Chapter Text
MCYT Academy, a famous university that brought forth many successful businessmen and grade-perfect students, secretly had two feuding sides. One side was named the Subtweets, and the other was named the Subreddits. Years ago, they mingled together in a semi-stable, handshake-sealed bond of internal harmony. Now, due to unknown reasons, the bond was broken over a knee of biased judgement, and no one had any idea how to repair it.
The history behind the factions was blurred beyond coherence. Some say the cause was due to a surge in interest-focused cliques grouping together to combine into larger and larger parties. Some say it was due to a dreadful fight that made the Vice President of the Student Union—the apparent origin of the Subtweets—to wage an unending war against the President of the Student Union—the apparent origin of the Subreddits. There were smaller rumours, with some believing that it was formed overnight within a Truth or Dare game, unknowingly being the catalyst to tear the academy in two.
Whatever the case, the moment you stepped foot into this ‘elite school’, you were automatically forced to join a side and pledge your allegiance by taking up either ‘twt’ or ‘r/’ into your name.
Those who didn’t choose were alienated, exiled, and seen as outcasts. It took only a month or two for rebellious Neutrals to pledge allegiances. And as for the staff, as long as the school’s ranking remained high, social unrest boiling between their student body was utter nonsense to them.
After all, it’s better to grow a spine right here, right now, than be forced to grow one after graduation.
Plus, watching kids fight for the hypothetical place as ‘top dog’ was fun. But of course, nobody in the staff bothered leaking this to the students. What the students don’t know certainly won’t hurt them.
It was a dreary, cloudy Monday, and Technotwt was probably late for school.
Emphasis on the probably. He did not know if his alarm had broke or not. It was either that, or he might’ve woken up two hours too early. Cracking an eye open, Technotwt shifted in his bedsheets to look at his alarm clock, and—
“FUCK!”
Right, looks like it was the former.
Technotwt got ready for school in record time. His dorm’s front door was nearly sent flying off its hinges as he kicked it open with a booted heel, urgency swarming every corner of his mind. He sped down the pavement and shot a glance at his ticking watch.
I have twelve minutes. Technotwt felt an aneurysm swelling to life in the back of his head. Oh, joy.
It was at times like this he had to thank his younger self for joining the track team. To be fair, he only joined it for half a semester before voluntarily quitting to pursue fencing, but fickle details didn’t matter. What mattered most was that he was going to be late and people were going to kick his ass for being late.
Thankfully, Technotwt’s first class was not near the main campus, and with enough frantic dashing, his destination was nearing in sight. He exhaled a quick puff of air and skidded round a corner, only to slam body-first into an unsuspecting stranger holding a cup of iced coffee.
The stranger yelped and nearly dropped their drink. Technotwt hastily backtracked, an apology already forming on his lips, but then he spied the little bobble-antenna pin clipped to the person’s front vest. A scowl creeped onto his features.
“Sorry,” said Technotwt swiftly, tone cold. “I was in a hurry.”
“Ah, fuck, almost spilled my coffee,” the stranger grumbled, checking their clothes for any stains. Satisfied when they found none, the stranger looked up to meet Technotwt’s withering gaze with a death stare of their own.
“Subtweet,” said the stranger with heavy venom.
“Subreddit,” Technotwt spat back.
The two stared each other down for a tense moment. Finally, with a grunt, Technotwt turned away and hurried past the Subredditor, decidedly ignoring every single second of their interaction. He thankfully entered the lecture hall on time. If it were the opposite, Technotwt was sure that he’d be having that stranger’s head for dinner tonight.
A sour taste bloomed across Technotwt’s tongue as he found his usual seat and sat down.
Best to forget about it. He reached into his bag and fished out his notebook. It’s better for the brain.
Today’s English lesson was generally horrible. Technotwt dreaded it. If his guesses were accurate, the teacher would be assigning a project to the class, and Sleepytwt—his only friend—was not part of said class, and Technotwt was in no position to walk up to someone and become buddy-buddy with them.
Out of the corner of his eye, Technotwt caught sight of a familiar person with forest-green hair. He choked on his saliva at the back of the classroom.
“Dream2!” A girl with silver hair shouted at them, waving them over to sit next to her. A shiny antenna-like pin flashed on her lapels. Technotwt’s initial frown only deepened.
