Survival Of The Fittest

There he was. A random high school student sitting in a food court with a shopping bag containing a single shirt he impulsively bought because it looked cool, slowly eating the noodles right in front of him.

He’s been here for like what, an hour now? He hasn’t been keeping track of the time. The food was cold though, that probably indicates something.

This wasn’t weird to any passerby, right?

No, he’s literally just eating. A lot of people do that here, come on.

It’s a food court.

[ Perante Losoa Pregame: Start ]

Like, no one watches someone slowly eat away at a bowl of noodles for more than a couple of seconds unless they’re really bored. Even then there’s probably better things to be staring at. The floor looks mighty fine sometimes, the patterns could look pretty nice. There's loads of restaurants, and while Perante could complain about some of the logos, it was a lot easier on the eyes than looking at a... Random person.

This was stupid, he brushed off this stupid train of thought before it got too far and he started questioning the logistics of being a stalker.

Ah shit, his coffee was probably cold too by this point, well that’s just sad. That's what he gets for not drinking any of it, he guesses.

He did a quick look around the food court to make sure no one was actually staring at him before he sat up in his chair, bored out of his mind as he mindlessly scrolled through Twitter. Bad news... Lots of bad news... Complaining... Some wicked art... So all of the usual. It felt like a better way to be spending time than doing any of the history homework he’s gotten, thanks teacher! He’s still miffed about getting assigned things to do over the weekend. That’s time wasted he could’ve been doing something else!

Okay it was more fair to say he put it off until the weekend but history sucked and so did his motivation, so no matter if he kept telling himself that he really should hurry up and eat the damn noodles so he could get back home, it was still easier to do nothing.

He started to hum a little tune to himself as his brain was desperately looking for some other stimulation despite how he refused to do anything more at the moment. All in the interest of not having to get out of that chair. It was just some random song he heard on the radio, nothing special. Still looking down at his phone, he reached over to grab the cup of coffee when he accidentally knocked it over, spilling it all over the floor.

A quiet sigh escaped his mouth. Internally he was cursing at himself for dropping his drink. Well that's $2.99 he's never getting back! Looking on the bright side, at least that was something happening. Not like that made up for any of that.

((Przemek Ziemiak continued from the WAP thread))

Oh no! Poor guy just spilled his coffee. Przemek turned his head to the sound of the dropped coup and the splashing coffee.

Hm, the guy looked familiar. Wasn't he also from Endescott? Przemek stood up from his table to walk to where Perante was sitting.

Przemek grinned and proceeded to sit down at Perante's tabe, leaning over to speak to him.

"Hey, I know you. You're also from my school. Do you mind, if I buy you a new coffee?"

"I'm fine! I mean, it's fine." He smiled back, scooting over a bit to give more space to this newcomer.

Why does he insist on getting closer anyway? Nice guy it seems but personal space please.

"You don't need to do that, I wasn't really drinking it anyway. Like, it's probably getting more use on the floor than anything." A small chuckle escaped their mouth with the attempt to downplay the fact that their drink spilled.

You know what, it shouldn't even be that bad anyway. No crying over spilt milk they say? Well it's pretty much an exact example of that; they weren't really crying actually but crying, complaining, same difference.

Anyhow this person was a familiar face too, church guy, right? That's kind of the extent of his knowledge anyway. Come on, the two don't got nothing in common as far as he knew, of course he's going to be delegated to a single trait. It was kind of uncomfortable to do to anyone but there's not much he could do with that at the moment.

"Nice of you to ask though." He leaned back in his seat a little.

Przemek forced himself to laugh at the joke about the spilled coffee and continued to smile at Perante.

"Ah no, no problem, these are tough times right now, we have to help each other, you know? You would've done the same thing for me."

Przemek's eyes shined.

"I'm Przemyslaw, by the way. You can call me Przemek or Przem, though."

