Shortly after Maxine entered the lady's room, another girl left, looking rather hurried. Through the open door, the sound of metal clips on porcelain could be heard over the sounds of running water.

The scuffle was muffled by the closing door.

Later--a few minutes later--the hand drier started.

When Maxine emerged again, she was wearing that same beaming smile. A glistening pile of paperclips sulked under the door in her wake, staying near the wall. It clearly wanted nothing to do with the red head, or its own superbly cleaned shame.

Maxine held out her hand for the umbrella. "I'll take that back now. Thanks." She turned her smile on the dirty blonde. "Now where we, Aurum?"

Shin pressed the umbrella into Maxine's hand gently.

"Coffee," He cut in. He looked to Aurum, as if calling the man's bluff. "He was going to take us to go get coffee. Right, Aurum?" Jab jab. Take that, Mister 'watching me for any signs of faltering'. Two could play that game.

"... Thought we were going for the tour, Shin?" Aurum replied glibly. He smiled at Maxine. "Coffee can come later. My treat?"

It was pretty slick of Shin to try and best him at the game of 'pickup', but this wasn't basketball. There's more to this game than dribbling, Shin. One had to play it cool.

"So, where's the first place a new student like Shin should go?" Aurum asked Maxine, momentarily ignoring any possible looks of ire on Shin's face.

Maxine accepted the umbrella with a smile, giving it a little twirl to shoo the pen flock off while she closed it. The pens resettled, largely on the shoulders of anyone and everyone nearby. The one already under Aurum's lapel protested others joining it, and briefly fluttered out to chase the interlopers off.

She flashed a smile to Shin, for minding the umbrella for her. It was a smile that properly hid her minor dislike for the Asian. It was one of life's tasteless insults, to use a lady to jab at your friend. Particularly when the lady in question was interested in said friend. The true crime came, of course, when the Asian invited himself along.

She wanted her coffee, and she wanted Aurum, and she quite liked the idea of that treating of his. There was a cozy little campus coffee shop, near the cafeteria. With tables for two.

See the extra element, in this equation?

Maxine slid her smile over to Aurum. "I'd love to."

>> "So, where's the first place a new student like Shin should go?"

"Well," the red head tapped her chin, "does he need to register for classes, still? Then either Guidance or the Registrar's Office are the places to go. That might take awhile, though." She blinked, as an idea ever so suddenly dropped into her head, and innocently dropped from her lips. "We could get that coffee, while we wait."

She clasped her hands behind her back, the umbrella between them, and kept right on smiling.

Operation Japanese Isolation was now in effect.

How dare he. How. Dare. He?

How dare he turn that back on him? Then, he went and invited her out for coffee, anyways! That part, Shin… didn’t really mind, actually. If Aurum wanted to go out for coffee with Maxine, that was fine, really. He didn’t care. But, the other thing, grr! And then, they were talking about him like he wasn’t even there… inwardly, Shin sighed. And she was suggesting her and Aurum get coffee while he was doing that? Okay. He could see where this was going.

“I, uh, guess I could go find all this stuff myself. I’ll see you later, Aurum. Bye, Maxine.” Shin stated sheepishly. He turned, and started walking down the hall.

Coffee was a-go. Aurum returned to smile, and raised her a “Great.” Then, he turned his focus back towards Shin for the moment. And after Maxine’s answer, Shin… left? Er. “You sure, Shin?” He asked the Asian. “You don’t have to find it yourself. We can still show you where to go… you don’t need us to be there for your entire class sign-up session, right?”

He looked to Maxine for help here. The entire point of coming today was to help Shin out. Maxine’s idea had sounded good to him. Aurum had no idea why Shin suddenly wanted to run off and leave them alone.

The Asian got it. With that level of basic intelligence, Maxine was sure he'd do just fine in college. At least at the social aspects.

>> “You sure, Shin? You don’t have to find it yourself. We can still show you where to go… you don’t need us to be there for your entire class sign-up session, right?”

