Erik’s Canadian history class had desks, and when he had first seen them, he had wondered what twisted sadist had modified the desks he remembered from twelve years of schooling in Doherty into the pain-inducing collection of metal, plastic, and pseudo-wood that filled some of the rooms in the university. Tight, pinching, tiny, and with a desktop barely big enough to fit a small notebook, let alone take into account the amount of space a rather tall guy might need to hold a pen and write notes, Erik was convinced the desks were some for of discrimination against anyone who was above average height or, he extrapolated, average weight.

When he presented this theory to Dustin, his best friend had shrugged. Later, he had offered it to Ray.

Ray had stared at Erik, his eyebrows raised, and said, “You’re paranoid, Thor.”

This lack of positive response told Erik that mounting a protest to ban the desks might not have much support.

English, at least, didn’t have the desks. Erik wasn’t even particularly bad at English. He didn’t hate reading, although nothing Dustin did or said could convince him there was much to Shakespeare, and poetry went over his head. With Dustin’s help he was almost certain he could keep his marks on the average to almost-good side of things, but Dustin’s help couldn’t do much when his copy of Frankenstein (which had been carefully annotated by Dustin) went missing three days before his first paper was due.

Erik had eventually given up on finding the book by ransacking the apartment while Ray watched curiously from the couch, and had gone to the university library to get a copy, even if it lacked useful notes in the margins. He had been up until 4.00 a.m. finishing the paper and less than four hours of sleep was not making him feel particularly charitable towards the reason for his exhaustion. But still, it could have been worse.

He pushed his paper to the side and crossed his arms on the tabletop, using them as a makeshift pillow for his head as he stared sleepily out a window. The cloudless sky and bright sun suggested that it was going to be a disgustingly wonderful day. That knowledge just made Erik, who was probably going to spend most of the day, both in and out of class, sleeping, more irritated. He groaned and shut his eyes against the sun and the slow trickle of students filling the tables in front of him.

Next to Erik there was the sound of metal scraping and sliding on dirty tiles. He mumbled an incoherent apology in the vicinity of his elbow and reached out blindly, groping for his essay. When his fingers found paper he pulled it underneath the shelter of his arms.

There was the thump of a bag being dropped on the table and of someone flopping heavily down into the plastic chair on Erik’s right. There were the usual sounds of someone rummaging in a bag, searching for their own essay, presumably, and not having much luck in what Erik guessed was probably a bag of utter chaos to judge from the crinkling candy wrapper-like noises.

Erik wondered if he should give up caffeine. It made his senses far too stimulated. And twitchy.

Eventually the sound of the nearest rummaging stopped, and Erik let out of a sigh of quiet relief until he felt hot breath near his ear.

He tried to ignore the warmth, twitching one shoulder up to cover the vulnerable ear. It almost worked, until Erik heard a familiar voice ask, “Hey, Thor, you awake?”

Slowly, Erik tilted his head over and opened his eyes. His roommate’s bright brown ones peered back at him curiously, his chin propped on the table so they were at the same eye level.

Erik blinked slowly at Ray and licked his lips. He thought for a minute about appropriate responses, but eventually went with his first impulse. “Are you stalking me?” he asked with a note of resignation in his voice.

Ray laughed. “Don’t be crazy, Thor. I’m a ninja. If I were to stalk you, you’d never know about it.”

“Maybe being very obvious and unsubtle about it is part of your cunning plan,” Erik said flatly, and smothered a yawn.

“Why would I be stalking you?” asked Ray. He almost looked affronted.

“I don’t know. Why did you try and hot wire that car last week? Why did you dismantle the light fixture in the kitchen? Why did you think Dustin was making rocket fuel in his bathtub? Why anything involving you, Ray?”

Ray made a face.

Erik didn’t bother trying to suppress or cover his next yawn. “What are you doing here, Ray?” He didn’t really think Ray was stalking him, not if he paused to think about it rationally, but when your roommate was a complete lunatic, sometimes reality became blurred. Especially when you were operating on four hours of sleep.

