Say Goodnight Before You Leave

41. Coercion

I mention it down there several times, so I thought it'd be interested to include the scene here.

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Past. Copenhagen, Denmark.

"I've been here for five minutes," Aksel says, spread out on the bench. I have only seen him inside the restaurant, out here right now, for the first time, he looks like a boy his age dressed in a color-blocked windbreaker and jeans.

"Has the world ended since then?"

He gets up from the bench. "You're German, aren't you suppose to be punctual?"

Further ahead, a long and old grey building stood bleakly covered in snow, yet people came in and out of it incessantly, and warm yellow light shining through big windows announced the heat inside there. The campus seems big, probably full of green during spring, but now surrounded by an inconsistent sea of white.

"I'm afraid I might be lacking the punctuality gene. That's kinda how I met Mads."

"Good for you. In my case, time is money. Also because the weather is just so lovely to stand outside." Different from the rest of his family, Aksel has a mat tone to his skin, having grown up in a place with so little sun. Out in the cold, his cheeks have a strong flush to them.

"I mean, at your advanced age, time must be that precious."

"People are waiting for us, darling."

"People?"

"My sister booked us a tour around the university. I know, it sounds like too much, but she got excited when I told her we would come."

Approaching the front doors, more students surround us, backpacks on, heads down rushing to their destinations.

"I hate to waste people's time..."

"If this person agreed to this, then they might have enough free time for us."

Our guide, Peder, is in his thirties, dirty blonde hair in a fluffy quiff, fixed smile, and a slightly crumpled blazer as the only sign of professionalism in him. After our first greetings in the main building, he leads us to an internal open square where a large but naked tree centered it and students crossed from one section to the other.

"Well, this is only one of our four campuses, one is finishing construction. For now, this is our biggest." Peder's accent is heavy but the excited tone makes up to it.

"I'm waiting for it to start looking big," Aksel says making him laugh.

"It will. As soon as you tell me what you're interested in seeing. Our anatomy laboratory can be amazing, but it'll mean nothing if you have no interest in the health sciences."

"Languages, translation, literature... anything in those fields."

He smiles. "And you, my guy?"

"You don't have what I'm interested in here. Culinary stuff, I asked my sister already. But I think tourism is a little in sync with me, you got that?"

"I'm afraid not."

"Then I'll just follow behind, don't worry about me."

"Well, you'll have fun then, or satisfy your curiosity the very least."

For programs like the ones I want there aren't any special spaces needed, nothing specific - all we need is a blackboard, desks to sit down, and a teacher willing to teach us. Us... the idea warms me from inside out, watching the students I allow myself to try and guess their majors, wondering how my classmates will be like.