Hello! What you are about to read is a SEQUEL! I suppose it could be read as a PREQUEL, but it is your choice! If you read it as a prequel, let me know how it reads in that format! The original story is called Unexplainable Caramels and can be found on my page.

Please enjoy!

Chapter 1: "Come on Home" ~Franz Ferdinand

Although my lover lives in a place that I can't live

I kind of find I like a life this lonely

"Don't grab any more of that shit. Jesus Christ, man."

"It's cheap, bro. Check the price. Where else am I going to get a whole three meals for two dollars?"

"If I have to eat any more of that shit, I'm going to get fucking colon cancer or something," Mathias said, picking the box of ramen out of the cart, shaking it, and putting it back down with a grunt of disapproval. "It's sick. There is no nutrients."

"Fine, fine. Go get some apples. Since you care so much about 'health'," Alfred said with a mocking smile, shoving the cart over into Mathias' hands. Mathias pushed it over to the fruit aisle, groaning when he saw all the prices. "Fuck, man. Look at the prices right now. That's bullshit. Look what capitalism does."

"You could always have ramen."

"… I'll just do, like… a pound of apples. But none of you can touch them. Wait, bananas are super cheap. Go grab some of those."

Alfred grabbed a bundle of bananas, tossing them into the cart carelessly. "It's not like you're going to lose your games because you ate one thing of ramen, bro," he murmured to Mathias as he reclaimed the cart and shoved it towards the check-out that looked most empty. "Didn't you just have one, anyways?"

"Nah, man. Exhibition. It was Kentucky. They were alright. We still won."

"Wow. I'm pretty pumped to go to the games. People were into it last year. You guys did really good. You trying for pro?"

Mathias rubbed his neck and gave a slight shrug, eyes scanning over the candy bars and bottles of pop until he finally reached out, grabbing a chocolate bar and sliding it onto the conveyer belt. "I don't know, man. My dad wants that. I've already got scouts coming out, too. He's so thrilled about that."

"The money."

Mathias gave a laugh and took a card out of his wallet, sliding it and punching in a few numbers before saying, "Yeah, yeah, man. That would be the best part! Wouldn't have to worry."

They were both silent as they loaded the groceries onto their arms and headed for the doors. After a while, Alfred said, "You excited for pledges?"

"Hell yeah, man! But there was only six last year. I hope we get just a couple more."

"I was the only one when I pledged. Thank God you pledged after me. Don't tell the rest of them, but you're way fucking cooler, bro. Besides, you have that accent," he said, beginning to mock Mathias' accent. "Ja! Is good, is good. It's not soccer, it's futbol. Fuuuutbol."

"Aw, come on. I'd try to sound like some redneck from Texas, but I don't want anyone to think I fuck my cousin."

Alfred laughed, running a hand through his hair. "God, you're salty."

Mathias proceeded to unlock his car, pop the trunk, load the groceries up, and get in. He fixed his hair in the mirror, checked his teeth, and stopped the minute Alfred got in. "So how are you and Natalie?"

"Natalya."

"Natalya, right. She's hot, dude."

"Yeah, man! I know. Thanks. She's pretty cool."

Mathias drove, turning on the radio and turning the music up. Alfred fake head-banged and Mathias shot him a look before bursting out laughing. "You're such a dick, man."

"No, no! Rachmaninoff is my fave, bro," he said, reading the music off of Mathias' phone. Mathias glanced over, leaning to see what he was looking at.

"Just play anything on that playlist, man."

Alfred scrolled down, clicking on a track and leaning back. Mathias turned the music up, turning up the bass. "Really, man?"

"You said anything from the list."

"Haven't listened to Odd Future for a few weeks, that's all."

"What do you want, then?"

Mathias leaned back, staring blankly at the red light. "Which ever, man."

They listened to music in silence, Mathias sometimes singing along quietly while Alfred texted with his feet up on the dash. After wading through a bit of five o'clock traffic, they made their way to the campus and parked, both getting out and grabbing the grocery bags. Mathias came back after setting them down and picked up his cello case while Alfred watched. "Carry her over the threshold! For good luck."

The other laughed, holding the cello bridal style with a wink. "Like this? God, she's perfect," he said, kissing the case while Alfred rubbed his eyes.

"You're fucking weird, Mathias."

"She's my baby. The love of my life. Don't insult me in front of her," he said, carrying in the cello and taking it up to his room. "Hey, are we having a party tomorrow?"

Alfred crashed on the couch, opening his laptop. "I don't know yet. Probably. Yeah. Just really chill, though."

