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It's not often I rise with the sun, but today seems to be one of those days. Considering the amount of homework I left myself last night, I suppose it shouldn't surprise me; my subconscious holds me accountable better than any alarm could.

I sit up and stretch, arms lifting high above my head, tail snapping into a high, intense arch, before relaxing with a gasp. My legs swing off the bed, red-padded paws slapping the ground as I stand up, then lightly tread over toward my bathroom to take care of morning hygiene. Thankfully, I don't have to worry about getting up in time to check if my food remains in the fridge, so I make sure to take my time and let myself wake up before ambling into the living room.

As I pull my bowl free of the microwave, of course, I feel that now-familiar tug at my Spirit. Without really turning around or speaking in a specific direction, I say, "I know you want me to come hang out, but I can't. I've got homework to do."

Another Spirit, one that isn't mine, almost fizzles into existence in front of me, across the small counter, sitting on one of the barstools on the living room side of the laminate. "Come on," it pleads. "We haven't talked in like three days."

I fire a look at it, one of those that says 'you know what I mean', as I reply, "With all due respect, Donovan, you know we wouldn't 'just chat'. I need to do this homework, or I'll fall behind in my classes."

"Well, when did you become Mr. Responsible?" Donovan grumps playfully.

"Since I nearly lost my scholarship, which, let me remind you, is the only reason I can even attend this college," I retort, grabbing a fork from one of the tiny drawers and shoveling a spoonful of what I affectionately call Beefy Cheesy Mac into my maw.

"Smarty pants," Donovan fires back, but he's grinning. A minor correction to what I said yesterday--within the Plane, Spirits have no 'ghostly' features or additions. If viewed with physical eyes (those capable of seeing them, at least), they have an almost hologram-like appearance, vaguely translucent, but still visible with colors and all.

The only reward the cheetah's tease gets for a long moment is a roll of my eyes, and a few more fork-fuls of the beefy, cheesy macaroni into my maw. Finally, I grant him a response. "Unfortunately, it's for one of the few classes I can't afford to fail. Otherwise, I'd say fuck it and...how did you put it? Ah, right, 'talk'."

Donovan snorts. "Sucks for you. I was going to try and get Kain and Lorenz in here, too."

Now I cross my arms. "Now, see, you didn't tell me that before."

"Should I have to bribe a friend to come hang out with me every once in a while?"

"Donny, it's been three days. There's some friends I haven't gotten handsy with or talked to in three months." I roll my eyes at him, taking another bite before continuing. "The world won't end just because you haven't gotten dick in a few days."

"Oh, but it is! I can feel the atmosphere crumbling down around me!" he cries out, crouching and putting his paws up as if carrying an immense burden. Then he snorts. "Dramatic performance aside, I was starting to get worried. I know you don't chat with folks all that much, but I didn't so much as feel a tickle from you since Monday. That's not usual for you."

For a brief moment, I eye him. Then I sigh and set the bowl down, placing my palms on the counter on either side of it. "Because I trust you, Donny, I'll tell you. Professor Codge-hound made an embarrassment of me on Tuesday, or attempted to, and it's had me in a bit of a funk. Master suggested I do a stint in Japan just to see what it's like there and...well, I'd be lying if I said the idea didn't catch my fancy."

"Japan, huh?" Donovan leans back, almost to the point where he topples out of the barstool. "Sounds interesting."

My gaze flicks up to him, gauging his reaction. "Interesting?"

He returns with a nod. "Always been interested in visiting Japan."

"You know it's unlikely I'd want to have a visitor, right?" I raise an eyebrow. "You seem to think I'd be charmed to have you visit me."

"You would be, though, wouldn't you?" Donovan grins. "You love having me over."

"In the Plane doesn't equate to in person," I counter. "You know that, Donny."

"Maybe, but it's always in the physical world where we end up mingling," he counters, still grinning. "I know what your room looks like, you know what mine looks like--"

"An absolute mess?" I interrupt.

