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Ten Points

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"What's with the girl?" Asch says, not really as offhandedly as he means to.

"What girl?" Yuri feigns confusion until Asch narrows his eyes and indicates the only occupied table in the shop with his chin. Then Yuri shrugs. "She's some college student, probably."

"I had figured out that much. What's she doing here?"

"Drinking coffee?" Yuri offers, and Asch scowls at him. "Look, I don't know. She ordered a mocha, I gave her straight drip, and she took it and sat down. She's been here for almost an hour." And it is pretty impressive the way she sits balanced on the rickety chair so it doesn't tilt even when she leans in over her books.

"Well, get her out of here!" Asch hisses, crossing his arms and looking pissy.

"Oh, of course. Your wish is my command." Yuri drawls. Asch probably takes it a lot more sincerely than he means, but whatever. This is kind of fun.

Approaching her table, Yuri can see that yeah, the girl's a student - she looks really young up close, but on the table is a thick book titled Magnetic Fundamentals and Motion Devices and another one under it that ends with Dynamics.

He coughs. "Do you need anything?" he says loudly, looking at her empty cup pointedly.

"Huh?" She looks up, blinking at him a few times. "Oh. Sure, I could use some more coffee."

Yuri waits for something else, but she's done, already turned back to whatever she's scribbling in neat columns on lined paper and ignoring him again.

Yuri's mouth quirks into a slight grin as he returns back behind the counter where Asch waits expectantly. "She wants more coffee."

Asch groans and puts a hand to his head. "Well, don't give it to her! At least make her come up her for it. If you bring her another cup she'll never leave."

"No, I've got a better plan. Hang on." Yuri turns away, pulls out a copy of Brave Vesperia's latest from his bag and sticks it in the CD player that Asch almost never lets him use. He cranks the volume up before he hits play.

Asch flinches when the guitar blares, but the girl doesn't even look up. Just when Yuri's started to get into it, Asch reaches past him and slams his hand on the stop button. "That's not working." Yuri just rolls his eyes and leans back against the wall to watch him fume and pace.

"She has to have noticed that there aren't any other people sticking around," Asch finally says in an undertone.

"Of course I have," the girl's voice rings clearly from across the room before Yuri can answer. Both of them don't speak for a moment, and she finishes writing something before she turns around to face them. "What, you think I can't hear you guys over there?"

Yuri and Asch exchange glances.

"What are you still doing here, then?" Asch snaps.

"Homework," she says, with a look like they're both idiots. "What does it look like I'm doing?"

Asch comes out from behind the counter to glower at her directly. "Can't you do it somewhere else?"

"Probably. But the other places I usually go are crowded. No one comes to this dumpy coffee shop."

"She has a point," Yuri says just to make Asch turn his glare at him.

"No, she doesn't. And we're closing in five minutes, so she has to leave."

"But we don't usually close--"

"We're closing in five minutes!" Asch says, and storms off to the back to start putting stuff away.

Yuri sighs as he turns back to the girl. "That's ten points to you, I think."

"I don't want points, I want to finish this problem set." But she closes up her textbooks and tucks her papers away anyway. The front of her notebook gives him a name - Rita Mordio. "But whatever. It's not due until Tuesday anyway."

Yuri grins slightly. "We're open everyday until six. Usually, I mean."

Rita glances at him with a curious look as she slings her backpack over her shoulder. "I'll keep it in mind."