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For once in his life, Shino was not five minutes early. It would have irked him if it were anywhere on his radar to notice. He was late, after all, because he had gotten himself once again completely engrossed in something which existed in a state of proto-reality. The book in his hands was battered and dog-eared, obviously the sort of thing that Shino had been dragging around for more than a year. Closer inspection revealed the tediously extensive notes, scribbled in painstakingly tiny print across almost every inch of free space on almost every page. For whatever reason, The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals was one of those books that Shino could never quite get enough out of without reading it at least a couple thousand times.

And they were using it in one of his classes.

It put him in an altered space as he wandered slowly toward the meeting point, underlining yet another few words that his professor had been repeating once again. The few extra seconds of forced interaction with a classmate after the lecture, arguing a fine point over discrepancies between Darwin's works, the slower pace as he again scanned a chapter he'd read hundreds of times before, kept him away from the people around him, much more than the blank look he usually kept on his face or his often curt replies to daily situations.

His feet brought him automatically to the arranged spot, book still tight in his hand and up near his face. His glasses were sliding just a little, and he lifted his hand in an impatient gesture to stop his vision from slipping away. It brought the real world into perspective again, and reminded him of the universe around him. Blinking, he glanced up, looking for the shock of pink hair he needed to apologize to for his tardiness.