Chapter Text
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Ranboo had never been the best at making friends. He preferred the company of Spotify and his stuffed cat, Enderchest. So when his parents decided to move from their small apartment in the US to the UK, Ranboo wasn't leaving anything important behind. Well, except for the small flower garden he kept on the fire escape next to his bedroom window.
He had grown and watered a small garden of alliums in an old shoebox for five years, and now one of the few things that gave him comfort was gone.
As Ranboo walked into his new room in the UK, he couldn't help but notice that his bedroom didn't have a fire escape. He sighed heavily and scanned the rest of his room. A bed with white pillows and black blankets was pushed into a corner with a desk and Ranboo's PC next to it. His closet was on the other side of the room, and a few boxes lay scattered around the mostly empty room, waiting to be unpacked.
Ranboo ignored them and flopped onto his bed, opening up Spotify on his phone. He plugged in his earbuds and put one of his playlists on shuffle. He closed his eyes as the familiar lyric of "Are You Bored Yet?" played through his earbuds. He soon fell asleep, completely forgetting he had school in the morning.
Ranboo was startled awake by the sound of his dad banging on his bedroom door.
"Ranboo? Are you up yet? You're gonna be late for school!" Ranboo's eyes widened as he checked the time on his phone. He only had fifteen minutes to get ready. He stumbled over to his closet still half asleep and quickly got changed into a red hoodie and black jeans. Ranboo then went into the bathroom and quickly brushed his teeth and hair.
He grimaced as he looked at the reflection of his green and red eyes. He had always hated his heterochromia, and ever since he could remember he had been bullied because of it. Ranboo only hoped that this school was different. He grabbed his backpack and his phone before heading downstairs. He decided he didn't have time for breakfast and slipped his shoes on before heading out the door to walk to school.
It was a quick 5-minute walk, but Ranboo was still going to be a few minutes late. He walked up to the school and quickly made his way inside the office since he had no idea where he was supposed to go for class. He opened the door slowly and peeked inside, seeing a receptionist with brown and white split hair working at her computer. She saw Ranboo and motioned for him to come inside. Ranboo obliged and walked in.
"Hello," the receptionist said with a smile, "I'm Ms. Puffy, what can I help you with?"
"Uh, I'm Ranboo Beloved, I'm new," Ranboo said, and Ms. Puffy nodded.
"Ah yes, the new student. Here is your schedule, your first class starts in a minute," she said, handing him a piece of paper.
"Thank you Ms. Puffy," Ranboo said, heading out of the office.
"Anytime! Have a good day!" Ms. Puffy said, before turning back to her computer.
Luckily, Ranboo's first class wasn't too far from the office, and he found it easily. He walked inside, and it became very clear he was late. The teacher stopped talking to the class and noticed Ranboo.
"Are you the new student?" the teacher asked.
"Um yeah," Ranboo said nervously. It seemed the entire class was looking at him.
"Great! I'm Mr. Halo. Class, this is our new student who transferred here from America, Ranboo Beloved," Mr. Halo said, and the class answered with some half-hearted 'hi's and 'hello's.
"You'll be sitting in the back row next to Toby Underscore and Wilbur Minecraft," Ranboo nodded and made his way to the back of the class. He managed to hear some of his classmates whispering about him;
"...so tall..."
"...American?..."
"...jeez he looks so lanky..."
"...what's up with his eyes?..."
Ranboo tried to ignore them as he sat down. He was used to this by now. The boy on his right, (Toby? Or Wilbur? Ranboo couldn't remember which was which) smiled at him. Ranboo smiled back nervously. He could barely see the boy's greyish green eyes through a mop of fluffy brown hair.
"Hi, I'm Toby, but you can call me Tubbo," the boy said. Ranboo was surprised he was being so nice. Usually, people weren't this friendly to him, considering his weird eyes, freakish height, and shy mannerism.
"I'm Ranboo, it's nice to meet you Tubbo," Ranboo said, grinning.
Ranboo soon realized that despite his teacher being nice, he still managed to make Ranboo want to swim back to America if this is what UK teachers were like. Ranboo couldn't understand how one human could be so incredibly boring.
He looked to his right and wasn't surprised to find Tubbo completely ignoring the lesson and instead doodling on a piece of scrap paper. Ranboo took a closer look and found that Tubbo was actually a really good artist. Random doodles of animals and flowers were scrawled in the corners, but Tubbo seemed to be focused on faces.
Ranboo saw a scarred man with his hair in a braid, a kid with fluffy hair and band-aids plastered all over his face, a boy with round glasses and soft hair tucked under a beanie, who seemed a little familiar to Ranboo.
Tubbo was currently tracing out the shape of a fourth head and then turned his face upwards, noticing Ranboo.
"What are you looking at?" the boy said, sounding mostly annoyed, but maybe a little nervous? Or maybe that was just Ranboo.
"Uh..." even under Tubbo's mop of hair, his eyes managed to bore holes into Ranboo's face, "Um, you're really good. At drawing," Ranboo explained, his eyes not meeting Tubbo's. Eye contact made him anxious.
"Oh," Tubbo seemed surprised, "Than you," the boy smiled warmly. Ranboo returned the smile, this time meeting Tubbo's eyes. Tubbo was visibly taken aback, noticing the strange hues of Ranboo's eyes.
