On the other side of campus, nowhere particularly near the appointed room and not really of a mind to care much about that, a man stood on the sidewalk, taking a smoke break. Of course, this was nothing particularly unusual in the university atmosphere, but several factors did make this specific inanity something of a curiosity, for those with the skill to observe correctly. First was the fact that this man, in contrast to the cheap, heavily-taxed American cigarettes to be found in the pockets of most of these nicotine addicts, was actually standing with the elegant curve of a pipe dangling from between his lips. Dark wood, intricately carved, and almost surely with a hint of ivory inlay to compliment the mother-of-pearl, it was probably worth more than the average student
vehicle. Antiques were funny like that.
It could also be said that there was something peculiar about the smoker himself. Though he paid none of his environs any particular mind, at least from the looks of things, the same could not be said for the students in their natural habitat. Though his activity was as innocuous as smoking, and perhaps pacing a bit, for he was rarely still, this fellow, it managed somehow to draw the eye of
every single individual that passed him by with uncanny accuracy, like their gazes were little ferrous things and he some inexorably-powerful magnet. Male, female, old, young; it didnāt matterāthey all looked at him, some losing their train of thought in the process or stopping mid-sentence.
If another would have been strangely puzzled by this, or perhaps even āweirded out,ā as the expression went, this man accepted the hungry stares of passers-by as a perfectly normal occurrence, perhaps even his
due. He had been the focus of the attention of others his entire life, though naturally the nature of such attention had changed as he matured. Heād never counted anyone as his friend, but the nanny whoād raised him heād trusted enough to believe when she told him that looking at him was a bit like looking at what one desired most in the world, but also knew one should
never reach out and take. She'd, incidentally, seen a son. It was a piece of information heād turned over in his head for a while, and then, deciding it fit the data, proceeded to take ruthless advantage of, propelling his lord fatherās pedestrian business into a multinational corporation somehow able to broker the trickiest business deals out there: the Chinese, the Russiansānobody was able to say no.
If he did indeed carry some aura of being dangerous, it was something that most were apparently content to ignore. Exhaling a cloud of smoke in a sensuous coil, Ian inadvertently locked eyes with a pair of females likely on their way to the library, but a short distance from their present location. Half-smiling, he winked without any real thought. āLadies,ā he greeted with a nod, and he privately thought it was probably the accent that sealed the deal: posh, British, and rich as velvet. That, heād intentionally engineered, the result of a psychological experiment involving influence and how to extend it without being seen. So now, he sounded like indulgence as well, though not so overtly as to invite comment, oh no. One had to be subtle above all.
He watched them melt with an inward sigh of disappointment. Sometimes, it grew boring to be the player in the game with all the cards. There was no challenge anymore, once heād divined the rules. It was simple tactics, strategy, and occasionally a bit of minute adjustment for individual preferences. Formulaic, uninteresting, predictable. So he looked away and invited no further conversation from either. Eventually, they took the hint and left, spell broken because heād snapped it over his knee. He could have it working again with a word, and that actually marred his visage with a frown.
His pipe was burning low, and so he spent the extra few minutes letting it go out, then tapping the ash out of the bowl and into a nearby garbage receptacle. From the back pocket of his darkwash jeans, he withdrew his travel information, the time and place for his so-called āorientationā staring up at him from the page. Ian never felt compelled to do anythingāquite the opposite. His actions were only ever a matter of his choice, and at times, this lent them an air of inconsistency or randomness. He enjoyed keeping people guessing more than he would have enjoyed any of the benefits of constancy, and so he chose by whim. Earlier, his whim had been to wander the campus, but it seemed that right now, his whim was to attend this meeting and see just how useless it would be to him.
Which is how he wandered, some time later, into a large lecture hall currently occupied by only a few people, including two sitting next to each other and obviously staring like theyād never seen another attractive human being before, a girl looking rather pointedly at the back of her name plate, the small mar between her dark eyebrows evidence of her displeasure, and another, sitting a fair distance away from the first, looking lost.
Around the same time, another woman entered, waltzing right up the Asiatic-looking girl and holding out her hand with an introduction. He supposed he had to give her credit for not wasting time. The other girl looked up from her nameplate and blinked owlishly behind her glasses, scanning the newcomerās face before accepting the hand and giving it a single shake. āMina.ā She summarized succinctly, and like that, he had two names of about six, including the man at the front of the room. The nameplates would eventually take care of the rest, anyway.
Speaking of whichā¦ Ianās wine-colored eyes flickered to the bald man in the wheelchair, but something about the image seemed
off to him, as though he shouldnāt have it. Heād never been one to dislike someone based on a disability or think it was unnatural, but here something justā¦ bothered him about it, as though for some reason,
that man should be standing tall, strong, and with a voice that boomed out over the training field. Waitā¦ the
what? The only sport Ian had ever played in his life was rugby, and heād quit a few years ago because heād never liked it that much.
Brushing aside the stray thought, he found his seat, off to the side a bit, and immediately next to only one other. Well, perhaps that was appropriate. He didnāt feel much like the people in this room anyway. Still, looking around at the number of vacant nameplates still present, he raised a brow and directed himself to the old man. āAnd here I thought
I was going to be late. It seems some of us have carried that far past the fashionable.ā