"You're buying the drinks, right?"

Alfred typed something into his laptop. Mathias could see it was his class schedule and he was trying to print it off. He sat down next to him, taking the laptop and working on printing it for him. Alfred murmured something under his breath and crossed his arms. "I don't know if we should be doing that shit on the first day of classes. Besides, I know how much liquor you keep in your room."

Mathias looked over at him, then turned back to the screen with a grin. "It's not like I'm the only one. I know freshmen who keep it under their bed."

Alfred smirked faintly, then said, "If you guys pitch forth some money, I'll buy a keg. Alright? I'm sure you'd find a way to buy one even if I didn't. I know I didn't buy you all that you have up in your room because there is no way in hell I'd buy you that much."

At that, Mathias shrugged and stood. "Printed the schedule off for you, man."

Alfred nodded, took his laptop back, and began clicking away again while Mathias went to the kitchen to pour himself some orange juice.

"You have practice today, bro?"

"No. I had to go in earlier, but I'm off the rest of the day. Free tomorrow, too, but I'll probably go for a jog or something."

"Maybe I'll go with you. I need to lose some weight or something. I'm getting a dad body. I'm not ready to peak yet."

"Peak?" Mathias went upstairs, grabbing the bottle of vodka he kept in his closet and coming back down. Alfred turned to face him. "Uh, yeah. Have you seriously not heard of that? It's that thing when you hit your prime physical state. You should hit it in your twenties. But I knew this steroid-pumped asshole at my old school who hit it at seventeen and he looked like someone's dad."

"Oh, shit," the other replied, pouring some vodka into his juice and swirling it around. "That's awful. You definitely should come with me! I'll do a thirty minute jog and that's it."

Alfred's face twisted while he groaned, not thrilled with the idea of doing any kind of exercise ever, but he reluctantly nodded when he looked down at his stomach and noticed a prominent roll.

"You don't like your box, do you?"

The rabbit's nose twitched and it shuffled around the cardboard box, little pieces of straw stuck to its feet. When it was lifted out and set on the bed, it just moved to the middle and stayed still, squeaking quietly.

"I have the cage but you'll have to stay in there for a bit while I set it up."

The bunny turned slightly, squeaking yet again. Lukas reached out, scooped him up, and stroked his back gently. "Mm. Just me and you, Teeny Weeny."

The dorm was empty. He didn't have a roommate yet. He might not have one until semester, but he was never that lucky. He would at least have his own room. Besides, the dorms were some of the nicest on campus. He walked out of his room and walked into his kitchen, definitely pleased to have one at all, especially one so big. The dorm was more like an apartment.

He turned to the window. It was bright out. Warm, too. The heat was coming into the living room. He would definitely have to buy curtains, preferably black curtains to block all the light and heat out. It was warmer here than it was in D.C.

It snowed in the winters on the occasion. He'd looked that up. But it never snowed a lot. Never enough to be enjoyable. But he figured that was a result of being further south. He never had to deal with terrible weather. Except maybe hurricanes. Did he have to deal with that? He needed to check.

He carried his rabbit to the couch and sat down, scrolling through his phone, texting his mother about what he was doing currently. She'd begged him to keep in touch.

It was his third year in college, but he'd switched schools. He had been at a community college in D.C., trying to improve enough to get into Duke. When Duke didn't accept him, he was a bit devastated. He wanted to go to a good school away from his parents, but not too far away. That's when he looked into his current school and applied.

Being accepted was relieving. But now he was stressed again, seeing as the first day of school was officially Tuesday. Well, tomorrow. He didn't know anyone, really. He'd moved in a couple days after what was suggested for him and he missed the welcoming events.

Not that he cared all that much. He wasn't here for friends. He was here for a good education.

He continued to pet the bunny, nuzzling his fur. He wasn't actually allowed to have pets in the dorm, but he had to sneak Teeny Weeny in. He couldn't part from him. He'd had him since he was twelve. He didn't like to talk much in public, so he talked to the rabbit more than anyone.

It was really stupid, too. He wouldn't ever tell anyone that this was who he talked to. But it was so hard to keep everything bottled up all the time, and there were some things he couldn't tell his mother, so he turned to the rabbit, who he had affectionately named Teeny Weeny upon the request of a five year old Emil.

That was especially ironic, considering Emil thought the name was dumb now. Then again, he thought everything was dumb nowadays. He was still in the phase where he thought it was cool to be constantly bitter about everything.

Lukas felt like a hypocrite. He himself was a little bitter. But he did like things. He was just very, very picky on what those things were. Like rabbits. He loved rabbits. And fairy tales. Children's stories in general.

