[M] College Life

[jakfrost]

Duo stepped in and snatched viciously thrown frisbee out of the air without thinking and sent a confused look Solo's way, but the other boy was decidedly not paying attention. Turning to Wufei, he gave a shrug.

"Eh, no big deal. Been hanging out with them all week. New blood is good." He raised his voice a bit, calling out to the table: "They're all just a bunch of boring old fogies anyway!" A mix of half hearted friend-ish reactions answered back. Despite his reassuring words, Duo still looked around them a bit distractedly, wondering at Solo's petulant behavior.

"Do you want to continue this?" He indicated the frisbee. "We'll have you on the ultimate team and captain, or whatever they call it, in no time. Or we could find something else to do."

[adhdinspired]

Duo didn't seem to realize that Solo was like this every time he brought in 'new blood' to their group. He'd done it with every one of their friends now sitting with them, throwing fries at each other. Ah, the miracles of college.

Wufei pushed the lose locks of hair from his face and sighed heavily. Really, did he want to continue getting sweaty? He needed to get out of his sticky pants that were now chafing his leg. "I need to change. I apologize if I'm cutting this short. I spilled coffee earlier, and forgot about it until just now." He tugged his pants away from his thigh and then winced at the wet mess that now dripped. Seemed the material was keeping it from doing that.

"....You friend seems to want your undivided attention."

[jakfrost]

Duo opened his mouth to comment on Wufei's last statement but no sound came out. To distract himself from the repetitious circling thoughts that brought about, Duo turned his attention to the wet stain decorating Wufei's pants. Even a blind person would be able to see the need to comment, to tease, bubble up onto Duo's expression. But he kept himself in check by swallowing the words down, although his expression twitched a bit in amusement and a few other choice emotions.

Finally he just shrugged, settling on disappointment as his default setting. "Whatever you say, Wuffman. Solo's just a big baby, always having tantrums. Don't be a stranger, alright?"

[adhdinspired]

Oh, Wufei saw how much Duo wanted to comment on his wet pants, to ridicule him like some twelve year old. And Wufei was expecting it, to boot. His eyes were already narrowing and his lips parting for some insult about intelligence. But, much to his surprise, Duo said nothing of the sort. Interesting. Maybe this braided haired man was smarter than he looked.

He did see the disappointment in those odd colored eyes and he rolled his own. Great, now he felt guilty. ".....If you want, I guess you can follow me back to the dorms so I can shower and change real fast. But I will warn you, I do not take kindly to being stalked, watched, or random night visits that I haven't planned. I study until the wee hours of the morning."

[jakfrost]

Duo laughed out loud, a mischievous glint in his eyes. "Whoa! Don't sound so excited." He twirled the frisbee again, his hands unable to keep still. He could stop the fidgeting when he had to, but today he felt like he just had to move. Maybe it was excitement from classes starting up, maybe it was something else. Either way, whenever he felt like this, something always went boom.

"And seriously. No stalking? Really? But it's so much fun!" He bounced a bit on the balls of his feet as he waited for Wufei to lead the way.

[adhdinspired]

Oh, great. The American turned hyper. Wufei had a ton of pet peeves, and one of them was hyper college students. Then again, given the amount of testosterone in this school, he was surprised there wasn't more fights than there were. He rolled his eyes and started back to his table to get what was left of his things.

After fighting with the coffee stained paper and books, he tucked them under his arm and looked to Duo. "If I see you outside my door, staring at it, or anything of the nature other than walking by, without my permission.... I will break an arm." But there was a bit of a smirk on his thin lips. Now he was leading the other back to the dorms. He really didn't look forward to the elevator ride to the third floor.

[jakfrost]

Now that was a challenge if Duo had ever heard one. He smiled at the boy's retreating back.

"No problem, Fei-baby. I'll keep my eyes away from your door." He didn't want to keep them there anyway. There were many, more interesting places to rest his gaze. Two were directly ahead of them, the main one being the building they were aiming for. It was the same building Duo had so recently exited.

Well, that certainly makes things more interesting.

"Besides," And Duo said this with the king of all smirks resting on his lips, "what makes you think you're worth stalking?"

[adhdinspired]

The smile, naturally, went unnoticed. He listened to Duo's talking, despite wanting to ignore him and then snorted. "Could be cornering me to do your homework for you." What made him think he was worth stalking? Wufei had high intelligence, higher than most here. He was going to get his degree and move on to bigger and better things.

Either way, he opened the door to the dorms for Duo and motioned him in quickly. Once in, Wufei pushed his hair from his face yet again and sighed, making a beeline for the elevator.

[jakfrost]

"Hey now! I do my own work, thank you very much!" His tone was light and bantering. His eyes darting from the basement stairwell leading to the laundry room, to the clock on the wall that informed him he had another ten minutes before he needed to use the dryer.

"Besides, how do I know you don't have some girly major like art? Hmm...?" Duo felt relatively confident that Wufei wasn't majoring in art, seeing as his hands didn't fit the stereotype. Though he'd been wrong before.

He shifted his weight from foot to foot as they waited for the elevator, not fidgety per se, but still in constant motion.

