Getting to know each other
Luckily for Martin, the general studies professor is in a good mood for some reason, so he didn’t get marked late for entering the class after 8.30 am, since he didn’t even bother taking attendance in the first place, which is rare, since the professor is notorious in the whole campus for making his class earlier than others so he can be off earlier. He sighs and takes out his notepad and stationary bag just in case he wants to doodle something while being bored with the lecture, he reaches to his pocket where he normally kept his phone in and frowns when he doesn’t feel the familiar device in it.
What the-?
He pats on all his pockets and even searches his sling bag, and he whines when he can’t find his phone anywhere, since he is sure he didn’t leave his phone back in the apartment considering he did check on his phone while riding in the shuttle bus. Where did I drop it? Could it be when I fallen just now-
Yeah, this is definitely not a good year for him.
The moment Martin’s class is finished after a longer than usual three hours, he rushes out from the lecture hall after packing his stuff and he looks for the corner that he fell down earlier. That’s when he sees a blonde with a shoulder length braid and a loop at the end standing there with the back facing him. When he passes by the person, the blonde turns to stare at Martin and that’s when Martin is stunned.
A blonde beauty? Wait, it’s a he, since despite his lean frame, he obviously has broader shoulders than a typical female body. Not fair, how can someone be handsome and beautiful at the same time? This guy definitely had the best luck in hitting the jackpot when it comes to genetics. Is he in his first year? Martin definitely would remember someone as handsome as him walking around the campus.
The blonde tilts his head for a bit and he suddenly opens his mouth, “excuse me? Are you the one that bumped into me this morning?”
Martin nods and the blonde smiles, and if he is not careful enough, the brunet thinks he will be burnt by how radiant the smile is, “this must be your phone then. I was thinking whether to pass it to the lost and found or just wait for you here.”
This is like a typical romantic movie, where a beautiful slash handsome stranger waits for the protagonist. He reaches out and gets his phone after feeling a little shock from the slight touch of the blonde’s hand, and when he presses the power button, he grins when he sees it’s his familiar looking lock screen wallpaper.
“Thank you so much! You have no idea how slow some of the staff here is, so if you pass it to lost and found, it’s basically lost forever.”
The blonde chuckles lightly and he bows a little and says, “well, I better get going. I need to grab lunch before my next class-”
“Wait!” Martin shouts a little too loudly, but since the corridor has lots of students talking and walking, the shout kinda gets drowned, “erm, let me buy you lunch as thanks! I don’t want to feel indebted.”
“Oh, you don’t have to-”
“I insist! You don’t know how important this phone is to me. By the way, the name’s Guido Martin, everyone calls me Martin though. How do I call you?”
“You are Italian?”
“Huh? Yeah! I am from Naples originally, but moved to the states after some family stuff…” and Martin starts walking while the blonde follows, “I’m Giorgio De Rose.”
“Giorgio? Oh! Fellow Italian?” Martin switches to Italian and grins, “I miss speaking Italian in the campus! Normally I only have my friends who are fellow Italians to speak in Italian with, and hell, I struggled a lot with English when trying to make new friends with my coursemates.”
Despite Giorgio’s reluctance to speak in Italian as it reminded him of a painful past he tried to forget, he feels somewhat comfortable to converse with Martin for now, “really? You must be lonely, it seems you look like the outgoing type.”
“Yeah! By the way, did anyone call you Gio before?”
The only one that ever called him Gio is Mariella Milano, his childhood friend and fellow sister who gots adopted by the Seijis alongside him, “just one, my sister.”
“Oh! Can I call you Gio too?” and when they reach the cafeteria, Martin ruffles through his bag to fish out his student ID, scanning on the scanner to gain access, and Giorgio follows suit, “I guess it’s fine.”
“Great! Now what do you want? My treat.”
Giorgio stares at the food selection and his eyes widen when he sees plenty of Italian food besides the typical American fast food, while Martin notices the subtle change on his face expression and he grins, “the Italian recipes are legit! The professor for Culinary Arts is Italian himself. I remembered how much I cried when I first tasted the bolognese, unlike those knock offs from the so called Italian menu restaurants outside.”
“Hmmm, I guess I will get the bolognese then,” the blonde is definitely not so eager to reveal his sweet tooth yet, especially to someone that he barely knows. It’s useless to take down the careful mask I built over the years yet, useless to be vulnerable so I can be taken advantage-
“You sure? What about some drinks?” Martin starts tapping on the order ticket printing machine when it’s their turn, “lucky! Today’s special is Neapolitan pizza! I should probably get more to share with the others for dinner-” and he keeps adding the pizzas to the cart, making the blonde sweat drops at the amount, “wait Martin, isn’t six pizzas a little too much?”
