Chapter Text
The line to get into the dining hall extends out the door, and Ash feels his stomach turn. Not from hunger. From the utter dread of having everyone see he has absolutely no idea what he’s doing, since apparently the entire campus is here.
His hands clench tight around his backpack straps, and he almost decides to book it to the library and wait there until his next class starts. But he is a little hungry. And this way he gets to pick what he eats. And Max and Jess were kind enough to pay for this.
Ash grits his teeth and walks forward, securing himself in line behind someone with a long pinkish braid. He glances around, taking note of every body that passes him, every laugh that floats through the air.
It’s Ash’s first day of college, and he couldn’t feel more out of his depth. It’s been a long time since he’s been on a campus of any kind and had to actually sit in on classes with real professors. Professors who are older than him and probably look at him and think about him in ways Ash is all too familiar with.
The line moves an inch forward, and Ash stays where he is, eyes following a group of girls as they exit the dining hall. They’re talking about a professor who is “really attractive.” Ash doesn’t feel hungry anymore.
A body jostles his shoulder and he snaps out of it, whipping his head around. He didn’t expect to see bright purple.
A tall guy, the source of the purple being his fucking mohawk, Jesus Christ, and another guy, smaller and softer around the edges, slip into the space between Ash and the pink braid. Fuck no they did not just cut!
“Hey. No cutting in line.”
The duo turn around, and god this guy is also wearing sunglasses? Could he be any weirder?
“Oh shit! Our bad! You were just staring off into space and this was a huge gap so we figured—“
“You figured wrong, asshole.” Ash notices the line move another inch, and he quickly walks around the pair to secure his rightful spot. He hears a squawk from behind him.
“Damn. Someone’s not happy today. I guess the first day of classes does that to a person.”
Ash’s fists tighten around his straps, and he wants to whip around and give the purple-haired freak a piece of his mind, but someone else does it for him.
“Shorter, stop. We are in wrong here. Do not be mean.” The other boy, who Ash didn’t get a good enough look at, has a sweet voice. Gentle. Wind blowing through the trees and sending a leaf down to your feet.
“He’s the one who called me an asshole!”
Ash isn’t above punching this guy in the mouth. Wait—did the nice guy call him Shorter? As in—that’s his name?!
“Well we were assholes. We cut in line.”
“He was standing like twelve feet behind it and wasn’t paying attention! We couldn’t have known he was in line!”
Ash glares over his shoulder at the pair, and they both freeze up. The nice boy gives him a smile. Just as soft as his voice.
“Sorry dude. We’ll stop. Just—be nicer to people next time.”
Ash huffs and steps forward with the line. He can see the person who checks everyone in. Wait, fuck, how does he get in? He remembers vaguely something about a card. Does he have his card?
He starts patting his pockets, but only feels his phone. In a bit of a frenzy, Ash throws his backpack to the front of his body and starts frantically searching the compartments. He finds his wallet and digs through, stepping forward again with the line and feeling the heat as it comes closer to being his turn through the passage of judgement.
Backpack slung back over his shoulder and wallet in hand, Ash steps up to the person sitting at a computer. They stare at each other for a moment, neither making a move.
“Uh . . .”
“Come on. Your card?”
Ash fumbled with his wallet, looking through the single compartment for a card. Which one, though? Credit? Debit? How much is this gonna cost? Wait, didn’t Jess and Max prepay for this somehow?
There’s a tap on Ash’s shoulder, and his panic makes him whip around all too quickly for a normal human being.
The guy with the sweet voice is standing there, smile on his soft face and hand hovering over Ash’s shoulder. “Do you need help? Did you lose your card?”
Ash opens his mouth, closes it, then opens it again. He hears a sigh from the worker to his left. “Does it matter which card?”
There’s a snuffle of laughter, and Ash’s eyes focus on the purple-haired guy, who brought a hand to his face to try and conceal his laughter. He did a shit job at it.
The nicer of the two just keeps smiling, looking the furthest from judgmental Ash has ever seen a person. “Do you not have a school ID?”
Oh. Oh, that makes so much sense. God, Ash is so stupid!
“O-oh I—I do. I didn’t know I could pay with that.” Ash pulls the ID out, cringing at the picture Max took of him. He refused to let the actual campus workers do it for him.
“Do you have a meal plan?” This guy is way too nice. Walking Ash through it all. Holding his hand, even when Ash has tried to swat him away with his words.
“Y-Yeah. Yeah I do.”
There’s a throat clearing, and Ash forgot he was next in line. “What’s the hold up, kid? Come on. There’s a huge line.”
