By Tuesday morning, nobody used the word faction anymore.
We simply behaved like one.
Kitty, NC, Anna, Jihye, JP, and I entered Campus 2 through the North Gate.
June, Bunny, Cherry, TZ, and NS came through the eastern walkway.
We reached the pathology building at almost the same time.
Nobody waited for the others.
The Grand Fountain remained empty between us.
Workers had placed metal barriers around its basin during the night. One of the stone panels had been removed, exposing a pipe stained orange near the joint. A university maintenance team stood beside it with two men whose uniforms displayed no company name.
Jihye slowed.
"That is not ordinary rust."
JP looked at the pipe.
"I respect your confidence, but rust is already orange."
"The stain continues against the direction of the leak."
"I withdraw my contribution."
One of the unnamed workers noticed Jihye's phone.
He placed his body between her camera and the open panel.
The movement was casual enough to be denied.
It was also immediate.
Anna touched Jihye's elbow.
"We have class."
Jihye lowered the phone.
She did not delete the photograph.
Beyond the fountain, the campus lake reflected a sky too bright for the cold wind moving across it. Dead fish had collected near the southern drainage grille. Three groundskeepers removed them with long nets while students were directed toward another path.
"Maintenance," NC read from the temporary sign.
"Everything is maintenance now," Kitty said.
Thunder moved somewhere beyond Campus 1.
There were no clouds.
My phone had received three messages before breakfast.
The first came from Kitty.
KITTY: DID YOU CALL THE THERAPIST?
The second came from Grandmother.
GRANDMOTHER: THE DOCTOR WANTS MORE TESTS. NOTHING TO WORRY ABOUT. ATTEND CLASS.
The third came from the therapist's office.
APPOINTMENT CONFIRMED: THURSDAY, 4:30 P.M.
I had answered only the third.
Kitty caught me reading Grandmother's message outside the lecture hall.
"What did the doctor say?"
"More tests."
"For what?"
"She didn't say."
"Did you call her?"
"Twice. My aunt answered and said she was resting."
Kitty's expression softened.
"Do you want to go there after class?"
"She will throw both of us out if I miss the tutorial."
"Only you. She likes me."
"That developed disturbingly fast."
"Competence is attractive."
"She called me complicated."
"Exactly."
She held out her hand.
"Show me the appointment."
I opened the confirmation.
"Thursday," she said. "Good."
"You sound like my parole officer."
"A parole officer would trust you more."
June passed us with Bunny and Cherry.
Her eyes moved from Kitty's hand to my phone.
She did not stop.
NS followed beside TZ.
He looked at me once before entering the room.
It was not long enough to become a challenge.
It was too deliberate to be nothing.
Dr. Lola had arranged eleven chairs around a single rectangular table.
Our pathology scores were projected on the screen without names.
The curve looked like a cliff after the first three positions.
"You performed better than the class average," she said, "which is an achievement only if you promise not to ask what the class average was."
JP leaned toward me.
"I no longer want the achievement."
"The midterm exposed the same weakness across this cohort. You memorized mediators and definitions. You did not consistently connect them to clinical findings. Today, we correct that."
She divided the table with her hand.
"No notes for the first case. Discuss aloud. If you disagree, explain why. Volume is not evidence."
The seating became another problem to solve.
NS took the chair nearest the screen.
June sat beside him.
Bunny, Cherry, and TZ occupied that half of the table.
Kitty chose the chair opposite June.
I sat beside her.
NC, Anna, Jihye, and JP filled the remaining spaces.
Dr. Lola looked at the arrangement.
"Interesting."
"Efficient," NS said.
"I did not ask for a defense."
The first case appeared.
A 19-year-old student cuts her hand while preparing food. Within several hours, the area becomes red, warm, swollen, and painful.
"Explain each feature," Dr. Lola said.
NS answered first.
"Redness and warmth result mainly from arteriolar vasodilation and increased local blood flow."
"Swelling comes from increased vascular permeability," June added. "Protein-rich fluid moves into the extravascular tissue."
