Since the lesson had stopped a little bit earlier today, it’s only 11:40 when we leave the lecture room behind.

“Where do you want to go eat lunch, Ami?” Carol asks as we are walking to the cafetaria to get us our sandwiches.

“I’m not sure.” I shrug. “I don’t really have a preference. We can always go back to the top floor to stare out of the windows again.”

“What about a change of scenery?” Hailey proposes.

“Oh? Please enlighten us.” Carol smiles.

“We can go and sit by the fountain on the opposite side of the campus. We’ve not been there before, have we?”

“That sounds good.” Carol nods. “What do you think, Ami?”

“Yeah, let’s go. It’s pretty warm so sitting outside will be pretty fun.” I already take out my phone to send a message to Sam where we are going to go.

“Alright.” Hailey smiles.

We get our sandwiches and because most breaks hadn’t started yet we were among the first ones there, which meant we didn’t have to wait in line at all. After which we head to the spot designated by Hailey. When we get there, to our surprise, Sam and Max are already waiting for us. Sam’s holding a see-through box of salad while Max holds a cardboard box out of which she’s already munching on some noodles.

“How did you get here that fast?” Carol asks as she walks up to Max.

“Our lesson was already finished when Sam got Ami’s message. We were actually in the area already so it didn’t take us long to get here.” Max replies.

“Where did you get the box o’ noodles?” Carol continues her interrogation.

“In that kiosk over there.” Max points through the park towards a small wooden building in the distance.

“Is that where you got your salad too, Sam?” I ask my girlfriend once I get close to her as well. She immediately gives me a big hug and a kiss.

“Yeah. Their salads are better than the ones at the cafeteria.”

“Is that so?” I look at the box of salad.

“You can have a taste if you want to.”

“But you won’t have enough then. It’s so little already.”

“Don’t worry about that, Amicia.” Max replies. “Sam has already eaten some nutritional paste earlier just after our lesson.”

“Yep.” My girlfriend smiles and opens the box for me, handing me a bamboo fork.

“Nutritional paste?” Hailey tilts her head. “That doesn’t sound tasty at all.”

“It’s definitely not good but I don’t think it’s that bad either. The fruity ones taste a lot better than the ‘savory’ ones at least.” Max laughs.

“Is it that bad?” I look my girlfriend in the eyes.

“You would definitely not like it.” She smiles and gives me a kiss on my forehead. “I got a baggy left if you want to taste it though.” She hands over the box of salad to me so she can grab something out of her bag. She fishes out a squeezable tube, about one centimeter wide and ten centimeters long. The packaging is incredibly bland, just adorned with some small lettered text and a couple of drawings of purple grapes. The hair on my back already starts to stand up straight as if my body is warning me of imminent danger.

“I’ve not even opened it yet and you are already making a face as if someone died. You’re not going to start hissing at it, right?” Sam chuckles and quickly puts away the tube again.

“Please don’t show that in my neighborhood again.” I frown at the tube containing pure evilness.

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

“You do know you slept pretty much next to the bag, don’t you?” Sam laughs and scratches me behind my invisible ears.

“As long as I can’t see it I can pretend it’s not there! It’s fine!”

“Sam, you should probably put those things in a safe, just to be safe.” Max jokes as well. “Otherwise your girlfriend won’t be at ease anymore.”

“I’ll think about it.” She laughs and then urges me to take a bite from her salad.

As I want to forget the tube experience as fast as humanly possible, I prick some of the salad on the fork and put it in my mouth. The taste of which does make me forget the tube predicament pretty fast.

“What do you think?” Sam asks, curious to what my response will be.

“It’s seasoned really well!” I happily nod and then prick some more salad on the fork before I remember that this isn’t really my salad. Instead of bringing it to my own mouth I bring it to my girlfriend’s instead. She happily accepts.

