“Arkay, can you help me with something?”
Litvir awkwardly nudged the door open, his hands preoccupied with heavy text books. He slipped through the gap he made, before straightening himself out in the middle of Arkay’s room.
“I could have opened the door for you, you know…” Arkay tutted, sitting calmly at his desk doodling and drawing. “What’s up?”
Litvir made his way over to the desk, dumping the heavy pile of books on top of it, but not before checking that Arkay wasn’t still drawing. “I need help explaining this time work. I asked Retvik and he is unsure, and I do not want to go to our overseers to ask them. Would look… weak.”
Arkay shrugged, looking over the books. Litvir turned to the correct page, revealing a short article about black holes.
“So… what do you not understand?”
“This picture here…” Litvir pointed to a very dark black space, with a glowing circle swirling around it, and galaxies strewn across it. “What is actually happening here? The text underneath says that you are seeing around and through the black hole? I do not understand this at all.”
Arkay shrugged some more, reading the accompanying text, then started to explain. “So, uh, basically, light is being affected by gravity here. So normally the light would shine straight towards our eyes or the camera. But the black hole’s gravity is so strong that it bends the light before it hits your eyes. And that light, because it’s coming directly to you, it has to go around the black hole. But because the gravity is so strong, it stretches the light around the black hole. It’s called Gravitational Lensing.”
Litvir stared blankly at the book, then blinked. “That… I guess that makes sense. Now I know what it is called, I can just, well… look it up…”
“Yeah, knowing what something’s called makes searches so much easier…” Arkay shrugged, then paused, staring at Litvir’s neck. “Uh, why are you wearing a bulb of garlic around your neck?”
“Because everyone keeps on calling me a vampire.”
“How does a bulb of garlic prove that you are not a vampire?” Arkay paused again. “People are still calling you a vampire?”
Litvir nodded. “All the time. Just because I am dark, skinny and have long fangs, that does not mean I am a vampire.”
“Don’t you also feed on people’s emotions? And shy away from the dark? And wear black all the time and wear a cape?”
“That does not mean I am a vampire!”
Arkay shrugged. “That’s fine. You’re not a vampire. You just like that vampiric fashion sense.”
“I… what?”
“You like the whole feel to it. The cape, the dark look, the edginess. I should know, I went through a phase like that. Pissed the parents off no end. I kinda grew out of it though when I realised the whole “kill them with a wooden stake” thing made no sense because most things die if you stab them in the heart with a pointy thing.”
Litvir blinked in confusion, then slowly began to take off his cape. “I… I guess? I think… I think I will go back to my studies now…”
“Alright!” Arkay waved as he went back to his doodles. “Let me know if you need any more help!”
“Yeah… will do…”