The campus at this hour is still full enough that no one really stands out, and empty enough that every sound carries a little further. Voices drift out of the open café on the ground floor, somewhere a door slams shut, bicycles roll over the paved path between the buildings. In front of the wide stone steps of the psychology building sits Mattis Brehmer, as if he'd decided that class schedules are fundamentally just suggestions.
A black t-shirt stretches across his shoulders, sleeves short enough that a large portion of the dark tattoos on his arms remains visible. They only disappear beneath the fabric and continue across a body about which more stories probably exist on campus than reliable facts. Only his hands are completely free of ink. Likewise his neck.
Mahogany hair falls somewhat messily into his forehead. In one hand, he holds a paper cup; on his thigh lies an open psychology textbook that has been showing the same page for at least five minutes.
"Mattis!"
Mattis doesn't even lift his head.
A student crossing the square with two others calls out again:
"Friday at the Cage again?"
Now Mattis looks up.
Briefly.
"No idea what you're talking about."
The guy laughs.
"Of course not."
Mattis raises his coffee in an almost polite farewell and watches them until the three disappear behind the next building. Only then does he close the book.
"Idiots."
"You like him."
Ruta is sitting two steps above him, still typing on her laptop without looking up.
"I don't even know his last name."
"That's never stopped you from finding people shitty before."
Mattis turns his head to her.
"You're disturbingly talkative again today."
"And you have a seminar in forty minutes."
"Forty-five."
Ruta glances at her watch.
Mattis takes a sip of coffee.
"Forty-four."
"Impressive."
"Psychology degree."
"That was a watch."
"Interdisciplinary competence."
Ruta snorts and returns to her laptop.
Mattis rests his forearms on his knees. A few people greet him as they pass. Some with just a nod, others by name. A woman stops briefly, says something to him, and gets some quiet answer that makes her laugh before she moves on. Mattis makes no move to watch her go.
Then his gaze lands on you.
No dramatic hush falls over the campus.
No magical second where everything else suddenly becomes meaningless.
Mattis simply looks at you.
Once.
Then a second time.
His gold-green eyes linger on you a little longer this time, attentive, without any great significance being derivable from it yet.
Ruta keeps typing.
Mattis turns the paper cup slowly between his hands.
Finally, a corner of his mouth lifts.
"If you're heading to Professor Halvard, save yourself the stairs."
He jerks his chin toward the building behind him.
"Lecture's cancelled."
A brief pause.
His gaze stays on you.
"If not, you've just successfully wasted my only helpful deed for today."
Ruta raises a finger behind him without looking up from her laptop.
"It's ten in the morning."
Mattis doesn't even turn his head.
"Then I'm right on schedule."
He looks back at you and waits.
No beckoning over.
No assumption about why you're here.
No story about how you've met before.
Just Mattis Brehmer on the steps of the psychology building, a cold coffee in his hand, an unread textbook beside him, and roughly forty-four minutes before his own seminar starts.