantly. "Hey, stalker boy."

"Whoa, you're the one who didn't answer your phone. The Arby's was getting cold, so I just texted Ayako."

"Getting cozy with my roommate?"