So does he. There's not much of a train of thought to lose, thankfully. 

He doesn't have any idea what he ate.

"Maybe we can go hang out in my rooms and do homework? Or yours, whatever."

"Your rooms sounds good." 

Something in his veins feels strange and he isn't sure what it is; he sets the feeling aside to examine — later. At some point. 

"We'll see if Asher has fallen asleep on my couch."

"Does he do that often?" 

"All the time. The main difference between my rooms and his rooms, from his perspective, is that mine don't have a kitchen."

He laughs. "That sounds like him!" 

"You know we grew up together, right? I spent like a quarter of my childhood in New Orleans getting into trouble."

"I didn't know that but it's not that surprising. What's New Orleans like?" 

"Naveen is really really bad at punishing kids. He gets two sentences into a lecture and starts laughing."

"That explains so much about Asher!" 

"Asher has his mom's intelligence and work ethic and cooking skill and his dad's everything else, it's a dangerous combination."

"It does seem like it," is all he knows Asher well enough to say. 

"Wonder how many people who are at Tiana's Place when I was there knew their meal was cooked by the future king of Auradon."

That's such a good smile.

"Probably not many!" 

They're at Ben's room and there is no sign of Asher.

"How about you? How was growing up in China?"

And there's the million-dollar question, isn't it. "It was — weird. Weirder than for most people, I knew I was going to be going to school in Auradon from when I was pretty young, Lonnie and I both grew up speaking as many languages as our parents could find people to teach us." 

"I can imagine. Even expecting that you'd go here Auradon must seem so weird."

"It really is — honestly the thing that threw me most at first was the names, I kept introducing myself as Li Chen and they'd look at me like they were expecting there to be more and I didn't realize they thought Li was my given name for months —" 

"That's really dumb! We should teach people how surnames work in China." He thinks. "Although we teach people lots of things and that doesn't always mean they know them."

"I don't think Lonnie minds introducing herself as Lonnie daughter of Mulan, it's just something to get used to." 

"That's up to Lonnie, but you shouldn't have to change your name if you don't want to."

This was supposed to be a fun anecdote about adjusting to a new culture, what does he say. "I mean, I didn't, I just introduce myself as Li Chen and accept that people will call me my full name every time I'm mentioned, it's not a big deal." 

Ben hugs him. "That sucks."

Oh. 

Hugs are really, really nice, and Ben is soft and warm and good.