Pazel was stuffing his mouth full of sinfully delicious cheese cake when a familiar voice turned his head away from his plate towards Sebastian Jung. “Good to see you here. I had no idea you'd been invited! I recommend the truffles. Well, I recommend everything. Gloria always puts on a tremendous spread.” Pazel’s eyes widen in recognition. It was his counselor—…tutor—…professor? In all honesty, Pazel had no idea what Mr. Jung’s professional standing was in the University. As soon as his first academic semester began, Pazel was told that he was required to participate in private meetings with Mr. Jung. Considering his occasional academic struggles —who was he kidding, the presence of at least one failing grade each semester was as constant as the number of inches in a foot— Pazel believed that the University deemed him mentally retarded and decided that he needed all the help he could get. Even with a special counselor-teacher person and a graduate student tutor Pazel still failed some courses. Man. How in the world did he even get admitted into Anderson University? Not based on his SAT scores, that’s for sure. Maybe the private school did charity work. 

Automatically, Pazel placed his fork onto the plate in his other hand, and firmly shook Mr. Jung’s open hand. He wanted to vocally respond to Mr. Jung, or at least give him a smile, but the contents in Pazel’s mouth prohibited him from doing either. Instead, Pazel made a few gestures and mumbling noises that made absolutely no sense. When Pazel discovered that he was possibly the worst person to play charades with, he pointed his index finger straight to ceiling. There was nothing on the ceiling, but Pazel’s hand remained in the same position while he attempted to quickly chew and swallow down the cake. 

An awkward moment slowly inched its way by. With the exception of his jaw, Pazel was as still as a living statue and right behind him was his ever watchful Aunt Sophie, whose eyes narrowed at Sebastian. Without ever looking away, she passed a cup of water to Pazel when he started to cough from a piece of cake going down the wrong pipe. After thanking his aunt for the water, Pazel finally turned to Mr. Jung and gave him his best smile.

“Sorry about that Mr. Jung. I got kind of carried away with the sweets. You missed me orgasm over the chocolate truffles. Do you know where they get them? I need to know where they buy them… If you were talking about the fungus kind… well…” Pazel looked around his surrounding and leaned in to whisper. “Let’s just say I don’t know what all the fuss is about. Don’t get me wrong. The food was good. But I think truffles are over rated.” Pazel returned to his previous position and voice volume. “As for why I was invited… apparently for my Uncle to publicly humiliate his, or my, whole family.” Pazel turned to his aunt with a smile before she could restate her past comment. “I know that’s not what you meant. I’m just giving you a hard time.” He turned to Mr. Jung again. “As you can see, I’ve already succeeded in making some of the guests laugh at me. Oh and at my costume. Did you know there’s such things as a formal Halloween party---… Never mind, unless you dressed up as James Bond, you knew this was a formal party. You look dashing by the way.” Pazel tilted his head. “Actually. Why are you here Mr. Jung?” Suddenly Pazel’s caramel skin paled slightly. He took a few steps away from his counselor-tutor-teacher. “Don’t tell me you already got the results of my math test.” 

Sophie’s eyebrow rose at the worried tone of voice. She crossed her arms and shifted her weight to one leg. Her eyes demanded Sebastian to tell her that IF he had the results of Pazel’s math exam that she would know it. Now.