[centre][img]https://s29.postimg.org/6w5i9twgn/rsz_rodrigo_10.jpg[/img][hr][h1][color=00FF7F]Rui Rosas[/color][/h1][hr]
[u][color=00FF7F]Location:[/color][/u] Rui's apartment.
[u][color=00FF7F]Interacting With:[/color][/u] [@HushedWhispers] → Phillip (text)[/centre]
[hr]

Rui was a morning person.

Perhaps it was the fact that other people were typically too tired to bother him, or that breakfast was his favourite meal, and it certainly helped that his schedule tended to be light, but he found himself sprung out of the bed with a vigour and enthusiasm that used to disturb his housemates. 

He didn’t have housemates now, thank God. His apartment was his own: comfortable, albeit studio, it was bare but for the essentials. It was also, as one might expect, in near-meticulous order. His gym clothes hung, prepared, on a clothes rail, partitioned from his afternoon-wear and evening-wear. Routine dictated that he would be in those clothes in two minutes and outside for his jog within five - forty minutes later he’d return, shower and moisturise. But sometimes he would check his email, and that morning such an unfortunate decision was made:

[centre][b]Inbox::Dirk_Vogtz@NYU.edu[/b]

signed you up to present your jmp 20/04 @ georgia, hope you don’t mind. should be good practice for the summer. D.[/centre]

[color=00FF7F][i]Caralho![/i][/color]

Rui’s brow furrowed but the intensity of his gaze failed to bore a hole through the laptop screen. The expletives grew more violent: the message remained and it seemed to glare back. There was a pause, a despondent grunt followed, and then, with the lyrical fluency of someone who had spent too much of the last decade in lecture halls, he rapidly typed a response.

[centre][b]SentMail::Dirk_Vogtz@NYU.edu[/b]

[color=00FF7F]Hi Dirk,
Great news. Looking forward to it.
Let me put some polish to it, and I will drop around with the product some time next week. Talk about it in detail then, too. 
Kind regards,
Rui Rosas.[/color][/centre]

“[color=00FF7F]Caralho.[/color]” That time he swore out loud; his head sunk into his hands. Truth was, his job market paper wasn’t close to finished. In fact, he hadn’t touched it since December. God knows what he had been doing instead - the last number of months were a blur. The barest of considerations were offered to that, still. Instead, his mind raced with imaginings of his father’s disappointment. The sudden feeling of nausea that induced forced his gaze up and out of his arms. 

With furious intent he began to type.

He couldn’t be a failure.

[hr]
The buzz of his phone was ignored at first, and at second. It was with the third buzz that he surrendered. His fingers glided across the screen to build a house, unlocking the phone. His face dropped as he scanned the messages. He’d completely forgotten about Phillip’s birthday - and the party. Eyes crinkling as he considered his options, a hand automatically began tugging his hair. He couldn’t outright abandon it at this late stage - God knew he had been doing that too much lately - so when he decided that was actually what he was going to do, he worded the message as diplomatically as possible. In other words, he lied.

[centre][b][Phillip Daniels:][/b]

[color=00FF7F]Hey, dude. Happy birthday! Just warning in advance I might be a bit late tonight. There’s some uni stuff happening and I’m not sure what time I will be able to wriggle out of it. I’ll head over as soon as I’m finished though!
Just make sure no-one steals vanity. Save me having to get changed!;)[/color][/centre]

The send button was hit with the slightest tinge of guilt. He couldn’t keep doing this to his friends.