Great. Ranboo thought Now he'll regret ever talking to me. The tall American with the Christmas ornament eyes. Ranboo braced himself for the sting of an insult, but Tubbo just smiled.
"You have pretty eyes, bossman," he said softly. Ranboo blinked. Did he hear that right?
"What?" Ranboo questioned. He must've misheard Tubbo. The smaller boy just laughed.
"I said, you have pretty eyes," he said. Oh. Ranboo thought, wait, really?
"Thank you," Ranboo said warmly, grinning. Suddenly, the school bell rang, startling the two boys. The class eagerly jumped up from their seats and stampeded out the door. Tubbo took a second longer, collecting the drawings on his desk.
"Ranboo? Toby? Could you come here please?" Mr. Halo beckoned the boys over to his desk. How could I have messed up on the first day? Ranboo thought glumly. Mr. Halo smiled at them.
"Ranboo, Toby and you have the same schedules, so he'll be helping you around today," Ranboo breathed a sigh of relief. At least it was Tubbo, the only person who had been remotely nice to him in a while, and not some Chad who would ditch him the first second they got. He had a feeling Tubbo wouldn't do that.
The boys walked out of class together, and Ranboo realized with a start how much taller he was than Tubbo.
"Ok bossman, unfortunately, the next class we have is in Hell, just a few doors down," Tubbo said, leading the way to math class.
Ranboo sighed. It was going to be a long day.
Math class went by surprisingly quickly, even though Ranboo wasn't sitting near Tubbo so they could distract each other.
Soon, the lunch bell rang and Ranboo breathed a sigh of relief. Finally, a break.
"C'mon Ranboo, you can sit at my table," Tubbo said, taking the tall boy's hand and dragging him to a table in the corner of the lunchroom where five other people were already sitting. A kid with fluffy blonde hair and a red and white hoodie turned in his seat to greet Tubbo.
"Hey Beeboy!" He said, waving. Ranboo realized he was one of the faces Tubbo had drawn.
"Hi, Tommy. This is Ranboo, by the way. Ok if he sits with us?" Tubbo asked. Ranboo waved awkwardly. Tommy looked him up and down quickly, stopping at Ranboo's eyes.
"You got weird eyes, big man. They're cool," Tommy grinned, "C'mon bitch boy, you can sit here," Tommy said, waving the boys over to the table.
Ranboo was still in shock. He'd only talked to two kids today, and both of them hadn't made fun of him. He smiled softly. Maybe this school would be different (lmao yeah right).
Ranboo scanned the table, recognizing most of the people there from Tubbo's drawings. Tubbo began to introduce everyone to Ranboo.
"That over there's Wilbur, you sit next to him in homeroom," Tubbo said, pointing to a tall figure in a yellow sweater and dark red beanie.
"And next to him is Techno," Tubbo said, nodding towards a quiet pinkette who was reading a book.
"Wilbur, Techno, and Tommy are all brothers actually," Tubbo stated before moving on.
"And those two over there are Jack and Niki," Tubbo said, pointing further down the table where a girl in a soft striped sweater was talking with a boy with a shaved head and 3D glasses. They all seem pretty nice, Ranboo thought, taking a seat next to Tubbo and Tommy. Everyone seemed to think he was ok, and he began to comfortably chat with them, for once not feeling too anxious. Until he realized he had forgotten his lunch at home.
"Uh oh," he muttered softly.
"What was that bossman?" Tubbo asked him, sipping his juice box.
"Nothing, don't worry, I just forgot my lunch, it's ok though," Ranboo said hurriedly. He had just met Tubbo today, he didn't want him to waste his food just because Ranboo had been forgetful. Again.
"Oh, that's no big deal. Here you can have the other half of my sandwich, I'm full anyway," Tubbo said, handing Ranboo what looked to be a sandwich of peanut butter... and was that honey?
"No I'm ok, really, you don't need to-" Tubbo rolled his eyes.
"I don't need you starving to death the first day we meet," Tubbo said, shoving the sandwich into Ranboo's hands. Ranboo knew there was no arguing with him, so he just sighed in defeat and ate the sandwich, which was surprisingly good.
After a few minutes, Wilbur tried to start a cult centered around apple juice with Tommy.
"C'mon Big T, just drink the Holy Apple Juice," Tommy said, waving a slightly squashed box in front of Tubbo's face.
"No! I don't know what you've done to it!" Tubbo said, giggling. Tommy scoffed.
"Fine, you do it Ranboob," Tommy said, shifting his attention to the tall boy.
"Hey!" Ranboo complained. Tommy just laughed, and Ranboo couldn't help but smile. He'd only known him for 15 minutes but could tell he wasn't getting rid of Tommy anytime soon.
And maybe he was ok with that.
Suddenly, Tommy squeezed the juice box a little too tight, and the box exploded all over Ranboo's hoodie, soaking his front. The whole table was quiet before they all burst into laughter.
"Oh my- BAHHA, uh sorry? I- AHAH," Tommy tried to apologize.
"It's ok, I'll go clean it up in the bathroom," Ranboo said, laughing a bit before getting up and following the sign that pointed to the bathroom.
No one noticed the three figures following him.