by Newbiel
"Yes I read about it in the newspaper. Nicely done by the way." Even if he was in corporate law and her in criminal law, he knew that what she had done was not easy.
"I was talking about my assistant tempering with case files." She said bluntly.
"Yes I heard." He said in a cold voice.
Words go out really fast between lawyers in cases like that and it comes to no surprise to someone as well connected as he was aware of it. Even Richard knew that what he had done was grave hence his cold tone.
"It was Nathaniel who found out about it. He was coming back from LA after an interview and dropped by the office to see me. When he saw the state I was in, he proposed to help me.and I accepted. He found out the proof I needed in two hours in the files that I was inspecting for a week."
"Still impressive but this is not the law part of his knowledge that worries me but the rest." Richard said. This was not the first time that he listened to parents who glorified their children so he did not put to heart what she was saying.
"That was not my point. I'm 80% sure that if Nathaniel took the Bar today, he would get it and at the end of this semester, I'm sure at 100% that he will get it. He is a genius but he has a problem. He has almost no friend and none of his age. When he was younger, he was being bullied constantly because he had two lesbians mothers. He always hid it from us but we knew. A mother always knows that kind of thing so he becomes a loner. Today he can pass his day alone and be completely fine with it but we are worried."
"You hoped that with young people as smart as him, he would find it easier to make friends?" Richard picked up quickly. He ignored the most part of her crazy talk about Nathaniel passing the Bar already and focused on the principal matter.
"Yes, it is our hope." She answered truthfully.
"I can affirm that we have an amazing atmosphere here so don't worry. If your son is as amazing as you say he is, he will make friends easily." Richard reassured her.
"Thanks." She said softly, still not entirely convinced.
*****
Three hours later, Nathaniel entered the dean office again and was surprised to find them still talking. Their topic of conversation seemed to be environmental law which made him smile. It was a passionate topic albeit a sad one.
"I finished! Joshua is grading my last test, This is for you." He said, dropping an enormous stack of paper on his desk.
Seeing that, Richard lifts an eyebrow. He could not help sneering inwardly, If he finished in three hours, he must have failed at least half of those tests. Taking the first test, the letter A in red was plainly visible. Thinking this was luck, he passed to the second page, then the third, the fourth…
"What the hell?" He exclaimed.
He could not help but to pinch himself in the hope that he was dreaming. He had looked at twenty tests already and they were all A! It was unbelievable. The mind of Richard was in turmoil as he was looking through all of these tests.
Seeing the four hundred dollars on the desk, Nathaniel turned to his mother.
"Mom you bet on me again?" He asked bitterly.
"Yes, the dean thought that I was exaggerating so I was forced to make a bet." She said almost apologetically.
"I confiscated it! We would give them to charity." He said, taking the money on the desk.
Seeing him take the money, the dean could not help to voice his disagreement.
"Hey not so fast! I'm not finished yet."
"They are all A sir, I assure you." Nathaniel said to the dean who just grumbled and continued going through every test on his desk. Soon enough, he was finished and he realized it was in fact all straight A.
"There is still a test missing." Richard grumble, talking about the one Joshua was finishing grading.
"It is an A as well." He said in an absentminded voice. "Let's go mom, I'm famished."
"Okay sweetie, it was a pleasure Mister Curtis."
"Goodbye sir." Nathaniel said before leaving.
They had not exited the room for more than five seconds when Joshua entered the room with the last test in hand. Looking through his face, Richard could see that Joshua was shocked still.
"It is another A is it?"
"Yes Richard, it is." He confirmed. "That was unbelievable. He managed to get a hundred percent of good answers on all the tests except this last one."
"He made a mistake? On what question?" He asks, feeling better.
"You are not going to like it. The question was when the french revolution happened and he just crossed off the proposed answer and wrote something in french on the side. 'C'est une perfection de n'aspirer point à être parfait' No idea what it means though." Joshua said. he did not study french in college but german.
"Give me that." He ordered, taking the test and reading the phrase in question. "I recognize that phrase. It's a quote from a french priest who lived a few years after the revolution. It means 'It's a perfection not to aspire to be perfect'. He's trolling me." Richard said bitter. He was the dean of one of the best law schools in the country and he was being taunted by a sixteen years old. He could not help but to feel wrong.
"Well at least he failed to have the perfect score test." Joshua said to cheer up his best friend.
"Look at the bottom right of the page." Richard said, giving the test back.
"1789." He read out loud and then laughed.
"I'm going to hate that kid." Richard said, crossly.
"I'm going to love that kid.�� Joshua exclaimed, laughing out loud.
Chapter 51: :
New York, Columbia University. 29/09/2012. 10:30.
Today was the first day of orientation week in Columbia. It was usually the day were the students who were accepted in Columbia started arriving from all over the country and even the world. They were then welcomed by people to help them settle in their new universities residences. It was a touching scene, watching young people saying goodbye to their loved ones and becoming independent.