[adhdinspired]

Wufei cocked an eyebrow as Duo continued his constant movement and he sighed heavily. "Art isn't a girly major. Artists express things some of us can only dream of expressing. They're more free-willed and certainly show a much higher intellectual score than those of teachers or jocks. Artists are free with their feelings." He spoke in a gentle, but firm tone that just screamed for Duo not to challenge him on this one.

"I, myself, am going to major in poetry and literature. It is considered an art, I suppose." His hands went to his hair as the elevator finally came. Once he and Duo were in the thing, he let his hair loose, hit the button for the third floor and started pulling it back into a severe looking ponytail that would probably hurt someone's head.

[jakfrost]

Duo eyed the lit third floor button for a moment, unsure how to take the coincidence of the two sharing the same floor. His gaze slid toward Wufei, and widened only minutely at the loose hair that framed the boy's face. It looked nice.

That is, it did, until he pulled the sleek looking locks back. That ponytail looked like it would hurt coming down. Duo knew exactly what it felt like when hair pulled that tight was let loose again but he held back the grimace of sympathy and instead fiddled with the end of his braid again. Wonder what it would take to make him keep his hair down.

His thoughts headed in one direction, Duo made an effort to keep his words in the opposite. He kept with the bantering tone, trying to make it obvious that he was only pulling the other boy's leg.

"So, you're saying that artists are all touchy-feely? Last I heard, that was supposed to be girly." Duo felt quite proud of that little word-play there. He understood what Wufei was saying, but he always did like playing Devil's advocate, especially with people who's opinions differed from the norm. And the way Duo worded his response, well...he never actually said whether he believed it was 'girly' or not, nor that the statement was literally true.

[adhdinspired]

His brow twitched as it always did when something, or someone, annoyed him. His coal eyes looked to Duo, slightly narrowed, a flush coming to his cheek bones that was out of restraint than anything else. No. No need to go off on a new friend. Everyone had their own opinion, so he couldn't squash that.

.......

But he could argue. "Now look here," he paused to get out of the elevator when it opened up on the third floor. He got out and pulled his keys out, taking the first right down the hall. His door was all the way down this hall. "Just because artists are more in touch with their emotions, does not make them girly. Musicians are artists. Architects are artists, the people who make cars are artists. You don't realize just how diverse the word 'artist' is. Even mechanics are artists; they put a work of art back together, sometimes making it better than before."

With one arm around his things, that had been on the floor in the elevator when he pulled his hair back, he unlocked his door at the end of the hall and pushed the door open. His room was unremarkable; just like any other dorm room. Only his posters were Chinese scrolls, he had a calligraphy set out on his desk next to his lap top, and there was a small, three teared bookshelf in front of his bed, next to the window. It was clean, it smelled like nog champa and it relaxed the Asian man as soon as he set foot inside.

[jakfrost]

Duo couldn't help the bemused expression that settled on his face. His new maybe-friend lived here? He spared a glance across the hall to his own offending dorm room door before the curiosity of seeing what Wufei's dorm would look like took hold.

"Whoa ho! I'll give you musicians, sure, but I wouldn't call architects or mechanics artists. Artisans, maybe. Craftsman, sure. But not artists." He leaned casually against Wufei's doorway, arms crossed loosely over his chest. It was actually the stillest position he'd been in, in a while. "Artists can make stuff up as they go along. Everyone else has rules to follow that can't be broken on a whim, in the name of art. Ya know, physics and shit."

When he finished eyeing the calligraphy, he started on the bookshelves, trying to test his eyesight by reading the titles from where he stood.

"Oh...and by the way, remember that whole stalking thing we were talking about?"

[adhdinspired]

"How are they not artists, Duo? Do they not put pieces together? You don't have to make something from scratch to be an artist. And sometimes, they do make cars from scratch, am I wrong?" This argument was getting interesting. Wufei loved to discuss differences of opinions. If Duo didn't think they were artists, then so be it. But he would try to make him see the possibility, while not shoving it down his throat.

Some of the books on his shelf were by Poe, some by E.E. Cummings, and then there were a lot of fiction novels of various types. Yes, for all of Wufei's realistic thinking, he often lost himself in fantasy to unwind. Peter Pan was there. The last shelf, however, were books written in Mandarin, something he doubted Duo could read. The ways by which Wufei lived were written there. His religion, his teachings, everything. They were sacred books as far as he was concerned.

"....What are you trying to say?"

[jakfrost]

He twisted so that his back was to the door post, not his shoulder.

"Factory workers put pieces together. And they've got no particular love for what they make. Art, and by association artists, don't have to follow any rules. What's that damn phrase again? Form versus function? Architects and mechanics hafta make sure the function works before the form. They have to deal with physics and making sure things like gravity don't make a mess of everything. Artists just say 'Screw it. I like it, so lets hang a urinal on the wall'."

Duo eyed the 'Peter Pan' novel with a smile. That had always been one of his favorites growing up. He quickly changed the smile to a grin though and continued. "Damn, I'm one chatty bastard today. I might have a bit of trouble following all of your 'no stalking' rules." He pointed over his shoulder towards the dorm door behind him. "My room."