Void

One would have thought that the most stressful aspect of a college career was the workload. All those essays, exams, and energy put toward what wouldn't matter in another month. If not the work, maybe it was the expectations, or the isolation, or the looming responsibility to make a name for oneself in the real world.

For you, those mattered, but none of them were on your mind was you sprinted to your first lecture of the week. Ducking through passageways and slipping between other students, you tried to cut as much of the journey as possible without breaking a bone, and even then you were playing fast and loose with the rules. You were single-minded, set on your target like a bullet with barely a passing glance at whoever you nearly bowled over in your mad-dash.

Heavy breathing became panting as you turned a corner down the final hallway, but you instantly shut your mouth the instant that your eyes landed on a familiar figure. He was walking at a steady pace to the staircase, but you knew better than that; you had seconds before he noticed you, and you were at the disadvantage after your marathon through the campus grounds.

You probably should have been embarrassed that you completely froze—animal instinct telling you that he wouldn't be able to see you if you didn't move—but you were so focused on getting to your lecture before him that emotion didn't occur to you.

Obviously, he saw you.

And then he smiled.

You took a wary step forward.

"Don't you dare."

He placed a single hand on the railing.

"Don't."

One foot on the step.

"I swear."

The stand-off solidified around you, a tangible, pushing, strengthening force that put too much importance on this moment. You were already inside, though, and you felt the gravity. If you did anything, said anything, thought anything, then the bubble would burst and it would be off to the races—

He leaped immediately for the third step, and your hiss of his name was right on his tail. Clamoring for the banister, you used it to propel yourself off the half-way platform and around the turn, just about falling beside him at the next section. Adrenaline flooded your veins, as if this were life or death, and you were inclined to agree. Shoes skid against polished floors. A slip, a click, a hurried jump as you pulled ahead.

You were both winded once you reached the second floor, worse when you got to the third, and the fourth was death's door, but you were a step ahead of him at the end, able to wrench open the lecture theater's door and bolt for your prize.

With barely a breath to spare, you collapsed into the chair. Your chair. The one you had been sitting in since you started this class, which nobody else had any reason to sit in. That chair.

And yet this had been the routine for the past month. Getting up early and hoofing it to your lecture was the price you paid for sitting in this chair, but you would rather puncture a lung before you gave it up.

You watched the man you had raced slowly trudge to the seat next to you. He appeared completely nonchalant, but you could see the pain of losing in his eyes. Good. He deserved it.

The day that Damien Whitacre accepted defeat was the day that you could die happily.

Although there wasn't a single, specific cause of your distaste for him, it wasn't without logic altogether. The first, and most obvious, was the whole seat-debacle. For some reason unknown to you, he had decided to start sitting in your chair—and, no, there weren't assigned seats, and, no, it wasn't any better than the others, and, no, it wouldn't have mattered to anyone else, but it was your seat!

It begged the question of why you wanted it so bad, but you elected to ignore that.

The second problem with Damien was his results. Petty, maybe, but you couldn't get a single piece of feedback without his name coming up. From your professor suggesting you get his advice on exceptions within tort law to other students using him as the upper band of the grading system, you were constantly reminded of how well he was doing. You were sick of it.

You weren't a bad student, quite the opposite, in fact, but that didn't matter when there was someone better than you. Someone who was a perfect student, a perfect child, a perfect person. The poster-boy for perfection. Hell, you were probably the first and only person to hear him curse, and that was under his breath and directed at no one.

As the professor started up the lecture, you tried your best to avoid his eyes.

The next time, you got to the staircase first. Despite being inconceivably early for a university student, you were only certain that you had beat Damien when he walked around the same corner as you had just the day before.

The difference, though, was that he was approaching with his hands up.

Confused, you allowed him to get closer, though your heart was already pumping as though your body were getting ready to book it.

He stopped within a few steps of you. Given you had negated that yesterday, you were still cautious of any sudden movements, but Damien kept his eyes locked firmly on yours.

Just as cautious, he pulled his arms back to his side.

"What would you say to a contract?"

This was the first sentence he had said to you outside of first introductions. Everything else had always remained unspoken. This rivalry was silent but very, very real.

You squinted at him, as if you just weren't seeing him right.

"I'd ask why I should trust you."

