Chapter Text
It had never been a habit for Jesper Fahey to be on time, and today was no different.
It was 9:00 on a Thursday morning, and Jesper was meant to be in maths. Instead, he was locking his bike up with his music on the highest volume to drown out the year eights loudly playing football on the field.
It would be a lie to say that this lateness was an accident, since today was the day they were getting their maths exams back, and Jesper was dreading it a little.
To avoid it, he’d made several stops on the way to school, but he’d made it there eventually, and he reluctantly turned off his music, strolling into school, humming the tune he’d just been listening to. If anyone were to see him, he’d look practically joyous, which was the exact opposite of how he was feeling.
Reaching the maths classroom, he opened the door, assuming a sheepish expression to avoid being reprimanded too harshly.
“Jesper, sit down quickly. Your test is already on your desk.”
Jesper did not like his maths teacher, and his maths teacher did not like him. It really was a shame, because he’d managed to charm all of his other teachers, even in the subjects he hated. He’d tried to do the same with maths, but something about his ‘impertinence’ and ‘audacity’ had unfortunately left him in his teacher’s bad books.
“Alright, sir!” he responded with a mock brightness, and a few boys snickered. Most people in the class were aware of the dislike between Jesper, who never shut up, and Mr Wright, whose sole goal in life seemed to be to get him to do so.
He hurriedly took his seat next to his best friend, Inej, who was glaring at him with her arms crossed, leaning back in her chair to stare at him with her best disgruntled expression.
“What’s wrong?”
“I thought you were gonna leave me, even after your little inspirational speech. What was it you said again? ‘We’re in this together, Inej! This fight takes two, and we can defeat the evil together!’”
Jesper winced as she spoke, remembering the conversation they had had the day before where he had said exactly that. “Well, we are! Let’s look at them together!”
The glare faded from Inej’s face, and she sighed. “Fine. Only because I think I’ll need emotional support.”
Jesper grinned at her, and grabbed his paper apprehensively, pausing for a second to breathe. Inej had her paper in her lap, and her gaze had slid from Jesper down to the floor, where it seemed determined to stay.
“3, 2, 1…” As soon as he finished the last number, Jesper flipped over his paper, and groaned as he saw the score. 62%, which was a C. At least he’d passed, he thought, before turning to Inej to see a similar look on her face.
“How bad?” she asked, and he sighed. “C. No idea how it happened, actually. I’m usually good at maths.”
She rolled her eyes, “You’re being dramatic. I got a C too, but as soon as the GCSE is over, I’m dropping maths, so it doesn’t bother me as much as I’m sure it’ll bother my parents.”
Jesper shrugged, “Yeah, but I’m not dropping it! I’ve decided to put myself through two more years of this subject, and a C is not the best way to assure those two years aren’t hell.”
“Maybe you’ll get a tutor..?” suggested Inej, and Jesper put his head in his hands.
“I hope not! Can you imagine how embarrassing that would be?”
“I think you might be exaggerating the embarrassment of that situation,” she replied flatly.
“I am not! This is a tragedy!” Jesper groaned once more for good measure and flopped his head down onto the table.
The rest of the lesson passed in a little bit of a blur, and Jesper vowed to teach himself at home, but the prospect of tutoring was plaguing on his mind, and it was likely he’d forget.
Walking out into the halls, he accidentally almost knocked over a year seven, and then had to jog to catch up to Inej. “Do you know what Kaz has next? I need to ask him about something.”
“Jes, it was a joke, you’re not gonna get a tutor.”
“What lesson does Kaz have?”
Inej sighed in exasperation, “Economics, which means-”
“-he’s skipping,” they said in unison. Jesper grinned, and Inej gave him a tired smile. He had English next, which means he could feasibly skip the first ten or so minutes to talk to Kaz. After all, this was an important matter!
“Jesper, this is ridiculous.”
Kaz Brekker was sitting underneath a tree on the patch of grass behind the science block, looking incredibly annoyed by the appearance of his best friend.
“C’mon, Kaz! What if it happens? Then you’ll be forced to spend less time around this beautiful face!”
Kaz threw a leaf at him, with such little force that it should not have gone anywhere, but it hit Jesper’s nose all the same, and he made a rude face at his friend, who still seemed unfazed.
“If you get a tutor, I’ll be glad. You need to improve your maths score.”
Jesper glared at him, “What about Inej? She might need one!”
Kaz shrugged, “I’ll tutor her.”
“So you’ll tutor her, but not me?” he asked, incredulous.
“Exactly.”
Jesper sighed and flopped down onto the grass next to Kaz. “You are quite irksome, you know that, right?”
“Yes. Now go back to English.”
Jesper had almost forgotten about the entire tutor business when he got the email. He’d been avoiding his chemistry homework by playing 2048 Cupcakes, and he’d almost reached the 2017 Confetti Vanilla Cupcake when he heard the intruding sound that signified that he’d received an email.
Bored, he clicked on his email, assuming it would be a notification about some charity event or some reading bulletin that he would have no need to read. Worryingly, the email was tagged with the little exclamation mark that meant the sender had considered it more important than the charity events or reading bulletins (although Jesper recalled that some teachers - like his chemistry teacher - abused this urgent feature).
Clicking on the email, it didn’t take him long to actually read the contents. It was a short email, after all.
