Somewhere near the paths leading down to the McHenry Library were a few deer, grazing at whatever grass was left after such a long and hot summer. It isn’t really a rare thing to see deer roaming the Santa Cruz campus, seeing as it was in a forest setting, and they especially began to wander at the beginning of fall quarter, on those cool, refreshing nights. One of the larger deer—a female—wandered out onto the road, taking quiet, soft steps, on its leisurely stroll to the other side, where the grass seemed to be a bit fresher and greener. Suddenly coming to a halt, the deer lifted its head slightly, ears twitching as they picked up a far away sound coming closer and closer to the herd of deer. A car? A bus? There wasn’t really much time to contemplate the approaching noise (now sounding more like a swarm of angry bears), and action needed to be taken to protect the recently born fawn. With that, the deer took off in a hopping sprint, back to where the rest of the herd was, just in time to lead them away from the approaching racket and its indistinguishable form.

“But seriously guys! We gotta get it together so we can be a real boy band for life!” Michelle said while still laughing at her and Mark’s previous attempt to have a rap battle. “Like, 2DMG can be a thing. Real Talk.”

“UH! 2DMG! WE’RE 2DMG!” Mark bellowed in the best “ghetto rap” voice he could produce, while the rest of their group laughed out loud at how ridiculous the whole idea sounded.

“alright tho, gotta be ‘onest ‘ere, we gotta ‘ave at least two british people in our band.” Michelle decided for the rest of them. Not seeing any takers, she promptly pointed to Deserae, who gave her a funny look.

“You can’t possibly think that I’m gonna be another British one! It’s un’eard of!”Michelle grinned widely as she heard Deserae reject her idea in the best British accent she could muster.

“Are you a British rapper then? Do I have to be British?” Tiffany asked, unsure of what her role was now that their ethnicities had changed.

“Only if ya want ta luv.” Michelle ran in front of them, turning to face them, when she suddenly started howling. “I’M A TWENTY-YEAR-OLD TEEN WOLF. DON’T TRY TO TELL ME WHAT TO BEEEEEEEE!” Belting out the last few lines while her friends laughed and yelled out various comments at her performance, amongst them Deserae’s, “I will never sing that song. It won’t be a thing!”, Michelle ran backwards ahead of her friends, only to turn around and suddenly bump into someone she clearly hadn’t seen.

“Oh . Sorry! I’m so sorry.” Her voice had gone back to normal, and was a lot more quiet and apologetic than just a few seconds ago. “Sorry, I really wasn’t watching where I was going!”

“Yeah, clearly.” Scoffed the person she had bumped into. Michelle looked up at them and saw a young boy, looking very flustered and annoyed at having been disturbed. He looked down at her disapprovingly before pushing her out of the way with a, “Whatever. Don’t let it happen again freshman.”

Michelle scoffed. Wow. Of course he would think she was a freshman—she looked young and was often confused for being fifteen, also her behavior didn’t exactly deem her the mature type amongst strangers, but she knew herself better. Honestly though, while she should have been more bothered at the fact he pushed her, she couldn’t stop thinking to herself: But he totally looks younger than I do….

“What happened?” Michelle’s friends caught up to her, the first one being Tiffany, who had decided to run after her, while the rest complained about how they were still tired from their nightly run at the track. “You look like you smelled something really gross.” Tiffany laughed at Michelle’s unpleased expression.

“Eh, I bumped into some guy but he was really rude about it.”

“Oh, was it that dood?” Tiffany looked behind her at the retreating figure that had just passed their group of friends.

“Yep. Anyway, I’m starving, are we going to eat?” Michelle asked, hoping that the answer would be the one she wanted to hear.

“Yeah, we can still go to late night, it’s only 9:30. Should we go straight from here?”

“Yeah. Let’s wait for these guys tho. HEY! SLOWPOKES! CATCH UP YOU WEENIES!”