As he was walking in the campus, he could see that it was packed with people. Compared to when he came last week, everything had changed. Huge stands and sheds had been erected everywhere with people walking between them. The principal role of the orientation week was to help the new students acclimate to their new university life.
It was also today that the university was giving them their student ID card, which is mandatory to enter the teaching building and the library. After that he had a series of compulsory meetings with teachers who were going to tell them what was expected of them. That was it for this morning. In the afternoon he was free to do as he pleased, visiting the number of stands that were recruiting for diverse clubs and activities.
Looking at the time, he realized that he needed to hurry as the meeting was starting soon. Quickening his pace he oriented himself to go to the main teaching building. Luckily, the staff of the university had put a number of directional signs so it was easy to find the room in question. The room in question was a huge theater lecture room that had at least 300 sitting places. Entering the room he could see that he was still early as roughly ⅔ of the seats were already taken.
Looking at the podium there were 8 teachers assembled here, sitting on chairs and talking among themselves. Nathaniel upon entering could see that the dean and Joshua were amongst those teachers. Locking eyes with the dean Nathaniel smiled lightly and performed a little, mocking bow. Seeing that, the dean start to frown while Joshua just turned his head hiding his smile. There were also a few students who had witnessed the scene and were dumbfounded about his action.
Finding the second row almost empty Nathaniel took the first seat on the right side of the room, close to the passageway and near the wall. It was his military experience which pushed him to pick that place as it was protecting his side and could provide him an escape route in case of an attack. There was little to no chance of that happening but he always liked to be ready constantly. Again, it was his soldier training at play here.
Coming back to what happened a fe
w seconds ago people would think that he was crazy to taunt the dean before even the first class had started, but he was doing it because he had understood something about Richard. The meeting they had last week was originally planned by the dean to understand and examine Nathaniel but it turned out that the exact opposite happened. During the entire meeting, Nathaniel chose his word carefully to elicit an answer from the dean, even the insult was carefully planned by him.
He needed to know who the dean was because his future would be highly impacted by him. He had of course investigated him before but nothing could replace a good face to face meeting. While they were talking Nathaniel realised that he respected people with character and intelligence the most. So he did show him exactly what he wanted. The taunt was maybe a little too much but that was only the playful nature of Nathaniel at play here.
"Excuse me, is this seat taken?" Said a pleasant sounding voice with a little accent.
Looking at the girl in front of him Nathaniel could not help but feel his pulse quicken slightly. She was a stunning girl with long silky black hair going to the middle of her back. She had piercing grey eyes and a cute mouth. She looked like 5"5" but there was an aura of strength around her that Nathaniel could feel in his bones and made her seem taller than that.
She was wearing a white shirt, blue navy vest and a knee length black skirt with high boots that compliment her amazing figure beautifully. He could now understand her little accent when he saw that she was of Asian heritage. Looking attentively at her face he could determine that she was likely to have a korean origin.
There were people saying that Asian people all look the same. It was false. The kind of people saying that were either trolls, idiots or racists, or all of the above. There was in fact a difference between the face of someone coming from Japan, Korea or China. If you were to compare a Korean and a Chinese woman, you will usually see that Korean people had in fact a more square shaped jaw and thinner nose and mouth than their Chinese counterpart. You just needed good observation skills to see the difference, things that normal people lacked.
"No it's not, you can sit here if you want." Nathaniel said, moving to the side to make it easy for her to pass and sit down. She passed in front of him and sat herself down with grace and agility.
"Thank you. I'm Na-Yung by the way, nice to meet you." She said, extending her hand.
Suddenly, Nathaniel had an impression of deja vu. It was almost the same situation when he had met Taylor for the first time almost 6 months ago. He thought it was maybe a good presage so he shook her hand.
"Nathaniel Lyndon. Glad to meet you as well." Nathaniel looked at her with attention but she did not seem to react upon hearing his name so she shouldn't know him.
"I'm a law student here and you?"
"I am too. We all are here. You see those teachers on the stage? They teach law here and will hold a speech to welcome us and to tell us what is expected of us for the semester." Nathaniel explained.
He had seen their faces on the university website and that's why he managed to recognize them. They all teached law but their domain varied as expected. Law was a huge domain with a lot of variety. There was for example corporate law, environmental law, criminal law, immigration law and the list continues.
"Now that you point that out, it makes sense." She said, nodding.
Looking at his watch Nathaniel realized that the meeting was going to start soon and more and more people came inside. The empty places were getting rarer and in their row there were only two empty seats left next to Na-Yung. Two men appeared to have seen them and stirred themselves into their direction. They were both rather attractive, around 6 feet tall and had muscular bodies. When they were walking in his direction Nathaniel could see more than a couple of women eyeing them appreciatively. The one who seemed to be in charge apparently noticed that fact and a cocky smile appeared on his lips.
