Chad walked back into the library, completely defeated. Yuna, who had just unlocked the door to allow him back in, was standing next to him smiling. He paid no attention to this, not wanting to address what he had just done.

“So how’d it go? Did you join?”

“Mhmm.”

“That’s great! How does it feel to be a part of a group? I bet you’ll have so much fun.”

I have no words for you traitor.

He ignored Yuna, not wanting to further talk about this subject anymore. He wanted to wipe the memories away entirely and just focus on his job. The thought of all the new responsibilities he would have to take on next week made him nauseous.

Dismissing her attempts at prying for further information, Chad went to the second floor of the library to give himself some space. One of the reasons he liked this job was because his interactions with other people were kept to a minimum. The library tended to not attract many people on Saturdays and even if there were people, he would only be asked to point out sections in the library or help somebody find a certain book. Interactions like that were simple enough for him to handle.

Even with the library being so quiet, he still had his work cut out for him. Since he only worked Saturdays, the work would pile up over the course of an entire week. Chad was fine with this. Doing a lot of work was easy, dealing with other people wasn’t.

By the time noon came around, he had already knocked out his fair share of tasks. He had put back the returned books, cleaned the upstairs bathroom, organized the new releases and orders as well as some other small tasks that Yuna had listed for him to do.

Hearing the gentle chime of the grandfather clock from downstairs, he instinctually came back down. That noise usually signified the start of his thirty minute lunch break. He went behind the main librarian desk and opened the mini fridge under it.

Crap, I’m an idiot.

Chad had left his house in a rush to avoid speaking to his mother about the whole student council fiasco. This led to him forgetting his lunch in the fridge at home.

He shut the mini fridge a bit more aggressively than he intended to, but Yuna didn’t seem to notice. He then went to the far end of the desk where he would usually eat his lunch and sat down. He looked down at the empty space in front of him and then at Yuna at the other end of the large desk. She had already begun eating lunch. She seemed to be eating some type of sushi. He had never had sushi before so he couldn’t tell exactly what type it was. He just noticed small rolls of rice with some sort of meat in the middle. It honestly didn’t look all that appetizing to him. The thought of eating raw meat had never sounded appealing.

Surprisingly, Yuna was another reason why Chad liked his job at the library. Despite her forcing him to join the student council earlier, they got along quite well. Since she was well acquainted with his mother, she knew his social patterns. At lunch they wouldn’t have any small talk, they would just finish their lunches, discuss their work plans for the rest of the day and then be off to work again. She was an upbeat and outgoing personality, so he was glad she was able to hone that part of her in when they were working together. She must’ve known she would lose him as a worker if she annoyed him too much.

“You forget your lunch or something?” Yuna said with a mouthful of rice.

“Ehh?”

Yuna had broken an unspoken rule between them. They weren’t supposed to talk to each other until they had finished their lunches. Chad didn’t really have any lunch to finish, but still, it irked him.

“Yea, I left it at home.”

“Mmm,” Yuna picked some rice out of her teeth with her long nails, “It’s not good to work on an empty stomach. You’re not going to start to slack off now, are you?”

“I’m not a child, I can work on an empty stomach.”

With a shrug from Yuna, the library was once again filled with silence. Chad wasn’t all that hungry. He didn’t feel the need for lunch. However, he wasn’t about to go straight back to work. He was scheduled to have lunch for thirty minutes starting at noon. He wasn’t about to go and break his schedule. Lunch was just a type of break anyways. It just so happened to co-align with when people ate lunch. Eating while on a lunch break wasn’t a requirement anyways. A worker was entitled to this time, whether they ate or not.

Thud.

A small plastic bag with a few rolls of sushi in it landed on the desk in front of Chad.

“Take this, I’m already full.”

He looked up at Yuna standing next to him, “Like I said, I’m fine. I don’t need your pity food.”

She sighed sitting down next to him, “I have extra food, you have no food. I need to watch my weight anyways, so eat it before I do.”

“But-”

“You want me to get fat or something! Just eat the goddamned food!”

Jeez, aggressive much?

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

Trying to avoid further verbal abuse from his boss, he grabbed a roll of sushi. The rice was a squishy yet firm texture. He looked at the piece of fish in the middle, it was definitely raw. It didn’t look all that tasty, but Chad had lied to himself earlier. He was quite hungry. He was a fifteen year old boy. His required food intake was a lot higher than most other people.

Mustering up the courage, he shoved the whole roll into his mouth and forced himself to chew.

The rice was moist and cool, not necessarily cold. It held firm in his hand, but once it was in his mouth he felt each grain individually separating and diffusing into his mouth. In the middle of the roll was the actual sushi, or raw fish. He went into this experience expecting it to taste as such, raw. His expectations were flipped. It tasted absolutely refreshing. The fish was of course not alone. It was accompanied by a crunch that he could only assume to be some type of vegetable along with other flavors he wasn’t used to. Overall this had far surpassed his expectations. He quickly snagged another roll from the bag and popped it into his mouth.

