Luca scratched his inner ear. It had been a couple hours since he had showered, and yet since then, he had the feeling of water being inside his ear, and even though he had been training for a while, the feeling didn’t disappear; but thankfully it wasn’t too bothersome; he could live with it.

  He checked every pocket he had; while he did, the door opened. Cory walked in with a tired face and looked as surprised as Luca when they met eyes.

  “Oh, hey Cory.”

  “Hey! Didn’t expect to see you here.”

  "Yeah, uh, things happened; I’m going to something now though; I’ll be back in the night.” Said Luca as he grabbed the clothes in his briefcase and put them in the closet.

  “Cool, well, I’ve got homework on my first day, which is probably illegal, but I’m being very brave about it.” Cory threw his backpack on the bed and sat on the edge of it, then he excitedly leaned forward. “Oh! Oh! You wanna hear something nuts?!” He continued before hearing an answer. “Apparently someone got on a council member’s business, and when the guy confronted the first guy? The first guy peed his pants!” Luca chuckled when he heard Cory tell the story. Cory faked a gasp and imitated his head exploding before continuing. “I mean, isn’t that incredible? Who pisses their pants? And apparently it wasn’t a university member; it happened in the fortress; it was someone in the guild!”

  “Must be the first.” Said Luca in a monotone voice, trying to hint at Cory the truth.

  “Maybe, it was probably a novice, so you might know 'em, Luca!”

  “Probably.” Answered Luca. Cory chuckled in disbelief as he id back on the bed; after a few seconds of silence, he sat up again.

  “Hey Luca?” Asked the university student, all excitement now gone from his voice.

  “Yeah?”

  “Was it you?”

  “Yup.” Answered Luca in a nonchant tone.

  “I’m so sorry!” He stood up and apologetically walked to his roomate, touching his shoulder, trying to get Luca to forgive him. “I-It isn’t nuts, actually; it happens all the time! Happened to me the other day haha! I’m sorry, man…” Cory’s face reflected a mix of panic and regret, so Luca chuckled and nodded calmly.

  “You are fine, man, I understand.” Luca kept his cool about the situation, until Cory looked back up at his face through his eyeshes and Luca felt his heart flutter again. He turned around to hide his bewilderment.

  “... How did it even happen? Was the guy that scary or...”

  “Vampire.” Cory’s eyes shot wide open, and if he had a hair in his body, Luca thought that they'd be probably standing up. Why did he focus so much on his body? He knew why, but he didn’t want to think about the answer… yet. “Yeah, he pinned me on a wall and yelled at me with this awful voice, then he stuck his fingers into my throat somehow and-”

  “What?!” Asked Cory, horrified at the idea of the gory scenario he had in his head.

  “Yeah! I mean, I’m fine now, but it was scary; his face was all distorted.” Luca shuddered, remembering it. "Honestly, peeing myself seems like a very rational reaction to that scenario, you know, seeing how I thought I was gonna DIE and all.” Cory snorted as he heard it but nodded, agreeing. “So, I’m not gonna be embarrassed by it, you know.”

  “True.” Cory stretched and id on the bed, his sweatshirt riled up slightly, revealing his stomach. Luca forced himself to look away; he didn’t want to be like that with the guy he was going to live with. “Anyway, changing topics, I’ll just chill the rest of the day; good luck with your things!”

  “Thank you, and good luck with your homework.” Luca closed the closet and headed out. He heard Cory groan when he was reminded of his homework as he closed the door behind him and he chuckled as he made his way out of the dorms.

  Once on the bottom floor of the dorm buildings, Luca was shocked as he noticed the other person in the hallway. Wearing a full work overall, a hulking figure with horns was sweeping the floor; the only feature Luca could see from behind them was a tail like that on a bovine and a hairy back of the head as a mat of brown fur fell from it. The figure turned around to move the bucket of water in order to continue mopping, and Luca’s mind froze when he saw the face of a cow standing on top of their broad shoulders. He had heard of minotaurs before, of course, but seeing one just sweeping the floor was a situation he couldn’t really process. The minotaur looked like a highnd cow, with two proud horns standing from her sides and the blue overall covering gheir figure, which, though broad, hinted at the slightest possible feminine body. Through a mat of hair that seemed to cover the eyes, the supposed janitor spotted Luca, who realized in that moment, had no idea how long he had been standing on the staircase just looking at her.