"Pain is from pressure and inflammatory mediators," Kitty said. "Bradykinin and prostaglandins contribute."
Dr. Lola looked toward my side.
"XH, what type of fluid accumulates?"
"Exudate. It has more protein and cells than a transudate because inflammation increases vascular permeability."
"JP, define transudate."
JP sat straighter.
"Low-protein fluid caused more by hydrostatic or oncotic pressure imbalance than inflammation."
Dr. Lola nodded.
JP looked around the table.
"Comedy King also reads. Please update the records."
For a moment, everyone smiled.
Then the second slide appeared.
A wound sample collected six hours after injury contains numerous neutrophils. Describe how they reached the tissue.
TZ began quietly.
"Margination first, as slower blood flow moves leukocytes toward the vessel wall."
"Rolling," Anna continued. "Then firm adhesion to the endothelium."
"Transmigration through the vessel wall," Jihye said. "Then chemotaxis toward the injury."
"Which molecules mediate rolling?" Dr. Lola asked.
Nobody answered immediately.
NS tapped his pen once.
"Selectins."
"And firm adhesion?"
"Integrins," I said.
NS looked across the table.
"After endothelial activation."
"Obviously."
Dr. Lola's eyes moved between us.
"If it were obvious, XH, you would have included it."
Cherry lowered her face to hide a smile.
Heat rose into my neck.
NS turned his pen between his fingers.
"Incomplete answers lose marks."
"Thank you, first position."
June looked at me.
"He was answering the question."
"I heard him."
"Then why are you acting like he insulted you?"
Kitty leaned forward.
"Because he added something after XH answered so everyone would know he knew more."
"Maybe he did know more," Bunny said.
NC closed her workbook.
"That wasn't Kitty's point."
"Then what was her point?" Cherry asked.
"That some people answer questions and some people perform answers."
The room changed temperature.
TZ looked toward JP.
JP lifted both hands.
"I was told volume is not evidence. I refuse appointment as foreign minister."
Dr. Lola switched off the projector.
The sudden darkness silenced everyone.
"The neutrophil does not argue with the endothelium," she said. "It recognizes signals, adheres, and moves toward the damage. You have made a two-minute pathway more emotionally complicated than the immune system."
Nobody looked proud.
"Five-minute break," she continued. "When I return, I expect eleven Health Track students, not two legal teams."
She left the room.
The door closed.
JP checked the time.
"We achieved inflammation without microbial infection. That may count as clinical application."
Anna covered her face with one hand.
Even TZ laughed.
The pressure fell by one degree.
It did not disappear.
June left the room during the break.
NS followed thirty seconds later.
They stopped beside the windows at the end of the corridor, beyond the view of most students inside.
I could still see them through the glass panel in the door.
Kitty noticed where I was looking.
"You said you didn't care that she was going Friday."
"That is not what I said."
"You said you didn't want to go."
"That is still true."
"And this?"
She tilted her chin toward the corridor.
"I am looking through a window."
"You make honesty sound painful."
"Sometimes it is."
Her expression shifted.
Not anger.
Something more tired.
"I am not asking you to stop having history," she said. "I am asking whether you are here with me while you remember it."
The wind struck the corridor windows hard enough to shake the frames.
Several students looked outside.
The sky remained clear.
I moved my hand beneath the table and touched Kitty's fingers.
"I am here."
She allowed me to hold them.
"Then stay here."
Outside the room, June said something to NS that I could not hear.
He lowered his head toward her.
I stopped watching.
"You didn't need to defend me," NS told June.
"I wasn't defending you. He was being rude."
"Those can both be true."
She glanced at him.
"You are beginning to sound like XH."
"Take that back."
June smiled despite herself.
NS rested one shoulder against the window.
"Are you ready for Friday?"
"Cherry has sent me fourteen clothing options. I am ready to cancel my phone."
"That wasn't what I meant."
Her smile faded.
"I know."
"VT will be there."
"VT goes anywhere people can see him spend money."
"You should stay away from his table."
"I already planned to."
"He doesn't treat no as a complete sentence."
June studied his face.
"Do you know something?"