“I came to class,” Ray said, one eyebrow raised in slight confusion, as though he were being asked to explain the concept of water to a fish. “We’re supposed to hand in papers today, aren’t we?”

Erik stared at Ray, his jaw dropping in disbelief. “I’ve never seen you in this class once, not even on the first day.”

“Yeah, well, you know, it’s kind of a pain to get out of bed – ”

“I’ve seen you playing videogames on the couch when I leave for class,” Erik interrupted, his voice oppressively flat.

“And there’s that arcade downstairs, they have some of the coolest games, Thor, you have to check it out sometime. After class, maybe we could . . .” Ray trailed off. Erik was glaring at him as best he could through the fog of exhaustion.

“How’d you know about the paper, then?”

Ray gave Erik a pitying look. “It is possible to communicate with professors outside of class, Thor.”

Erik groaned and lay his head on his arms.

For a minute, Ray turned in his seat and began rummaging in his bag again, the noise loud in the sleepy classroom. With a motion that sent an empty chip packet flying, Ray pulled out a well-thumbed paperback with colourful sticky notes poking out from all sides. He tossed it at Erik, hitting the bent blond head.

With a curse, Erik snatched at the book and turned it over, staring at the familiar cover, complete with the stain in one corner from when Dustin had spilled coffee on it.

“Thanks for lending it, Thor. Huge help in throwing this paper together.” Ray patted the thin pile of papers in front of him proudly, blissfully unaware of the murderous glint in Erik’s eyes. “And now that I know you’re in the same class, I can get the assignment outlines and stuff from you.” He grinned and clapped Erik on one shoulder.

Erik glowered at Ray from behind his arm and thought about justifiable homicide. Ray Fujimoto, he decided, could easily make the top ten some days.

“This is a waste of time,” Ash grumbled, bare hands shoved deep into the pockets of his coat to prevent them from getting frostbitten during the short walk from the dorm to the library.

“It’s better to study in a small group. Helps to keep you focussed,” Erik said firmly. “Dustin and I studied together all the time back in Crow Lake.” Mentioning that most of the studying in high school had involved sitting in the McClouds’ basement with Erik scribbling in textbooks and eating Mrs. McCloud’s cooking while Dustin slept with a textbook on his face was probably not the sort of information which would make Ash look favourably on Erik’s idea. Tactful omission of this fact seemed the best course of action for all parties involved.

“That’s all well and good in high school, but you and I aren’t studying any of the same subjects, Thor.”

“Everyone has to study English, though.”

From Ash’s other side, Dustin lifted a gloved hand, glancing at Erik out of the corner of one eye.

“Good point,” Erik admitted as Ash rolled his eyes. “But even if that’s true, we’re writing the same bio midterm. And you guys are write the same physics midterm, don’t you?”

“So does Fujimoto, but you didn’t invite him on this little adventure.”

Erik thought of his roommate. Ray and his sporadic attendance in English class. Ray and his consistently above-average marks. Ray playing loud videogames while Erik pulled an all-nighter. Ray being thrown out of the arcade for being a public nuisance and disorderly conduct. Ray hanging upside down from a recently made hole in the bathroom ceiling. Ray . . .

“It didn’t really seem like his sort of thing.”

“You thought he’d make a hyperactive pest of himself and we’d all lynch him,” Ash interpreted. He rubbed his chin on his shoulder and kicked at a snowdrift. “Getting arrested for homicide would probably make passing exams difficult. There’s probably a way of shutting him up and keeping him in one place that wouldn’t result in you being arrested. Then we could stay in our nice, quiet, warm dorm, you could stay in your apartment, and everyone would be happy.”

“Ash . . .” Erik sighed in mild exasperation, his breath condensing in front of his eyes.

Dustin tilted his head in consideration and made a few absent gestures with his hands held above Ash’s head, until Ash swatted him away with a growl.

