Oh... college. Y'know, people tend to dramatize about it. They'll say; "It isn't like High School! In fact, it's so much better!" But I just don't see it. I've had to wonder if there's something wrong with me, that maybe the glass is just always half empty whenever I look at it, but if I'm wrong than I've convinced myself pretty damn well that I'm right. When I walk around the UCL quad, with the big ol' White House looking building, stretching around the walkways and the broken up sections of grass with all the beauty of London's signature Victorian styles, I see one of two things; a diversity of culture, and a great deal less diversity in cliques. That's right; when you graduate and go to college, most of the time the pretty people still hang out with the pretty people, the jocks still hang out with jocks, the nerds still hang out with their computers, and the people without a cause (yoo hoo, that's me!) still wander around like complete dumbasses. I can tell you, right off the top of my head, how many windows there are on the White House surrounding main campus. And it isn't because I'm super smart (nope, not me), it's just because I've counted them at least once every day since I flew in from America a week ago. Why? Because I have nothing better to do.

I have no direction. I don't even know how I got into the University College London in the first place. Sure, I made good grades in High School and didn't cause too much trouble, but then I went to take my ACT and SAT tests and... something weird happened. I got really good marks. Like, creepy good. My parents had to sit me down for an intervention and ask me, in their most understanding, you-won't-get-into-trouble voices possible, if I had cheated.

I didn't, by the way.

I just got lucky.

But that type of luck is a curse, mind you, because once my scores came through and my mother (against my wishes) started sending in college applications to every University ranked by a number at least under fifty, my scores told a story about a girl genius when, in fact, my story is nothing like that at all.

I am not a genius.

Repeat: Not a genius.

But hey, I don't know one poor American girl whose dream isn't to go to London, and that poor American girl's dream is what finds me in my first class, on the first day, at UCL... even if I may not deserve it.

So here I sit.

I was kind to myself and made Sociology my first subject. Like I said before, I'm a very ungenius girl who does a very good job at ungeniusing up whatever place she walks into, but Sociology is one of those classes where it's at least somewhat difficult to look like a complete idiot. At the most basic level, it's just observation; watching what people do in certain situations, getting into big sociological debates about whether or not it's "normal", and then deciding whether culture and other factors have anything to do with it.

In other words, it's all about who can make the most educated guess.

"Your final grade in this class will be a culmination of four working parts," my Professor says, "In-class participation, exams, essays, and the group project."

The first day of class. The day when Professors focus on scaring their pupils into the submissive bodies of hardworking, clever students, by way of a syllabus. I'm not saying it doesn't work either; the first day of class in High School always scared me. It was the overwhelming representation on three to four pages of just how hellish the class was going to be.

My stress threshold has never been able to handle it.

In fact, the only reason why I'm not popping a nerve-ending right now is just because I'm easily distracted. By the Professor's hair, to be exact. It's bloody longer than mine. The top half is pulled back into a ponytail to keep away from his eyes, but the bottom half flows free, down to the curve between his shoulder blades. Thick, straight-as-pins, salt-and-pepper locks that are tossed with an Elvish grandeur.

My Sociology professor could be an older Elrond from Middle Earth for all I know.

And then there's the beard. The beard. It's one of those perfectly trimmed, upside down triangles, collaborating so well with the base of his face that it acts like an extended chin. A super-extenda chin. A chin Jay Leno would be both jealous and proud of.

"Your work in this class will not be divided equally, however," says Leno the Elvish King, "for example, fifty percent of your final grade is dedicated completely to the results of your group project. Which is why I will be assigning partners today."

A heavily bored atmosphere suddenly morphs into a dense bubble of apprehension. The students who had their chins resting on their hands start to wiggle uncomfortably in their chairs. Others who were once playing games on Facebook abandon their screens to stare at the Professor, hoping to see the hints of a joke on his face. Do you really have to wonder why?

No one likes group projects. I would think, most especially, not at a college like this. More than half of the people who go here commute from their home countries or towns; hardly a soul knows another. There are only the few, egregiously extroverted personalities that attempt to make friends on the first day.

And from the looks of it, no one in here is an egregious extrovert.

The Professor doesn't show any recognition toward the complete shift in the room, though I doubt if he really hasn't noticed. "When your names are called, acknowledge your partner, but please stay in your seats." He lifts up a clipboard and calls out, "Allen, Leisha and Zecheriah, Tevin."

Look at that, we're playing the alphabet game. That's super original.