"--there's virtually no difference save it isn't physical," Donovan finishes, glaring at me for interrupting. I grin. "You seem ridiculously against physical meetups for very little reason."

"I am, and my reasons will remain my own," I state, eyeing him again.

"Regardless." He flaps a paw in the air. "I think you should do what you're most comfortable with. If going to Japan sounds like a good idea for you, I'm all for it. Just don't leave me hanging for half a week again, alright?"

"Yeah, sure," I mumble around a mouthful of food, leaning on the counter and starting to eat again. He gives me a playful glare before his Spirit fades, drifting away to the Plane and being absorbed back into his physical body.

With him gone, I grab my backpack from the door and lug it over to the small, dinky couch, where I settle down with what remains of my food. The food I set on the small table beside the armrest, which I then drag around to the front of the couch, pulling my legs up onto the couch with me as I grab my laptop and a couple of textbooks from my bag. Then, with a sigh, I set to work, making the calculations or corrections needed, exercising my brain in the proper ways.

Nearly an hour passes in the silence, only broken by the scratching of my pencil and the clicking of keys as I enter my answers. Finally, though, almost precisely as the clock touches the one-hour mark, I finish what I was assigned and snap the lid of my laptop shut, taking a deep breath and sitting back on the couch. Thankfully, I'd finished my bowl of food during the work; I wasn't interested in reheating it a second time.

Another glance at the clock informs me I still have two hours left before I need to start worrying about getting ready for class. With that in mind, I slide all of my materials back into my backpack and push the side table back around to its proper place at the armrest, then shift to sit cross-legged on the couch. A handful of deep breaths later, my eyes close, and my breathing deepens, hands resting palms-up on my knees.

Instead of Projecting, though, I simply enter the deep trance of meditation, letting my mind calm and still like a clear lake on a windless day. Occasionally, a thought drifts by, like a leaf carried on a current, but like that leaf, I just let the thought drift by, noticing it, enjoying the color and sight, but not latching on to it. My heart rate slows, and to any outside observer, I would appear asleep.

I don't bother to keep track of how much time passes in that trance. I do know when it's time for it to end, and that's when I begin losing the ability to remain calm. Meditating in such a state exhausts even those who practice it constantly, as the mind never chooses to sit still. 'Monkey brain', Master Makoto always called it. The mind is the one muscle that never relaxes, even when we sleep. Encouraging, choosing to force it to relax is an exercise in and of itself, and a rather difficult one at that. As I open my eyes and glance at the small analog clock on on the wall in front of me--slightly offset to the left, to make room for the small television I have in the room--only thirty minutes has passed. Nowhere near my longest time, but certainly not my shortest.

Of course, I do have a lot on my mind at the moment, given everything going on. To expect a personal record, even with my three years of practice, can hardly be considered reasonable. Even so, I find myself disappointed.

To distract myself from that expectation, I turn on the TV and flip through the channels until I find something that catches my interest. Some science show, investigating natural disasters and the science behind them--at least, what we know. The clock almost seems to move faster as I keep my mind occupied, flipping channels every now and again to see what else is on.

Eventually, though, class time does arrive, and I click the television off and grab my bag. Into my sandals I slip, and out the door I step, making sure it closes and locks securely behind me before starting my path toward my first class of the day, chemistry.

"Jensen!"

As I leave the dorm building, I hear someone call my name. I turn to find Aiden, one of my few friends in the real world, jogging toward me from his own dorm building. We share this first class together. "Hey, Aiden," I say, once he's close enough for me to not have to shout. "How are you?"

"It's morning," he groans, with a half smile. "Yourself?"

"Dreading class," I reply dryly. "Chemistry is one of two I enjoy this semester."

"I know!" Aiden exclaims. "Why do we have to re-do classes already taught in high school?"

" 'Your education is important, and this is a necessary part of it'," I quote, a mockery of the wolfhound professor whose name I still haven't learned. "It's exhausting, is what it is. Let us learn useful stuff, please."