"I know his type."
"That is not the same answer."
NS looked through the window.
Below them, workers closed another path around the campus lake.
"Stay near me on Friday," he said.
June folded her arms.
"That sounds less like advice and more like an instruction."
"Then ignore the wording."
"What if I ignore both?"
He looked at her again.
"You won't."
The certainty should have annoyed her.
Instead, it made something warm move beneath her ribs.
She hated that he noticed.
"We are still not telling anyone," she said.
"I know."
"Especially not Friday."
"I know."
"And you are not buying a table to compete with VT."
NS paused.
June narrowed her eyes.
"You already bought one."
"Reserved."
"That is the same thing with a future tense."
"It is upstairs. Quieter."
"It is a nightclub."
"Quieter is relative."
She shook her head.
"You billionaire children are exhausting."
"My father will be disappointed to learn I am merely exhausting."
Dr. Lola appeared at the other end of the corridor.
June stepped away from NS before she could see the distance between them.
He noticed that too.
Neither mentioned it.
The third case concerned a patient with fever, leukocytosis, and a painful right lower abdomen.
This time, Dr. Lola assigned each answer.
Bunny explained the systemic effects of inflammatory cytokines.
Cherry distinguished leukocytosis from leukemia after JP deliberately confused them.
NC described why appendicitis could begin with vague central abdominal pain before localizing.
Anna explained that neutrophils usually dominate early acute inflammation.
Jihye identified possible complications if the appendix ruptured.
TZ summarized why clinical findings mattered more than memorizing a list of mediators.
Nobody fought.
That was not the same as cooperating.
Near the end, Dr. Lola displayed four anonymous short answers from the midterm.
The first was precise and complete.
The second was elegant but cautious.
The third was accurate and brief.
The fourth contained three correct ideas written in the wrong order, followed by an answer squeezed into the margin.
JP leaned toward me.
"The fourth one has our handwriting energy."
"We have different handwriting."
"Spiritual handwriting."
Dr. Lola revealed the positions.
First: NS.
Second: June.
Third: Kitty.
Fourth: JP and XH.
A few students laughed at the margin answer.
My face warmed again.
"The fourth response earned the same mark through two different weaknesses," Dr. Lola said. "JP knew the structure but doubted the facts. XH knew the facts but lost control of time."
The room went quiet.
Everyone knew I had entered the examination late and completed it in twenty minutes.
Nobody knew why I had overslept.
I did not know either.
"Both problems are correctable," Dr. Lola continued. "But only if you stop treating the result as an identity. Ranking describes one examination. It does not declare a permanent order."
NS wrote the sentence down.
I saw him do it.
"Some people seem comfortable with the order," I said.
The words left before I could measure them.
NS placed his pen down.
"Some people blame the clock when preparation fails."
"I did not fail."
"Then stop speaking like fourth place is an injustice."
"I share fourth place with JP. It is a privilege."
JP nodded solemnly.
"Finally, responsible leadership."
June did not laugh.
"He didn't say your mark was unfair," she told me. "You brought it up."
"You keep translating for him."
"Maybe because you only hear what makes you angry."
Kitty's chair moved against the floor.
"And maybe you enjoy saying things that make him angry."
June turned toward her.
"I wasn't speaking to you."
"You were speaking about him."
"That doesn't make you his lawyer."
"No. It makes me someone who is actually on his side."
The sentence landed harder than Kitty intended.
June's face became still.
NS looked at Kitty.
I looked at June.
Dr. Lola closed the case file.
"Tutorial over."
Nobody moved.
"Now," she said.
Chairs pulled away from the table.
The room divided cleanly.
We reached the corridor before June spoke.
"What did she mean by that?"
I turned.
Kitty stood beside me. NS stood beside June.
Our friends formed two uneven lines behind us.
"She meant you were defending NS," I said.
"She said she was the one actually on your side."
"It was an argument."
"It sounded specific."
Kitty looked at me.
I could feel NC, Anna, and Jihye silently requesting permission to lie.
JP looked at the ceiling as if an escape route might be written there.