He didn't take offense, simply stating, "It's three stories, and neither of us can pay attention in the first fifteen minutes afterwards."

"That's a drawback I'm willing to deal with."

"Is it?"

At that, he held out a hand. You stared at it, blinked, and looked back at him. A small smile ran across his face.

"We'll both start right here at the same time, count down from three and run on go. Whoever makes it to the top first gets to have the seat."

As much as you distrusted his proposal, he didn't seem the type to lie straight to your face. The more clarifications you made, the less opportunity he had to omit information. Still, you had to admit, it was tempting. Running took its toll on you, and burning lungs had long since stopped being an attractive outcome.

"And if we both get there at the same time?" you asked, hoping that your coming around wasn't obvious.

"Statistically unlikely."

You hummed and shot his hand another glance. Empty. No physical tricks, and this deal was quickly growing more appealing by the second. Downsides were being knocked out as soon as they occurred to you, until nothing remained but to take the offer.

You grabbed his hand and shook it.

"Fine," you said as you let go.

The picture of content, you and Damien shared a look, both glad that these bouts of exercise were over. Maybe it was even the start of a beautiful friendship.

Just as he opened his mouth to speak, you cut him off, spilling out a rushed, "Three-two-one-go," before you lunged for the staircase. Two, four, six steps up, and then Damien finally caught up to your little ploy.

"That's cheating!" he yelled as he bounded up behind you.

"Loopholes, Whitacre!"

Much the same as before, your veins were flushed with adrenaline, your heart pounded so hard that a squeak of your shoe could have been mistaken for your ribs shattering, and your lungs barely stayed inflated long enough for oxygen to reach your brain—but you were still smiling. A loose grin stretched from ear to ear, even when you caught sight of Damien gaining on you. If you paid attention, you might have seen the same expression on his face, too.

You barely reached the top before he did, and you tried to play off your breathlessness when you turned to him.

"You take law," you said, definitely not light-headed, "you should learn how to exploit them."

It took a few sharp inhales for Damien to recover, and he had to lean against the railing as he asked, "What was that about trusting me?"

"Should've asked if you could trust me."

Endlessly proud of yourself, you pulled open the lecture theater's door and gestured him inside. Knowing he wouldn't go back on his word, you were fine to employ your manners. You received a strained 'thank you' for your effort.

And that was how it continued for the next week; you and Damien would meet at the bottom of the staircase, make your best attempts to stretch in office-wear, and then race up to the fourth floor. It was an even success rate, although he consistently claimed that the first time didn't count. You stuck to your guns but let him count from them on.

Regardless of this new routine, you didn't see one another outside of your classes, which was just fine with you. Studying took up most of your time, which meant that you barely left your dorm for anything that wasn't academic. There were the odd days when you would get coffee with an old friend from back home, but moving to another city left you lacking in the social department. You weren't complaining. It just meant you could focus on essays and exams and all the other oh-so-entertaining parts of university.

You would have been just fine to never see Damien out of class, but the universe had a strange way of pushing things on you.

After a particularly rough class that left you more confused than ever before, you took a visit to the library. You were in search of a very particular textbook at the recommendation of your professor, so you made your way to the librarian's desk to ask after it.

It was just your luck, then, that she pointed not in the direction of the shelves but towards someone studying alone at a table.

"Oh, you have got to be kidding me," you muttered.

"We only have one copy of that, and it can't leave the building."

It was just getting better and better.

After your most strained noise of appreciation, you marched over to Damien, who had one hand pressing pages apart and the other jotting down notes. He only looked up from his task when you overshadowed the printed letters.

"Can I help you?"

His smile bordered on a smirk, but you held yourself back.

"I need to borrow that book," you said.

The pen clicked against the table.

"Hmm, well, as you can see, I am rather busy at the moment."

You hummed back and hoped your aggravation wasn't too visible. By the widening of his grin, you assumed it was.

"And how long will you continue to be busy for?"

He theatrically pressed a hand to his chin as if in thought before saying, "Remind me, what time does the library close?"

"Eight o'clock."

He nodded. "Yes, eight, that's right."

You shared a look and a tense silence spread between you. Another stand-off.

"I'm not failing our exam just because you want to hoard the materials," you said, to which Damien sighed.