He quickly turned to look down at the spilled coffee and then at the other people staring at the mess. His face was still smiling and he wasn't nervous. He quickly grabbed some tissues that laid on the table to clean up the mess. Then he stood up and bent down. The tissues quickly filled up with the coffeous liquid, he could already feel it in his palms and his nose was filled with the smell of the food court coffee. Then he looked up to Perante to continue the conversation.

"Oh, I didn't ask. What's your name, again?"

“Good to know.” He nodded. “I’ll take Przem.” Truthfully he had already known his name, it was rather easy for him to put random names he’s heard to a face. He just preferred not to seem like a creep or anything. Like ‘Oh yeah, I just know your name even though we don’t really talk.’

Actually that happens all of the time, what’s he worried about?

The way the other boy was being rather friendly, it was nice and all, but he just felt kind of bad now. It was a small mistake but it was one he made and now someone else was dealing with it. He looked away for a moment as Przemek started cleaning up the mess.

Damn it man, what did you say about now crying over spilt milk?

“Perante.” He tilted his upper body forward a bit, a subtle gesture for a greeting. “Sorry, sorry for the trouble. Any way I can like, make it up for this? You come over here and clean up the mess, why like, it feels like I gotta do something in return.” He said, mimicking the warmness he was receiving from who might as well be a total stranger.

"Ah, Perante. That's a beautiful name, does it have a meaning?"

He finished cleaning up the spilt coffee and threw the tissues into a nearby bin. He rubbed his dirtied hands against his dungarees and sat back to the table. Przemek brushed off Perante wanting to do anything in return.

"Haha, no, not for this! Don't worry, buddy," he smirked at Perante's face. "Although..."

He twirled his cross necklace.

"What's your opinion on the Lord?"

"I don't know, really." He leaned to the side and put an arm onto the table. "Don't think I'd really be able to tell what was going through their mind with that name. Like, it probably means something though."

It's not like he's going to be able to ask anytime soon. And frankly it felt rather weird to bring up his parents anyway.

Luckily those thoughts were gone when given a more... Interesting line of questioning.

"In like, am I a devout follower or the likes?" He questioned.

Truthfully he wasn't much of a believer. Well, mostly anyway. The only thing he really believed in was the idea of heaven and hell, how your afterlife is judged on what you do while you're alive. Other than that, he never went to church or prayed, he's surely sinned like many others, he wasn't even sure there was a Bible in his house at all. I mean, he's never really questioned it anyway. He knew the general idea of what happened, but that was really it.

"My family does their best to go to church every Sunday." He lied. It sounded like an answer Przem like though.

Jackpot. Goes to church every sunday? He's perfect. Przemek didn't hesitate revealing more information on WAP.

"Oh, that's a good thing. I'm part of a Christian club at our high school, Worship and Prayer it's called. We meet every week. You're always welcome to come to a meeting, it's free and it doesn't matter whether you're Protestant, Catholic or whatever."

Przemek smiled at the potential new WAP member.

"Well that sounds nice." He nodded his head and smiled.

Fuck, why did he say that? Well great, now he just feels obligated to show up. That'd be pretty damn rude, wouldn't it? To just say yes and then not show up at all. He's not gonna be able to come up with excuses either, at some point he's gotta run out of them. Oh that's totally going to be very awkward, he's just going to have to pretend like he knows what's going on when he inevitably forces himself to go to Worship and Prayer, WP... WAP? Oh my fucking god.

Oh he is so lucky he's able to hide the fact that he's so close to laughing right now, because that's just unfortunate. Surely that has to be on purpose.

"Get me more details and like, I'll try to show up."

Because fuck it, if he's down this rabbit hole already there's no backing out now.

"Alright! We'll meet next Thursday, 4 PM, at Mr. Perez' classroom. I'd be happy to see you there."

He looked at his watch. Przemek smiled one last time before standing up.

"I gotta bounce now. Hope you have a nice day."

((Przemek Pregame concluded))