"Why do you care?" I asked.
June's eyes narrowed.
"I asked a question."
"You are standing beside your answer."
NS moved one step forward.
"Careful."
"I wasn't speaking to you."
June let out one humorless breath.
"You both use the same lines and still believe you are different."
"We are different," NS said.
"That is what worries me."
The corridor speakers announced a temporary closure of the western laboratory taps due to water-quality testing.
For several seconds, the mechanical voice filled the space between us.
TZ broke the silence.
"The library room is reserved until four. We still have two cases."
"I'm going," June said.
Cherry and Bunny followed her.
NS remained long enough to look at me.
"Friday," he said. "Stay home."
"I was already planning to."
"Good. Do one thing before it becomes a problem."
He walked away with TZ.
Kitty caught my wrist before I followed.
"No."
"I wasn't going to do anything."
"You were going to improve his posture with a wall."
JP lifted one finger.
"Medically, that is not an approved treatment."
"Thank you, fourth position," I said.
"Our rank survives another crisis."
NC waited until NS disappeared around the corner.
"He wanted you to react."
"He wanted me to stay home."
"Those can both be true," Anna said.
Everyone had become infected with my sentences.
The library room had glass walls.
Our table occupied one side.
June's occupied the other.
We studied inflammation within sight of each other for two hours.
Nobody crossed the aisle.
At 3:18, an international-program notice appeared in the Health Track channel.
APPLICATION BRIEFING: PARTNER MEDICAL SCHOOLS AND POSTGRADUATE PATHWAYS
DESTINATIONS INCLUDE THE UNITED KINGDOM, AUSTRALIA, SINGAPORE, AND JAPAN.
Bunny read it aloud.
"United Kingdom. June, that's yours."
June looked up from her notes.
"Maybe."
Cherry smiled.
"That was too fast to be maybe."
"I've been researching programs."
"Since when?" Bunny asked.
"Last year."
My pen stopped.
June continued as though the other table did not exist.
"Some programs have stronger clinical placements, and I want somewhere I can build a life without everyone already knowing what I am supposed to become."
NS looked at her.
"London?"
"Maybe London. Maybe somewhere quieter."
"You hate cold weather," I said.
The room heard me because I had spoken into its silence.
June turned.
"I can buy a coat."
"You complain when Campus 2 drops below twenty degrees."
"People adapt."
"You never said you wanted to leave."
Her expression changed.
"You never asked."
"We talked about the future."
"We talked about the version of it you expected me to share."
Kitty's pen stopped beside mine.
NS closed his book.
"The briefing is Thursday," he told June. "I'll go with you."
"You don't want the UK."
"I can still listen."
She smiled at him.
It was small.
It was private.
It happened in front of me anyway.
"Fine," she said.
I looked down at my notes.
The page contained the same sequence written three times.
Margination. Rolling. Adhesion. Transmigration. Chemotaxis.
Every step brought the cell closer to the site of injury.
Nothing in the pathway explained how to make it turn around.
JP's Diary
Dr. Lola said ranking is not identity.
This is excellent because fourth place has too many tenants.
Today we learned that inflammation begins when damaged tissue sends signals.
The signal brings more cells.
The cells bring more signals.
Eventually the response becomes larger than the original injury.
I believe this is also how group chats work.
June wants the United Kingdom.
NS offered to attend the briefing.
XH said nothing for nine minutes afterward.
Kitty counted.
Friday is three days away.
Nobody wants to go to Bliss except almost everyone.
At 5:06, the university sent another notice.
WEDNESDAY PRACTICAL: INITIAL ASSESSMENT OF THE ALTERED PATIENT
ATTENDANCE MANDATORY. STUDENTS WILL BE ASSESSED IN TEAMS.
JP read it over my shoulder.
"Altered patient sounds rude."
"It means altered mental status."
"Then tomorrow we learn what to do when someone cannot think clearly."
Across the glass wall, June placed her phone beside NS's.
The Bliss poster remained open on both screens.
"Yes," I said.
Outside, rain began falling from an almost cloudless sky.
"We should probably learn that."