“Nah! I will have one now, and the other five for dinner, since my friends and I are a group of five,” Martin definitely is not mentioning that there are *cough* four *cough* more friends, and after tapping the bolognese for Giorgio, he adds strawberry milkshake as his drink, and Giorgio’s eyes lighten up from the unexpected choice, “do you have a sweet tooth?”
“Huh? Not really, but I’m a sucker for strawberries. So what drink do you want?”
Realizing that he hasn't made a choice, he clears his throat in embarrassment and he mumbles quietly, “is there any hot cocoa?”
“Yeah! Recommended drink too. One hot cocoa for Gio!” Martin prints the order ticket after paying by scanning his student ID, and Giorgio is feeling a little hot from having his nickname called loudly in the crowd, but luckily no one else really pay attention, since everyone in the cafeteria is hungry or just ignorant in their surroundings in general, “can you grab us some seats? I will be back with the food.”
“Are you alright carrying all the food alone?”
“No worries,” the brunet flexing his arm muscles, which is obvious considering how tightly wrapped his blue turtleneck sweater sleeves are, “these muscles aren’t just for show!”
Giorgio raises an eyebrow and he just nods, trying not to ogle at the muscles for too long, and he turns to look for any empty table, and when he finds one in a corner, he sits down and gets comfortable by placing his backpack on another empty seat beside him. Then he takes out his phone and smiles when he sees his own phone cover which is new, filled with jewel stickers that are all pink except for the yellow love in the middle, made by Jolyne and she gave it to him just last night, wishing him good luck in his first semester, while Mariella even get a similar phone cover, but with black jewel background and pink love instead. I’m kinda glad that I rushed over to the main building after my own class ended early. At least I get free lunch from this kind gesture I decided to make-
The blonde unlocks his phone and start scrolling Instagram, and he can already see Mariella posted a new photo just minutes ago, where the photo shows her at home, winking at the camera with the caption ‘my last comfy moments at home before going to class!’, and there’s already quite a number of likes on it. Giorgio shakes his head and scrolls more, and realizes that there’s lots of food posts already. He sighs and he looks up when a tray full with pizza boxes is placed on the table, “sorry! Took a while to get the pizzas, since they didn’t even fold the boxes readily. Your bolognese and hot cocoa!”
Now that he gets to smell the food, Giorgio’s stomach is grumbling from hunger, since he ate breakfast earlier than usual no thanks to the mishap of his paperwork, and he thanks Martin for the food, while Martin grins and he starts sipping on his strawberry milkshake.
Martin is the type of person that loves eating with company, because eating alone sucks, and considering Leonardo normally has practice during the usual lunch time where he will be eating earlier or later, and Ricci is definitely revising and checking out the study materials for the next class while eating something light for lunch on the go, Martin will just get something to go and eats in Rizzo’s office, where Alfonso joins them if he is not too busy with his own papers or guiding the students on their assignments.
Oh right! Have to tell Rizzo I’m not eating with him before I get any scolding from him. Martin takes out his phone and starts shooting a quick text to their group chat, which is surprisingly silent without any new messages. While he starts munching on his pizza, he stares at the blonde and asks, “hey Gio, you mind if I get your contact?”
“You mean my number?”
“Or just your insta or twitter or facebook is fine!”
No harm in letting Martin look at my Insta, right? Giorgio holds out his free hand and Martin places his phone on his opened palm, “insta it is.”
After tapping the follow button when he sees his own profile pops out, he passes back to Martin and he whistles when he sees his posts that are full of sceneries captured by a high resolution phone camera, “oh! Your page looks lit! By the way, what are you majoring in? I assume you are either in arts and design or maybe even mass comm.”
Giorgio smiles a little and shakes his head, “not even close.”
“Huh? Okay, give me a hint?”
“It’s related to animals.”
“Animals? Animal science or biology? Not only do you look stylish, you are also brainy?”
For the first time in his life, Giorgio can feel a little relaxed in front of someone that he only talked with in less than- an hour? Wow that’s kinda short. He chuckles and he shakes his head, “I’m majoring in veterinary, first year.”
“Vet- oh! Doctors for animals? Damn, you must be hella smart! By the way, I’m majoring in culinary arts, fo- oh shit. Right, it’s my last year here.”
“So, it’s your four-”
“No! Don’t say that!” Martin groans and he hides his face in his hands when Giorgio looks a little surprised with his outburst, “I’m sorry, but I really have a fear for the cursed number. Every time there’s something with the number four involved, I would drown in bad luck.”
Giorgio sips on his hot cocoa while Martin continues explaining what happened previously to him to make his fear solidify.