Chapter Text
It had started as most things did for Ranboo Beloved, in his first block class. Which, on his first day at Esempi High, happened to be math. Really a wonderful start to the day.
He’d just sat down at a table in the back of the class, uncomfortably squeezed into the school chair which he was way too tall for, and staring at some poster on the wall about listening in class, when he was interrupted by a boy who could be described as rather loud.
“Hey, new kid, that’s my seat.”
Ranboo looked up, being greeted by the sight of a blonde boy with a red and white baseball tee, a shorter brunette goat hybrid beside him, wearing a green button up.
The shorter of the two punched the blonde’s shoulder, loudly whispering, “Tommy, that’s so rude, don’t try to scare the new kid!”
“Aw, but Tubbo, it’s fun to scare the new ones,” Tommy whined, pouting. “How else am I supposed to get them to join? Asking them, or putting up a flyer like a heathen?”
The goat hybrid, apparently named Tubbo, turned back to Ranboo, reassuring, “It’s okay, he doesn’t actually sit here, he’s just like this sometimes. What some in the industry would call a dick.”
“Uh huh,” Ranboo said, still not sure what to make of this odd pair that had shown up at the table. He was just planning to get through this day, and the days after that, without really being noticed by anyone. It’d worked at his last school, End Academy, his only friends really just being his cousins. That was before, of course, he had moved.
“So, uh, what’s your name?” Tommy asked, sitting up on the table, swinging his legs as Ranboo pulled his backpack closer to himself to avoid it getting kicked over.
“Ranboo, Ranboo Beloved.”
“Ranboob? Kinda a weird name if you ask me, Big Man Tommy Danger Kraken Innit Watson. And this is Tubbo, if you didn’t already know,” Tommy replied.
“Uh, it’s Ranboo-”
“Eh, Ranboo, Ranboob, same thing,” Tommy laughed, though surprisingly it wasn’t in a mocking way.
Tubbo shook his head, whispering to Ranboo, “His middle name is none of those. It’s James.”
“Okay, Tuberculosis Alexander Schlatt,” Tommy grumbled, which Ranboo let out a small laugh at.
“Guess we’ve both got kind of weird names, huh?” Tubbo replied, which the Ender hybrid nodded his head at.
“Oh, uh, I forgot earlier, pronouns?” the goat hybrid continued.
Now this is where Ranboo hit a blank. Usually, he’d just say he/him, that’s what he’d been saying for most of his life. So that’s what he should go with, right? Yeah. Totally. One hundred percent a cisgender boy.
“Uh, he/him?”
“Alright, cool. Same here, Tubbo uses he/they,” Tommy replied to the statement.
“So, how’d you end up at Esempi High? The school’s pretty small, we don’t really get that many new or transfer students,” Tubbo asked, putting his hands in the pockets of his jeans.
“Well, I used to go to End Academy, but we moved closer to Esempi. If I’m being honest, I really didn’t like it that much there, so my mother finally let me attend this school. The lack of uniforms is definitely a bonus,” Ranboo said, pointing to the purple Hawaiian shirt he was wearing which was definitely a step up from the blazers and ties of End Academy.
“Damn, End Academy? Your parents must be loaded , do they have a pool? Because Tubbo and I don’t happen to have a place to go swimming this summer, and the Esempi community pool is full of piss,” Tommy said, causing the Ender hybrid to let out a small laugh.
“No pool, unfortunately, being part Enderman means no water,” Ranboo replied.
“That sucks,” Tubbo said.
Suddenly, out of nowhere, Tommy blurted out, “Ranboo, have you done theater before?”
The Ender hybrid blinked a couple times, processing the question, which had come completely out of left field.
“Uh, no?”
“Well, do I have an offer for you, Boob Boy. Want to join the Esempi High theater club?”
Tubbo immediately facepalmed, muttering, “Tommy, it’s too early for this, you can’t ask every single new student to join the theater club.”
“Well, I mean, I’ve never really done acting before, and I have really bad stage fright, so probably no, I’m sorry,” Ranboo replied, thinking back to his horrific middle school spelling bee performance.
“Oh, dude, we don’t need more actors, we need more people to help backstage. Jack broke his leg and can’t go up the stairs to get to where the lights are controlled, and Eret’s been fuckin’ overwhelmed with costume fitting. After that, you can just hang out with us if you want, I’d say we’re a pretty decent group of people.”
Ranboo sat for a moment, and considered this. Sure, his mom had been wanting him to get into some after-school activity. And sure, maybe, he did kind of want to make some new friends. He wasn’t quite sure if he could fully trust them yet, but Tommy and Tubbo seemed nice enough, despite their eccentricities.
“Alright, I’ll join.”
“Yes!” Tommy hollered from the back of the room, standing on top of the desk he had previously been sitting on, right as the math teacher, Mr. Sam, entered.
“Tommy, get down from there. And get to class, you don’t even have me until fourth block,” Sam said, shaking his head, being pretty used to Tommy’s antics by now.
