Jin found himself eating and listening more than talking, which was fine. There was a lot to process, and listening gave him time to do it.
The doors to the cafeteria opened with enough fanfare that several conversations paused. Jin looked up and saw Xavier wheeling himself in with Logan trailing behind like some kind of grumpy guardian, and Jean walked in from the other direction with a stack of papers under her arm. The shift in the room was subtle but noticeable—the kind of thing that happened when authority figures entered a space and people didn't want to get in trouble for whatever they'd been doing.
"Well, looks like the day just got more interesting," Scott muttered, watching Xavier navigate through the tables.
Xavier spotted their group and made his way over, Logan moving to the side like he was standing guard or something. Up close, the Professor looked exactly like Jin had seen him before, but there was something different about the way he carried himself in the cafeteria compared to his office. More relaxed, maybe. Less formal.
"Ah, I see our guest has finally ventured into social spaces," Xavier said, settling himself at the head of the table with the kind of smooth precision that suggested he'd done this a thousand times before. "How are you adjusting to life at the school so far, Jin? Must be quite the transition from being unconscious."
"It's definitely a change," Jin said, trying to figure out how much honesty was actually appropriate here. "Everything's still kind of... a lot. But the students are nice. And the food is edible, which is something."
Rogue snorted into her drink.
"He lifted a couch yesterday," Scott offered, apparently deciding that providing additional context was his responsibility. "Just picked it up like it was nothing. Thought you should know about the mysterious strength situation."
Xavier's eyebrow rose in that particular way that suggested he was filing this information away for later analysis. "Did he, now? Have you noticed any other unusual abilities, Jin? Anything that feels different or unexpected?"
The question was asked so casually that Jin almost missed the fact that it was actually an interrogation in disguise. But he was getting better at reading people, and Xavier's interest seemed genuine rather than suspicious.
"Spatial awareness, maybe," Jin said slowly, working through the words as he went. "Not like seeing things coming necessarily, but more like the space around me feels different sometimes. Like the air has actual weight to it, if that makes sense. I'm not really sure what it means yet."
"Interesting," Jean said from somewhere in his peripheral vision. She'd apparently finished whatever she'd been doing with her papers and was now paying attention to the conversation. "Spatial awareness in relation to cursed energy, most likely. We should definitely run some tests when you're ready. Nothing invasive, just measurements and observations."
"I'd prefer not to," Jin said, and then immediately regretted how blunt that sounded because three people at the table all looked at him with various degrees of surprise. He scrambled to explain himself better because he didn't want to sound ungrateful or paranoid. "I mean, nothing against you guys or anything. I'm sure the tests would be really informative. It's just that I've kind of gotten the sense that I need to figure some things out on my own right now. Once I understand more about how things work with me, maybe we can do the whole testing situation. But right now it feels like putting the cart before the horse."
Logan made a sound that might have been approval. It was hard to tell with him.
"That's fair reasoning," Xavier said, and he sounded like he actually meant it. "Medical analysis can wait. There's no immediate danger, and I'd rather you be comfortable with the process when it happens. We can revisit the conversation when you're more settled in."
He stayed at the table for another few minutes, asking about classes and assignments and how everyone was doing with their training, the kind of casual check-ins that suggested he actually cared about these students beyond just training the next generation of mutants. Then he wheeled himself off toward a table where some other adults were sitting, probably other teachers based on the way they were dressed and the general adult energy they were giving off.
Once he was far enough away that normal conversation could resume, Scott leaned back in his chair and studied Jin with that same penetrating look he'd been giving him since they sat down.
"So you're like, a runaway situation? Or orphan? Mysterious shadowy past?" Scott asked, and he said it like he was genuinely curious rather than prying. "You can tell us. We're very good at not judging people for having weird backgrounds. This is a school specifically for people with weird circumstances."
"It's complicated," Jin said, which was the most honest answer he could give without actually explaining anything. "I don't really know how much of my background is worth explaining because I don't actually remember most of it. Three weeks unconscious tends to do that to your memory."
"Fair point," Scott said, nodding like that made sense to him. "Brain trauma's rough. My buddy Bobby—he's not here today—his cousin got hit in the head pretty hard during a training accident. Took weeks to remember basic stuff. You just wake up and things are all fuzzy?"
"Pretty much," Jin confirmed, which was close enough to true. His memories from before waking up were strange and fractured and didn't really make sense when he tried to examine them closely. "Everything's kind of coming back slowly. Or maybe not coming back at all. I'm not really sure yet."
"That's got to suck," Rogue said, and she sounded like she actually meant it. "Just being thrust back into existence with no memory of how you got here. I mean, we've all got weird circumstances, but that's like, extra weird."
The meal continued without requiring much additional input from Jin, which was kind of a relief. The students at the table went back to their previous arguments and jokes, letting him exist at the periphery of the conversation. He could listen and process and not worry about having to explain himself every five seconds.
By the time people started clearing their plates and heading off to wherever they needed to be next, Jin had absorbed a decent amount of information about how the school actually functioned. Scott seemed to be some kind of leader among the students, or at least the type who took responsibility seriously. Rogue was the one who said what everyone was thinking but more diplomatically. There were other students who would probably become more three-dimensional as Jin got to know them, but for now they were mostly just faces and voices attached to the general chaos of student life.
"You should come to training tomorrow," Rogue said as they were standing up, gesturing vaguely toward the direction of wherever the training rooms were. "We're doing some combat drills and it'd be good to see what you can actually do with all that mysterious strength. Plus it'll be less weird than you just lurking in your room all day."
"We could use someone new to run drills against," Scott added, already picking up his plate. "Everyone here's been training together for a while. Fresh variables are actually useful."
"I'll think about it," Jin said, which wasn't quite a yes but was definitely more of a yes than a no.
"Tomorrow," Scott said firmly, like he'd already decided that Jin's attendance was non-negotiable. "Don't be late. Training starts at four."
Jin nodded and headed back toward his room, leaving the cafeteria behind. The hallway was quieter now, most of the school in the process of transitioning into evening routines. He could hear the sound of students in various rooms, some studying, some talking, some probably doing homework or whatever else teenagers did when they weren't in classes.
His room was quiet when he got there. Jin locked the door more out of habit than actual concern and sat on the edge of the bed, trying to process everything that had happened.
He'd talked to actual people. Real students his own age, more or less. They hadn't been weird about his appearance or his general mysterious nature. They'd just sort of... accepted him. Treated him like a normal person who happened to have shown up at their school under slightly unusual circumstances.
Jin sat back against the headboard and focused inward, reaching for that ocean of cursed energy that existed somewhere in the depths of his consciousness.
Twenty-one percent synchronization. Locked techniques. No instructions. A template body that still didn't feel entirely like his own.
Tomorrow was going to be interesting, that was for sure. Probably complicated. Definitely going to require him to figure out what he was actually capable of when he wasn't just thinking about cursed energy in abstract terms.
But for tonight, he could just sit here and think about the fact that people had treated him like he belonged somewhere. That was something.
That was actually more than something.
Jin closed his eyes and let the cursed energy settle, letting himself just exist for a moment without worrying about what came next.