Well, Ryan thought to himself, I made my wish, I planted it, so I'd better do it.

It was the day after he'd made his wish from the Wishing Tree at the Star Festival. Making the wish as literally tangible as he could ensured he would finally, actually act on it. After all, feeling crawling guilt every time you passed a sapling that literally grew because you made a wish on its seeds and planted it did not sound like a good time. And avoiding the park altogether forever sounded like a really, really stupid idea.

Well, it sounded great on the surface, but when Ryan actually considered the idea, he knew it was completely ridiculous. Avoiding a large part of the city forever just because he couldn't stand to look at a frigging tree? Absolutely absurd. He sighed and shook his head vigorously, knowing he was just distracting himself by going over the same stupid arguments he'd already gone over in his head a million times today. He would stop putting it off. He would turn on his computer, right the heck now, and get started.

....He would sit here and stare at the blank screen for a little while longer before getting up to get water. After all, you needed to keep hydrated, right? Once he sat back at his desk, he at least flipped the computer and monitor on before standing again to go to the bathroom. Better to be done with everything at once than to be interrupted in the middle of it, right?

He sat at his desk again, computer having finished booting up, and signed in. Promptly, he stood again and headed into the kitchen to make a snack. Just something else he needed to make sure he didn't get interrupted by, of course. He made a sandwich quickly, dropping some chips onto the plate, and brought it back to his computer. He double-clicked on his browser and then, as he didn't even sit down, went back to the kitchen to refill his water, already half-gone from nervous drinking, and also grab a brownie from last night's baking and a soda to bring back.

He sat down once more, cracked his knuckles, and then his neck, and typed in the url to DCU.

As soon as he whacked enter, he stood up again to go adjust the thermostat. It was a little warm in his apartment; he needed the A/C to kick up again. He nodded sharply when he heard the vents starting to whirr with air moving through them, hopefully much cooler air, and then marched back to his computer, sitting down once more.

He sternly told himself to stop putting it off and finally clicked on the damn "apply now!" button. He exhaled slowly and started filling everything he could in. He was independent now, so at least he didn't need any of his so-called parents' information, especially for the scholarship applications, for which he was grateful. Them being well-off, even if they didn't care to contact him anymore, didn't matter when it came to himself. Especially when he knew they'd die rather than help him anyway.

He spent several hours filling it out, eating his meager lunch and drinking both his bottles of soda and water down long before he finished.

With trepidation and exhaustion, he clicked the "send" button.

Huh. He thought... there'd be more fanfare, for some reason. Something. That really felt anticlimactic. Sputtering his lips, he stood and stretched, cracking parts of his spine, and headed into the kitchen to whip up his favorite comfort dinner.