“Rowen tried that on us when she was writing finals in grade twelve, Dustin. I doubt it would do anything to keep Ray quiet.”

Dustin shrugged.

“Yeah, but he’s got, y’know, tricks. Schemes. Plans.”

“Cunning ninja plans?” Ash asked, puffing slightly in the cold air. “Don’t tell me you believe that shit he spiels.”

Erik glowered. “Shut up, Ash.”

“Whatever,” Ash rolled his eyes again. “You’re both as nutty as Fujimoto sometimes. C’mon.” He pulled one hand out of his pocket, shook it, and pushed the door open.

Erik and Dustin trailed behind the impatient Ash. Dustin pulled off his gloves, tugging at one finger at time as he stared at the ceiling. Erik pulled off a mitten and loosened the scarf around his neck. “So, fearless leader, d’you happen to know where the library is?”

Operating on reflex, Ash punched Erik in the arm. “Shut up, Thor.” He looked past the people milling about, spotted the helpful arrow with ‘LIBRARY’ written on it, and headed towards the security gates. “This was your idea anyway. It really doesn’t matter if I knew the way here or not.”

“I guess,” Erik shrugged, unzipping his jacket. “But it’s good to see you science types can read simple signs.” He winced as this comment earned him another punch in the arm.

“Are you trying to be annoying in Fujimoto’s place, Thor?” Erik gave Ash an offended look at this. “I don’t see you giving McCloud a rough time about this.”

“Dustin could find the nearest library if he were dropped from a helicopter in the middle of Nunavit.”

“There’s libraries in Nunavit now?”

“Could be. Wonders of technology and all that. But the point is, do you really want me putting you and Dustin on the same level?” Erik asked, jerking his thumb in Dustin’s direction.

Ash looked. Dustin was standing a few feet behind them, his head craned upwards as he continued to stare at the ceiling. His face was as bored and expressionless as usual. “God no,” Ash shook his head and continued onto the main floor of the library.

Erik tapped Dustin’s arm and the two followed Ash until he stopped in the doorway, not quite managing to obstruct the flow of traffic as a girl pushed past him.

“Big, isn’t it?” Erik grinned. “Kind of cool, though. If you’re into that sort of thing.”

“That’s not it, you moron. Some of us grew up near actual civilization.”

“I know that’s the first thing I think of when Newfoundland comes up in conversation.”

Ash wasn’t so distracted that he didn’t have time to elbow Erik in the stomach. “I was just wondering,” he said, as Erik stumbled over in pain, bracing himself against the wall, “if it’s always like this.”

Erik turned his head to actually look in the library for the first time.

The silence inside had been absolute, until Ash and Erik’s conversation had disturbed it. Their voices appeared to have carried easily through the big room, and as a result Ash was now the focus of no fewer than a dozen furious glares. No one hushed him, though. That would have made more noise. Even pages were being turned in absolute silence. Occasionally someone working at a computer would hit a key with enough force for the tiny clacking sound to be audible and the angry glares would return and direct themselves toward the offending typist. It was like someone hideous hive mind of students, united by stress and caffeine.

Mutely, Dustin shook his head.

Erik licked his lips, abruptly nervous. It was like something out of a horror movie. Any minute he was sure an army of stressed, strung-out students on the edge of nervous breakdowns were going to stand as one student and hurl themselves at Erik and Ash for disturbing the sacred Silence of the Library. “I think,” he whispered, “that we should try another section on one of the other floors.”

The glares transferred to Erik. He took three long steps back, moving out of the students’ lines of sight. After a minute, Ash followed Erik’s example. “Good idea,” he said, running a hand through his hair. They went to the elevator and chose a floor at random.

“Some people,” said Ash, “take exams far too seriously. It makes them crazy.”

“You threatened to break my nose the last time I was in your room while you were studying,” Erik reminded.

“That was different,” Ash replied calmly as the elevator doors opened.

