Ficorpio
Chapter 1
The graduate stipend still hadn’t come through.
I was a coward, so I didn’t dare bring it up with my advisor directly.
All I could do was take the long way around and send him a message:
Mom, I’m not coming home for break. I’ve run out of living expenses, I can’t pay my app credit balance, my boyfriend is about to starve to death, the stipend still hasn’t arrived, and Professor Sterling probably forgot about it. I’ll just stay on campus.
Professor Sterling replied instantly:
?
I hurried to explain:
Sorry, Professor! I sent that to the wrong person!
Professor Sterling:
Your boyfriend starved to death?
Got it. Boyfriend will be issued this afternoon.
Me: ???
The stipend that was supposed to arrive at the beginning of the month had made no movement whatsoever, and winter break was almost here.
I was anxious.
My advisor was a man in his sixties. Old enough to be wise, and old enough to forget absolutely everything.
Even using only my elegant little toes, I could guess what had happened: he had definitely forgotten to submit the paperwork to finance again.
In the past, if he forgot this month and remembered next month, fine. It would be made up eventually.
But this time was different. Winter break was about to start.
Which meant the university finance office was also about to stop working.
Which meant I might have to wait another two months for this tiny, miserable, absolutely essential allowance.
How could that be allowed?
I was counting on that thousand-or-so dollars to get me through winter break with at least a shred of dignity.
If I reminded Professor Sterling now, there was still time.
But I didn’t dare say it outright.
Because just yesterday, I had sent him my thesis draft.
The second it went through, I shoved my phone into my roommate Hannah’s sweatpants drawer and sprinted laps around the dorm building, screaming like a fire alarm.
I knew exactly how awful my writing was.
So every time I sent Professor Sterling anything like that, I felt the panic of someone knowingly splashing a bucket of garbage straight into his face.
This time was no different.
After reading it, he replied, “Chloe Bennett, shake your head and see if your ears can slap your cheeks.”
I didn’t understand, but I did it anyway.
Only afterward did I realize he was calling me a pig.
“Next time, write more. Some parts weren’t funny enough yet.”
Me: “…”
Of course I would end up with an advisor who loved comedy this much.
Then he added, “If my enemies knew I had taken you on as a student, they could finally die in peace.”
I lifted my head and smiled serenely.
If my thesis could bring peace to even one person in this world, then it wasn’t completely worthless.
The next second, Professor Sterling’s call popped up on my phone.
Chapter 2
He scolded me until even his wife had to remind him to go make dinner, and he still sounded unsatisfied.
At last, after throwing down the declaration of war, “Chloe Bennett! Just wait until next week’s group meeting!” he hung up in a hurry.
Great.
He had only just finished yelling at me yesterday. How was I supposed to ask him about the stipend today?
But after a long internal struggle, I decided my pride was not more important than money.
Professor Sterling could have a problem with me. I would never have a problem with money.
I couldn’t be direct, so I had to be strategic.
I was still thinking about how to execute this strategy with maximum emotional intelligence when my mom sent me a message.
Sweetheart, what day does break start?
I was just about to reply to Mom when inspiration struck.
At lightning speed, I typed out a line:
Mom, I’m not coming home for break. I’ve run out of living expenses, I can’t pay my app credit balance, my boyfriend is about to starve to death, the stipend still hasn’t arrived, and Professor Sterling probably forgot about it. I’ll just stay on campus.
Copy.
Open Professor Sterling’s chat.
Paste.
Before that reckless burst of courage could fade, I hit send.
I was afraid that if I waited even one more second, I wouldn’t dare do it.
After sending it, I rubbed my hands together and waited for his reply with desperate, shining eyes.
Never in my life had I looked forward to a message from my advisor this much.
One minute later, Professor Sterling replied:
?
I reacted fast, recalled the message, and pretended to be shocked.
Sorry, Professor! I sent that to the wrong person! Please pretend you didn’t see it!
I saw all of it.
Excellent!
I clapped my hands in celebration.
I could practically feel that glorious $1,200 riding in on a rainbow cloud to carry me into a beautiful winter break.
Brilliant. Magnificent.
Chloe Bennett, you are a genius at collecting unpaid wages.
Then, in the very next second, Professor Sterling sent:
Your boyfriend starved to death?
Me: ?
Got it. Boyfriend will be issued this afternoon.
I went completely rigid.
What? Why was he only sending me garbage?
And the boyfriend dying… was that really the point?!
The only true parts of that text were “the stipend hasn’t been paid” and “the advisor forgot.”
The rest was pure fabrication, okay?
He was usually the sharpest one when he was grading my thesis and tearing into people in group meetings. I refused to believe he couldn’t understand what I meant.
When I asked him for my stipend, he suddenly started playing dumb and pretending not to hear me. What was I supposed to do?
The chatbot didn’t offer a solution. It just kept telling me to roll up my pant legs and show off my delicate ankles when I went to see the advisor.
Idiot. Just making things worse.
I flopped back onto the narrow dorm bed, disappointed and angry, and clenched my fists so hard I thumped the wooden bed frame twice.
Chapter 3
The more I thought about it, the angrier I got.
So he wanted to be abstract, huh? Fine. Who couldn’t do that?
I grabbed my phone and replied to the advisor: “Okay then. Since my boyfriend is already dead, I’ll happily accept the boyfriend you’re issuing me. I hope he really shows up this afternoon [looking forward to it] [shy] [rose] Thank you, professor~”
The advisor didn’t respond.
Heh. Old man, out of ideas, weren’t you?
I still didn’t believe it. There was no way he’d choose between giving me my money and giving me a boyfriend, then finally settle on sending me a boyfriend.
At noon, I ate a massive bowl of cheap mixed noodles from the cafeteria. The portion was so big it practically knocked me into a carb coma.
Add the fact that I’d burrowed under the blanket afterward, and it didn’t take long before I fell asleep.
I didn’t wake until nearly dark.
Not naturally. Not because my roommate’s barbecue and snail noodles had woken me up either.
I was jolted awake by a phone call from the advisor.
When I opened my phone, I saw more than twenty missed calls.
I thought he was being a pain again and gearing up to scold me, so I spent a long time psyching myself up before answering.
“Hello? Chloe, where have you been? Why didn’t you answer your phone?”
“Ha ha, Professor, I was just revising—”
“Revising what? That thesis of yours is a complete mess and needs to be rewritten, but don’t start now. Come to the hot pot place by the school gate.”
“…”
I thought he was sending me to drop off a hard drive, so I yawned and said, “The data drive is with one of the senior lab members.”
The advisor urged me on. “I know. Just get here. There’s free hot pot, and you’re not going to eat it?”
I was baffled.
But if there was free food to be had, I was all in. The advisor was paying, so of course I’d order the expensive stuff and skip the sensible stuff.
I was going to eat back every cent of stipend he owed me.
I pulled on my puffer jacket, roughly finger-combed my hair into something passable, put on my black-rimmed glasses, went barefaced, and shoved my feet into padded clogs.
Then I rode one of the campus shared bikes with the wobbly handlebars and broken brakes all the way to the hot pot restaurant outside campus.
A little sloppy. A little pathetic. But it was fine.
You didn’t need to worry about appearances when you were eating with the advisor.
A beautiful thesis mattered more to him than a beautiful face, and I understood that much. I just couldn’t pull it off.
The moment I walked into the hot pot place, I heard my advisor’s loud, highly educated laugh.
I followed the sound. My glasses were fogged by the rising steam from the restaurant, so I couldn’t see clearly.