Hey, Stranger

Coming to Starlight Academy, for Neil, was like he'd been shaken out of his own skin. The panic of not being able to return home had been replaced with a deep-rooted fear that he wasn't able to remember the past five months of his life, and a strange gut feeling that this wasn't any other sort of amnesia. It was as though they'd been lived by someone with his name and face and all of his memories, and then the real Neil had fought his way back into his bodily vessel.

So much so that Neil had barely logged in online. Exploring the academy had become his number one priority once he realized this wasn't some sort of messed-up dream, and he was doing his best to reorient himself. It was lovely, Neil had to give it that. Lots of places to see and areas to explore. More importantly, the food selection was fairly good. He'd heard horror stories of cafeteria food being absolutely abysmal but the breakfast here was actually worth waking up for.

This was why he'd found himself scrambling out of bed at 8:30 in the morning, ready to grab a bite. He swung his dorm door open, only to see a man outside. Maybe someone who knew his roommate? "Sorry about that, excuse me," Neil said, brushing past the other man fairly fast. Breakfast was calling and he was starved.

He was attractive, Neil had to give him that. Kind of like the surfer-guy type of character you saw in Hollywood movies, the sort that would have girls draping themselves all over him. Though there was something oddly familiar about the man? Neil squinted, turning back in his direction for a second before quickly turning right away. It was rude to stare.

Monks could go hours, days, heck, even weeks without eating, and this was one of the many reasons Neil could never be religious. Well, more like excuses, but definitely a good part of Neil's aversion to praying to some higher being in the sky anyway. Why would whatever was up there try to deny the beings it ruled something so wonderful?

Man, food was important, and apparently important enough that he brushed past his friend from the good old RP days. Neil whipped around as soon as he heard his name, eyes widening when he realized who the other person was. "You-- wait."

Oh god. Had they spoken about this? Did they plan to meet up? Were they supposed to coordinate and go down for food together? Was he supposed to know that Simon was here? Neil managed to squeeze out a smile, hoping that his friend wouldn't realize it was forced.

"Simon! It's... Good to see you, at last! How's it going?" Better to say as little as possible so that he didn't let slip that he'd forgotten about, well, literally everything.

"Yeah, the thing with the letter!" Neil laughed, somewhat nervously. God Simon was going to see right through him at this rate. At least they hadn't planned to meet, or had any sort of formal introduction to each other in person. Though man, Simon was one hell of an attractive guy-- the high cheekbones, the smooth features. How did this sort of male model end up on an RP site, anyway?

Right, because Digimon was pretty awesome.

"It's been good. My roommate Jonah is pretty chill. Mostly wandering and meeting people. Plus the food's good, which is a plus." He paused, a genuine smile crossing his features.

"I... Wow, I never thought I'd get to meet you in real life. This is bizarre."

"Yeah, let's go and get food." Neil beamed. Simon sounded so, so familiar-- of course, because he'd heard his voice when they'd called and played video games together, but this was surreal. Who would have thought that he'd find an internet friend here? Certainly not him. Neil started making his way down to the cafeteria, taking a sniff of the air.

"Teriyaki chicken, maybe. It smells awesome."

"Hey. Do you think Digital Horizons is still alive?" He hadn't checked on the website in a while. The last time he'd logged in, the head admin had taken yet another hiatus because of life. Which was what kept him away from the RP days, honestly-- real life. He'd thought that the days where he stayed up until the wee hours of the morning, plotting and planning and talking about ships, would be over.

He supposed one's past always had a way of finding its way back to you.

"I never really decided what happened to any of my characters when I left. I kind of miss it."

"Maybe if we have time we should go back and give DH a nice kick in the rear." Neil smiled at the thought. Where were all his characters, the kids he'd worked on for so long? He could only hope that they were doing okay-- that they weren't languishing in the middle of cyberspace. Neil was still attached to Adam and Jen. He wasn't the best roleplayer, but they'd been fun.

"Then again, who knows? We could get far too busy with college life to do much more." He swiped his ID card and followed Simon into the cafeteria, eyes scanning the rows of food. Okay, he had been wrong about breakfast. Nobody served chicken for breakfast, much less in Japan, though he suspected that he might have been smelling the soy sauce from the Malaysian breakfast noodles. What a variety. The lunch lady spooned a heaping of noodles onto his plate, and Neil mouthed a "thank you."

Then Simon just had to ask the one question he didn't know how to answer.

Neil did his best to quell the lump that suddenly appeared in his throat, to beat down the butterflies in his stomach. "Long story, really," he managed to say, shrugging. God, he really hoped that Simon wasn't going to continue prying about this. They were friends, yes, and good friends at that, but he wasn't sure whether he was going to address the whole lack of memory thing.

Sure, they were in College Hogwarts with Aliens or something, but he had a gut feeling that talking about this would be bad.

"Kind of seemed like a good idea at the time. Talked to my parents, they agreed. What about you?" Luckily he'd always been a decent liar.