The three young men stepped out and walked down the hall to the library. They took one step inside and froze as the same palpable feeling of tension and stress met them, coming from all ends of the library. Very carefully, they all said nothing. Two or three nearby heads lifted and looked in their direction before lowering again after apparently reassuring themselves that the newcomers weren’t going to do anything evil, like cough.

Lightly, Dustin tapped Erik’s shoulder and pointed in the direction of one particular study carrell.

With reluctance, Erik looked. At the carrell was hunched the unmistakable figure of Ray Fujimoto. The black bunny hug with the Japanese writing on the back, the red jacket and multicoloured scarf draped over the back of the chair, the messy black hair and the hand with the familiar fingerless leather glove that came up to scratch it. All combined to make the figure instantly recognizable as Ray. The books visible by the side of Ray’s chair were semi-recognizable too. The colourful sociology textbook that had been used to prop open the window for a week after Ray broke it, the computer programming book that usually kept the couch level, and the physics text Ash had threatened to beat them all to death with on three separate occasions.

As one man, they stepped backwards and away from the library. In silence, they went back to the elevator, Dustin calmly jabbing the button for the main floor. Casual studying was not to be found in the library.

Ash broke the silence. “That was Fujimoto, wasn’t it?”

Erik nodded.

“Huh.” Ash mulled this over for a bit, then shrugged. “Exams really do drive some people crazy, I guess.”

On the morning of the English midterm, Erik woke up well before 6.00 a.m.. Exams always messed with his sleep schedule. He could be writing an exam at night, and he’d still wake up at inhuman hours of the morning. He groaned and rolled onto his side and spared a glance for the glowing face of the alarm clock situated between Ray’s bed and his own. It would be over an hour before the alarm went off. Erik grimaced and looked past it to Ray’s bed.

Ray had come home after midnight, waking Erik up when he got in. He’d been at the library again, supposedly. Crazy. But right now he seemed to be having no trouble sleeping. He was just a lump in the bed, curling into a ball with the blankets pulled over his head.

Definitely crazy, Erik decided. But at least crazy Ray studying for exams was less irritating than crazy Ray the rest of the time. He looked past his lump of a roommate and out the window. It was dark. It would be dark when they went to the exam. Dark, joyous, exam-filled December. Frosty December, too. There was a thick layer of it on the window, reducing the glare of city lights to a few muted, glowing blurs. He squinted at one of the blurs for several minutes, trying to bring it into focus, before he got bored and, reluctantly, pushed the covers back and got out of bed. His bare toes curled instantly from contact with the cold air, but he persevered and made his stumbling, shivering way to the bathroom.

A shower, a shave, and three cuts on his jaw later, Erik emerged from the bathroom into the still-dark apartment. Shivering, with wet hair dripping cold water down his neck, he went back to the bedroom. Ray was still asleep, and Erik wasn’t feeling cruel enough to turn the light on and make his roommate suffer the pain of being awake, even if it was – Erik looked at the clock – 6.15.

Erik heaved an envious sigh and stripped out of his damp makeshift pajamas – old sweat pants and a flannel shirt missing all the buttons. In the darkness he groped for a handle on one of the dresser drawers. When he found one and pulled, it stuck stubbornly in place. Erik grasped the handle with both hands and heaved until it abruptly came loose and landed on his feet.

He swore loudly. Then, teeth clenched on further exclamations of pain, lifted the drawer carefully off his foot. There wasn’t even a twitch from the bed. Some ninja. Erik rolled his eyes, rubbed his foot, and searched through the drawer with one hand until he found a sweatshirt. Further probing found warm socks that would be lucky to match and clean boxers. A quick rummage through the dirty laundry pile found a pair of jeans. Erik pushed the drawer back in place and got dressed. He looked once more at Ray – still sleeping. He shook his head in amazement and went to study on the couch.