Maxine put on her very best worried expression. "Are you sure, Shin? The offices are just down this hall and up a floor, but it's no problem to walk you there." Off he was going. "The coffee shop is in the basement, when you're done. Just follow your nose--you can't miss it." Unless he happened to take a few wrong turns, in the labyrinth around the school store. In that case, he might get slowed down just a bit. Shucks.

Maxine hooked her arm through Aurum's, with a smile. "Quite the independent friend you've got, there. Did you two go to high school together?" With a certain failing at ladylike demure, Maxine started leading the way to the coffee shop.

Rex sulkily trailed them, sticking mostly to the shadows under benches and behind potted plants.

Was he sure? Sure enough as the redhead was giving him directions on how he could get where he needed to get, gone. Shin smiled weakly at the both of them. "Yeah, I'm fine. Really. You two have fun."

He was fine. Really. They were consenting adults, going for coffee. He was an adult, signing up for college classes. Aurum was right. Shin didn't need them to watch over his shoulder as he signed up. He could handle it on his own. Aurum had done his part to get his buns in gear. Shin wasn't hurt. Not even a little bit annoyed with the fearsome redhead for sinking her fangs into his friend right in front of him. Nope. Those such thoughts were certainly the furthest from Shin's mind. He was more intent on thinking of the directions she'd given him.

Down the hall, and up a floor...

And there he went, down the hall. If that wasn't 'sure', it was certain enough for Aurum. That was too bad. Now, whatever would he do with his afternoon? For a second, Aurum felt like frowning, or making some sort of face to show the sincere disapproval of Shin's scurrying off. Then, his eyes slid back to Maxine Ralls... and any thoughts of frowning evaporated like steamed milk.

>>"Quite the independent friend you've got, there. Did you two go to high school together?"

She hooked her arm around his own. Aurum's eyes dropped, first to the floating pen near his lapel, then beyond it, to the arm. He looked back up at her, and shook his head with a slight smirk. "We work together." He offered, and starting walking as she led the way. "At the Full Circle book store. He's usually more outgoing than that. Anyways..." The apologetic smile shifted back to a somewhat-smirk, as he looked ahead, towards the coffee shop. His eyes met those of the other barista in a momentary look of kinship and understanding, then swung back to Maxine with interest. "What will you have?"

Good Aurum. Don't mind the pen, or the powers. Good, good dirty blonde boy.

>> "We work together. At the Full Circle book store. He's usually more outgoing than that. Anyways... What will you have?"

"Mmm, chai please. Small." Maxine was not a fan of carrying around jumbo cups.

Once their drinks were served, and they'd secured one of the little round tables by the wall, Maxine pursued the hunt.

"The Full Circle?" She asked, blinking her green eyes curiously over her chai's brim. Mmm, chai. Mmm, hand warmer. It was warmer outside than it had been at Christmas, that was for sure, but a girl could still appreciate her drink. "I've heard of it. The owner is... Vega? The white haired woman, with the coexistence philosophy?" Good, good Aurum. That's right--work at the mutant friendly bookstore. Was he a mutant too, or just a tolerant human? Either way, he'd just earned himself a checkmark on her list of prerequisites. The Registrar wasn't the only one who could weed through candidates.

"So what's your major?" She asked. A nummy scalding sip later, she continued; "You go to school here too, or somewhere else?"

Rex, meanwhile, had crawled under their table. A silver mesh of malcontent wrapped, glittering, around the pole stand that supported their table. One tentacle reached up, and began playing with the screws.

Mmm, screws.

“Yeaaaah… hold on. Susan?” The brunette behind the counter asked. An older woman with horn-rimmed glasses stepped up from her desk, and walked over to stand next to the frazzled-looking brunette. The brunette tapped a few keys on the keyboard haphazardly, and shook her head.