"Buehler, Margaret," yup, there I am; almost always at the head of the roll. And...? "Yagami, Light."

… The hell kind of name is that?

I start looking for the culprit, first at the front of the class, where no one seems to be trying to catch anyone's eye and the only people who are looking are just as curious to place the name with the face. I swivel in my seat (a pop releases a crick out of my spine very nicely in the process) when almost immediately, I spot him. He has his arm half raised to catch my attention. The first thing that runs through my head is that Justin Bieber has escaped Canadian borders and is now terrorizing group projects in a beginning Sociology class.

It's only the first thought, though, because once I take a closer look at him, well...

I'm pretty sure this kid isn't Justin Bieber.

He has the right hair for it; amber-gold with just enough fringe to frame around his eyes and cheekbones. But the eyes are just the things that throw me off that train. They're too intense. A sort of rust-brown, "you'll never beat me at a staring contest" intense. A phantom itch crawls up in the inside of my wrist, bringing with it at least five other itches that don't get relieved no matter how much I try to scratch them.

The only thing that helps is looking away.

I only keep my eyes off him for a space of a second, and when I look back he's busy with his laptop, eyes lidded enough to where their intensity is too muted to be noticed.

Once the Professor reaches an impasse at the surnames that start with M and N, (there were a few chuckles when a partnership had one last name starting with F and the other U; yes, we're all so mature) he explains the rules; "This is what the group project is all about: each pairing is to decide on and conduct a Sociological experiment. The content and the means by which you experiment are completely up to you, as long as your subjects are strangers with whom you have no original affiliation, and that you keep their identities anonymous. Be warned," the already stormy atmosphere tinges with electricity, "Your partnerships have been given to you today so that you might start your work on this project immediately. This is to be a semester-long ordeal. Any experiments crammed into the space of a week will be easily plucked out. If you want to succeed in this class," he gives a very pointed stare to a few, unlucky students. "Meet my expectations."

The reactions the Professor gets aren't undeserved. A whole semester working with a partner? The whole class might be filled with murderous intent by the end of these next four months.

I might be filled with murderous intent.

Worse, Mr. Bieber hair and rusty eyes might be filled with murderous intent.

Without thinking about how obvious I'll look, I turn my head over my shoulder to glance at Light once again. He's nonplussed. It's as if the cloud of impending doom has parted a cubicle of space for the light to shine down on him and only him.

His parent's had received God-given inspiration when they named him.

"Well end class early today," the Professor says, "I hope to see all of you next week."

Psh. A lie if I've ever heard one. A good five or ten of his students are probably on their way to the Administrator's office right now to drop the class. I can't say I blame them.

The thought crosses my mind as well... .

I sit still in my seat as the room clinks, clanks, and zips with the commotion of students rushing to get out. Several partners meet up in the aisles, and just looking at their encounters makes me queasy. Can you imagine that conversation? "Hi, guess it looks like we're going to have to work together for the next four months, so let's come to the agreement that we won't kill each other no matter how badly we want to. Oh, by the way, have you ever had a history of psychosis? No? Great, let's be friends!"

It's shiver inducing.

What's worse is that there's no way around it. So I sit, like I'm sitting in a cell and my executioner is on his way to claim my head, looking to and fro from the wall clock to my peers stepping down the left aisle in neat single-file. Every second is struck between my ears like the bells of Notre Dame.

Until I catch sight of two, thin legs in a pair of khaki pants coming my way.

I have to remind myself not to look away. Conspicuous awkwardness mixed with the inevitable terror of this conversation wouldn't be the most savory mixture, especially when this Light Yagami kid doesn't look like he's capable of the simplest social malfunctions.

In fact, he's completely at ease.

"Margaret, right?" he asks.

He leans against the desk next to me, half-sitting, half-standing. The strap of a messenger bag crosses his sweater, the bag itself weighed down so heavily that he has to heave it onto the desktop. The poor guy is going to get scoliosis in his thirties if he doesn't stop hauling that thing around; it looks fit to burst.

"Uh, no," I say, "not Margaret. Never Margaret. Maggie or Mags or anything that isn't, uh... Margaret."

Do you see what I did there? Do you see my communication skills? I'd be an Olympic gold medalist if they had a category in word fumbling.

"You don't like Margaret?" And whether he intends it as a statement or question, I'm not sure.

"Honestly, Margaret is too classy for me."

His head is half cocked, as if he's trying to decide whether or not I'm being serious.

"Maggie it is then," he says. "Do you work, Maggie?"