The alarm clock went off at 7.00. It was the default time. Neither Erik nor Ray could be bothered to remember and change it in accordance with varying schedules, weekends, and holidays, so it always went off at 7.00, unless there had been a power failure.

Ray was usually faster than Erik when it came to attacking the clock on weekends.

Erik stopped rereading his (and Dustin’s) notes on Twelfth Night after the alarm had been going for five minutes. After ten minutes, Erik threw down his notes and went into the bedroom, turning on the light.

The lump under the blankets wasn’t even twitching.

“Ray,” Erik said, and turned off the alarm.

No response.

“Ray, get up.” He poked at the unresponsive lump under the blankets. Something, Erik knew, was not right. During his first week in 306, Erik had experienced an unusually vivid nightmare and had woken violently, sweating and shaking. He had knocked over the alarm clock and that had been enough to wake Ray up. His roommate had sat bolt upright in bed, hyper-tense, and Erik was sure it had taken Ray hours to fall asleep again. He scowled at the lump under the blankets. “Ray, I know you’re awake.” When this accusation did not elicit the slightest twitch, Erik yanked the blankets off the bed.

Ray lay there, breathing evenly, his head pillowed on gloved hands. He didn’t shiver at the sudden attack of cold morning apartment air, but when Erik lowered his head for a closer look, he could see goose pimples on Ray’s bare skin, and the black hair on Ray’s arms standing on end.

“Ray, get up.” Erik poked him in the small of the back with one finger.

There wasn’t even a faint flicker from Ray’s eyelids. His breathing was slow, steady, even. Could people fall into comas while they slept? Erik shook his head, dismissing a thought he knew Ray would call “Paranoid” with a laugh in his voice, and gave Ray another shove. When his pseudo-comatose roommate continued to lie there, Erik straightened and sighed. It was really none of his business if Ray wanted to sleep or do whatever he was doing. Ray could miss the exam, and it wouldn’t affect him in the slightest. But . . .

Erik grabbed Ray’s black T-shirt in both hands and pulled it slowly over Ray’s head.

Ray didn’t resist, but he was complete dead weight. Erik remembered Collin pulling a similar act on his first day of school. It had taken the combined forces of Erik, Rowen, and their mother to get Collin out of his pajamas and into his clothing. And he had only been five. Ray was eighteen. Erik groaned and tugged fiercely until the shirt came over Ray’s head with an abrupt pop. The action lifted Ray half-off the bed. He fell back on the mattress heavily, and didn’t move out of the position he fell in.

“You’re being stupid, Ray. Get up. The exam’s in a couple hours.” Erik gave Ray a shove and rolled him on his back. He knew lots of lucky people were able to get up a few minutes before their exams started and be perfectly ready, but he got the feeling that if he left, Ray wasn’t going to get out of bed until well after the exam had finished. He gave an experimental tug at one leg of Ray’s pyjama bottoms, but let go abruptly and left the bedroom.

The sound of running water filled the apartment again as Erik turned on the shower without shutting the bathroom door. After a minute he returned to the bedroom and lifted Ray up. He grunted at the weight and let Ray’s feet drag on the floor as he half-carried him into the bathroom. “You’re damn heavy for a ninja,” he observed, before calmly opening the shower door and dumping Ray inside under a torrent of icy water.

Ray was on his feet in seconds. He yelled. Loudly. In Italian. Presumably swearing and cursing Erik to Hell. He tried to push past Erik and get out of the shower. Erik calmly shoved a hand in Ray’s face and pushed him back under the main spray of water. Ray made a grab for the tap. Erik snatched both Ray’s wrists in one hand and held Ray’s hands away from the tap and under the water. They stood and fought like that, with Ray occasionally snarling something in Italian of such vileness that it transcended language barriers, until Ray began to shiver violently and Erik’s face and sweatshirt were splattered with cold water.