Shin’s eyes swung from the computer problems, to the name tag, and up to ‘Susan’. It seemed the new recruit, ‘Betty’, wasn’t that good with computers yet. He’d only asked her to help him set up classes, and she’d locked herself out of the system. Betty sighed, and put a hand to her forehead.

“I just don’t get it…” She muttered.

Susan suppressed a light chuckle. “You’ll figure it out soon enough, dear. Watch what I’m doing here…” She hunched over the keyboard to demonstrate.

“…” Shin glanced over his shoulder, at the quickly-building line. Five people, all impatient… this could take a while… a while was probably exactly what Aurum wanted, too.

Maxine ordered a chai tea, and Aurum ordered a small cup of french roast coffee. He sipped it thoughtfully, and set it down on the table.

Chai tea, he noted. She hadn't ordered coffee, just tea. One could tell a lot about peoples' drink preferences. That was interesting.

She was also interested about the Full Circle. Aurum nodded. "Yeah, Vega. She also goes by 'Maya', or 'Ghost'. Nice woman." One of his closest friends, actually. A member of the original 'Scoobies' group at the Full Circle. Her, him, and Shin. "I went to her wedding," Aurum added. "She married a doctor." Who happened to be a unicorn. Aurum left that last part out. It was off-the-record, after all. Though, 'She married a unicorn' sounded a whole lot more interesting...

On the topic of majors, Aurum had all too much to state. "I'm studying to be a lawyer. A defense attorney, actually. I go here, but usually it's a different part of the campus. And I usually apply for my classes online, hence the 'needing directions'." He stated with a good-humored laugh. "What about you?"

Vega, Maya, and Ghost? Maxine couldn't remember if the woman was human or mutant, from the snippets she'd skimmed in the papers and watched in her daily personal crusade to keep abreast of the competition. Judging by those monikers, though, she was willing to assume 'mutant' until proven otherwise. Especially given that last one. A phaser of some sort, she'd probably put her money on. Or an astral-projector.

The rest of what Aurum was saying threatened to get drowned out by one word: lawyer.

Lawyer, as in law student.

Lawyer, as in that aspirational line on her mental checklist that she had never yet found.

Lawyer, as in take him home and don't let him leave.

"Investigative Journalism," Maxine answered, with a cool sip at her tea. "I'd like to move out of the fiery rhetoric camp at some point. It's just a way to get my name out there for now." And, hopefully, to make herself too valuable to Fox News for them to easily ditch when her internship was up.

"Defense attorney, huh? Very cool. Undergrad or grad?" She took another sip of her tea, crossing her toes for grad. He was old enough to be grad, but young enough to be either.

Suddenly, Betty had gotten it down. It only took six minutes of lecturing from Susan, and a few good hard glares from the people in line. She tapped at the keyboard nervously, eyes rising every now and then to fall on Shin. "So, what classes are you registering for?" She asked, after getting his student information.

The six minute wait had been plenty of time for Shin to consider the answer to this before the question had presented itself. Graphic design, he knew he wanted. Mathematics, also. A higher math combined with a computer programming class specializing in making shapes seemed like it'd be a good thing to have, as far as his powers were concerned. History and speech, he'd decided on, because they were things he'd need to get out of the way soon enough. Intro to Computers and Programming, he picked just because it sounded like something he might want before he tackled graphic design. It'd be a good refresher, after all. Shin told the woman what he wanted.

She tapped a few keys, took in a hiss of air, and announced most of the classes he wanted were full. She'd have to put him on the 'waitlist'.

'Waitlisted...'

"Oh." Well, that wasn't fun.

Investigative Journalism, she said. That sounded like a fun major. Aurum had seen her on Wolf news, and from the way she portrayed herself there, it sounded right up her alley. She'd said it was a way to get her name out in the eye of the public. "Of couse," Aurum agreed. "I've seen your show once or twice. You're good."

He took a thoughtful sip of his coffee as he dropped the compliment.

She asked him about his current status with law school. "Graduate," he replied. "Right now, I'm enrolled at NYU's Law School, working on my J.D. degree."