“I spent my holiday with my parents. Whilst I was in pain I did manage to hide it from them for the duration of Christmas time. To distract myself from the fight and anger that dwelled within me I told them about all the good things we did, all the fun, and even the house me and my friends were going to move into the next year. But those weeks felt too short and in no time I was back in my room at university.”

The room was as it had been before, no signs of anything wrong with it. Whilst Might had not specifically broken Jude’s stuff the whirlwind that was their fight had certainly left his room in a bad state. Well that and him deciding what needed and did not need to be packed upon leaving for home.

Jude sat on the edge of his bed for what felt like hours; he was alone with his thoughts, something he had tried to not allow himself to do whilst home. His anger simmered below the surface. As a kid he had felt sick fantasies of hurting his bullies created by his inability to actually do anything to them. Now he faced a bully who truly threatened his life and he knew he could beat him, kill him.

“Jude!” came a voice from the other side of the door. It snapped him out of his delusions. He stood up and went to the door and stood there was a Jack with his trademark goofy grin. Though it was still cold, even in the halls, he no longer wore his tattered hoodie but instead just a red t-shirt. “Nice to see you buddy. We’re going to play pig and then go into town for some lunch, you wanna join?”

“Sure, who’s we?” The grimace Jude had originally plastered on his face was being cracked and broken.

“Me, Rin, Damian, Kuna, and Amelia said she’d join since the other girls are coming this afternoon so she wanted to hang out.”

“Doesn’t sound too bad.” Jude said with a smile. “Let me put my coat and shoes on and I’ll be out.”

And so they did as Jack said; Jude went into the kitchen and with Amelia joining in they played a five way game of pig – a version of catch where you get 5 misses or bad throws and then you’re out – in which Amelia won, not even dropping a point. Then they picked Kuna off of the sofa and went for some food at the fast food place next door to them. Finally they had a wander around the shop. At no point did anyone mention what had happened just before Christmas, it didn’t come up nor did any of them really want to discuss it.

Among those poorly designed streets of Norfield the friends all got a message informing them of a party; a girl on the first floor was turning twenty at midnight so she was inviting everyone to a birthday party. It was red dresses for the girls and black shirts with red ties for the boys.

It was Kuna who had seen the message first, alerting the rest he was immediately crowded, something that he was getting used to even though it still made him uncomfortable.

Even without a single word exchanged they all knew they were going. What they did discuss was if everyone had the attire necessary to turn up to the party; of course they could have ignored it if they didn’t own anything like that, they were poor from the virtue of being a student, yet they all knew they had to do so. All the boys, except Rin, did not just have shirts and ties lying around so they headed to the nearest cheap clothes shop. Whereas Rin escorted Amelia to a slightly nicer shop for her to get her dress.

That evening was one of the best of everyone’s time at university. The sun had set early and announced the time to start getting ready. Jack had to ask Jude to tie his tie for him, which after a bit of mockery Jude complied. The rest of their floor had moved in over the course that afternoon, in fact the rest of the building had. The fourth floor headed to the party all together around nine o’clock. Their arrival was celebrated and they saw not only people they knew for being in their team but this was pretty much the entire course. The room was full to bursting with people, alcohol, and birthday decorations.

The music that played would become nostalgic to them all. That later 2010s pop and dance tracks mixed with old pop hits and pop punk chart toppers that somehow everyone knew the words to, or if they didn’t were too drunk to care.

There were pictures, oh so many. Every group of girls wanted some. There was of course of a group picture in which only half the people actually were able to focus on even though they were in the middle. There was the one big group selfie where the cameraman’s thumb was slightly on the screen.

As the party was about to leave the halls of residence to go enact their chaos onto the outside world, the boys went to round up their close friends only to find Rin missing. Which after December was starting to become a habit of him ducking out early in a night without letting anyone know.

They text him, which he did not reply to until an hour later but he explained he had “something more important”.

But the rest enjoyed the night nonetheless. They went from club to club. Norfield had been built around the university and thus had a great clubbing scene, especially down north Street. It was essentially just bars and small clubs and most of which were free to enter.

After hours of fun Jude and Nerissa ended up carrying the birthday girl back to her room. Before retiring to Jude’s room themselves. The night had ended as most nights out the two of them were on had, with them in each other’s arms. Jude usually did not remember these encounters very thoroughly but it was one exchange that struck him.

“You are different. You are broken.” Nerissa said. Her English was plain and direct.

“What do you mean?”

“Your eyes. They were so full of kindness before. But now. Nothing.” She rested her hand on his face and looked through him like Jude had seen felt before; those eyes looked like a hunter examining their prey and yet they had so much sadness in them. The two laid there for minutes staring into the other’s soul, having themselves reflected back.

This experience shocked Jude. He knew he needed to harness this anger, this darkness as he came to call it. But at the moment he was poisoning who he was and snuffing out the light, the kind, and he would no longer allow it. He needed to find a good way of utilising both. Maybe he couldn’t, maybe whichever was stronger would become who he was.

But right now, he was content staring at his useless self in the reflection of Nerissa’s eyes as they drifted off to sleep.