Erik released Ray’s wrists. His roommate grabbed the tap, turning the shower off with a violent wrench. Erik blandly dried his hands on his jeans and went to the bedroom. He returned and threw a towel at Ray, who was still standing in the shower, dripping. As Ray slowly began to towel himself dry, still mumbling in Italian under his breath, Erik shoved a bundle of black clothes at him.

“Get dry,” said Erik. “Then get dressed. We’re going out.”

“Dustin and I used to go out for breakfast before exams all the time. Once he had a car, anyway. It’s supposed to help your marks, or something.”

“Bullshit,” Ray said, staring at his coffee. It was the first thing he had said since they arrived in the nearly-empty restaurant. “Eating produces chemicals that make you sleepy. Who writes a good exam when they’re sleepy?”

Erik put a hand to his head and rubbed at his temple. Arguing was better than being glared at silently. He was pretty sure it was better, anyway. Marginally better. He pointed at Ray’s coffee cup with his spoon. “Caffeine, Ray. Caffeine. Plus, it’s not like it’s overeating, it’s eating a balance meal. That shouldn’t be enough to make you groggy.”

Ray scowled at this display of logic before noon and drank his coffee. He lowered his cup and stared at it, tapping the side with a spoon. Abruptly, he said, “The shower was overkill.”

“Oh?” Erik raised his eyebrows. “And what would you have done if I was playing at sulky, practically comatose idiot on the morning of an exam?”

“Left you alone,” Ray snapped. “Jesus Christ, Thor, you aren’t my mother. You’re my roommate, and certainly not by choice. We just share the apartment, we don’t owe each other anything.” He glared and pushed cold, wet hair away from his face.

The waitress appeared before Erik could respond to Ray’s heated comment. She eyed them both uncertainly, smiled, set down their orders, and refilled their cups before hurrying away. Ray was radiating an aura of twitchy malevolence.

As Ray jabbed at his pancakes with a fork, Erik said, “We’re friends, though.”

Ray shot Erik a startled look, then returned his attention to his pancakes.

“You’re welcome, by the way,” Erik said as he began his own stack. “The whole comatose thing seems like a lot under the circumstances, though. It’s just a midterm, eh. You write your politics final on Friday, right?”

Ray nodded, mouth full.

“See, that would have been the one to go comatose on. Not some midterm we’re writing together. Even you should be smart enough to see that.”

“Thor!” Ray looked caught between being offended and laughing.

“It’s the truth, though.” Erik speared a piece of bacon before it fell into a river of maple syrup. “Did you pull that act in high school?”

Ray shrugged. “Sometimes,” he said, and ate another pancake.

“Man, how did you ever manage to graduate?”

Ray shrugged again. “Hell if I know.”

“Your mom couldn’t have had time for that shit. Don’t you have, like, twenty brothers and sisters or something?”

“Seven, Thor, seven.”

“Whatever,” Erik licked maple syrup off his thumb. “The comatose thing is stupid, anyway.”

“So you’ve never done anything stupid because of exams? Never slept in or faked sick because you didn’t want to deal with it?”

“I got dragged out of bed every morning at 5.00, from the time I was twelve, to help my dad in the kitchen. Unless I was puking my guts out, hiding in bed was never an option.”

“Bad luck,” Ray said, and emptied his coffee cup.

“Or good.” Erik moved a piece of pancake around his plate with a knife. “Hiding in bed just because you’re afraid of maybe possibly failing an exam seems a really cowardly thing for a ninja to do, though.”

Ray grimaced. “You don’t even know that’s what it was about.”

Erik snorted with disbelief.

“Could we just not talk about this anymore? Or ever again?”

“As long as you promise not to do it again. At least, not until you have a new roommate who’ll put up with that shit.”

“No promises,” said Ray grumpily.

“Maybe I’ll invest in a spray bottle,” Erik said thoughtfully.

“You wouldn’t.”

“Try me.” Erik grinned and ate his last pancake.

Ray shook his head, a hint of a smile on his face. “Thanks,” he said finally.

Erik shrugged dismissively and drank his coffee.