Chapter Text
The faded wooden classroom door slid open with a quiet thud, revealing a classroom in disarray.
However, the first thing that caught Zhongli’s attention was not the tables and chairs disorderly strewn across the classroom, but the clear silhouette of a boy who sat on a table with his side to the setting sun.
He had his white uniform unbuttoned fully to reveal the plain grey shirt he wore underneath, but what should have looked slovenly and characteristic of a delinquent only suited the jovial student who was known as the class clown.
A gentle breeze billowed the translucent curtains onto the person. He sat on the table and slightly leaned against the wall on his right, the fading sunlight contouring his sharp features and lithe figure.
The orange sunset shone right into the classroom through the open windows, dying everything in the room a warm hue.
And warm it was, because the boy who looked up at the sound of the door opening had an incomparably warm, soft smile on his face as he caught sight of the person who entered.
"Mr President."
Zhongli was in an uncharacteristic daze at the sudden, heartfelt smile directed at him.
"...Tartaglia?"
Tartaglia's grin only widened being addressed by the president of the student council who had just entered.
"Heya, Mr President." He even had a nerve to offer a small cheeky wave.
Zhongli's eyebrows furrowed imperceptibly. "Tartaglia? What are you still doing here? The sun is setting, you ought to go home."
Tartaglia pouted and hopped off the table, patting nonexistent dust off his clothes. "You too, Mr President. You're always delayed by council work, can't you leave that to your other members instead?"
Zhongli arched an eyebrow at the approaching student. "I have a responsibility to fulfil, unlike you, Tartaglia." Zhongli sighed.
It was quite the responsibility indeed. It went beyond just his job of being the Student Council President; he also has to singlehandedly uphold the schools reputation... Due to his position of being the school director's son.
"Actually, I was just kidding, Mr President. I was waiting for you." Suddenly, his field of vision darkened when the other student walked right up to him with a smile. Zhongli had never quite noticed this before; Tartaglia was actually quite tall. A sudden, unidentified feeling suddenly arose in his heart.
However, before he could dwell on it, the ginger gave a wide grin and opened his mouth to request for something that he would never have expected from him.
"Zhongli, Zhongli, solve this maths problem for me, please."
Not noticing the sudden change of address, Zhongli's eyebrows rose in slight incredulity. "You? Doing math?"
"Yep. I'm being serious now." He closed his eyes and raised three fingers in a vow, which would otherwise have been solemn if not for the small smile hooking up the corners of his lips.
Zhongli’s eyebrows rose in silent disbelief, but sat down in the indicated seat anyway.
"Go on, show me."
Tartaglia hopped back onto the table before he pulled out a roll of white paper from his bag with unnecessary flourish, prompting a small, exasperated smile from the serious president, which did not go unnoticed by the ginger.
He hurriedly suppressed his grin and gestured grandly to the nondescript piece of blank paper with a maths problem scribbled on with pencil. "Please."
Zhongli gave it a once-over and immediately arched an eyebrow. "You wrote this?"
"Yep."
"And I thought you were going to do your homework for once."
Tartaglia chuckled. "If you can solve this, then, I promise I'll do all my homework from now on."
Zhongli glanced at the carefree student. "You said so yourself."
"I did." He nodded with conviction.
Zhongli immediately got into serious-mode at the chance to reform this perpetually unserious student.
"If the gold chain is 55 millimetres long... let X be the..." Zhongli muttered under his breath as he annotated the question. Very soon, the spaces under the problem sum were filled with small but neat notes and workings.
However, Tartaglia didn't even glance at his handiwork. His eyes were solely trained on the thinking boy, his gaze turning gentle as the smooth tumble of water in a flowing stream.
The empty classroom was soon quiet save for the rustling curtains and the consistent scribbling of graphite on paper.
"I got the answer," After a while, Zhongli looked up. "But I have to say, it's strange, and I'm quite sure you did it on purpose. There's a lot of redundant information… and I’ve never seen anyone using the letter ‘I’ as an algebra before, Tartaglia."
He suspiciously handed the paper over, not noticing how Tartaglia's gaze turned subtle as he took the paper from his hands, his finger brushing with the other’s for a split second.
"As expected, Mr President! I knew this wouldn't be a problem for you." He chuckled merrily.
"So, am I correct?" Zhongli propped his face up with a palm and tilted his head to the side, curious.
Tartaglia… Tartaglia wanted to kneel down right there and then because of how cute the sight was.
Still, spotting the confidence in those golden eyes, Tartaglia heavily withheld the fanboy scream emerging from his gut, grinned and lightly placed the paper back down on the desk. "So far, yes, but you haven't answered the follow-up question."
Zhongli frowned and almost snatched the paper back to take a look, but held himself back as he said with certainty, "There was no follow up question."
It had always been like this; Zhongli had long realised his strange discomposure around this classmate of his.
Despite the effort he put into maintaining the calm he had cultivated after years of tempering through leadership, this ginger always had a way to catch him off guard and cause him to reveal the depths of his true personality – he had been much more than an unruly child when he was young.
Tartaglia pointed at Zhongli's scribbled workings righteously.