"We both know well enough that the library books are free reign. If you needed it that badly, you should have come earlier."

Although it had only been recommended to you mere hours ago, you ground out, "That has become clear."

"Well—" He shrugged cheerfully, "—good luck next time."

His attention returned to the textbook and pen to his hand, you had a choice. The first option was to back down, which wasn't really an option given your track record, but the second option wasn't much better because you really didn't want to start racing for another somewhat meaningless object. It was a toss-up between conceding and competition, but another choice presented itself just as you were about to storm away.

You threw a quick glance at the surrounding tables and grabbed another chair, swinging it next to Damien's.

His reaction was immediate this time.

"What are you doing?" he asked, sounding split between surprised and curious.

As you draped yourself over the seat, you made eye contact and said, "How about a contract?"

There was a moment of hesitation, Damien staring at you and you staring at him, and then he dropped his pen back to the table.

"What are your terms?" he asked.

The urge to laugh at your mimicry of your last deal welled up inside you, but you pushed it down in order to reply, "We take turns. You can have the textbook today, I get it tomorrow, you the next day, and so on and so forth. We trade at eight in the morning at this table."

At the last word, you held out your hand and underwent the same inspection that you had performed on him. You must have been deemed fit for a handshake; he brought his own hand away from his notes and reached for yours.

He paused an inch from grasping it.

"And no cheating," he ordered.

"It wasn't cheating, but fine."

And with that final promise, another deal was sealed.

"Pleasure doing business with you, Whitacre," you said when you separated, and you actually meant it. Your legs were already singing praises for your good deed.

"Please, the pleasure's all mine," was the happy response—or, you chose to think of it as happy, at least. You didn't particularly care whether he was truly happy or not, but it was easier to 'do business' with a willing participant, so technically, in one sense of the word, and not really that much, you were glad that he was happy.

In the proceeding weeks, it proved beneficial, regardless of how you felt about it. The exchanges were efficient, and so too was the time spent with the textbook. You managed a system of note-taking and then revising on a schedule the inverse of the other. After the fifth day, you started finding Damien's paper stuck between pages relevant to the latest lecture. The contents ranged from clarifications to expansions to jokes that would stick in your mind until they were replaced by a new one. You responded in kind, purely to secure this advantageous, academic relationship.#

And if you spent your free-time coming up with tips that Damien might have found useful, that was between you and your lecture notes. And if you glanced at one another when the topic of child custody agreements came up in the syllabus, it could have just been accidental. And if you wondered how he was faring with the workload outside of a spiteful context, nobody else needed to know.

These odd thoughts followed you right into your first proper exam for the class. The hall was overcast with the dread of every law student. Knowledge was one thing, but you had never been good at timed conditions. Half of your colleagues did struggle with the information, but the others were right there with you, staring up at the clock every time the hand moved.

Tick, tick, tick.

It was fine. It had to be. You had studied so much that just looking at the word 'defamation' made you nauseous, and if that wasn't enough…

You swallowed as you sat down at the desk.

No, it would be enough. Deep breath in, deep breath out. You would be fine.

Three hours later, Damien joined the sea of students, each and every one of them staring down at their shoes, shell-shocked, wandering like ghosts struggling to recover from their deaths.

He had but one thought: what the hell was that? He was a good student, he was self-aware enough to admit that, but no one could have understood a word on that paper. Every problem was convoluted and the printed text ran circles around his mind. It haunted him even as he stood in the hallway, leaned against a wall as he struggled to come to terms with what had just happened to him.

He didn't bother hiding his relief when you flopped beside him, dazed just the same as the stream of zombies you had fallen out of.

A second to breathe and then you muttered, "What was that?"

He wanted to laugh at you speaking his thought aloud, but all he could muster was a quiet, "I have no idea."

"Did we take the wrong exam?"

"Maybe." He glanced at you. "Hopefully." He looked forward again. "Probably not."

When the possibility of a mistake faded from his mind, Damien returned his attention to you. You didn't look great. It wasn't an insult, just a simple observation, but it was still an issue. Normally, you would be fine after an exam, if not smiling to yourself or scribbling whatever you struggled with on your hand. He had seen you, cursed that he wasn't as diligent with his mistakes, and tried to remember the problem-questions with no luck—but his brain had the awful habit of throwing bad experiences out the window the second that they finished. It was done, so why dwell on it?

