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Every once in a while, Chrono thought about why Shion and Tokoha - the literal top students of their grade - deigned to be friends with him - the guy who once turned in exactly two kanji characters for an in-class essay.
Their classmates had given them more than a few weird glances after the three of them started hanging out post the United Sanctuary incident last summer. Honestly, Chrono didn’t blame them.
After all, Tokoha’s English pronunciation was practically god-tier and Shion probably hadn’t gotten a Math problem wrong since he learned how to count. They were both smart, athletic, charismatic, approachable, and well-liked. Meanwhile, Chrono talked to exactly three people in their grade on a regular basis and would have probably failed their last Science test if Tokoha hadn’t sat him down and drilled stoichiometry into his head for 3 hours.
Heck, to anyone else, it probably would have looked like Shion and Tokoha had somehow been brainwashed over the summer.
Of course, it’s not like either of them ever cared about what type of student he was. Sure, they would offer to tutor him before tests, but they would never clutch their high 90s and scoff at his mid 60s. Shion and Tokoha are among the first people who Chrono had met who actually liked Shindou Chrono as a person and never asked him to change for them.
As grateful as he was to have them as friends, and as much as they shared in terms of Vanguard, every so often Chrono was reminded that Shion and Tokoha were practically a different species of human.
For example, Shion was currently scanning through a foreign Wikipedia article so fast that Chrono couldn’t even register what language it was in, and Tokoha was switching between typing points into a slideshow and a word document while referring to seemingly nothing.
The three of them were crammed into Shion’s tiny apartment. Papers were strewn across every seemingly flat surface. Shion was surrounded by no less than seven cans of coffee, and Tokoha seemed to be fueled by nothing but gummy bears and sheer determination.
Chrono glanced at his phone. 8:09pm.
They’d been at this for four hours.
He sighed, and started to straighten out Tokoha’s haphazardly stacked notes.
Honestly, when Chrono first heard of the plan, it seemed ridiculous. A month long project, in one night? How. Chrono was no stranger to procrastination, but that just seemed insane.
Then again, it’s not like they really had a choice. Sure, the project had been assigned a month ago, but since then, Chrono had literally been kidnapped and Tokoha’s brother had nearly died. Surely, they could ask for an extension or something?
But no, apparently needing to prevent the destruction of an entire planet was not enough of an excuse to get an extension on the project. Even if you were 99th percentile students.
So, here they were, working on their month-long Social Studies project, 14 hours before it was due.
At least they’d chosen to work with each other, so they didn’t need to drag any of their classmates down.
Shion tossed a pen over his shoulder. Chrono crawled over to check on it. Empty. He dropped it into the garbage.
He checked his phone again. 8:11pm.
“So, uh,” Chrono started.
Shion and Tokoha, despite being sticklers for good manners, didn’t acknowledge him.
“Is there… anything I can help you with?”
“It’s fine,” Tokoha said distractedly, not missing a beat with whatever she was typing.
“We’ve got it handled,” Shion reassured, scribbling away on a notepad.
“Are you sure? You know that I’m also in your group, right?”
“Yes.”
“Yep.”
“Are you sure there’s absolutely nothing I can help you with?”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“It’s fine.”
Chrono sighs again. They both knew that he hated feeling useless, but the only thing that they’d asked him to do in the past hour was to go grab another can of coffee.
Iwakura-san was a cool guy, but Chrono was not looking to be Shion’s next butler.
He had tried to help in the beginning, but quickly realized that there was nothing he could do that was remotely useful. Even if he had Shion’s research skills, Chrono would have to have started with introductory articles whereas he was pretty sure that the first thing Shion had pulled up was written by a professor from Harvard. And Chrono only knew that because it was the only word he recognized among the sea of English Shion had scanned through. Even though Tokoha only read in Japanese, she was going so fast Chrono could barely understand what she was reading about either.
To be honest, Chrono didn’t even know what their project was about. Something about the Romans? And Julius Caesar?
(Chrono obviously knew of Julius Caesar, but he knew more about Caesar salad dressing than the Roman… emperor? King? General?)
(Yeah, maybe Chrono didn’t know of Julius Caesar.)
Speaking of Caesar salad, Chrono got up and walked over to Shion’s kitchen. He pulled open the fridge.
Well, good to know that Shion was responsible enough to keep at least… four different vegetables on hand. If tomatoes count as a vegetable.
Chrono glanced over at Shion and Tokoha, working away at the table, then back inside the fridge.
Honestly, he’d been considering this for a while, but considering the circumstances he didn’t think he had a choice. It was either this, or restack Tokoha’s papers for the seventh time in an hour.
So.
“Shion, can I cook something?”
“Sure, go ahead,” came Shion’s voice, sounding more distant than it should.
Chrono rolled up his sleeves.
Well, he sure hoped that their teacher wouldn’t make them fill out one of those “what did you contribute to this project” self assessment sheets after this.