Ash spasms a little bit and thrusts the card at the employee, who takes it with a weird look and swipes it.
“Enjoy your meal.” Ash stuffs the card back into his wallet and trips over his own feet as he rushes forward. Holy fuck was that embarrassing.
The dining hall is huge. Well, it’s not that big. But for Ash’s standards, this place is too much.
There’s lines of people all over, plates and trays in hand. Multiple different places to get different kinds of foods. Too many options. Ash feels sweat bead on his forehead and the hairs at the back of his neck stand up.
He realizes he is standing frozen in the middle of all the action, but he’s too overwhelmed to care. There’s too much going on. The entire fucking population is in this one building trying to get food.
Someone brushes past Ash, and he drops his wallet. Gasping, he bends down to pick it up, but that results in bumping into more people. There’s just too much going on.
When he stands back up, there’s a hand on his shoulder. Ash gasps and jumps around, yet again coming face to face with purple hair and nice guy. This time the purple-haired dude is touching him. How he wishes it were the other.
“Hey, man,” he says, voice kinder than it was earlier, “you seem a bit scared. Lost. Nervous. Need help?”
Ash jerks away, making the guy’s hand fall to his side. “N-No I—I’m fine. And you’re the last person I would want help from.”
The guy smiles, which Ash thinks is a strange reaction to his scathing words. The other guy steps forward.
“What about help from me?”
Ash blinks because that’s all he can do. He has no response to that. The unfortunate reality of his situation is that he would like help from the nice guy.
“Come on.” Ash is grabbed by the elbow as he is taken to one of the many lines extending out into the center. “This line serves chicken. Do you like chicken?”
Eloquently, Ash just blinks again. He doesn’t know what these two want from him.
“Uh—“
“Or we can go to the line over there. They serve noodles usually. Oh or the spot in the center has meatballs today.” The guy’s soft voice is louder now to accommodate the noise in the cafeteria. Ash likes that it is still gentle somehow.
But even with the sweetness and sincerely, the boy is throwing too much at him to handle. He’s listing things and pointing places and Ash genuinely feels like his head is spinning.
His appetite is completely lost. This whole ordeal has been far too nauseating.
“So is chicken okay?” The question brings his spinning to a halt. The two are just staring at him. They have different expressions on their faces, but somehow Ash reads them both as concern. God he’s selfish.
“Uh huh,” Ash finds himself responding. He doesn’t really care at this point. It’s not like he’ll eat more than a few bites, what with how upset his stomach now is. And also, he can’t let these two know that his prime choice of food is buttered noodles and plain rice.
“Great! The chicken is always good. Promise.”
“I make better food.”
“You only ever give me burned food!”
“Because you eat for free! I won’t charge you for my fuck-ups!”
The conversation unfolding before him confuses Ash, but so far everything about these two has done that. He shouldn’t be surprised that all their conversations sound like a foreign language to him.
The line progresses forward, and Ash shrinks behind them. He needs to watch and see how this whole operation works. He doesn’t want to make a fool of himself again.
Purple haired Shorter steps up to the window, and with an air of confidence and congeniality Ash drools over, says, “Can I please have the chicken and mashed potatoes with extra gravy? Thank you!”
He’s handed a plate and he moves to the side, allowing the nice guy to say in the most tooth-rottingly sweet voice Ash has ever heard, “Can I also have the chicken and potatoes and gravy? Thank you very much!”
And then it’s Ash’s turn. His palms feel sweaty, and he grabs onto the hem of his untucked shirt. He’s gonna fuck this up. Make the workers mad because he can’t be as nice and pleasant as the other two. He used to be able to do that. Used to be the sweetest boy money could buy. But that ended up turning him sour. In his mind, at least. Jess and Max still say he’s nice, but he thinks they’re doing that out of sympathy. Everything they do is because they feel bad for him. He isn’t a good enough person to warrant kindness toward himself. He’s just mean and selfish and rude and—
Tap tap. Gentle and softer than he’s ever been touched. “Tell him what you want.”
Ash jolts forward, eyes coming up to meet the worker’s. They look tired and worn. Ash feels bad for needing food.
“Um—chicken and potatoes.” He watches as they grab a plate and start to dish it out, and he finally remembers his manners. “Please. And thank you.”
He takes the plate and almost drops its contents as he’s shoved out of the line by the advancing others. Fuck this shit.
The two guys are standing there. Waiting for him? No, that can’t be.
“Let us go to our favorite seat!” Nice guy leads the way, and Ash shuffles along behind them, glancing around nervously. It feels like everyone is watching him. Like they know he doesn’t really belong with these two guys. They’re angry at him for tagging along and ruining their lunch.
