Chapter Text
After getting over the initial heart palpitations caused by John, you shove the strange strangling feeling to the back of your consciousness and focus on getting to actually know this person. You stare at him on the floor for a full minute before he uses his stunningly blue eyes to glance at you and then at the chair that had toppled over on top of him.
“Little help?”
“Oh shit yeah sorry! Fuck.” John doesn’t stop grinning.
You go to help the chair off of his back.
You sigh. His shoelace was caught around the leg. Clearly your soulmate is some kind of idiot just as you first thought. Delightful.
John hops up and brushes off his jeans, then sits back down in the now-upright chair, smile still across his features. You pull out an extra chair from a separate table (not like the empty patch of nothingness will be needing it) and sit down with the chair back leaned against the table. You straddle it with your arms crossed over the front and lay them on the table. “So you’re the guy.” You state very blankly.
“I’m the guy. John Egbert. That’s me.” He says back with a shrug. “But I don’t think you ever gave me your name.”
John Egbert. You test out the name and find it rolls of your tongue easily enough, and it isn’t so irritating you’d want to expel the contents of your digestive track rather than become accustomed to it. The second part of what he says catches up with you fairly quickly. You never gave him your name? That doesn’t sound right, how on earth would he- you begin to think. “If you didn’t know who the fuck I was how, pray tell, did you find me? And It’s Karkat. Vantas.”
This results in a chuckle from John. “Your face looks ridiculous when you're confused, you look like you have to take a massive dump dude.”
What a charmer. John Egbert, everyone. You huff and stand up again suddenly, running your palm harshly down your face. An annoyed groan passes your lips. You are not properly equipped to handle this brand of stupid.
“I don’t care how late in the afternoon it is, I am not continuing this conversation withouta proper amount of caffeine in my system.” You suppose it was a good thing John invited you to a coffee shop. While you stroll over to the counter to order yourself a drink you ask again. “You avoided the question.”
“What question?”
You groan. "How did you find me?”
“Followed you to class.” John says with a shrug.
“You followed me.” pause. “to class.”
“Yup.”
“Right.” Sarcasm drips against the acknowledgment harshly. You lean against the marble top behind you. Um. No. He can’t be serious can he? there’s no way this dumbdumb isn’t joking. “You followed me, a complete stranger, someone you’ve never met before, through a crowded building, down two flights of stairs and across into the literature building-”
“Yeah, you ran into a door. I’m surprised you didn’t notice me, I wasn’t all that sneaky.”
“Why?” You ask, grabbing your now finished order and returning to your previous seat at the table. Because who besides you would find it important enough to harass you soulmate immediately after meeting them? Not even meeting for that matter. He looked at you and managed to rub enough brain cells together to think to himself 'You know what's a good idea? I'm going to follow this douchenugget to class hyuck hyuck'. He decided that all on his own. Your own dumb plan, string bean soulmate. platonic. soulmate. As the letter stated. Mustn't forget that oh-so-important-tidbit.
“I dunno, maybe my long legs are just really bad for trying to ninja around.”
You internally debate if it’s illegal to pour scalding coffee down his shirt. Everything you say seems to go in one ear and out the other. “No you inane hunk of rotting radishes, why did you follow me. I have no interest in your ability to swing your leg at any object and fall flat on your face.”
John doesn’t skip a beat; instead he tilts his head and answers the question. “Because you seemed cool, plus my sister is in one of your classes and vouched for you.”
You fail to retain anything John is telling you and blink again. “I have never done anything to anyone that would give them any incentive to 'vouch'”- fingerquotes “for me John, I’m not even sure who you’re referring to.”
“Jade.”
"Long hair, big glasses, curses like a sailor jade?”
“That’s the one.”
You take a moment to study his face and think back to that hyperactive girl you’d only seen a handful of times; they really do look alike you suppose. Same dark hair, same nose, same big eyes, but that’s where the resemblance stops. You’d say John has a more colorful personality but you’d also have to turn around and smash your face through the glass panes of the coffee shop door for the joke “more colorful” as if one color really effects anything.
“So what’s your favorite color?” John asks, elbows propped on the table and face contorted into a look of inane stupidity; you’re going to store that in your memory as his 'default expression'.
“I’m going to assume you’re joking, as only a brain-dead infant would ask that kind of icebreaker. What answer were you expecting to get? What about Oh yes my name is Karkat and my favorite color is fucking grey, no not THAT shade of grey, the other shade of grey, no no wrong again, that shade is the same shade as the shit that i scrape off my shoes, i mean the shade of grey that is the opposite of that. Then it would dawn on your pea-sized brain, Oh wait! nobody has a favorite color! because EVERY GODDAMN COLOR IS GREY.” You are not going to admit that despite it being the only color you’ve been able to see you are shaping up to appreciating blue a great deal. Nope, that information stays with you.
John laughs. You attempt to kick him under the table but the position you’re sitting in unfortunately makes that impossible. You try again, and again, until your boot connects with his knee and John yelps, then proceeds to laugh even harder.
“I can’t help it dude, geez! It’s just that you’re pretty funny! I guess if I got to choose anyone to be my lifetime buddy-cop partner I’d want it to be someone entertaining.” His words have you taken aback; where did he get from “stranger I just met 10 minutes ago” to “new best friend”? Where did he get entertaining? John notices the confusion and continues.