"Exactly my thinking," Aiden agrees. "If we're going to be forced to suffer through school, at least make the information useful and new."

I snort, but remain quiet, and do the entire way to the chemistry lecture hall. Then, it's just another grueling day of classes to get through--or, so I thought.

During my lunch break--after my first two classes of the day--I silently Project, letting my Spirit step free from my body. Or, I nearly do, but as I'm leaning out of my physical form, I catch something out of the corner of my eye, and immediately snap myself back in, fingers already tapping my pen at the biology notebook I have laid out in front of me. I turn my gaze as if people watching, but I'm keeping a cautious eye out, looking specifically for what I'd spotted out of the corner of my eye.

There. I spot it again, the translucent figure standing in the center of the hallway, staring me down. The old wolfhound professor. My lips turn down, just faintly, as I let my gaze roam further along, then return it to my notebook. There's no way he can Project, I know he's not an Astra. Not only would I have been able to sense him in the Plane, but his own documentation, given to the students at the beginning of the school year to help prepare us for the type of professors we'll have, said he wasn't. Which means an experienced Astra, one as skilled as Master Makoto, would have to be helping him Project.

That, or... My pencil begins tapping faster at the textbook, thoughts racing through my head as I strain to remember something Master Makoto explained to me not long after taking me on as his student. It was something about...an experienced Astra being able to Project their Spirit from their body into the body of another who'd just lost their life somehow, so long as the body was freshly dead. Acting as if I'm just casting my gaze around while trying to solve a problem, I glance at the wolfhound again, just in time to spot him begin walking.

My heartbeat kicks up a notch or two as I realize his trajectory is directly aimed for me. My gaze flicks back to my book, pencil tapping faster and faster. I don't think I'll be dying soon, unless there's an unnatural cause for it--the fake gun. I forcibly squash the physical reaction, but my mind flicks back to the last time I was in his class, when he faked having a gun to the back of my head when I recalled my Spirit. As I mentioned, I've been warned before, but that was a step farther than anyone else has gone. How much further would it be to hold a real gun to my head?

Not to mention, I didn't think to ask Master Makoto what would happen if someone happened to be Projecting at the time another Spirit attempted to invade their body.

Stop. I take a slow, deep breath, if shaky. Panicking certainly won't solve anything, and I need to be rational. An experienced Astra wouldn't have reacted so strongly to having their soul expunged, as I briefly did in defense when I thought the wolfhound's 'gun' was real. Besides that, his own documentation said he wasn't an Astra. While it's possible an experienced Astra would be able to take over his body, so far, all of the evidence points to the contrary. Master Makoto also made it clear that we don't yet know if an Astra retains their own power after transitioning bodies.

My heart rate begins to slow, and I take another deep breath, returning the majority of my focus to my homework. I do keep half an eye on the wolfhound as he approaches, almost uncomfortably close, and stands over my left shoulder. I can feel his Spirit's glare drilling into the back of my forehead, but I stoically ignore it, scratching out equations and solutions to the biology questions in the textbook. It's not homework, just studying for the unit we're currently on, but if there's anything I've found about myself, it's that I need to keep myself interested in the subject somehow to avoid just hooky-ing the class.

Eventually, the heat of that glare fades, and after another moment, I glance behind myself. Having confirmed he's well and truly gone with a full-circle glance around myself, I immediately begin packing up. My motions, while calm, are still far faster than usual, and I find myself grateful that I decided not to study with any of my three physical friends. I don't feel like answering questions right now.

With everything packed into my bag, I stand fast, nearly knocking over the chair I was sitting in. I grab it, steady it, then push it back in, before spinning around and making my way in a rush back to my dorm. I close the door and lock it tight once I get back into my room, and without even dropping my bag or slipping out of my sandals, I take a few bounding steps over to the window and lock it completely shut as well. Then, finally, I kick off my shoes and drop my bag, both just by the couch, before collapsing onto those cushions, breath coming a bit faster than normal as I forcibly keep myself calm.

I don't attend any of my remaining classes for the day.