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Soren has no idea why Skrimir is so attached to him. He was assigned to the senior to help keep him from failing a few of his classes, and somehow, Soren actually managed to pull that off. He has absolutely no interest in tutoring, but he has some of the best grades in the school, and he has been asked by various teachers over and over again, practically since he was a freshman.
This time, he only did it because Ike said he should. Typically, his best friend hasn’t commented on the situation either way, but this time, when he was asked to tutor Skrimir, Ike said, “You might as well. It should be easy for someone like you, and then you’d be really helping someone.”
From time to time, Soren has had to help Ike with some of his trickier subjects, so of course Ike thinks that Soren has a gift for helping people, even though he only helped Ike because they’re close, not because he cares at all about people in general. But he agrees, because Ike asks him to, and spends several weeks beating knowledge into Skrimir’s very thick skull, until, by some strange miracle that he attributes entirely to Soren, he managers to pass the first semester of his last year of high school.
He comes back in January convinced that he and Soren are now somehow friends because of this. Nothing Soren says to the contrary can sway him, and he takes it all to be jokes, laughing it off whenever Soren tries to tell him to get lost.
“You’ve always been shy,” Ike says, as if that is the only reason he doesn’t want to spend time with the loud, obnoxious upperclassman, and not that he has absolutely no interest in wasting his days with someone like Skrimir. Or most people, really; Ike only thinks Soren is shy because Soren doesn’t like people.
“It has nothing to do with being shy,” he replies, “and everything to do with it being Skrimir .”
“I don’t see what the problem with him is. You know, he must really like you. I heard you were the first tutor he had any success with,” Ike says.
“He thinks I’m a miracle worker, but I just got him to listen , for once. That’s the problem with his other tutors, he never listened to any of them.”
“But he did listen to you, and now he wants to be friends.”
“Unfortunately for me,” Soren says with a sigh.
Skrimir is a year older than him, but Soren has been in advanced classes for years, whereas Skrimir has always done the bare minimum to pass each year, so even more unfortunately for Soren, they have classes together this semester. No matter where he looks, it seems like Skrimir is right there, grinning and waving at him, calling out to him and following along behind him like an oversized puppy.
Every day, it’s always the same, calling out, “Soren! Come sit with me!” in each of their shared classes. And every time Soren refuses, opting to sit by himself, Skrimir simply laughs, like it’s the funniest joke he’s ever heard, and moves his stuff so that he can sit wherever Soren has chosen. No matter what he does, he can’t shake Skrimir, because Skrimir, for whatever reason, has latched onto him and won’t let go.
It probably doesn’t help that he only has Ike to talk to about this, and Ike is dense about everything. Not that that forgives Soren’s own obliviousness in the matter, back the fact is, neither of them realize the source of Skrimir’s attraction. Until, that is, Valentine’s Day rolls around.
Needless to say, the oversized card and the massive bouquet and the candy that, though he is no expert on the subject, Soren is sure must have cost quite a bit...all of those things send a very clear picture of what Skrimir has been after all the while. And, needless to say, he is no more willing to accept “no” for an answer than with anything else.
Soren isn’t sure when that started to become endearing, but he doesn’t like it.