Chapter Text
When Vegetta awoke the next day, he found himself wondering if he had dreamed up the golden figure that had taken up his attention and evening. Every shade of yellow prompted a blossoming hope and curiosity that made him feel like he was having a crush for the first time. And despite his attempts to act as he normally did, adjusting his hair as he usually would and joining his friends for breakfast, it seemed that his attempts at normalcy would be completely destroyed by Willy, who fell into his chair like there was someone else about to steal it. Although that was difficult to believe, Vegetta wryly mused as he looked down at his phone to see the time, given that Willy arrived at his usual very late hour, a full 45 minutes after everyone else had already sat down.
"So, what's the plan, loverboy?" Willy threw his arm around Vegetta's shoulders and grinned widely. He did nothing to modulate his volume, and his question cut through the regular chatter at their table so that all eyes were on him.
"Loverboy?" Luzu leaned forward, looking like a cat that caught sight of a trapped bird, which Vegetta bemoaned internally. How he had fallen into this group of mischievous extroverts was a mystery to him as well.
"I..." He cleared his throat as he made a feeble attempt at moving the food on his plate from side to side. "I might've met someone interesting yesterday." The ensuing 'ooo's that followed his admission had him grinning helplessly with them.
"No, guys, you should've seen him when he came back to the dorm. He's absolutely crushing right now. Our Vegetta is growing up." Willy jostled his shoulders, having learned long ago to reserve his playful hair ruffling for those who didn't care as much. He wiped an invisible tear at the corner of his eye like a proud father. "And for no reason at all, Luzu, since you're so connected with the administration, is there any way for you to pull some info about a class?" He sent a charming smile towards him.
"Bro, you're acting like it's top-secret information." Rubius laughed, leaning in as he brought out his phone. "You can just look it up on the registrar website." They all leaned in as he pulled up the catalogue. After feeding in the class name in the search, they were met with a photo of Prof Cucurucho next to the course. The way they were acting had Vegetta feeling like they were doing something dangerous and covert. Their dedication to helping him warmed him some.
"Oh, man, don't you have a lecture that overlaps with that on Thursdays?" Rubius showed the times, and Vegetta nodded.
"You could just talk to the prof and pretend that you're interested in sitting in the class. They'd probably let you since the philosophy department loves you." Luzu shrugged. "A little white lie, sure, but I mean, if you like this, uh," he looked to him for the name.
"Foolish."
"No fucking way," was what chirped up from the farther side of the table from their youngest member of the friend group. "There's no way! I know him. I could totally connect you instead of whatever dumb undercover creep mission you're planning." He snorted, waving a hand at the phone on the table. He shoveled a bite of his food before continuing, "Foolish is a super chill guy, and he'd probably be down if I, like, introduced you two. Who'd have thought, though?" The last question seemed more rhetorical, but Vegetta felt subtle alarms in the back of his head that perhaps the golden boy and he weren't as compatible as he had felt. The thought saddened him.
"I might've implied that I was taking the same class, or, well, rather he asked, and I agreed, for some reason." Vegetta confessed, which made the group chuckle.
"Been there, my friend. You start acting a fool with love." Quackity pressed a hand to his heart, and it prompted a laugh from the group, given that they had well over four years on the prodigy but somehow were being treated as though the roles were reversed. Despite this, Vegetta did note the way that Luzu's hands tightened on his fork, which he filed away for later contemplation.
"Calling it love is a bit..." Vegetta trailed off, but before he had come up with some reasoning, his phone pinged. Confused, he opened it since he couldn't imagine who it might be outside the people in front of him or his family.
When he unlocked it, he was met with a GIF of a shark waving and a message from the very subject of his thoughts and current conversation. "Dude, this essay is so killer, and all the writing center tutors are booked straight. Any chance you wanna tackle it together? No pressure!" It was intoxicating how clearly the other's emotions could be read even through text, from his careful consideration at the end to the nervous undertone running throughout. It was unfairly endearing, and even he wasn't aware that there was a small grin forming despite his inner conflict on what to say without appearing pathetic until Maxo snatched the phone from his hands.
