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Scar really regretted staying at school for the summer term. He was well aware of the hell-like temperatures during the last two weeks of school, and he wondered why he subjected himself to a whole month and a half of it. It was Cub. It was always Cub. His best friend could convince him to do anything. So there he lay, in the little dorm that he shared with Cub. If it could even be called that. All that was in there were two twin beds, the dresser they shared, the torn up couch they found on the curb one morning, and a mini-fridge. Their bathroom was equally dismal, the smallest little shower that Scar had ever seen, a sink that leaked, and a toilet that wasn’t quite secured to the floor properly.
But by far, the worst part of the shitty dorm was the air conditioner. Or, lack thereof. The one small window they had was open 24/7, but it did nothing to help suppress the heat. Scar had stripped down to only his black basketball shorts, starfished on his bed in an attempt to at least cool down slightly. It wasn’t really working. Jellie hopped up onto his bed and meowed at him curiously. He reached over, lazily giving her a few scratches before dropping his hand.
Suddenly, he sat up, getting out of bed, opening his drawer and pulling out a random brown tank top and slipping it on. He grabbed a scrunchie from the top, tieing his bangs out of his forehead. He made a mental note to get a haircut.
“Where are you going?” Cub looked up from his Advanced Restone textbook, where he had been quietly working through problems on a sheet of lined paper.
“Out.” Scar answered, wiping the sweat from his forehead. “You want anything?”
“No, I’m good.” he flopped his head back onto his pillow. “It’s too hot to even think about getting up.”
“Yeah. Seeya.” Scar slid on a random pair of flip flops, shoved his wallet and phone into his pocket, and left. It was too hot for him to carry a proper conversation. He walked down the hall, getting into an elevator with a girl who looked just as miserable as him and reached for the 1 button. Not many people were on campus, as most weren’t crazy enough to take a summer term. It was times like this where he longed to be out with the Architechs on their cross-country road trip or with Cleo and Joe, who took a spontaneous trip to France. He would give almost anything to be with team ZIT, hiking in Colorado, to follow in the footsteps of False and Ren and go home to his family. But when Cub had basically begged him to sign up for the summer term, how could he say no?
He regretted leaving the dorm the second he took a step out. The heat was way worse outside. He started walking. He didn’t even know where he was going, he just took off in a random direction. It was only when he passed a K-mart that he had an idea.
He walked in, audibly sighing as the air conditioning hit his body. He stood under the door for a minute, before realizing he probably looked crazy, and he walked in the floor, beelining for the appliance section. Finally, finally, he found what he was looking for.
He didn’t remember standing up fans being this expensive, but apparently, they were. He grabbed the cheapest at 20 dollars, paid for it, and walked back to his dorm. When he opened the door Cub looked up at him, still working on his homework.
“What’s that?” He asked. Jellie hopped off of Cub’s bed, nuzzling against her owner.
“A fan.” Scar smiled at his roommate. “Good old Scar here to save the day.”
“Dude!” Cub visibly perked up. “Holy shit!”
“I know. I walked past K-mart and the idea just struck.” Scar opened the box, unceremoniously dumping the contents of the box on his bed.
“You need help assembling that?” Cub asked as Scar sat down and searched for the instructions.
“If I need help I’ll ask, but it seems pretty straightforward to me. Ah, Jellie, no.” He reached over, grabbing the plastic bag she was trying to eat and shoving it into the box.
“Alright man.” Cub returned to his work. Scar slowly began assembling the fan. It was very cheaply made and difficult to assemble, with screws that wouldn’t come out, and wouldn’t screw back in once he actually wanted them to stay. “Cheap shit,” he mumbled to himself, as once again a screw fell out of the bottom.
“Don’t talk about our savior like that.” Cub joked from his bed. “Want me to do it?”
“No, you’re busy. It’s just frustrating.” Scar smiled at him.
After what felt like forever (it was really only half an hour or so.) Scar had almost finished assembling the fan. He only needed to put the front faceplate on and he’d be done. After struggling with it for another 5 minutes, he finally caved.
“Cub, come help me with this please?”
“Gotcha.” Cub freed himself from the pile of papers and books that he was burrowed in and sat next to Scar, emulating his best friend and sitting criss-cross. With both of them together, they were able to finally snap on the faceplate, and with a triumphant cheer, Scar attached it to the fan base.
“Aw, damn it.” He breathed out once he stepped back to look at it.
“What?” Cub asked.
“We put the faceplate on crooked. Look at it, the logo is lopsided.”
“Here.” Cub reached into his backpack, pulling out a sticker page and plucking one off the sheet. It was a simple blue color, reading “ConCorp”. It was the company that Cub and Scar had started, but it hadn’t really gone anywhere. However, the boys were both convinced that one day their “Just do everything and something’s bound to work.” plan would bring them huge success eventually. Cub took the sticker, carefully placing it over the fan, making sure that it wasn’t lopsided either.
“There!” Cub smiled. “All fixed.”
“You know, now it looks like ConCorp is the one that manufactured the fan. I quite like that actually, seeing our logo on a product.” Scar mumbled to himself as he leaned down and plugged in the fan. “One day, ConCorp is gonna make it big, I just know it. And we’re gonna get super rich and we won’t have to bother with a white plastic fan anymore.”
“Scar, we can do the whole mushy thing later. Right now, let me enjoy my freedom.” Cub reached toward the control panel, turning the fan on to the highest setting and cheering when cool air began flowing through the dorm. Scar immediately felt better, as the heat in the room began to go away.
“Ahhhhhh,” Cub spoke into the fan, and both boys laughed when his voice came out robotic. The joke was quickly ruined by a crumpling of paper, and they both turned around just in time to see Jellie running off with one of Cub’s worksheets.
“Jellie! No!” Cub jumped up and ran after her as Scar began laughing at his best friends antics. “Don’t just sit there laughing, help me!”
Scar figured that maybe, just maybe, the summer term wouldn’t be so bad.