Infinite Cashback: My Wealth Rebate System

Class let out, and Jason fell into step beside Vivian in the hallway, both of them heading the same direction toward the library.

"Nine days," Vivian said, apropos of nothing, glancing at her phone.

"Nine days what."

"Till the exam. I saw the countdown thing the professor posted in the class portal." She slid her phone back into her pocket, shaking her head slightly. "Feels like it was eleven days like two seconds ago."

Nine. Jason felt the number land somewhere separate from the exam entirely, a quieter, colder echo running parallel to whatever Vivian actually meant by it. His own countdown had ticked down by exactly the same amount, sitting patient in the corner of his vision the way it did now no matter what he was actually looking at. "Time’s weird like that."

"Very weird. Very rude of it, honestly." She glanced sideways at him. "You look tired."

"Long couple of days."

"Same. I’ve basically been living at my aunt’s this week helping with some family stuff. Barely made it to the last study session, remember." She said it lightly, no real weight behind it, and Jason nodded, filing the reminder away without dwelling on it.

"You’re coming today though."

"I’m coming today. Actually excited, honestly, because Nadia texted the group chat something about doing breathing exercises before we start, which is either going to be genuinely useful or the most unhinged thing she’s proposed yet."

"Breathing exercises. For an econ midterm."

"She said, and I’m quoting again because I screenshotted it specifically to save for later, ’proper oxygenation improves cognitive retention by measurable margins, we are doing this whether you like it or not.’" Vivian delivered the line with the same theatrical gravity she’d used for the blacklist threat days earlier, clearly relishing every syllable of it.

"That’s insane."

"That’s Nadia. I told you." She grinned, pushing open the library door ahead of him. "Also she’s apparently bringing actual snacks today, real ones, not the granola bars from the vending machine, so honestly I’ll do the breathing exercises if it means I get real food."

"Bribery via snacks. Effective strategy."

"The most effective strategy. Works on toddlers and adults equally."

They reached the study room, and this time it was full, Nadia already seated with a laptop open and an honest-to-god yoga mat rolled up beside her chair, Bree tucked into her usual corner with her paperback, glancing up when the door opened and offering Jason a small, careful smile that gave nothing away about her sprint down the wrong street two days earlier.

"You’re both late," Nadia said, not looking up from her screen.

"We’re exactly on time," Vivian said, dropping into her chair.

"You’re late relative to the breathing exercises, which I scheduled to start four minutes ago."

"I’m not doing the breathing exercises."

"You’re doing the breathing exercises." Nadia finally looked up, entirely unbothered by the protest, already unrolling the mat with brisk efficiency. "Everyone. Floor. Two minutes. Then we study."

Bree caught Jason’s eye across the table, a flicker of shared amusement passing between them before she looked away, and the session dissolved into exactly the kind of chaotic, oddly effective productivity Jason had come to expect from the group, Nadia’s absurd structure somehow still yielding real results by the time they actually cracked open their notes, trap questions flying faster than they had in previous sessions, Vivian narrating her own increasingly elaborate theories about framing effects, Bree quietly correcting three separate mistakes with the same calm precision she brought to everything.

By the time they wrapped, the sun had dropped low enough to throw long shadows across the library steps, and Jason found himself walking out alongside Vivian again, their paths overlapping for the first several blocks the same way they always did.

"Nadia’s snacks were suspiciously good," Vivian said, still chewing on the last of something wrapped in foil. "I’m concerned about the amount of effort that woman puts into things that don’t strictly require effort."

"That’s just who she is."

"It’s terrifying, is what it is. In a good way. Mostly." Vivian tossed the foil wrapper into a trash can they passed, sinking the shot without slowing her pace. "Anyway. Nine days. Are you actually ready, or are you performing readiness."

"Bit of both."

"Honest answer, I respect it." She glanced at him, something more genuine underneath the usual teasing. "You’ve gotten a lot better since day one, by the way. I wasn’t sure you’d survive Nadia’s whole system, but you’re actually keeping up now."

"High praise."

"Extremely high. I don’t hand it out often." She grinned, and they walked another block in easy quiet, the conversation drifting into smaller things, a professor’s ongoing feud with the printing lab, whether Bree’s note-writing habit extended to people outside the group, until they reached the corner where their routes actually split for real.

"This is me," Vivian said, gesturing down her own street.

"See you tomorrow."

"See you tomorrow. Don’t die of nine-day panic before then."

"No promises."

She laughed, waving as she turned off, and Jason continued on alone, the walk home settling into the same quiet rhythm it always did, his thoughts drifting loosely between the exam, the study group, the countdown that never fully left the edge of his vision no matter how far into the background he tried to push it.

He was still a block out from his building when he spotted her.

Alex. Standing outside the door next to his own, arms full of what looked like grocery bags, keys dangling from two fingers as she tried to balance the load enough to actually unlock her door.

Right. She actually lives there. He’d half expected the whole encounter yesterday to have been some strange, isolated fluke, a stranger passing through who wouldn’t actually turn out to be a permanent fixture in the hallway. Seeing her there now, keys in hand, groceries balanced against one hip, made the reality of it land properly for the first time.

He climbed the last flight of stairs and reached the landing just as she managed to get her door partway open, and she glanced up at the sound of his footsteps.

"Oh, hey," she said, breaking into an easy smile. "Perfect timing. You can witness my incredibly graceful entrance."

"Looks pretty graceful to me."

"You should’ve seen the first attempt. Dropped an entire bag of oranges down the stairwell." She managed to get the door fully open, nudging it with her hip, and paused there for a second instead of immediately disappearing inside. "How was your day?"

She’s asking like we already do this. Jason found the ease of it slightly disorienting, though not unpleasant, the same casual familiarity Sarah had brought into his kitchen on day one, except entirely unearned this time, built on nothing except a ninety-second conversation the night before. "Long. Study group for an exam I’m apparently still failing on principle."

"That’s a rough way to phrase it."

"It’s an accurate way to phrase it."

She laughed, shifting the grocery bags slightly against her hip. "Well, for what it’s worth, you don’t look like someone who’s failing anything. You look like someone who’s had a genuinely exhausting week, which is a different category entirely."

"Generous read."

"I’m a generous person." She glanced toward her open door, then back at him, something considering in her expression. "I still owe you that coffee, by the way. Once I stop unpacking things I apparently didn’t need to bring with me."

"No rush."

"There’s a little rush. I get restless." She smiled again, easier this time, and stepped fully into her doorway. "I’ll knock. Promise."

"I’ll hold you to it."

"Please do." She gave him a small wave, the same one from yesterday, and disappeared inside, her door clicking shut a second later.

Jason stood there in the hallway for a moment, the quiet settling back in around him, and let himself actually sit with the whole strange coincidence of it, the same clinical part of his brain that laid out chess positions now quietly running the same math it had the night before.

New neighbor. Attractive. Direct. Already suggesting coffee twice in two days. He crossed to his own door, keys already in hand, and let himself inside, dropping his bag by the entrance the same way he had every other night that week.

Nine days left on the clock. He sat down on the edge of his bed, the apartment quiet around him, and stared at nothing in particular for a moment, the thought arriving whether he wanted it to or not. And apparently the universe just moved a stranger in next door at the exact moment I need one.

He shook his head slightly, standing back up to head toward the kitchen, unwilling to let the thought settle any further than it already had.

Coincidence, he told himself again, the same word from the night before, though it landed with even less conviction this time than it had the first.

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