"Oh my friend, you are so in love. I knew I should've gotten my wedding officiant certificate sooner." Maxo patted his shoulder as he began typing away. The alarm had Vegetta shooting to his feet, reaching for the phone that was kept out of his grip, much to his other friend's amusement.
"Wait, what are you doing?" Vegetta's eyebrows rose aghast as he heard the undeniable sound of a sent message. It was only then that he saw Maxo's returning message saying that 'it sounded like a plan.' "Are you crazy?"
"Now, come on, Vegetta, what were you going to reply?" The other lifted his circular shades to make straight eye contact.
"I-- I don't know. Nothing?" He shrugged helplessly, eyes riveted on the sight of the indication that the other was texting back. Oh god, what if Foolish thought he was desperate? Which, okay, he was, but he could be cool. Suave or whatever.
"And that's precisely the problem, my friend." Maxo nodded sagely while Rubius couldn't help the snort that escaped in his laughing fit. "You would deny yourself the chance for happiness in fear of indecision. That's what we're here for: to help you get out of your ass, even if it takes surgery for your uptight one, and help you find your soulmate." He accompanied this with a wink and athumbs-up.
"Ew, dude, we're eating," Alexby raised his hands in defeat, with a mocking glare towards Maxo, who simply shrugged. "Not all of us are going to be doctors and have a steel stomach." He stuck his tongue out, which the other copied, and Vegetta again wondered how he had come to such a friend group, even if they were unfortunately endearing.
Thankfully he was saved from thinking of how to quietly withdraw from his classes and begin a transfer to a new school so that neither Foolish nor he would have to suffer the embarrassment of his advances. Almost as if a blessing from the universe, he got a text back from Foolish.
'let's go!! Can't wait, just lmk when u want to meet up. I'll be just here in the library lol.' This message accompanied by a shark sitting at a desk with a book. Just how much shark-related stuff did this guy have? He was helpless to the cuteness aggression he was getting from the other, so similar to the affection that would arise when his cats would bring him their toys.
"What does L. M. K. mean?" Vegetta asked the group, which caused a ripple of laughter to tear through the group.
"You are so old." Quackity wheezed but eventually did help in deciphering the message for Vegetta. By the end of the translation, Vegetta found himself with an appointment with Foolish at the library in an hour. It was only as they were all gathering their things that a horrifying thought entered his crush-dazed brain.
"Guys, I have no clue what's going on in that class."
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"So right now in my head, I'm thinking if past hierarchical structures like the emerging influence of capitalism were considered, there's like an almost direct line to how modern society encourages a work-based identity, ya know?" Foolish was writing furiously on the board, his handwriting frankly appalling, but that only made Vegetta lean further into his hand, whose elbow was resting on the study table in front of him.
In the one hour he'd had to prep, Vegetta had managed to acquire no information about the essay prompt or what the class was studying at the time, something that almost made him want to back out, though it was Maxo's voice in his head telling him how silly that would be. Not to mention the idea of Foolish waiting patiently and being ghosted without knowing why. Vegetta was never much of an actor, but to see the other smile, he could certainly try.
Any nervousness he felt immediately dissipated when the other caught sight of him slowly making his way to the study room, almost herding him into the room, taking his bag and putting it on the table as he immediately launched into his ideas about the essay. If it were anyone else, Vegetta would've probably left with some half-hearted excuse about how overwhelming the other's presence could be at first, but he couldn't find that urge around Foolish.
Foolish brushed his hair back with impatient hands and kept swirling in place to face the board and then address Vegetta, making the dark-haired man wonder how he wasn't dizzy from the sheer energy he exuded. It made him feel like he was in front of some immortal creature free from the anxieties of mortals. In a way, though, after he became accustomed to it, he was captured by the clear excitement and thought going into the subject. His eyes may have strayed from the whiteboard to the sharp line of the other's jaw occasionally, but how could he not when the chaos in front of him also provided him with the chance to just be carried in conversation by the other, though he was sure to make marginal comments to re-invigorate the other into a passionate side theory.