Looking at you, it seemed the first time that a distraction was sorely needed, and that was what he was good at.

Silently, Damien grabbed your hand and pulled you into the thinning crowd. You didn't say a word as you followed him, but the tightening of your grip in his told him that he was alright to continue forward. Down the hallway and through doorways, the pair of you walked until you pushed through to the outside world. Only a few people were still milling about, giving both of you space to breath, but he thought he could do you one better.

Bringing you down the side of the building, he veered off the stone path and toward a stretch of nature. There was a comfortable quiet between you as you traced the footsteps of past years. An informal tradition for worrying students led the way along grass that gave way to dirt.

You didn't have much more in common than a fear of failure. Even the race for the chair was just an extension of it. Damien tried his best to hide it, but you were both stubborn, and giving up on the most unsubstantial things was still a loss. Both of you had to win—the chair, the textbook, exams, approval, everything. In the most important things, there was only one winner, and you were his only competition.

Compromising was an idea he had only recently warmed up to. His offer of a truce had been a shot in the dark, an experiment that even he hadn't been sure of, but it had worked out. Strangely, insanely, it had gone well. Your second contract had been a shock, not only that it was your suggestion but that it worked, too.

If there had been more time to think it over, the possibility of a friendship might have been the reason for this walk.

However, there was no reason why Damien had taken you outside—except for that shared fear of failure. He saw you and saw himself. Scared.

He was the first to break the silence, saying, "I don't think I can handle one of our professors being upset with me."

It was almost a joke, and you did chuckle lightly, but both of you knew it wasn't completely.

"It's not going to hurt your rapport with them any," you replied as you kicked a rock out of your way. You had strayed far from the path in your wanderings, now surrounded by trees and a setting sun.

"But they'll look at me differently. You can see it in their eyes."

"What—" You huffed, turning your head to see him properly, "—the golden boy can't handle displeasing his professors once?"

"Can you?"

You looked back in front of you. Best to keep your eye out for anything that might trip you up, especially when you knew looking at Damien anymore would make slipping inevitable.

Voice too quiet for your liking, you said, "Sure."

"Oh, so you work so hard to impress yourself?"

Damien had his own laugh when you tried to say something in your defense, but all that came out was the weak sputtering of a totaled car. You weakly glared at him until both of you got a hold of yourselves, but neither of your smiles faded.

"I value my own opinion," you said.

"From one perfectionist to another, you don't do this for yourself. Nobody ends up with top grades because they want to."

He knew he got it right when you didn't answer.

His elbow poked you in the side.

"Who is it?"

"What do you mean?"

"Who are you trying to impress? Whose opinion matters so much to you?"

Another silence swam between you, not uncomfortable but certainly… something. Something important.

"Nobody's."

"Really?"

His disbelief stirred an impulse to lie, to keep it up that you were doing this for yourself until he let it go and stopped talking to you altogether—but it was overridden as soon as it reared its head because you liked talking to him. You liked his company, and you liked his advice, and his jokes, and, hell, his face while you were at it. You didn't want to walk down the path alone.

So, breathing deep, you said, "I'm not- I'm not doing this to impress anyone specific. It's people. In general, I mean." A whole year of inconsistent socializing left you rambling, but you couldn't, and didn't want to, slow down. "Everyone who said I couldn't get here, or that I would get here but couldn't stay here, or I'd get here and just be here because that's all I can really do."

Almost as breathless as you were when racing up those stairs, you waited for Damien to speak. One second, then two, then three, and you thought he would just stay quiet.

"When does it end?"

Your breath hitched.

"What?"

"When do you get to where you want to be? You've already shown people what you can do—it's more than what most people can say."

A million answers flashed through your mind, none of them satisfactory. Too defensive, too deflective, too daunting to say aloud. Eventually, you shrugged.

"I'll tell you when I get there," you said. Although it was vague, Damien spoke as if it were a certainty that you would get there, and you believed him. Sure, you wondered why he was so sure, but that didn't make you doubt him.

It did, however, also make you ask, "But what about you?"

His serene expression shifted to confusion.

Attention fully fixed on him, you continued, "If nobody does it for themself, why do you do it?"

