Perhaps he has a type in friends. Perhaps he has enough friends to have a type? This is a concerning thought.

It occurs to Orion that he could ask the other kid's name. Since he does not know it. However, it is probably in Chinese. Things in Chinese don't have real spellings, just funny scribbles, so he wouldn't be able to write it down, so he wouldn't be able to remind himself of it, and then he'd forget it, and since he'd forget it maybe it is better if he doesn't ask. It has at least not been volunteered against his will.

They are finally out of Shakespeare Analysis and into... Gothic Romance? Is that romance about people who wear all black, that's so specific.

It occurs to Lan Zhan that one thing you do with friends is Activities. Killing things is an activity, but perhaps they can have a spirit of friendly competition? Lan Zhan has seen Lord of the Rings many times because Wei Ying managed to pitch it to the Nie parents as a way for them to practice their English, and because Wei Ying thought it was very cool when the man skateboarded down the elephant. He understands that Lord of the Rings is a classic movie about friendship and so perhaps the behavior depicted in it is to be emulated. 

He stabs a bookworm. "One."

...is this a contest now? Okay, he'll try the chain reaction thing again. "One two three - fourfive - six - seven eight nine - ten - twelve - fifteen -"

This contest was ill-advised. "Two," he says, killing a scratcher.

An entire scratcher, what, that totally disrupts the thing they had going where the Asian kid mostly took the really little ones! Where'd it come from, are there more... there are no more scratchers in Gothic Romance. Maybe there will be some in Fashionable Novels. What the heck is a Fashionable Novel.

Well maybe he wouldn't have had to take the scratcher if SOME PEOPLE hadn't killed fifteen bookworms!

Lan Wangji is also unclear on what a Fashionable Novel is and thinks maybe he's forgotten an English word again.

Orion remains mildly peeved throughout the back issues of Serial Victorian Fiction and then his buzzer goes off; he about-faces and charges out of the stacks.

Apparently their social has concluded.

Lan Wangji congratulates himself on a successful friendship.