meraki.

Much Shorter Than I Thought

The magic that Anna's conceptual maps had created lasted approximatively for a couple of days. 

The moment it started to die was the exact same moment both Anna and Harry had set foot inside the study room they had booked right after Harry's lecture, three days later, on Friday at 14:00 in the afternoon. 

Harry was already in a not so joyful mood, having spent two hours listening to De Angelis babble about myths and connections and symbolism and other things his short-term memory had decided to not pay attention to, nor store in his brain to sort later. Even his brain seemed to be absolutely done with that stuff. He had also noticed, looking around, that he was the only one that wasn't furiously taking notes while De Angelis spoke, pacing back and forth in front of his desk. He had felt the confused stares of some of the guys sitting around him, who probably thought he was absolutely mad, but he had decided to shrug it off. If Anna said he didn't need them, then he didn't need them. There might have been things about her that set him a little off, but he knew for sure the girl knew what she was talking about when she talked about mythology, and if he hadn't been sure before, her flawless maps from the over five hundred pages mythology book had dissipated any doubts. 

The same maps that were now laying atop of the further table from the door - Anna had claimed they would've been able to get less distracted from everything else, if they had spent the time away from any source of noise and whatsoever. 

The study room was completely empty: empty chairs staring at empty tables. Harry knew people had better things to do than spend their Friday afternoon locked away in an old, humid, uninviting study room. 

The room seemed to have been specifically designed to make people feel out of place: everything was so aseptic and lifeless, divided in small cubicles, each separated from the other by a semi-transparent black polyester courtain; white lucid rectangular tables were illuminated by a bright LED ceiling light - that was just hurting Harry's eyes, probably because he kept looking up at it. He was sitting on a black uncomfortable plastic stackable chair, his arms crossed and pressed to his chest, his eyes half-closed, on the verge of dozing off. Just as he was about to slip into a light slumber, his head slowly falling forward, a noise coming from behind him interrupted him. He jumped a little, whipping his head around, just to see Anna bent down to pick up something she had made fall from the giant black bookcase in the middle of the room. 

He cocked one of his eyebrows, staring down at her, his arms still crossed, not even hinting at him moving a single muscle. 

Anna could feel his burning gaze on the back of her neck, from her bent down position, and the thing was starting to annoy her to no end. She rolled her eyes, while she kept gathering the amount of small books that had fallen down. 

"Your help would be much appreciated." - she huffed, finally finishing gathering the small pile of books, and raising up. Harry was still staring at her, an amused expression painted on his features, his lips obscenely puckered, his eyes almost closed from how much they were squinted. 

"I wasn't the one being clumsy enough to make all those books fall, was I?" - he said, popping his lips. - "Not my responsibility, am I right?" 

"A five-year-old, you're literally a five-year-old." - she rolled her eyes, placing the books back where they belonged and finally plopping down on the seat on the other side of the table. She leaned her elbows on the shiny surface, placing her chin on top of her palms, staring right back at Harry, who still looked way too much amused. 

He raised his eyebrows, waiting for her to speak. She raised them too, tapping her fingertips on her cheeks. 

"What.... what are we doing now?" - Harry decided to ask, after the silence had lasted for enough time to make it a quite uncomfortable one.