#tags***

Cup in hand, back resting against the post, his leather back hanging idly on his right shoulder, Daniel stared at absolutely nothing as he thought about the events that took place just a few hours prior. It had been a grueling half-hour assembly, and Daniel sat in Comparative Vertebrate Anatomy feeling agitated, and many, many miles away. It took the professor two tries to get his attention when he was called to answer a question, something that rarely ever happened to him. He was able to answer the question without missing a beat, anyway, but he still felt.... out of sorts.

It was to be expected that an interrogation would take place. Daniel was prepared for that; in fact, that was why he went to the Starbucks before the theater in the first place. But what he didn’t expect was Florian being dragged into it all. How could he stand by and watch as they accuse Florian of something he had no involvement in whatsoever? True, it was just an interrogation, but the fact of the matter was that Florian, who was innocent in all this, was included. Daniel, who was not, wasn't suspected at all. A sudden commotion from his peripheral vision snapped him out of his trance, and he blinked as he gathered his bearings, spouting off the discussion he’d just listened to in class as if on autopilot. “So, that’s what you call homologous, when different species have structures that may look different and have different functions, but can be traced to the same evolutionary origin...”