"I feel your pain." Krian tells Rashel, giving a quick glare at Kay.

"That is because you love me," Kay says, giving Krian a quick but tight hug.

Krian is a bit out of breath because of the hug, but then everyone goes to their respective classes.

They do! And the classes pass relatively uneventfully.

Then all five of them have PSHE (and citizenship), in a single class. Thar sits by Rashel who sits a few seats away from Ev.

Krian sits next to Ev.

Kay for once doesn't sit next to Krian, instead he sits next to Rashel. They are both great, but the cousins already spent most of their day together.

In that case, the lesson will progress with Rashel talking to Thar and Kay.

Today, they're talking about recreational drugs, and the pros and cons of them. Woo.

Krian finds this interesting, practical at very least.

What kind of recreational drugs do they talk about?

It's mainly the most common ones that are in use by teens – the usage rates aren't very high, but they still want to reduce them because some of this can be pretty nasty. They talk about the high, the side effects, the dependences and the associated activities and the issues that arise from all these things.

Overall, it's goes something like 'we'd really rather you didn't do these, though we guess we can't actually stop you, so we'll just tell you all the factual horrible things about them, contrast them with the positives, and let you decide'.

Hopefully it will be effective for most people. Krian already knows most of this stuff.

A lot of it is just rehashing things that people typically know, and some of it's for shock factor, but there are also some (probably) good statistics about the rates of various ill fates that could befall you relating to it (such as necrosis, if you plan on shooting up with some of the more horrible ones – don't do that).

But then the lesson does finally end. And it's lunch! Rashel disappears to go sit with her crowd.

Ev and Thar sit in their typical places, surrounded by various people as usual, but there are spaces for Kay and Krian if they wish to sit with them.

How nice of Ev! The cousins sit next to him again.

Great! Lunch! Right after a lesson featuring necrosis! Yay!

They didn't show gruesome pictures or anything. Not this time. But… they did go into some graphic detail about the horrors of the drugs.

Oh well.

Ev's not really at all squeamish, and he's put the lesson out of his mind almost completely, so he's fine.

Thar is possibly less okay, but it's not like he's not eating, he just seems a little subdued.

Then again, when does he not seem subdued?

"Still tired, Thar?" Kay asks.

"Yeah," he says, "little bit." He frowns a bit more and blinks. "I'm really not sure why."

He's been feeling pretty terrible lately, but he doesn't really want to say that to the new guy.

"It's not like energy drinks actually substitute sleep."

"Well yeah, I get that, but I mean I still don't know why I feel tired in the first place."

That Kay can't answer. He will then participate in whatever is today's conversational topic.

There are various topics! It meanders between their combined hatred of literature (with a few dissenters who are quickly disposed of, ha, of course not, no), then moves onto the topic of university and what they have in mind for the future (briefly – no-one really wants to dwell on this), and then onto the new biology teacher! Who is apparently quite hot. And also female.

Thar contributes some, but not much.

He seems okay to just sit here quietly, though.

Kay mentions something about being an artist, or maybe an architect, but doesn't elaborate much.

Krian can't decide between becoming a doctor, maybe going into neurology, or being some kind of physicist.