Chapter Text
“So here's this week's pre-lab. I'll go make another copy of this unit's notes,” said instructor Shadis. He seemed to be very serious.
Sasha nodded. The other students were already working on what must have been the pre-lab. Each lab station was a table with two students; lab partners, from the looks of it.
Mr. Shadis waved a packet idly and left the room.
Sasha stood awkwardly at the front of the class, unnoticed except for a few brief smiles from students when they looked up from their worksheets.
Transferring schools in the middle of the year wasn't very common, but it wasn't unheard of either. Sasha was one of such transfer students, and her very first class at her new school was AP Chemistry.
Sasha wondered if she should have mentioned that she was only in normal chemistry back at her old school, because they didn't offer the AP version there. Eh, it'd probably come up eventually.
Mr. Shadis returned a couple of minutes later, only to find that Sasha had pulled out her lunch as she waited.
“So here's the- what are you doing?”
Sasha swallowed. “Um, eating a potato?”
Mr. Shadis took a breath and made a face. “Do you know how to read, Sasha?”
“Yeah!” Sasha took another bite from her baked potato. “I actually performed above my grade level in literacy my entire life!”
“Can you read the sign on my front door, Sasha?”
Sasha walked over to the front of he door. “It says, uh,” Sasha paled a little. “'Absolutely no food. At all.'”
“That is correct!” Mr. Shadis grabbed Sasha's potato and threw it in the trash bin adjacent to the front door. “Now take a seat!” He shoved a stack of papers into her chest.
Sasha became aware of two dozen pairs of eyes on her as she walked to the only empty seat in the class, near the back next to a black-haired girl with a scarf who, Sasha realized, was the only person not staring at her.
“Get back to work!” Shadis yelled. The rest of the class frantically turned back to their sheets. Sasha noted that many of them started whispered conversations, many of which included her name.
Sasha nervously took her seat. She turned to the black-haired girl. Sasha considered the girl's scarf again. It was weird that she wore it, because it was the beginning of summer.
“Hi!” Sasha said, sticking out her hand awkwardly. It looked like the girl didn't care about her food mistake. That was a good sign, right? The girl stopped writing and tilted her head, a blank expression on her face.
When it was abundantly clear that the girl didn't intend to say anything, Sasha gulped and tried not to get discouraged. “I'm Sasha!”
The girl didn't say anything, the blank expression still on her face. She turned back to her worksheet and resumed writing.
“Mikasa,” she intoned.
Sasha smiled nervously. “Nice to meet you,” she said.
Mikasa didn't respond, even though a brief glance let Sasha know that Mikasa had heard her.
“Er, okay then.” Sasha realized that Mr Shadis was glaring at her again, so she pulled out the worksheet and started reading it.
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Sasha bit the end of her pencil in frustration. Her previous school hadn't gotten to enthalpy yet, and she wasn't even sure how to pronounce it, let alone solve for it. Mikasa had since finished and was nose deep in a book.
“Hey, Mikasa, let me look at your sheet.”
Mikasa looked up from her book and blinked in disbelief. “No,” she stated.
“C'mon!” Sasha whined, leaning over to make a grab at the upside-down packet of paper on the far side of their shared table.
Mikasa's face was pure shock. Perhaps one had ever spoken to her with such disrespect. Which was why Sasha was able to grab the paper like she had.
Mikasa blinked twice as Sasha furiously copied her answers. She shook herhead and grabbed her packet back. Sasha bodily followed it over to Mikasa's half of the desk, so that when it reached its prior home Sasha was leaned over Mikasa, her elbows in her workspace and their faces only an inch from each other.
Sasha didn't seem to notice, but Mikasa blinked again, trying to process the extreme violation of personal space she was suffering. From this distance she could see every freckle on Sasha's face. She saw the exact shade of chestnut Sasha's hair was, and how sloppily her pony-tail was tied. She saw how wide Sasha opened her eyes, and she noted the deep brown ripples in Sasha's Irises. And, with a small amount of chagrin, Mikasa noticed that Sasha didn't wipe her mouth after attempting to eat her contraband potato. There were a few flecks of food around her mouth.
And then next thing she new, Sasha had stolen her paper again and was furiously copying her answers, again.
“First of all, wipe your mouth,” stated Mikasa.
“What's on my mouth?” Sasha pulled her hand into her sleeve and rubbed the wrong corner of her mouth.
Mikasa blinked in disbelief for, what, the third time this conversation? She didn't like how she was losing track. “Food. What else would it be? And you didn't get it.”
Sasha rubbed the other corner of her mouth, still missing the crumbs.
Mikasa frowned and curled her eyebrows. “Right here.” Mikasa pointed to a spot on her own cheek.
Sasha rubbed the wrong side again.
'No, your other side you idiot.” Mikasa said, her voice raising for the first time this conversation.
“But you pointed to your left cheek!”
“My left cheek, which mirrors your right.”
Sasha mumbled something about mirrors and rubbed the correct side, but somehow still managed to miss the food.
“How are you so incompetent?”
Sasha's face looked like a scolded puppy. “W-what?” was all she could say.
“Fine.” Mikasa slammed her hand down on the desk. Sasha flinched. “Have a dirty face. I don't care. Give me back my worksheet.”
“Wait! I'm almost done!”
“Do your own work.”
“But lab partners can work together!”
“We are not lab partners!”
Mikasa slammed her fist down on the desk, leaving a visible indent, which Sasha thought was very impressive as well as incredibly terrifying. The latter emotion caused her to shirk down into her shoulders and put her hands up in front of her face to shield her.
Mikasa's expression softened, but she didn't apologize or try to calm Sasha down. She awkwardly reached around Sasha and plucked her worksheet, folded it and put it in the back of her book, which she resumed reading.
For the second time that block, the entire class was staring at her. Sasha laughed nervously and sunk into her shoulders. Today was not looking good.