The library's book repair room was tucked away in a corner that smelled like aging paper and industrial-strength glue, the kind of place that felt more like an alchemist's workshop than a modern facility. But before they could even locate this mysterious bookbinding goddess, they encountered what appeared to be one of her regular disciples: a lanky figure hunched over a stack of worn textbooks like a crane contemplating a pond.

He was all angles and awkward length, the kind of tall that made you wonder if he'd grown too quickly for his body to properly distribute the height. His clothes screamed "I read coding manuals for fun"—a worn Linux t-shirt that had seen better days, khakis that somehow managed to be both too long and too short at the same time, and thick-rimmed glasses that seemed to be perpetually sliding down his nose.

Iza, being Iza, didn't just walk into the room—she burst into it like a friendly tornado. "Oh wow, are you getting books fixed too? These stupid things are like paper butterflies, aren't they? One wrong move and—poof!—they're falling apart!"

The tall guy looked up, startled, as if he wasn't used to people actually initiating conversation with him. His attempt at a smile was endearingly awkward. "Yeah, uh, second verse, same as the first. Or second year, same books, I guess."

"You're repeating?" Nze asked, trying not to sound judgmental.

"More like giving these classes a victory lap," the guy replied, his self-deprecating humor carrying a hint of hard-earned wisdom. "I'm Peter, but everyone calls me Pico. Short for Tampico, which is a long story involving secondary school bullies and a spectacular cafeteria incident involving the orange soft drink of the same name. The nickname stuck harder than the soda did."

"I love that!" Iza exclaimed, her enormous glasses magnifying her enthusiasm to almost comical proportions. "It's like my 'Z'! Names that come with stories are the best names. I'm Izabella—with a Z—but you can call me Iza. And this is Nze, my knight in shining armor who helps rescue damsel-in-distress books."

Pico's posture relaxed slightly, as if Iza's bubbling friendliness had somehow made the air more breathable. "Yeah, I saw that wipeout earlier. Classic first day chaos." He gestured to his stack of books. "Fair warning: Professor Udoye's 'Educational Psychology' textbook has this thing where the binding gives up around chapter seven. Right when you hit Piaget's developmental stages. It's like the book itself is going through an identity crisis."

"Oh great," Nze muttered, "so we're just going on a nice tour of all the ways our syllabus can fall hand and leg?"

"Consider me your personal guide through the nine circles of academic hells," Pico replied, then quickly added, "Though maybe I shouldn't make Dante references in a Catholic school. Might be a bit on the nose."

Iza giggled, already leafing through her damaged books. "Well, I think it's perfect that we met you. Now we have an insider's guide! Someone who knows all the tips and tricks and—" she paused, squinting at one particularly mangled page, "—and apparently where to find the best book glue in Holy Cross."

"Speaking of which," Pico said, reaching for a large bottle of what looked like industrial-strength adhesive, "let me introduce you to my good friend here. She's not exactly holy water, but she works miracles on broken spines."

As they huddled around the repair table, Nze couldn't help but think how quickly college could throw people together—a bubbly girl with enormous glasses, a lanky second-year veteran with a soda-based nickname, and himself, still trying to process both his new surroundings and that mysterious encounter in the hallway. But there was something comforting about it too, about finding your people in the weird corners of campus, bonding over broken books and borrowed experience.

"Just remember," Pico added, carefully applying glue to a loose page, "the secret to surviving first year isn't about being the smartest or the most prepared. It's about knowing which disasters are fixable with glue, and which ones require prayer."

"And which ones are which?" Nze asked.

Pico grinned, pushing his glasses back up his nose. "That's what the victory lap is for."

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧

The administrative labyrinth of college registration has a way of bonding people, especially when you have a seasoned guide like Pico leading you through the paperwork jungle. He knew exactly which forms needed duplicate copies, which administrators responded better to pleading versus politeness, and most importantly, which office had the shortest lines for timetable collection.