In the meantime Hailey has taken a seat on a bench nearby, facing the fountain. When we are all done being lovey-dovey we join her at the bench. Sam and Max use their sports bags as a place to sit while they leave the bench to us three.

In front of us the fountain just switches its program to start a little water show.

“I actually didn’t know we had a fountain this big on campus.” I say as I unwrap my own sandwich.

“It’s nice, isn’t it?” Haileys says just as the water is starting to arch in interrupted streams.

“You really didn’t explore campus that much before we met you, did you, Ami?” Carol asks after taking a big bite.

“No, not really. I just went to class and then back home as fast as I could before… my parents would get angry…”

“Ah… Sorry about that…” Carol nervously scratches her arm.

“But that’s all behind us now.” Sam looks at me with confidence and love in her eyes which calms me down very fast.

“It is.” I give Carol a nod. “I know you guys now and have a super amazing girlfriend and the same goes for my family. What else would I wish for?”

“Now you can have new experiences with people you care about.” Max smiles as well.

“Mhmm. And I’m incredibly grateful for that. So thank you all for being here for me. Even though we’ve not known each other for that long.”

“Awh.” Carol puts down her sandwich for a second and gives me a big hug. “That’s no problem at all, Ami. Thank you for being our friend as well.”

Hailey put aside her lunch as well to join the small cuddle puddle.

It takes a couple of minutes before I’m released from my friends’ strangle holds so I can finally start munching on my delicious salmon and herbed cream cheese sandwich. It’s just a marvel of human engineering. The combination of those flavors would make everyone melt the second they bite from it. Even though the others clearly are more interested in their own food, I can just tell that, if I turn my back from my sandwich for just a moment, someone would run off with it. Paranoid murderkitten thoughts aside, the lunch is really good and it probably tastes even better because of the good company.

The sandwich sadly doesn’t last forever and with a pain in my heart I say goodbye to the last piece as it disappears in my mouth. I say a short prayer to the delicious fishy that gave its life to feed me and I then turn back towards the group. Sam is already done eating her salad and Max is just on her last couple of noodles. Hailey and Carol still have quite a bit of sandwich left to go.

“So, what else did you do yesterday, Ami?” Hailey asks after taking another bite from her lunch.

“You mean outside of ToD?”

“Yes. In the, quote unquote, real world.”

“Hmmm. Let me think, it’s already quite some time ago.”

“That game does give you a time mindfuck, that’s true.” Max nods to not let the conversation fall quiet.

“We went to Hilda’s house.” I reply. “We did some barbecue and ate some sushi… OH! And she took me on her motorbike to this super shady taco shop in a forest, but the tacos were so goooood!”

“You are going to have to explain that last part to me again.” Carol chuckles. “A super shady taco shop?”

I explain the entire situation in more detail to my friends until they all understand.

“Ah. It’s one of those places.” Hailey nods. “Off the beaten path, kind of a destination for foodies and the like.”

“Yeah!” I give her an enthusiastic nod.

“The tacos were in fact really good.” Sam agrees.

“If you can remember the location, please send a message to us. Even if it’s just the coordinates.” Max laughs.

“I will ask Hilda but I already sent her a message earlier so I’m going to wait for a while to send another one.” I nod once more.

“Hilda won’t mind if you send her a message right now, you know that, right?” Sam asks. “You are like her adoptive daughter of sorts.”

“Hmmm… but I really don’t want to bother her, what if she’s busy…”

“You are being a little bit of an anxiety kitten right now.” Sam shakes her head with a smile and walks over to me to give me a couple of kisses. “C’mon, just send her a message. She’ll be more than happy.”

“Alright then… your kisses have convinced me.”

“Darn, I was hoping it didn’t work so I could give you some more.”

“Well… I feel a bit of doubt coming up again.”

Sam just smirks and takes me in for a very long kiss. So long that Max had to take us apart with a cough. “I don’t really want to interrupt, but we still have classes today.”

“Awh.” I giggle and Sam chuckles as well.