#thrd.

this isn’t jeno’s dorm.

this isn’t even jeno’s building-- which he realizes belatedly, once he’s already inside and leaning against one of the pristine walls. his feet are taking him instinctively on a familiar path-- one he’s avoided for quite a while now, but he supposes his sub-conscious just really didn’t want him to be alone.

stupid sub-conscious.

he moves up the floors slowly, taking the stairs instead of the elevator for fear of motion sickness after at the club. he’s sobered up a considerable amount already, just wandering around campus ( accidentally blowing up fire hydrants and bending lamp posts over will have that effect, normally ). even still, the hallway still swims and the screen of his phone is mocking him as he tries to text kan to see if he’s even awake-- to see if he’ll keep him company.

he’s standing outside the door, mouth pulled down into a soft pout when he gets no response. as his fingers tug at the collar of his damp, soft black button up shirt, trail through sweat soaked ( and then rain drenched ) hair-- he debates whether or not to knock. there’s a small, nagging voice that tells him that’s a bad idea-- but in his current euphoric state, high off of the adrenaline of dancing away his stress, he ignores it and lightly raps on the door.

“psst.... ge-- ge, you in there? help.”

his long limbs are particularly heavy-- and he leans his head on the door as his knocks get weaker-- before he’s suddenly falling forward, head snapping up, eyes blinking rapidly.

“ge-- oh.”

jeno lives a generally uninteresting campus life.

for instance, his younger brother always gushed to him about how he was excited about college and living away from their parents, about how he was going to join so many clubs, go out and party-- yet here jeno was, in (sort of) college and the most exciting thing he does is their shows-- other than that, he eats, goes to class, trains, practices, and goes the fuck to sleep. he sleeps practically anywhere, if he’s honest. like in the practice room on one of the couches, lithe body stretched out comfortably.

he twitches a little, hood falling as his head lifts up slightly at the sound of the door opening.

jeno blinks one eye open lazily, slow and cat-like, lips pulling into a small frown at the light filtering through the door. the lights flicker on and his eyes squeeze shut again, a small hiss escaping between his teeth as he sits up and rubs at his eyes. blinking them a few times, they refocus to reveal a small figure--

kang ahri. he’s not the most familiar with her-- they’re seldom alone in the same space without the other members. he knows very little about her in fact, other than seeing her flit about campus or riding past her on his hoverboard. he supposes she could say the same for him, since he likes to keep to himself anyway, and he’s always hanging around one of their two guitarists’ like a dark shadow.

“hey,” his voice is rough around the edges, tinged with sleep, “y’know if the others are on the way? i wanna sleep more.”

the tricky thing about jeno’s powers, or, one tricky thing out of three thousand tricky things -- is that it practically had a mind of his own. jeno’s concentration was daily funneled into making sure the luck energy around him didn’t act out-- like it was constantly prone to do. because that’s the thing about luck -- it’s spontaneous and fickle. 

and he’s reminded of this in the ungodly hours of the morning as he’s catching his breath, resting on a bench, earbuds blasting.

and as always, jeno has know way of knowing what will happen, just that something will-- and it’s just a gut feeling-- knowing that whatever is about to happen is caused by him. and if anyone had been looking closely, they would’ve seen his eyes flash with a show of pink sparks and then--

it happens right in front of his eyes so he doesn’t have to go looking. an innocent passerby jogging past, laces securely tied before -- one, as if by magic, seems to take great care in quickly unraveling itself and the poor boy goes toppling.

from reflex-- jeno shoots straight up into a standing position from his spot on the bench-- and realizes he’s made a scene whereas he otherwise could’ve laid low. his guard has been dropped way too far-- he clears his throat, softly calling out,

“hey, uh, you good over there?”

honestly... jeno never knows how he gets here.

here, as in having been dismissed from class yet again. he is however, proud to say that it’s been happening less and less often. you would think, though, that in a school of super-powered people, that it’d be much harder to get kicked from a class. ( however, jeno does admit that causing a beaker filled with toxic chemical(s) to explode and melt part of a table is likely good grounds for dismissal. )

it’s been a while since he used to cause disturbances left and right, but well-- he’s still got a long ways to go, he muses.

he sighs, trudging slowly back to his dorms with the damning slip of paper crumpled up in one fist. he is, however- perturbed, when he runs into very solid feeling... air. he blinks once and tries to move forward again - and is met with the same barrier which seems to jostle a bit this time, he swears he hears a faint noise, and he reflexively reaches out but stops himself-- has no idea what he’d find.

“uh... hello?”

❝      DO  YOU   EVER   THINK                that   maybe   one   day   us   &   the   grounders   will   finally   join  hands  ?    ❞