Chapter Text
Aoba Seragaki was a star student. Was. He wasn't currently a star student. He was a star student in his drama teacher's eyes and that was about it. Every other claimed to recognize his efforts despite them not making any sort of appearance on his grades. Especially his chemistry grade. He hadn't even bothered to check up on it since last quarter's report card. He was terrified of it. It was probably somewhere along the lines of 50%. He shook the thought out of his head until he was told to stay in after class one day.
"I know I flunked that last test pretty badly, but I swear, I'll do the extra credit this time!" he explained hurridly. Just being in the room gave him bad vibes consisting entirely of feelings of self hatred and hopelessness for the future.
"It's not that," said the teacher, shaking his head and fiddling with the accessories adorning his dreads. What were they, anyway? Small feathers? Damn, Aoba realized, maybe paying attention to details like that instead of how many protons Bromine has might be why Aoba was failing in the first place.
"We've gotten someone else in the class to tutor you." Just hearing the words broke his heart into many fragments. Tutoring? When? After school? He already had drama club, and no way in hell was he missing out on that. He'd rather die.
Out of seemingly nowhere, somebody crawled out from under the table, springing up without using his hands as any sort of leverage. He looked familiar. Wait, wasn't that the kid who was sitting in the back, drawing phalluses on his desk and making crude jokes to himself? That kid? That kid was his tutor. His future was riding in this kid's graphite-covered hands. Great.
Edward Pencilhands strode to the front of the teacher's desk, next to Aoba, and blatantly checked him out. Aoba clutched his binder to his chest like it'd protect him from the weirdo's cocked pierced brow. What wasn't pierced on this kid? His ears, eyebrow, nose, and lips were clad in metal. Come to think of it, so were his hands and the back of his neck. Was he some sort of masochist or something? Perhaps he just wasn't human. That'd make more sense than any other theory.
"Yes, that's your tutor, so get along, or so help me God..." the teacher trailed off, looking as if he were about ready to punch the both of them in the face. Why? They didn't even do anything wrong yet. There was always the possibility of Aoba coming out of their first tutoring session as the next serial killer that you only read about in chain mail. After that happened then it would be excusable to get angry with him.
Until then, he was stuck being taught by the smug fucker towering over him with a few inches and casting some sort of ominous shadow, almost as if he were nonverbally admitting that he was about to ruin his life.
"That's all, so get going now. Go home already." And that was that, wasn't it? This was it. Those were going to be the last words Aoba would ever hear. Drama club or not... this guy? Why? Why did his teacher hate him so much?
They left the room without any final argument with the taller of the two trailing behind. The moment they got out the door, he stopped Aoba from walking away by pressing him against the wall like he'd seen in so many specifically-genred videos before.
"Get off me right now, or I'm going to scream," said Aoba glaring as he threateningly jabbed his mechanical pencil in the air.
"Relax, I'm not going to touch you sexually. I just wanted to introduce myself. I'm Noiz." Right after those words, he backed off slightly. Hardly enough to even be counted as backing off, in fact.
Seething into the lockers as much as he could, Aoba forced out the one question that was on his mind. "Is that a nickname or something?"
A simple head shake was his only answer. "That's my real name." Whatever. If he was going to be like that, then there was nothing he could do about it. What a stubborn child. "So, you. Aoba Seragaki. Don't ask why I know your name, first of all. Second, we're doing lunch sessions because there's no way in hell I'm going to stay after school ever again. I've got a Playstation and some digital strippers that are calling my name right now. Meet me in front of your locker instead of going straight down to the cafeteria. Bye."
Just like that, he was off. Was the line between passing and failing really being drawn by Noiz? He wanted to pretend it wasn't so. He kicked the locker, hurting himself in the process. Scowling, he sauntered off to grab his coat from his locker, more pissed off than he should have been about the whole ordeal.