Because the only thing Chrono could honestly write was “I made dinner.”
By the time Chrono finished making the yakisoba and brought it back to the table, Tokoha had her laptop screen down and was stretching.
She was also half buried in candy packages and chip bags, but that's besides the point.
Chrono nudged a small furrow amidst her mess of papers, and set down a plate of food.
Tokoha’s eyes lit up.
“Thanks Chrono, I’m starving!”
Chrono raised an eyebrow at the nest of foil she was sitting in.
Tokoha pouted.
“Don’t judge,” she retorted, picking up her chopsticks with relish.
Chrono set down another plate in front of Shion, who was still reading something, and went back to the kitchen to pick up his own plate. After sitting down, he turned to Tokoha.
“So,” he started, stirring around his yakisoba, “how’s the project going?”
“Oh, we’re basically done,” Tokoha replied between mouthfuls, “Shion’s just proofreading the script right now, and after that we’re good.”
Thank god Chrono hadn’t taken a bite yet because he would have definitely spit it out.
“You’re WHAT?!”
“Yeah, we’re basically done. The script’s on the long side, but I’m too lazy to figure out what to cut. It’s a bit simplistic overall, but we didn’t have much time to begin with.”
Chrono checked his phone. 8:52pm.
“You… you’ve been working on this for less than 5 hours,” he choked out, “and you’re done?”
Tokoha looked unbothered as she responded, “Yeah, honestly it took a little less time than expected. I thought we’d take about five and a half, but it turns out Shion knew way more about the Gallic Wars than I was expecting, so it turned out fine!”
“But,” Chrono started, lost, “but this was supposed to take a month.”
“Yes,” Tokoha confirmed.
“And you finished it in 5 hours.”
“Yes.”
Chrono… Chrono didn’t even know what to say.
“...how?”
“Well,” Shion replied, joining the conversation as he also closed his laptop, “with hard work.”
“Are we good?” Tokoha questioned.
“Yep,” Shion answered, reaching for his plate of food.
Chrono was floored.
“How are we good?” he practically wailed, “this was supposed to take a month!”
“We covered everything on the criteria sheet,” Shion pointed out, indicating to one of the papers beside him, “and that’s all we technically needed to do.”
“And honestly, we probably covered a few points outside the criteria,” Tokoha added, “for context and flow.”
“But, how…?”
Chrono’s brain was not processing this.
“Relax Chrono,” Tokoha laughed, “you’re starting to sound like a teacher!”
Shion chuckled, “Yeah, with the good old ‘this is not a project that you can finish in one night’ speech.”
“But I thought that you guys were supposed to be good students?”
Tokoha and Shion exchanged a glance.
“I mean, I don’t usually do this,” Tokoha conceded, “but you know what they say: desperate times call for desperate measures.”
“Anything is possible with hard work,” Shion added.
Chrono… Chrono couldn’t deal with this. Hard work does not explain this.
“I - okay, so, the project is done,” Chrono reiterated haltingly.
Tokoha and Shion both nodded.
“And I’ve done absolutely nothing.”
“You did something!” Tokoha quickly reassured, gesturing at her almost empty plate, “and you’ll have to do something during the actual presentation.”
“So all I’ll have to do is read a few paragraphs out loud and I’ll get credit for all the work that you guys did,” Chrono concluded.
Shion set down his chopsticks and looked properly at Chrono for the first time in 5 hours.
“Look, Chrono, we know that you’ve gone through a lot in the past couple of weeks. There’s a lot that we can’t help you with, but this is one of the few things that we can help you with. So let us support you in any way that we can, alright?”
“But I - you guys have a lot to do too! I could have helped!”
“Chrono, we’re each others’ support system,” Tokoha maintained, “you support us, so let us support you.”
Chrono sighed. Well, guess they’re all just as stubborn as usual.
“Okay, okay, fine. Thank you Shion, Tokoha.”
Both of them smiled at Chrono.
“Well, I mean, if you really want to put some work in, I guess you could read more of the presentation than Tokoha and I do,” Shion suggested.
“You guys are far better at public speaking than I am,” Chrono replied.
“Plus, we wrote it,” Tokoha reminded with a smirk, “are you sure you trust that Chrono would be able to accurately convey your ideas? Your vocabulary? Your tone?”
“Well, on second thought - ”
“Hey!”
In the end, Tokoha divided the script evenly between the three of them and the presentation went off without a hitch.
Chrono didn’t know whether or not he should be surprised when he learned that they got the highest mark in the class, though a 94 was probably a mediocre mark for his friends. He also didn’t know what to think when he realized that the only slightly negative comment their teacher had made was: “Shindou’s speaking was a bit robotic.”
What he does know is that he’s definitely lucky to count Shion and Tokoha as friends.
(Although he was now, more than ever, suspicious about whether they were actually a different species of human.)