Before he gets to the cafeteria, he's interrupted. "Masozi!" Meng Yao says. "It's good to see you. Come to the bathroom with me and Lan Xichen."

- ack! 

Masozi is so very startled by this, and freezes. 

"It's all right," Lan Xichen says gently, and mutters under his breath and sends him a little you're-safe-everything-is-okay. 

(Wen Qing is back at the cafeteria holding down the fort at the Shanghai enclave table. This is not a three-leaders situation.)

AAAAACK something is touching his MIND– 

– ok, right, relax - it's okay - it's one of his (tentative) allies, he shouldn't appear to panic about it - 

Masozi turns, taking a deep breath, and tries to retrieve the last ten seconds of his auditory memory. 

...right, they were asking him to...go somewhere....? 

He should probably trust them, or if not he should at least follow their instructions. 

"Okay," he says, making eye contact with Meng Yao and turning to follow him wherever they're apparently supposed to be going now. 

"How is your first morning of classes?"

"- I really don't like the Intro to Maleficaria classroom, but geometry was really really interesting?" 

"It's pretty frightening. You do get used to it. Do you want calming spell before maleficaria classes, to help you focus?"

"....Is that a thing you can do? Does it - make you slower at - reacting to danger -?" 

"I have a lot of them. I can aim for one that's state of calm focus? But there really isn't much danger in the Maleficaria Studies classroom, all the other freshmen are there."

"- But I need to look out for all of them too! Because most of them don't know - how to be careful, yet - and I don't want them to die -" 

Masozi breaks off and curls into himself, a little, because he's not sure that was a helpful-for-his-survival thing to say? ....He meant it, though. And he doesn't want to lie. 

"Well, you can't look out for them if you're panicked," he says, "and you certainly can't look out for them if you aren't learning about what you're supposed to be looking out for. But we can experiment and find a spell you like."

"- Yeah. That makes sense. Okay." 

Masozi approves of 'experiments'. He's thought that this was an incredibly good concept ever since he first saw the word (and guessed its meaning from context) in one of the books that he maybe-sort-of-stole from a library on his way to South Africa. 

"All right," he says when they reach the bathroom. "You shower, and Meng Yao and I watch out for mals. --Do you know how to shower?"

"- I tried to shower before? After you gave me the better clothes? ....If I didn't shower enough then maybe I don't know how." 

Masozi says this with zero embarrassment or self-consciousness, because he hasn't even considered feeling that way and if he had he would very quickly notice that it wouldn't help. 

He glances for half a second at Meng Yao, who fully understands every single one of his current emotions. Sworn brotherhood is great. 

"--okay, so, you take off all your clothes, and then there's a machine called a shower that sprays water on you, and then you soap yourself up and rinse it off concentrating especially on the parts that are most likely to be smelly. And then you dry off with a clean towel."

".....I don't have a clean towel," Masozi admits, after a long pause. "And I - don't know what parts of me smell - or where the soap is....?" 

"We got you a towel and soap."

"We're planning to ally with you because everyone is underestimating you because you don't understand hygiene or etiquette, and so you're very cheap to ally with given how talented you are. But you have to learn about hygiene and etiquette or all of Shanghai enclave is going to lose face."

"Oh." 

Masozi stops for a moment. 

"......Am I 'talented'? What does that - mean -?" 

(Masozi is aware that he's more careful than most of the other freshman, and better at spotting mals, but he doesn't expect that to play into any kind of general skill and so he's very confused.) 

"Maybe one in a hundred people in your position would have survived, which suggests you're one of the sixteen most talented people in the freshmen year. Let's say ten speak Mandarin. Of those, most will already be in enclaves. So you're really quite valuable." 

.....Masozi is trying to back out the equation that Meng Yao must have used to reach those numbers and it's SO CONCERNING and also confusing??? 

"....I - think it'd be weird if I were that good? - Guess it doesn't matter. I want to not die and I want to help other people not die and if you want to help me with that because I'm 'talented' then okay." 

See, this is how Shanghai can pick him up for the cost of bathing lessons.

"So the first thing you need to do to shower is undress."

"....Sure."

Masozi strips off his new outfit, and then waits. 

Lan Xichen opens up the shower door and demonstrates the use of the hot and cold water. "You can adjust it until it's a temperature you like."

He's not looking at Naked Masozi but this is, it turns out, remarkably hard.