“Wow, this is definitely your first time eating sushi.” Yuna snickered.

“Wha- You could tell just from how I ate it?”

He thought he had taken his first roll of sushi and ate it with a healthy amount of confidence.

“You’re just too easy to read,” she said with a smile, leaning back in her chair.

“Just how am I easy to read?”

“I can’t just explain it with words. It's just something you get a feel for,” her smile turned mischievous, “Like that girl from earlier. That was totally your girlfriend or something. Don’t even try to lie about it Mr. Obvious.”

“She wasn’t my girlfriend! Like I already told you, Ms. Crazy-Girl was recruiting me and you made me agree to it.”

She laughed at his reaction, “You’re also really easy to get worked up for how level headed you claim to be. You’re way too much fun.”

“A- Uh- Hmph…”

Not wanting to be bothered by his boss any further, he quickly finished the rest of the sushi rolls, ignoring her teasing quips. Yuna didn’t give up trying to get more reactions out of him while he was eating, but he held his best poker face for the duration of her attempts.

The grandfather clock downstairs hit twelve thirty and Chad escaped back upstairs to his duties.

Who knew Yuna could be so pesterous.

Chad had just been thinking earlier about how well he got along with her, but today has proven that hypothesis incorrect. She was a nuisance. At least she was when they weren’t working. For the rest of the work day, she didn’t bother him again. The only words spoken between them were about work.

Maybe she isn’t so bad. Maybe she just gets worked up with any inkling of drama in my life.

Chad had kept their relationship very surface level. He never spoke about school or anything besides work with her. This was the first time Yuna had acquired any information about his personal life. Chad slotted this new information about his boss away in his brain.

The old grandfather clock’s hands showed four-thirty. He gave Yuna a quick farewell before heading home from work.

After lunch, everything went smoothly. Nobody else came into the library, it was just Chad and Yuna working with little to no conversing. Simply perfect, everything about the second half of his work day fit nicely into his predetermined mental schedule. The bike ride back home was also nice. The sun was still out so he got to enjoy the fall colors on his way back home as well. Although, there was a small knot in his stomach that wasn’t coming undone.

What if she’s there?

Chad worried that, similar to this morning, Rose Visca would be waiting for him at the end of his commute. He sure wouldn’t put it past her craziness to wait at the entrance of his house. She had already done so at his work.

“At this point I have to be prepared for anything from that crazy girl. I should be ready for all possible scenarios.”

After rounding the final corner he let out a sigh of relief. Nobody awaited him at his front entrance. Rose seemed to be done with him for now. His mother’s 2005 Honda Civic parked in their driveway showed no signs of being moved, so most likely she had not been called into work today.

I lost the battle, but I can keep my pride. I cannot let her know I joined. I can use the rescheduling as the reason why I’ll be at school a lot later. I cannot admit defeat to her of all people.

He entered his house with the usual sight of his mother on the couch with a glass of wine and her laptop.

“Hey sweetie, how was work?”

“Work was work,” Chad shrugged.

“You forgot your lunch in the fridge, you must be hungry.”

“Yuna gave me some of her sushi.”

“Aww, how sweet of her! I’ll have to thank her at church tomorrow.”

She yelled at me to eat it. I don’t know how “sweet” of a gesture that can be.

“Well, there’s stew in the slow cooker if you’re still hungry.” Rebecca continued typing on her laptop.

He grunted his approval to those words and went straight to the kitchen. The sushi Yuna had given him was good, but not very filling. He required much more sustenance than a granola bar, a slice of banana bread and a few rolls of sushi.

Chad scarfed down about four and a half bowls of stew. Afterwards he put away some clean dishes and refilled the dishwasher with his dirty ones. When he finished cleaning up after himself it was just before seven o’clock. With his lack of sleep from last night and having to get up early for church tomorrow, he decided to call it an early night.

After a quick good night to his mother, he got ready for bed. He laid in his small bed on top of the covers. Since he had gone to bed so early, light trickled in from the window acting as an irritant. He mustered up the energy to get up and fully shut his curtains. After collapsing back into bed again, he realized he wasn’t all that tired. He checked the time on his phone and it wasn’t even eight yet.

I wonder if they sent those out yet.

With his phone in hand, he checked his school email to see if the school had sent out the adjusted schedules yet. He was pretty sure Rose had said something about that during the pep rally.

After refreshing his email a couple times, he tossed his phone back onto his nightstand.

“If they’re going to change our schedules so suddenly, they could at least send them to us preemptively.”

This whole schedule changing thing had been stressing him out. He figured they couldn’t do anything too drastic given that they were already a couple weeks into a semester, but he felt he couldn’t be too cautious about maintaining his schedule. The world was a cruel place, not liking structured and orderly schedules.

“It’s almost like some sort of scientific law ingrained into nature. There will always be more chaos in life no matter how hard you try.”

Chad had yet to take a class in Thermodynamics, but he would learn very soon that entropy and disorder are always increasing.