He must have asked himself the same question once upon a time because his response came as soon as your words left your mouth.

"My family. It's always been my family."

You should have expected that; Damien's name was no secret, or, rather, his surname wasn't. The very day everyone showed up, word that a Whitacre had arrived spread through the university like wildfire. One name out of a thousand the talk of the town. The Whitacres had made a fortune as bankers, railroad tycoons, and, their current stint, landlords—and with so much money to inherit, rumors abounded as to why he tried so hard at his studies.

You had wondered the same before chalking it up to an aristocratic need to be better than everyone else. Now, a tinge of heat swelled in shame.

"Politics isn't what my parents expected of me."

You stared at Damien, whose head was bowed to the grass below you. He wasn't lying. If anything, he looked just as regretful as you were.

You managed a dull 'huh' before he continued to speak.

"They expected me to go into business, but- I'm not the best at numbers, and how much good can I do stuffed behind a desk?"

"So you decided to go for a bigger desk?"

This time, you were ready for his elbow to your side and dodged out of the way with a laugh.

He lifted his head as he muttered, "You know what I mean."

It was at this point, light chuckles swept away by the wind, that the campus came back into sight. Shortening trees gradually faded into bushes, to shrubs, to slightly overgrown grass. Distant discussions and students trying to get back to their dorms before dinner took the place of rustling leaves.

This break was coming to an end, but it was exactly what you needed. Damien's distraction let your mind rest, and yet you were itching to get back into books.

"It sounds like we've both got things to prove, which means we have a lot of work to do." On impulse, you took his hand. "Come on."

Starting to tug him toward the library, you were relieved that he didn't pull back, though he did hear a hesitant, "And where are we going?"

"If that exam is anything to go by," you said, "we need to start studying for the next one immediately."

"I guess so."

Despite not saying it, you heard the fatigue coating his words. You didn't blame him, not after what he told you, but neither of you could give up. A few more weeks of exams and you would be able to calm down properly—for now, supporting one another would have to suffice. Enough with the silent rivalry, the useless feuds, the comparisons, the competitions—

You stopped in your tracks.

"How about a wager?"

"A wager?" Some of that tiredness was swapped for curiosity.

"You know, nothing big, but it would be… an incentive."

"What are your terms?" Curiosity swapped for eagerness.

"Whoever gets the higher score on the next exam gets something."

A smile graced his lips, which you found you enjoyed more than a look of defeat, before he said, "You know how something tempts me."

You took a step back with your arms raised in surrender. "Hey, I came up with the betting idea. You choose the prize." You knew you had him when he followed with a step forward.

As he deliberated with himself, you tried to parse out the look in his eye. Was he actually trying to think of something? Did he already know what he wanted? Was it good, bad, something important to both of you? You almost yelled at him to tell you when he held out his hand.

"The chair."

Of course. What else was it going to be?

Sighing, you said, "Fine, whoever gets the higher score gets the chair for the next month."

"Two."

You gritted your teeth. "One and a half."

"Deal."

And though you took his hand, shook it up and down as you were so used to doing, there was a part of you that was strangely disappointed. He had all the choice in the world—a rule-bender though you were, you stuck to your promises—and he wanted to sit in one specific chair in one specific lecture theater that you probably wouldn't even be in next year.

Seconds before you pulled your hand away, Damien said hastily, "And if I win, I can take you on a date."

So distracted by being jealous of a chair, you didn't let go until after your hands had bobbed up and down again, sealing the deal. It was, of course, the warmth of being tricked that flooded over the bridge of your nose and down to your neck, and awe of your own unawareness pulled a smile to your lips.

"Whitacre!" you yelled as he strolled past you.

He turned around with an oh-so-familiar, smug smile. "Hmm?"

You floundered for a moment and then asked, "What happens if I win?"

"You can take me on a date."

And he continued walking to the library, shoes clicking against the stone path, while you tried to come to terms with your situation behind him. Only, it was less 'coming to terms' and more 'trying to get yourself to believe that this was actually happening'.

When your brain caught up to reality, you whirled around and chased after him, happy with the fact that whether you won or lost the wager, you would win in the end—and when the sappiness finally faded, you pledged to win. You wouldn't go easy on Damien just because you were dating, after all.