"I know that Prof Cucurucho hates us using fiction, but can't you also see how bringing in late 19th century working class literature like totally proves this idea of how class dynamics impacted ways to engage with worth, or ya know dignity as they call it in class?"
"Well, actually, Professor Cucurucho loves fiction. He probably just doesn't want to alienate the STEM students just trying to get a requirement done." Vegetta smiled, and this made Foolish pause and turn fully towards him.
"There's no way." Foolish frowned, blinking as he turned back to the whiteboard. "When I went to his office hours, he said I couldn't use that as the basis of the paper."
"Well, what major are you?" Vegetta asked, and the other finally stopped his restless pacing and sat down next to him, putting down his papers where he'd scribbled out different versions of the essay. Vegetta had to hold back a laugh when he saw that Foolish had sketched a rough image of a shark with its head in its hands with smoke emerging on the margins of the paper. It sparked an idea in him.
"I'm double majoring in Architecture and Studio Art." The other replied absentmindedly as he looked over his notes, waving his hand as if to dismiss that impressive ambition. "Do you think he thought because I was a bio major that I wouldn't be interested in the humanities side of philosophy? That seems stupid." A cute frown formed between his eyebrows.
"Or maybe he was looking to challenge you to expand beyond your current knowledge and try to approach it through a different lens." Vegetta pointed to where the other had circled the topic of working class literature. "Maybe he wants you to explore primary sources that align with these ideas rather than subsidiary ones that are often themselves reflections from the author on the topics." The academic in him surged to life as he stood up and took a purple dry erase marker to add notes to Foolish's scattered thoughts, drawing a line to connect two ideas from across the board. "If philosophy, as Professor Cucurucho says often, is a practice that not only examines the broad external world but the deepest of our internal ones, he could be trying to encourage you, us, to find real-life actors to examine these ideas through. In the same way you might explore a subject through how it isn't present in a piece, perhaps you could do that same thing with nonfiction historical documents."
Foolish had a hand over his mouth with a tantalizing finger brushing over his bottom lip that Vegetta wished he could be more subtle about staring at. The only indication he gave was how his hand tightened around the marker, turning his gaze away before the other caught him staring.
"That's super smart." Foolish breathed out, and a flutter of pride rose in the older man. "Man, what are you majoring in?"
"Philosophy." Vegetta gave him a wide smile and took his place again next to Foolish, who eagerly turned toward him. "But I started as a business one."
"Crazy shift."
"Unavoidable once I realized it was too interesting to only take one class. Also, I can still go into law with it." He shrugged demurely.
"Well, in that case, Socrates, what's your essay gonna focus on? Most people were saying they were just going to base it off the week's reading, but where's the fun in that, you know?" He blinked and immediately backpedaled. "Not that there's anything bad with it, but--" The older held up a hand to calm the other, though secretly he also wondered what in the world he was going to say given that he definitely did not have an essay ready, didn't even know the prompt.
"No worries, I had a different idea about my essay, about, um, how gender might influence the subject. Not my best work, but just another, um, angle." He prayed to anything that would listen that it didn't sound suspicious, but the other took it in stride, immediately grabbing the other's hand in excitement. Electricity coursed through Vegetta at the contact.
"No, that's actually super important, especially with how gender studies has evolved so much over recent years. It so clearly relates to ideas of dignity based on inherent worth as opposed to external factors, because even just like women are constantly under surveillance to perform their 'place' in society well, like being moms or wives, etc. And if you include how transgender people are held to similar social performance and, ya know, like that validation process where their identity can be compromised by others's expectations. This idea of existential dignity could help in grounding worth not in how one is perceived but in self-actualized ideas of worth." Even with his stream-of-consciousness type of exploration, Vegetta couldn't help but admire the other's adaptability and insight. Now, in his last year at the institute, he could easily imagine how much Foolish would've been a balm to his soul, just hearing the other be so excited about academic ideas. Dare he say, Vegetta felt like he could listen to the other talk for hours.
