#atozchallenge: BYZANTINE

What attracted him to her was her use of the word byzantine. He was a lover of curious words, and he had heard her mumble under her breath about how byzantine the college office was with its multiple forms in triplicate . He had turned to look at her sharply, but she hadn’t noticed as she was engrossed in mumbling her way through Form 981015D and 9843210C in an attempt to obtain student housing before the semester actually started.

“I could help you with that, you know,” he had said as unobtrusively as possible when she had come to a stop in the middle of Form 354648Z.

“Uh, do I know you?” she had asked a trifle rudely.

“I… Well, I work in this byzantine office,” he said. “And actually, if… if you just fill up Form 6548E, you’ll probably… uh… be able to get a room by… O… Orientation.” He pushed the single form towards her.

“Oh. I hadn’t meant for you to hear that,” she said. He watched her cute little pixie ears turn pink. “Thanks a lot, Mister - uh,” she peered at his name tag.

“Ed. You… you can call me Ed.”

“Sure. Right. Uh - I guess I’ll just… fill up the form then.”

She gingerly pulled the form from his fingers and he smiled at her. He watched as she filled up the form, cocking his head every so often. This semester might actually be quite interesting if there were people like her to talk to.

“Have a good day!” he greeted cheerily as she passed the form to him and walked out.

It saddened him that the last thing he heard her mumble as she walked out of the office was, “Total creeper.”

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Byzantine

1 relating to Byzantium, the Byzantine Empire, or the Eastern Orthodox Church.

2 (also byzantine) (of a system or situation) excessively complicated, and typically involving a great deal of administrative detail

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A little bit of overemphasis on the word "byzantine", maybe. 
Funny, I was imagining him as a nervous little man with a bit of a twitch, but I don't think that really translated well into the text.