Jeez, he doesn't miss a beat.

"No," I say, "I only just got to London like, a week ago, so job hunting hasn't really been the biggest priority."

"So you're schedule is usually open."

He could have shoved a balloon filled with scalding hot water into my chest and poked it with a needle. Is it just me, or is it a little rude to assume that just because someone doesn't have a job it means they aren't busy? I mean, I guess I can see where he's coming from; I may veer a little on the socially inept side, and I haven't really been in the market for friends and parties every other night, but... but...

But I'm a total loser and he's right.

However, would I go so far as to lose all my dignity in one setting? Never.

So I say, "mostly," and hope he gets the point.

Light grins a grin that's too big for his own good. "That's good; I was worried we might run into a lot of time crunches. I'm taking both afternoon and evening classes pretty much every day except for weekends, so trying to schedule in time for study and homework alone can be difficult."

Yes, I understand sir, you're very busy.

My curiosity gets the better of me, though, and I have to ask, "How many credits are you taking, exactly?"

"42 ESPs."

Holy mother of marmalade. 42? Like I said, I've only been in London for a week, so I'm not exactly the master of translating European credit scales to American, but that's at least 24 US credits, probably eight classes. You have to get special Dean approval for that kind of workload!

So he is a busy dude.

"42," I say, in the best nonchalant voice I can come up with, "and how long have you been suicidal?"

Light laughs, an airy sound that pats me on the head like a puppy. "Don't worry, I'm not. Off the top of my head I'm pretty sure that I have free time on Wednesday, sometime between two and four. We could get together then and start brainstorming."

"Sure."

"Great. Do you have a phone on you?"

I pull my iPhone out of my pocket and type in the four-digit code, ready to ask for his number, when he steals the device right out of my hands.

Steals, my phone.

I'm about to tell him just how rude that was. I'm about to accuse his mother for never teaching him manners. Hell, I'm about to make fun of his hair, when the shock of it settles in my throat and swallows up my accusations like a black hole. He types unknown numbers on the keyboard with thumbs that learned how to produce light speed before NASA, and it only takes those few moments before the thing is cupped in my hands again, as if it had never left in the first place.

"I'll text you," Light says, shooting me one last smile before turning out of the row of desks, bag hanging at his hip in drooped exhaustion.

I have to blink probably ten times before I call after him. "Wait. Don't you need my number?"

"I looked it up in your phone already. See you Wednesday."

I have to watch him walk out of the room in stupid, slack-jawed surprise. I just have to.

And do you know the thing that makes that stupid, slack-jawed surprise even worse? He knows exactly what he did.

Probably likes my reaction too.

I sit in my seat until the next class starts to trudge in, contemplating, wondering just who Elrond the Sociology Professor has set me up with.

And wondering if I can really survive a semester with someone like that.

Oh... college.

Author's Notes: A couple of things about this story before it really gets going...

1. I'm adding a disclaimer here to stand in for a disclaimer every chapter. This is a disclaimer for the entire story. So *clears throat* I do not own Death Note; I do not own any of the characters created within Death Note; it would be nice to be financially blessed by this work of fiction, but I have not been legally cleared to receive profit, so... .

2. Some of you will be upset about this, but Light will be the main spotlight (besides Maggie) in this story. Also, a great deal of what you will read will be a friendship-based relationship. However, that is not to say that there will not be any romance. Mostly because romance is like crying at the beginning of the Legend of Korra Book 4 season premiere; completely unavoidable. (Many other geniuses will frequent this story; never fear.)

3. A main inspiration behind this story is who Light would have been if he had never picked up the Death Note. Specifically, it is inspired by the final episode/chapter of Death Note, when Light is dying and running along the sidewalk, and we see him cross a memory of himself as he used to be. So, before I get messages telling me how OOC Light is in some instances, I want to explain my opinion on the Death Note (emphasis on opinion, because I didn't write the manga so I'm just a speculator). To me, the Death Note operates kind of like the Ring in the Lord of the Rings. The longer it is used or stays in the presence of a single person, the more it screws with that person's head. Now, Light chose to use the Death Note and continue using it, and the consequences of his actions are just. However, I think that the taboo-ness of the Death Note (and Ryuk) had a bit of a possession effect; it made Light worse than he would have ever been without it. Also, the Light we knew in Death Note was an immature teenager. He is still an immature teenager in this story, but... I'm hoping he'll grow up a little bit throughout it. (Hope.)

4. I hope you enjoy this story and I wish you well :) thanks for reading!