  Luca walked carefully along the floor in order to both not slip and not stain it again. He nodded at the minotaur, still in a bit of a daze; she nodded back and smiled. In a way Luca never saw any bovine do, which was fair considering she was more of a person than an animal. As he was walking away, however, his ear started itching again, and Luca thought about the fact that perhaps a janitor would indeed know how the water system functioned. So, after a quick pause to gather social courage (and courage in general since he was about to talk to a minotaur), Luca walked back to behind the rge woman and cleared his throat, which prompted the minotaur to turn around and look at him.

  ”Hello, sorry to-to bother you, but um... W-Would you perhaps know how the shower system worked? O-Or if you don’t, I’d appreciate it if you pointed me in the direction of how to find out about it. Please.”

  Luca’s gathered courage slowly boiled away as the dy stared at him without expression; he didn’t know what to say back, and the following seconds of silence felt like agony. However, she then cleared her own throat and spoke back.

  “Ω παρακαλ? κρεμ?στε ?ναν δε?τερο νεαρ?. Ω Θεο?, ελπ?ζω ?,τι χρει?ζεστε να ε?ναι εδ? μ?σα.” She spoke the first part with a low, rumbly voice, and the second she mumbled as she grabbed a small notebook from her back pocket and started skimming past it; the notebook seemed even smaller in her hands.

  Luca blinked astounded. Two months since knowing he’d get to Zenith, the center of the world, and never once did Luca contempte the possibility of a nguage barrier; he’d hit his head if he wasn’t in public. The nguage sounded ancient, with many vowels by the looks of it; he didn’t know barely anything about nguages and therefore could not recognize this one; the only other nguage he knew was a little bit of human, not enough to call himself bilingual; common was the only one he truly knew.

  The minotaur dy stopped at a page in the small notebook, reversing it and showing Luca the contents of it. On the two pages being shown, multiple questions and answers were presented, questions like: 'Where is the university, please?' 'Where can I find a nurse?' 'Can you help me with a cleaning emergency, please?' Below them were the answers to each question in different color ink, answering all of them.

  Luca didn’t see, ‘How does the water system work?’ Obviously, so he just shook his head and shrugged.

  “I-It’s okay, I don’t need-” He tried to end the encounter by backing away, but the woman ushered him back and flipped a page showing more questions and answers.

  “?χι, ?χι, παρακαλ?, υπομον?, ε?ναι εδ?.” She said while pointing to the pages, slightly nervous by the looks of it.

  Luca remembered the few times when people who didn’t speak common passed through the town; they were varied, and not two groups of them looked the same, but something they had alike was that they all looked frustrated at the difficulty in exchanging words with the townspeople. Some resolved the issue but others didn’t, and Luca could only imagine what having that frustration every day as you worked in a pce where everyone spoke differently must’ve been like; he looked at the book and noticed the question that said ‘Where are the bathrooms?’ with its corresponding answer: ‘There’s one in each room; if yours is occupied, there are public ones in the cafe under the fortress.’

  Luca pretended to learn the information and smiled at the woman, who in a very cute fashion nodded and smiled.

  “Thank you!” He hoped she at least understood that one, but just in case he nodded as he said it. Thankfully, it seemed like the woman did understand that one, as she raised her thumb trying to confirm if all was expined. Luca, with his unresolved question, raised his thumb in turn, in a successful attempt to calm the woman’s nerves; Luca felt satisfied as he saw the woman smile, proud of her notebook-comunication trick working.

  As he walked away after the exchange, he wondered how many times did the janitor have to go through that type of interaction before she came up with the idea for the notebook. It was a great idea; probably would have taken him too long till he came up with that if he were in her shoes. And as Luca made his way to the lifting ptform for the millionth time that same day (or at least that’s how it felt), another question popped in his mind, at the same time as the feeling of water in his ear disappeared.

  Why did he care about how the raining closet functioned?

  Time: 16:50