“I mean it’s just, we’re supposed to be like friend soulmates right? That’s how this whole thing works? So even though we just met we’re meant to become best friends eventually right? That’s how it goes?”
Despite your affection towards all things rom-com and love related, you don’t actually know all that much about how the “soulmates” thing works, putting yourself into a position where you assume everyone just sort of goes through the motions with you and doesn’t like you in general can destroy the aspect of finding one altogether, but you think John’s definition is accurate enough so you may as well roll with the punches. So you shrug. “Sure.”
Neither of you say much after that for a couple minutes, just sitting in silence while you stare pointedly into the foam cup in your hands. You aren’t really sure what to say exactly, and you aren’t sure if you’re comfortable with the universe uprooting one guy solely to be a part of your life. Shouldn’t you have a say in anything that happens to you? In who you choose to hang out with? Does John even have anything in common with you other than where you attend school? Fuck it. You think. Aside from the childish comments he doesn’t seem half-bad and if you’re going to be forced into a friendship by the powers that be by god you’re going to go in on your own terms. That means shitty movies and shittier attitude.
“Do you like movies?” You ask in defeat, breaking the silence. “We could hang out a bit and try to actually be proper friends or some shit.”
John’s grin spreads across his face so violently fast you’re not entirely convinced it isn’t going to sever his face in half. “Yeah! I love movies! What did you have in mind?”
You hesitate in actually telling him; you’re not sure why exactly, if he laughs again you can just threaten more bodily harm.
“There’s a new rom-com playing at the multiplex, I think it has a couple of explosions and the like.” John looks like he is indeed forcing down a laugh. “One word about me being into quote ‘chick-flicks’ unquote, and you’ll wake up with your kneecaps nailed to the outside of your window.”
“I’m sorry it’s just-” He laughs between words. “I wouldn’t take you as someone who would enjoy that? You’re a big guy! Kinda brooding-type. You wear guages.”
“Your point being, fucktard?”
“My POINT is that that’s hilarious and adorable.” This reaction elicits yet another groan of annoyance. “adorable”. yeah. sure.
“Just be there you impossible ninny.” You say while rubbing your eyes. This first meeting is becoming a tad exhausting for you. It’s all a bit much to sink in at the moment, so you take the easy way out. School is always a relevant and reasonable way to get out of doing things, that’ll work.
“Look, I’d love to stay and chat but I have a lot of work to do and I’d prefer not to have my grade drop a fucktillion points because I decided I’d rather sit on my ass for 3 hours listening to a stranger ramble on and on about how insanely goddamn hilarious it is that a grown-ass-man can enjoy a certain genre of movie.”
John’s face contorts into a frown and he huffs out his disappointment, (what is he 3?) then whips out a phone from his back pocket and clicks a couple buttons and slides it over to you. “Put your phone number in, so we can meet up again for movies.”
John put in the name for you. Crabby Mc.Yells-a-lot. You meet his eyes to see him waggling his eyebrows in amusement by the chosen name.
With one hand you punch in the 10 digit code that allows people to bombard your phone with messages, then give it back to John. However you don’t forget to send a group message to everyone in his contacts saying “hi guys I’m a moronic twit! :D”. That’s clearly far more amusing. A vibration of the phone shows an immediate response from someone, but you don’t see due to John already taking it back. He pouts at you.
“I’m going to have to get you back now. I’m going to prank you so hard, Karkat. So hard. Your grandchildren will feel the weight of the prank.”
“Sure, John.” You reply with a hidden laugh; so maybe you are having a bit of fun, but the interaction is still tiring.
You pull out your own cellphone and hand it to him. John holds it by the top and looks in awe. “A flip phone, Karkat? When was the last time someone used one of these? The 18th century?” John prods at it and pretends like it’s an ancient artifact in an exhibit rather than a normal everyday mobile texting device.
“It works and costs less than a fancy smartphone, not all of us are Mr. Moneybags.” Rolling your eyes, you tell him to just put in the number before you change your mind.
After returning cellphones to each other you leave your separate ways. It seems John lives pretty nearby as he doesn’t appear to have a ride, but he’s walking down the street in the opposite direction so you can’t really tell either way.
You sigh to yourself, the entire encounter only lasted about half an hour, and it was relatively painless, which rates as a minor success in your book. You did end up leaving with someone's phone number after all, though be it as it may in one of the more stranger ways. You cram your flip-phone into the pocket of your gray hoodie and begin the short walk back to your apartment. Everything went pretty well considering you being you, and hey, now you have someone who you can relentlessly pester about movies until they melt their inner ear from the unwillingness to talk. Aside from Kanaya anyway.
Speaking of Kanaya, your phone vibrates, and assuming it’s her asking about how the encounter went you glance at the text. You squint. It’s not Kanaya, it’s John. You literally left like 2 fucking minutes ago John, are you serious? What the hell could you want?
“are you seeing this Karkat?”
Seeing what? What are you supposed to be seeing?
Another message.
“look at the trees.”
OH.
Well damn.
You type out a quick response and hit the enter button as you stand perfectly still, wind whistling in your ears and a leaf drifting down into the palm of your hand. You study it closely. Really? You think. After only one interaction? You drop the leaf and quicken the pace. You’ve decided to skip right past going home and go to Kanaya’s instead. You repeat what you said to John and relay it to her inbox.
“The leaves are turning green.”