Nathaniel could already sense trouble coming his way. The one in charge seated himself beside Na-Yung who did not even turn her head and kept looking at Nathaniel. He immediately wanted to start a conversation with her but she ignored him like he wasn't even there and kept talking with him.
"Where are you from?" She asked Nathaniel.
Seeing the incoming drama unfolding before his very eyes, he opt to act like nothing happened and he didn't hear any of it. Luckily, his acting was quite good by now.
"I'm from NY, lived and born here in this very city. You are from South Korea right?"
Seeing that he was being ignored, the guy who looks like he was a football player was dumbfounded. That was a first for him as usually the girls would be dazzled by his good looks and football prowess, but it did not seem to work this time. Looking at the guy who was talking to that hot chick he could see that he was attractive and that he didn't seem to have noticed his own attempt at a conversation. He was surprised as he was expecting a condescending smile but since nobody seemed to have noticed his failure, it was all good. After all, there were a lot of other sexy girls here and he realized that in just the row behind him there was one who was making eye contact with him. Smiling, he started talking with her and the whole incident was already forgotten.
"How did you know that I was Korean?" Na-Yung asked, surprised.
"It was easy really, just your name is Korean. Even if I don't know the language I can tell. The second clue is your facial features, there are tell tell signs that you are Korean so I just made an assumption and went with it." Nathaniel explained humbly.
"I'm impressed, my parents always told me that Americans could not tell the difference between Korean, Japanese and Chinese people."
"Your parents are right, we don't. It's just that I met asian people before and thus I notice the difference but yeah, it is not easy for us to do so."
"Okay it is time. I would like to welcome you all here in Columbia!" The voice of the dean suddenly exclaimed, cutting their conversation short.
Chapter 52: :
The meeting lasted one hour and a half. The dean did the introduction and after that the teachers started talking about their respective field and what they expected of the students. As first years they would have to attend at least five out of the eight teachers. Even if they will pick their specialisation in the third year they will have to have superficial knowledge on many different fields before that. Once graduated, they will represent Columbia to the world so they need to be brilliant and knowledgeable. That was why the employment rate of the graduates of the first five colleges in the country was almost 100%.
Once the last speech was finished the students left the theater. A portion of them decide to take up on the chance to talk with their future teacher on some topic. While they were all moving out of the room Nathaniel decided to wait. He was not rushing for time and did not want to be trapped among the crowd. From a risk assessments viewpoint that was a poor choice to do so he decided to wait.
Beside him, Na-Yung seemed to have opted to do the same. The football player and his friend had already left the theater while talking to an attractive brunette. He was glad that he managed to avoid that little crisis. Beautiful women were really a magnet for problems, that or men's ego was, or both. It was really hard to tell from an historical point of view.
Seeing the flow of people starting to die down Nathaniel made a move to get up and Na-Yung mirrored him at the same time.
"Where do you plan on going next?" She asked.
"I'm going to look around, and you?" Nathaniel said. It was over for the mandatory meetings for today and he was free to go wherever he wanted to, even home, but it was still encouraged to socialize with the other students.
"I'm going to the archery range, I have an appointment with the coach. In what sport did you engage yourself?" She asked, looking at his body as if searching what he could do based on his musculature.
Even if people could tell that he had a good body Nathaniel was doing the best that he could to hide how ripped he actually was. Even if that was rather counterproductive
for a singer or actor, Nathaniel did not want to be known for his body but for his mind. Moreover, if people did not know how muscular he was he could surprise them in a fight. Surprise was infinitely valuable in combat. That was one of the reasons Marc successfully lived past his forties. He had such a normal face and body that none of his targets ever took him seriously until the moment they had died of course. So seeing Na-Yung trying to evaluate him on his body alone was rather funny for him.
"None, why?"
"None? I thought it was mandatory to. Something about contributing to university life. It was sport, art or organisation of events." Na-Yung said, surprised.
"Oh? I didn't read that anywhere. I will look into it, thanks."
Descending the stairs, they kept talking to each other. Passing a few students waiting to talk to their future teachers they were nearing the door when a loud echo resounded in the room.
"Nathaniel Lyndon, I would like a word with you please." The dean exclaimed.
Hearing that name, every conversation died down around him and people started to look for the student in question. At that point everybody knew his name but almost no one knew his face with the exception of the ones who googled him. Smiling bitterly Nathaniel turned to Na-Yung.
"You should go, it will take a while."
"Oh okay, no problem, we will see each other later."
"Alright, later."
Looking at her leave he could not argue the fact that she had a really enticing figure. Shaking his head he started walking to the dean who was looking at him with a smirk. It seemed he was doing that as a form of payback. When he finally arrived in front of the dean almost everyone at that point was looking at him and was trying to evaluate him. Nathaniel by now was impervious to the stares of others after turning his movie and doing more than a couple of interviews in front of an audience of more than one hundred people.
"Yes sir?" Nathaniel asked.