Grumbling, Tommy got down from the desk and was shooed out of the classroom by the exhausted teacher, but not before yelling back to Tubbo, “Add Ranboob to the group chat!”, as he exited.
Tubbo asked, “You don’t mind if I sit here, do you? I mean, the desk does have two seats.”
“Oh, yeah, sure, of course you can,” the Ender hybrid replied, moving over his backpack to make more room for the goat hybrid.
“Would you want to be added to a group chat with the rest of the theater group? Tommy wants me to add you, but if you’re not comfortable, I won’t, boss man.”
“No, it’s fine, here’s my number,” Ranboo replied, pulling out his phone to give Tubbo the contact information.
“Got it, thanks dude,” the brunette replied, smiling.
Huh. This was either going to be the beginning of something very, very good, or very, very weird for Ranboo, and he suspected it would probably be the latter. After all, it wasn’t every day you get invited to join a school theater club by two guys you just met. Putting away his phone as class began though, Ranboo smiled. Maybe things would be a little nicer.
...
[toob has added ranboo to the group!]
toob: yo this is ranboo me and tommy kidnaped him this morning to do tech shit
say hi ranboo :D
ranboo: i mean kidnapped isn’t really the right word?
sand consumer: no, it is trust me with those gremlins
ranboo: oh
HAVER OF WIVES: yo ranboob
ranboob
boob boy
opinion on women
ranboo: uh they’re fine i guess?
HAVER OF WIVES: correct answer
ranboo: uhhhhh
sand consumer: we should probably go around and do introductions first
i’m wilbur, he/him, i’m 17 and have to put up with having the gremlin that is tommy as a brother
blood god: Hello, I’m Technoblade, my pronouns are they/it. I also have to deal with having Tommy and Wilbur as brothers.
ranboo: why do they type with perfect grammar and spelling kinda terrifying
blood god: I have my ways.
toob: they’re a nerd
bi monarch: hey, i’m eret, any pronouns are fine! i work on costuming and prop design.
ranboo: oh btw, what is the play that you guys are doing
HAVER OF WIVES: it’s some political drama wilbur found
edgy shit rlly
sand consumer: it is not edgy it’s a profound statement on trauma and grief
HAVER OF WIVES: see edgy
i get to die tho so it’s cool
sand consumer: it’s called never meant to be, it’s the story of a president who’s trying to run a new country after it was destroyed while dealing with the trauma of his past.
ranboo: oh okay!
sand consumer: i can send you the cast list if you want
ranboo: uh sure i guess
furry: oh new member
hi, my name’s fundy, he/they/xe. don’t question my username they changed it once and won’t let me change it back.
[HAVER OF WIVES has changed ranboo to boob boy]
boob boy: noooooooo
toob: you have to keep it like that now
boob boy: or what
toob: im takin da kidneys :D
boob boy: i would prefer if you did not do that actually
toob: ok sexy /p
boob boy: i-
alright then
Ranboo was interrupted from his confused typing when he heard that his mother was home, hearing the door slam from downstairs.
boob boy: ah sorry gtg my mom’s home
sand consumer: that’s fine! meetings are tuesdays and fridays so you’ll need to show up in the theater room for that at 4:30 after school. we’ll introduce you to the rest of the people who aren’t online rn
WIFE HAVER: bye bye boob boy
toob: bye!!!
Ranboo smiled at the sentiment, for some reason even somebody on a group chat saying goodbye to him felt nice, even if it was just common courtesy. He got off of his bed and pulled out a worn out journal from his beat-up backpack. His memory book.
The thing was, Ranboo had memory issues. The only people who really knew this were his mother, himself, and his cousins, not even the various doctors they had gone to about his weird sleepwalking knew about it. He had devised the memory book as a way to be able to remember things, keeping it stored deep in his backpack to avoid anyone, especially his mother, reading it. Unfortunately, some at End Academy had done that, this wasn’t even the first edition after the past two had been ripped up or flushed down the toilet. Luckily, they never realized it had to do with memory loss, just thinking of it as some odd diary.
Flipping open to an empty page, he pulled out a pen and began writing.
Joined a theater club today, on my first day of school. I’m going to work backstage! Met some new people:
Tommy: Loud, red and white shirt, calls me ‘Ranboob?’ doesn’t seem all that bad though
Tubbo: goat hybrid, green shirt, (legal name is Tuberculosis? might ask about that) seems really nice too. also threatened to steal my kidneys and called me /p sexy within the span of less than a minute.
Wilbur: Tommy’s brother, might run the theater club?? Not sure. Tommy described him as ‘edgy’.
Technoblade: types with perfect grammar and spelling. slightly terrifying.
Eret: Does costuming, i’m going to have to help them with that. She uses all pronouns (didn’t know people could do that, might google that)
Fundy: furry
Interrupted by the shout of his mother calling him from downstairs, Ranboo slammed his book shut and quickly tossed it into his backpack, zipping it up. Though he slightly dreaded going downstairs, as he did, he smiled to himself, thinking about the people he had met that day. They really weren’t all that bad.