Dream2 dropped into the seat next to the girl. “Sup,” they greeted. “Haven’t talked to you in a while, r/DreamSMP.”
DreamSMP grinned wolfishly. “No big deal,” she insisted, waving a dismissive hand. “It’s my fault anyway. I can’t get rid of this fucking person, they keep on posting bad headlines in my server, it’s been over a hundred and sixty-one days—”
Technotwt’s ears automatically drowned out the rest. He only snapped back to attention when his fears turned true. The teacher had begun announcing the details of an upcoming partner project. Quietly, Technotwt hoped that they could choose partners. Maybe he could ask 404twt to help him out, but they weren’t exactly on the best of terms—
“—and I’ve already chosen your partners,” the teacher suddenly added, and Technotwt could feel the panic and annoyance sweeping over the room in an instant. “I’ll be announcing the names, please go find and talk to your partner after class.”
And by some stroke of horrible, horrible luck: naturally, Technotwt was paired with Dream2. He would’ve preferred DreamSMP over them, solely because DreamSMP seemed like she had a sense of humor. Meanwhile, his first impression of Dream2 consisted of almost-spilt coffee and first-meet resentment already cropping up between them both.
Really, his day just couldn’t go any better.
The loud drop of a gray pencil case slamming against Technotwt’s table alerted Technotwt of Dream2’s gracious arrival. They loomed over his slouching form seated behind a desk. Dream2 narrowed their eyes at Technotwt. Technotwt narrowed his eyes back.
“I don’t like you, if that much was obvious, ” Dream2 loudly proclaimed, and it took the combined effort of all parts in Technotwt’s brain to not roll his eyes. “But I want a good grade, so.”
Dream2 plopped down on the empty seat next to Technotwt. They extended a hand. “I’m r/DreamWasTaken2,” they said, tone still bitter. “It’s… a pleasure to work with you.”
“Likewise.” Technotwt cringed at Dream2’s last sentence. “I’m Technotwt. It’s… er, yeah. Great to work with you too.”
Technotwt immediately let go of Dream2’s hand the second it was socially allowed. Dream2 seemed to have the exact same thought, so both of them ended up shrinking their hands away at a similar speed and time.
Silence befell the two. Technotwt looked awfully uncomfortable, and so did Dream2, who was ready to rip their hair out. With sullen faces, they faced each other again and searched for a mutual compromise.
“Good grades,” said Technotwt, because it looked like both he and Dream2 thought on the same wavelength.
“Good grades,” Dream2 quoted back, slowly nodding.
“Right,” said Technotwt.
“Yes,” said Dream2.
Again, silence. But this silence was less loud and was more contemplative than ever. Eventually, Dream2 extended their hand again, and Technotwt took it wordlessly.
And again, when the timing was deemed socially acceptable, Technotwt and Dream2 retracted their hands. Once more, this led to them releasing each other’s grip at the exact same time, causing more awkwardness and embarrassment to blossom.
The teacher chose that moment to let everyone go. Technotwt thanked the gods. Saved by the bell, except it’s the teacher. He stood up and stuffed everything into his bag as Dream2 watched, expression unreadable.
“We can discuss about the project tomorrow,” Technotwt stated, hoping Dream2 would allow him to have tonight to himself. “Where do you want to meet?”
“Anywhere is fine,” Dream2 unhelpfully provided. As the duo followed the flow of students and filed out of the classroom, Technotwt thumped an angry fist against his own palm.
“Library,” he bluntly proposed, an irk mark growing near the corner of his temples. “How does that sound? After class.” The fact that he could contain nearly eighty percent of his anger was truly bizarre and shocking to Technotwt.
“No problem.” Dream2 gave Technotwt a mildly disinterested nod. “I’ll meet you at the entrance.”
“Mm.”
With that, Dream2 left Technotwt’s side, smoothly disappearing into the thickening crowd. As Technotwt walked back to his dorm, the clouds still as gray as Dream2’s plain pencil case, he couldn’t help but lament how awful Mondays were.
The loom of fate can win this round. After this project fiasco, he’s going to cut every string tying him to Dream2, and that was final. Technotwt reached his dorm and fell back on his bed with a sigh, mentally drained.
Amazing. I can’t wait for tomorrow.
Plugging in his earphones, Technotwt opened Spotify. He clicked on his de-stress playlist and immediately started the journey to accept his sad, sad fate that happened all thanks to his stupid alarm clock breaking.