"And that's why you never, ever try to register anything after lunch," Pico was explaining as they walked through the halls, "The afternoon heat makes everyone cranky, including—"

"Yo, Tampico!" The shout cut through the hallway chatter like a thrown stone. "Already recruiting your freshman study group? Planning ahead for next year's retakes?"

Pico's shoulders tensed slightly, but his face remained carefully neutral. The frat boys' laughter echoed off the red brick walls, but before anyone could respond, fate decided to add another layer of drama to their day.

It happened in that weird way accidents do—one moment Iza was walking beside them, and the next she was bouncing off what appeared to be a human wall. The guy she'd bumped into stood there like an iroko tree among shrubs, his height making even Pico look modest in comparison. His muscles seemed to have muscles, straining against a shirt that suggested its maker hadn't anticipated this particular distribution of mass.

"I'm so sorry!" Iza squeaked, her glasses slightly askew from the impact. "I wasn't looking where—"

The giant's response wasn't words so much as a rumble that started somewhere in his chest and emerged as a growl. The girl beside him—sleek, polished, looking like she'd stepped out of a fashion magazine—rolled her eyes dramatically while his two slightly-less-giant friends shifted their stance in a way that suggested they were used to providing backup.

Nze moved before he could think, positioning himself between Iza and the human mountain range. It wasn't exactly a smart move—more like the kind of instinct that gets characters in horror movies killed first—but something in him couldn't help it.

That's when Pico's hand clamped down on Nze's shoulder with surprising strength. "We're so sorry about that," he said, his voice steady but urgent as he began subtly pulling both Nze and Iza backward. "Total accident. Won't happen again." He nodded at the giant with the kind of careful deference usually reserved for unexploded ordnance.

They were halfway down the next hallway before Pico's grip relaxed. His face had gone slightly pale, making his glasses stand out even more starkly against his skin.

"Okay, first rule of Holy Cross survival," he said, glancing over his shoulder. "Don't pick fights with anyone in Omicron Deo. Ever."

"Omicron Deo?" Nze asked, still feeling the adrenaline course through his system. "The dorm?"

"The fraternity," Pico corrected, pushing his glasses up with a slightly shaky hand. "That was Kanayo 'The Mountain' Eneh and his personal entourage. The girl with him was Diane Something-Hyphenated-and-Probably-Important. They're like Holy Cross demigods, if demigods spent an unhealthy amount of time at the gym and had anger management issues."

Iza was still straightening her glasses. "I really didn't mean to crash into him. I just didn't see him, which is ridiculous because how do you not see someone that size?"

"Trust me," Pico said, "there are a lot of things around here you learn to carefully not see. It's kind of a survival skill." He paused, then added with a weak attempt at humor, "Though I guess that's harder for those of us with vision problems."

"So what, we're just supposed to let people like that intimidate everyone?" Nze asked, his hands still clenched into fists he didn't remember forming.

Pico gave him a long look. "No. But you pick your battles. And more importantly, you pick your battlegrounds. First day of classes in a crowded hallway? Not the time or place to go full David versus Goliath." He smiled slightly. "Besides, I'm pretty sure that story only worked out because David had the good sense to fight from a distance. Up close, my money would've been on the giant."

They walked in silence for a moment before Iza spoke up. "So... are there any other unwritten rules we should know about? Like, is there a secret handshake for the cafeteria, or do we need to know a password for the library?"

"Oh, dozens," Pico replied, visibly relieved to be moving onto safer topics. "But right now, let's focus on getting you two to your first classes without any more collisions with campus landmarks, human or otherwise."

As they walked, Nze couldn't help but notice how the other students seemed to naturally part around certain groups in the hallway, like water flowing around rocks in a stream. He had a feeling there was a lot more to Holy Cross's social geography than just buildings and walkways. And somewhere in the back of his mind, he wondered if that mysterious girl with the platinum curls moved through these invisible currents, or if she created her own.

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧ ✩₊˚

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