"Alright then, why don't you explain to me first, and I'll see if I accept it before I tell you the follow-up question."
Zhongli very much wanted to roll his eyes, but his mouth still honestly started pointing out all the important parts. "At the amusement park's shop, each wooden token sold was on average 55 milligrams... on Saturday," Zhongli didn’t forget to quote the sentence's questionable information while glancing at Tartaglia, who was still smiling like nothing was wrong.
"While at the gold shop beside the cafe, the average gold chain was instead Y milligrams heavier than the wooden tokens of the same volume..."
Zhongli slowly explained his work step by step. His voice was the only constant in the otherwise silent classroom.
Tartaglia’s blue eyes never strayed from Zhongli’s calm face, looking like he was seriously listening to the explanation.
(However, only he knew how much he was regretting not recording this segment, so he could sleep to this voice everyday.)
"...so in the end, I equals to the weight of the wooden token in the amusement park, and U equals to the width of the chain in the shop next to the cafe." Zhongli finally finished, taking a deep breath.
"Bravo, Mr President! Of course you'd get it! Now," Tartaglia's smile widened. "The follow-up question is just a simple yes or no question."
Taking the pencil from Zhongli's hands, he slowly directed the pencil towards the paper, drawing the brunette’s attention.
"I," He pointed at the lone algebra squeezed between all the neat workings. "Wood definitely chain from now on, if U,"
His grin widened. "Wood gold width me to the cafe, or the amusement park, this Saturday, you choose."
Zhongli's eyes widened as the message sank in. He opened his mouth hurriedly, but was interrupted by the sudden raise of the pencil in Tartaglia's hands, which was gently placed against Zhongli’s lips.
"Ah, ah! Shush first, don't be so fast to deny me," The ginger continued smiling.
"You don't have to answer me right now at this moment, because I," he slowly pointed accordingly again. "Wood, weight,"
"For U."
This time, his grin was not as usually toothy and wide, but a small, expectant and almost nervous smile.
Zhongli opened and closed his mouth countless times, unsure of what to say. In the end, he opted to silently straighten the red band around his arm that stated his position of Student Council President.
Tick, tock. Tick, tock. The sound of the clock seemed infinitely enhanced by the glaring silence in the classroom.
Tick–
"...Though I did say I don’t need you to answer me immediately, it has been a minute, which should suffice." Tartaglia retracted his intense gaze and muttered lowly. Unlike the flippant and free-spirited image he usually portrayed, when he got serious, he was actually quite intimidating.
Zhongli shot an exasperated look at the jokester, speechless.
"So, follow up question; is it a yes, or a no, Zhongli?" He looked back up, directly into those golden eyes, the thin yellow pencil tucked behind his ear.
Zhongli's pupils shrunk imperceptibly.
In the end, he turned away, somehow unable to bear the heavy gaze of the classmate he had rarely seriously taken before.
"This is... very sudden..." Zhongli murmured, fiddling with the edges of the black satin gloves he had always worn for reasons unknown.
Tartaglia took a quiet breath as his heart palpitated agitatedly at the thought of the Student Council president's next words, which would most likely be a refusal.
Fighting the nervousness that made him feel like his heart was getting sunk into a bucket of churning magma and ice water at the same time, he mustered his courage and pulled out a brilliant smile.
He hopped back off the table he was sitting on, walking directly in front of Zhongli so that it was impossible to avoid his gaze.
"Zhongli, didn't you always want me to be more serious in class? If you give me a chance, just this Saturday, I promise not only will I finish my homework, I promise I'll get a rank in the cohort’s top hundred for the next semester’s exam week." He widened his eyes and looked sadly at the Student Council president.
Zhongli was inexplicably reminded of an abandoned puppy begging for his favour.
Biting his cheek to keep from laughing, Zhongli immediately gave a smile as casually as he could muster.
"Deal."
Tartaglia blinked, like he hadn’t expected the outcome.
"You, you agreed?"
"Yes, why would I disagree with such a good deal?" Zhongli cast an odd look at him. "So, this Saturday, amusement park, what time?"
A calm smile bloomed on Tartaglia's face... but only he knew how his heart rate had stuttered and skyrocketed, knocking against his chest so loudly he prayed the other couldn't hear it.
"Uh yes, how about... 11am? Before, before the sun comes up too high, so it wouldn't be too hot when we get there?"
"Okay," Zhongli stood up from the seat and started gathering his things. Glancing over at the Tartaglia who was still in a bit of a daze, Zhongli quietly rolled up the handwritten maths question and stuffed it quickly into his bag.
"It's late, you should go home, Tartaglia." Zhongli smiled as naturally as he could.
"Alright, we can text more on the details later, goodbye." Zhongli once again straightened the red Student Council president armband before leaving quickly with a small, unnoticeable smile.
When the sliding classroom door shut with a quiet thud at last, Tartaglia immediately slumped against the nearest table.
The slender fingers on the desk were trembling, whether from anxiety or excitement, he no longer knew. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath.
Suddenly, like an internal explosion had occurred, he pumped a fist vigorously in the air–
"YESSSSSS!"