Assigned

Arjun had a system for the first day of every class, and the system did not have a contingency for the boy who slid onto the stool next to him forty minutes late, smelling faintly of last night. "Is this Organic Chem Two," the boy said. It was not really a question. He was already getting out a single pen and no notebook. "It was. The lab orientation ended ten minutes ago." "Cool. Cool cool cool." The boy squinted at the syllabus Arjun had highlighted in three colors, and Arjun watched something like horror cross his face. "There's a lab *practical*?" Arjun did not answer, because Professor Mensah was reading out the lab pairings, and Arjun was waiting to hear his own name attached to someone competent. He had a five-year plan. The plan went: 4.0, research position, the good MD-PhD program, the version of his life where his parents' faces did the thing they did when he handed them something to be proud of. The plan did not survive contact with most people, so Arjun had learned to keep most people at the distance of a polite nod. "Arjun Mehta," Professor Mensah said, "and Theo Calloway." The boy next to him made a small triumphant noise. "That's me. Hi. Theo." He held out a hand. There was something inked on the back of it in ballpoint — a setlist, Arjun would realize later, *open w/ Saltwater, then —* "Looks like we're stuck together, partner." Arjun shook the hand because not shaking it would have been a scene. "Did you do the pre-lab reading?" "I didn't know there was pre-lab reading until eleven seconds ago." "It's the entire foundation of the first three weeks." "Then I have," Theo said, entirely unbothered, "a lot of reading to look forward to." He grinned. It was a real grin, wide and crooked and aimed directly at Arjun, and Arjun felt it land somewhere he had not given permission, and immediately resented it. People who grinned like that had never once lost sleep over a B-plus. By the end of the session Arjun had a clear picture. Theo Calloway was in a band — he mentioned it twice, unprompted. He had taken Organic Chem One a year ago and "mostly passed." He was retaking the sequence because his scholarship required a science credit and this was, in his words, "the one that didn't have a 9 a.m." He lost his goggles, found them on his own head, and laughed at himself with a freeness that Arjun found genuinely confusing, like watching someone spend money he didn't seem worried about running out of. "You're going to hate me," Theo said cheerfully, packing up his single pen. "I can tell. You've got the face. That's fine. I'll grow on you. I'm like — chemistry. Slow reaction, exothermic eventually." "That's not what exothermic means." "See? You're already teaching me." Theo slung his bag over one shoulder. The setlist on his hand flexed. "Same time Thursday, partner. Try not to plan our whole semester before then." He was gone before Arjun could tell him that the whole semester was, in fact, already planned, had been planned since August, color-coded and contingency-free. Arjun looked down at his syllabus. Under *Lab Practical — 30% of final grade* he had written, in August, *easy if partner is competent.* He crossed out *competent* and sat for a moment with the empty space, and did not yet know how to fill it in.