"But you know, I think your point leads to another thread. How does someone establish an idea of what they believe provides worth? Does it come from others? Aren't we all, to some degree, influenced by society?" Vegetta nodded in concession. "But then isn't that just a self-fulfilling prophecy where, in trying to escape the active voices of validation, you're just met with their echoes in your head?"
"Hm, it sounds like you're talking about concepts of finding identity in a void, if that's possible. If you're interested in that question, I think you might appreciate nostalgia studies. It covers ideas of identity in displacement, whether physical or temporal, which your echoes idea can fall under, and some academics talk about how identity can be, is, and may be formed by ideas of longing for a past idealized state. Maybe your answer lies there." Vegetta offered, remembering his own foray into nostalgia studies a couple of years back, when he had found himself staying up reading Svetlana Boym's fascinating look into post-Soviet sentiment in relation to nostalgia. That memory reminded him about a section of the book that talked specifically of architecture and memory.
Foolish was quiet as he listened to the other, and it was only here that Vegetta realized, under the other's intense gaze, that his green eyes were actually contacts, only betrayed by the slight shift when Foolish held still enough to observe it. He shivered under the stare, and the golden boy took no pause as he nodded to the other's words.
"That's fascinating. I've never heard of nostalgia studies." There was that finger on the bottom lip again, but Vegetta didn't have the comfort of physical distance between them anymore. They were sitting side by side, knee to knee, and the warmth from the other was seeping through their clothes.
"You'd like it, I think. Here I can write down this book that covers the basics and also, as a bonus, has some stuff about architecture." The wink Vegetta threw in at the end of the sentence was done with a confidence that he definitely felt, but the sight of the other's eyes locked on his made it worth it. To be under the other's intense attention, to hold it with some words, was an intoxicating feeling.
They both reached for Foolish's open notebook, and there it was again, that jolt, that hyperawareness of where his fingers started and Foolish's ended. This time he had the clarity to feel the rough scrapes of calluses lining his hand, and he wondered for a wild moment if he envied that hand for being able to brush the other's lips with a gentle touch. What would it feel like to have that rough texture on his own lips?
The stray thought had him drawing his hand back as if the other could read his mind through touch, and he gently took a pen, noting down the book. What kind of thoughts were going through his head?
"Oh man, time flies." Foolish moaned as he looked up at the clock on the wall. He followed the gaze and found himself equally surprised and put out by the fact that they'd apparantly already spent two hours talking. "I do have lunch plans with a friend in like 20 minutes, but this has been so much help. I'd be so lost in all these different ideas so really, man, thank you." There was a brief squeeze on his shoulder before Foolish's hand disappeared to stretch above him, revealing a sliver of his skin that made Vegetta admittedly less upset over so brief a touch and the loss of the other next to him. He similarly began gathering his items, and what a contrast it was to see the difference in how they'd settled into the room. Foolish had pages and pages lining the conference table, the motley of ideas on the whiteboard, and a laptop with so many tabs open it made Vegetta a little dizzy. But there was something endearing in the other's chaos, the order that the other managed to find in his wild exploration.
As they exited the room, Foolish lowered his voice to respect library laws and murmured close to Vegetta's ear, "We should do this again sometime. See you in class tomorrow?"
"Of course." Vegetta shyly smiled back before turning, and, no, not running, quickly made his way to the exit while Foolish turned in another direction.
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Later that night, Vegetta was startled awake by the sound of a text on his bedside. He was already in bed, and though the sun was just setting, he'd always been an early sleeper, a fact known by all of his close ones, so whatever this was must be urgent.
As he turned the screen towards him, the sight of a shark emoji made an unbidden smile rise, and he sat up, reading what the other had written. 'Library doesn't have any copies of the book T-T but I swear I'll find it on some website :D thnx again, ur the best!' accompanied by a picture of a shark with a pirate's hat that had Vegetta giggling. He pointedly ignored how Willy turned from his desk curiously.
He deigned not to reply since it was late anyway, but in the back of his mind, a new idea began to emerge, and he opened a book-ordering website. His sunshine academic shouldn't have to go scrounging around for resources when Vegetta was more than capable of finding a copy worthy of his hands.