In fact, he felt like the odd man out in college. He felt like he didn't connect. Almost like he wasn't meant for college at all. But he also felt like he didn't have much of a choice, so he always persevered through hours of studying and note taking.

He was stressed out about the entire idea of school, but he didn't want to dwell on it, so he continued to put off his never-ending stress by stroking the rabbit some more, which ultimately would result in a panic attack later when his anxiety overflowed, but he couldn't think about that right now, either.

After a while of sitting in silence, he got up again and starting unpacking more of his things. He was pretty sure he had packed a lot more than he needed. He had been having anxiety about what he would need and not need, so he ended up packing most of his room. It wasn't fun for his father, who had decided to drive him down to the university. Packing everything was a life-size game of Tetris and the loss in the end was Lukas' arms basically turning into jello after lifting heavy things.

But it was all here now. He just had to unpack, get his backpack ready to go, double-check his schedule, find a map of the campus, and he'd be set.

He put Teeny Weeny back in the box he had arrived in and gave him a piece of kale, deciding that it would be a better idea to watch his rabbit eat for a few minutes to an hour, or until he felt the motivation to actually do the things he needed to do.

The first class of the day began at nine in the morning. All of Lukas' days began at nine. He had no classes past three on any of his days. He didn't mind waking up earlier if it meant he didn't have to go to school for long past noon. Besides, he went to bed early. Waking up early was no problem.

The class he had first was math. He'd really been putting it off. He was taking a general course. The easiest one offered. His second that day was a folklore class, one he was very pleased to get into.

Both classes were short and he was glad, although he could hear a girl talking about a party in folklore.

"It's Sigma Alpha Epsilon house."

A frat party. Lukas turned his nose up a little, although he knew it probably wasn't anything like the films portrayal. They were probably alright. Although he had met frat boys before when he had worked at one of the cinemas in D.C. a couple years back. The ones he usually encountered were rude and always tried to get free beers out of him, to which he would panic and call over the manager.

Either way, he was curious. Not that he was going to go. He had school in the morning and he didn't drink, anyways. And he didn't know anyone.

Later that night, he was curled up on his couch, eating instant mashed potatoes and watching television in peace, although in the back of his head, he couldn't stop thinking about what it would be like to be just a little more outgoing. Enough to attend a party like that.

"Hey, you assholes!"

Mathias raised his cup, a laugh erupting from him as he climbed onto the coffee table, sloshing some beer onto his arm. "Natalya, c'mere!"

The blonde watched him with a raised eyebrow and a small sneer, although in her stance there was a hint of pride. "Get off the coffee table. You are so crazy, Mat."

Mathias sighed, clutching a hand over his chest and chugging the rest of his drink. He tossed the cup down, then grabbed the girls arm and pulled her up onto the table with him, wrapping an arm tightly around her waist. "Yer so fuckin' hot. HEY! Hey! Isn't she great or somethin'?"

Alfred laughed and shook his head, trying to pull him down as people watched on, some amused, some more concerned. "Hey, bro. Get off of there before you break it."

Mathias batted away Alfred's hand, leaning in to try to kiss Natalya, who was in the middle of taking pictures of herself with her phone. She shoved Mathias away with a cold scoff, then fixed her hair.

"Why won't ya just give me a little kiss?"

She shot him a look and another one of her sneers. "I don't like to be kissed on the mouth, okay? You fucking know that so just stop."

There were a few people booing in the room, but she just scoffed, yelling, "Shut up. Mind your own fucking business. Mathias, get down or I'm not touching you for a month, I swear to god."

He leaned into her face once again, this time mocking her high-pitched and cool voice, saying, "Mathias, I suh-wear to god!"

She grabbed his face, digging her nails into his cheek. "Fine. Go suck your own dick."

He moved back away from her, nearly falling off of the wobbly table for what must have been the sixth time. "Not like you'll help me, so maybe I will!"

She opened her mouth to speak, but then closed it with a noise of frustration before turning to go upstairs. Mathias watched her, his shoulder slumping slightly as he looked down at his empty cup on the floor. He got a new one and refilled it, chugging a beer down as Alfred tried to make a joke about a girl he used to see.

Mathias groaned when he woke up for practice. He felt like absolute shit. He grabbed his phone and scrolled through his messages, seeing one from Natalya.

See you for lunch. The place is nice, so don't come wearing your stupid joggers.

He frowned slightly at the message, rubbed his eyes, and reluctantly got out of bed, not thrilled at all for the events the day held.