They end up on the far side of the cafeteria, tucked into a corner where the lights are broken and no one dares to venture.
Uh oh, Ash thinks, this is where they get payback for the line incident. They were pretending to be nice so they could take me back here and—
“We like it because it is just us!” Nice soft guy plops his plate down before falling into the booth.
Ash watches as purple hair takes his seat next to the other guy, and Ash realizes with dread he’s going to have to face both of them. Better than sitting next to them and allowing them access, he supposes.
He slides into his side, gently tucking his backpack into the corner where the booth meets the wall. When he looks up, the two are just staring at him. Well, he assumes Shorter is staring at him. Hard to tell with the sunglasses.
“What is your name?” The question comes as a surprise, and he opens his mouth as he watches Shorter grab his fork and knife and start to dig in. The other guy is still giving Ash his full attention.
“It’s Ash,” he says slowly.
His face lights up. “Like from a fire!”
He can’t help it; a smile comes to Ash’s face. The comparison is just too spot on: the Ash here today comes from the flakes of the destructive, devastating force that was his life beforehand.
“That’s a pretty cool name,” purple hair says through a mouthful of potatoes. Disgusting. Charming? No. Maybe. “Not as cool as mine though. It’s Shorter.”
“That’s an adjective, not a name,” Ash says. And then he slaps a hand over his mouth. Because holy fuck was that rude! “Ah—shit! I’m sorry!”
But Shorter is laughing. Laughing so hard he chokes on his food. Nice guy works his magic and pats him on the back. Ash wants to hear his name now, who cares about the choking dude!
“I don’t even know what an adjective is! You’re fucking funny!” He wipes at his eyes beneath his sunglasses and takes a deep breath. “Oh, I’m so lucky we found you!”
Why does he make it sound like Ash is a stray cat?
“You are funny! You made Shorter laugh hard! Not even I can do that.” The guy makes an ‘oof’ sound as he’s elbowed in the ribs by Shorter.
“You’re plenty funny, Eiji.” Bingo! His name! How nice and perfect it sounds. The name of an angle, mayhaps? “You made me cry last night because of how hard I was laughing at you doing your Japanese homework.”
Ash is learning a lot right now, at a very rapid rate. He has no issue keeping up with it, but god does he have a lot of questions.
“The workbook is stupid! It is for stupid people! I could answer those questions in my sleep!”
“What did you expect when you signed up to major in the language you already speak?”
“I do not know! Harder classes, I guess.” Ah. So Eiji is Japanese. And he’s majoring in the language? Ash can even admit that’s pretty amusing.
“You’re a piece of work.” Shorter stabs his chicken before taking another bite. He motions to his left with his now empty fork. “This jackass is double majoring in photography and Japanese. And guess what? He’s literally from Japan!”
Ash can’t hide his smile, but he doesn’t have to. Eiji is smiling too, and it’s wide and smug and triumphant.
“I am beating the system.”
“You’re boring yourself to death!”
“No! I have the photography to keep me entertained.”
Ash huffs out a small laugh and finds himself picking up his fork, imitating Shorter’s motions and eating a bite of mushy potatoes. Hunger becomes background noise when you’re laughing with friends.
“Ash, what do you do?”
Ash does a lot. He messes up. He makes people angry. Upset. Disappointed. He takes things from his “parents,” wastes their precious time and money. He’s a nuisance. He makes people horny and hungry and wanting more more more. That’s all he’s ever really been good at. It’s been a while since he’s given it a go. Is that what these two want? A slice of heaven from Ash himself?
“I’m a business major!” Shorter announces suddenly.
There’s the sound of a thump as Eiji whacks his arm. “I was asking Ash, not you.”
Shorter shrugs. “He seemed confused. Thought I would give my answer to help.”
Ash shakes his head, pushing away all the wrong answers. He misunderstood the question, just like he tends to misunderstand everything.
“I’m an English major. Uh—literature focus.” He takes another bite of potatoes, feels his cheeks heating up with embarrassment. Why is it so scary sharing your interests with others?
“Oh! You are smart! And you can help my English!”
“He’s not your personal tutor and translator!”
“Well you are not that for me because you did not know adjective!”
“I’m a fucking business major—what do you expect?!”
Another bite as Ash smiles and watches them bicker again. They’re funny, and Ash could use a little bit of joy in his life. And some kindness and consideration. Which they gave him (after the initial argument which was both parties’ faults).
Ash figures if he could eat with these two every day, then maybe this whole college thing wouldn’t be so bad. In addition to all the learning and work, maybe Ash could also find friendship and love. But that’s cheesy, isn’t it?