Dear Pupil,
Due to your performance on the recent maths assessment, we have deemed it necessary that you receive extra tutoring. These sessions will take place during Thursday lunchtimes in T13, and you will be assigned a student helper.
Reply to confirm your attendance.
Sincerely, Miss Pang
The disappointment of the idea of being tutored overcame the satisfaction he would have normally felt about his suspicions being correct, and he quickly took out his phone to complain to his friends about the whole situation.
jesper’s support group
6:32PM
jesper: guyssss
jesper: GUYSSS
nina: WHAT
jesper: i have to get a tutor :(
nina: for maths?
jesper: yup
jesper: @inej do you?
inej: no??
kaz: i sorted it out.
jesper: fuck you
With that, he put his phone down, and let out a dramatic sigh. One of his best, really. If Nina had been here, she’d have applauded it, but as it was, the only one to hear it was the Head of Learning, smiling out at him from his computer screen. He glared at her, deciding that she was mocking him, and closed the tab. He could worry about the tutoring sessions tomorrow, when they actually happened. For now, he wanted to play 2048 Cupcakes. Kaz’s high score was 530,220 and he was desperate to beat it.
Jesper had decided that it was not in his best interests to be late two days in a row, so he arrived at school bright and early the next day, but it did not take long for the four hours of sleep to catch up to him, and the second he sat down in between Kaz and Inej underneath the very same tree he’d talked to Kaz under yesterday, and the very same tree that his friends always congregated under, he drifted off to sleep.
He doubted he slept for more than a few seconds before he felt himself being violently shaken awake by Inej.
“Get off me! I’m awake!” he cried, and Inej shuffled away, everyone staring at him (quite rudely, in his opinion) as he woke up enough to be able to understand what was going on.
“Finally,” began Kaz, annoyance clear in his voice, “I thought maybe you were dead.”
Jesper stuck out his tongue, but Kaz ignored him.
“So, Jesper, when’s tutoring?” queried Nina, currently lying with her head in the lap of her boyfriend, Matthias Helvar.
“Lunch today,” he grumbled, and Nina, ever the supportive friend, let out a peal of laughter.
“It’s not funny!”
“It is a little,” remarked Inej, who seemed to be trying her best to stop a smile from forming on her lips.
“Not a little. A lot!” Nina was still laughing uproariously, and Jesper stuck out his tongue at her too.
Lunchtime came much faster than he would’ve liked, and he found himself waving goodbye to Nina after History and slowly making his way towards T13. Very slowly. He couldn’t delay it forever, though, and eventually he found himself pushing open the door of the classroom.
It was full of students, most in his year or the year below, and he felt a little relieved to see that he wasn’t the only one. He’d been a little afraid that it’d be him and a maths nerd sat in an empty classroom for an hour. He had no idea which of the stuck-up nerds (as he’d decided his tutor must be) would be his, so he pranced over to the tired-looking sixth former sitting at the desk.
“‘Scuse me, I’m here for…” he still refused to say tutoring, deciding that his pride came before any sort of convenience.
“The tutor thing?” she sounded as bored as he felt, and he felt a sick happiness that at least someone else would be suffering this lunchtime.
“Yep!”
“You’re the last one here, so whoever doesn’t have a partner yet is yours.”
Jesper nodded as a thank-you, but she hadn’t looked up, so he didn’t think she’d seen. He was also almost completely sure that she didn’t care whether he thanked her or not, so he looked up, scanning the room for the person sitting alone.
His eyes found him easily: red-gold wavy hair ; deep blue eyes the colour of the sea; pale skin dotted with freckles and a serene expression as he gazed out of the window.
Jesper knew he was staring. The knowledge of it didn’t mean he had any plans to stop, however, and he took another few moments to get lost in those perfectly blue eyes before he reminded himself that he probably looked like a right idiot, standing up at the front of the classroom and staring at some kid he’d never even met.
Of course, to rectify this, he was going to have to turn ‘some kid he’d never even met’ into his tutor. Unfortunate how these things worked out, wasn’t it?
He walked over casually, attempting to look as if he hadn’t just been staring. It was easier than he thought, because the boy didn’t appear to notice him even as he walked up and pulled up a chair next to him.
“Hello? Earth to… whatever your name is?”
The boy blinked, and turned to look at Jesper, who found himself enamoured by those blue eyes once more, and had to actively make an effort to focus on what the boy was saying.
“My name is Wylan,” he said, and Jesper realised that he was annoyed. Maybe it was the fact that Jesper was twenty minutes late, or maybe it was the fact that he’d walked up to him and immediately made a joke. Most likely, it was a mixture of both. Jesper found that he had a talent when it came to annoying people.
“Wylan! Nice to meet you! My name is Jesper, but you can call me whatever you want!” He winked, grinning from ear to ear as he did so.
The expression on Wylan’s face went from slight annoyance to incredible exasperation.
“I’ll call you Jesper, then, since that’s your name.”
“That’s the spirit!”
He grinned, and Wylan sighed. Jesper had to hold back a laugh, and he realised that annoying Wylan had to be the most entertaining thing he’d done all day, and maybe this whole tutoring idea wasn’t that bad.
“Miss Pang told me that this first session was to ascertain what subjects you struggle in, so…?”
It took Jesper a few seconds to realise he was asking him a question. He’d gotten slightly hung up on the use of the word ‘ascertain’. It sounded so much like something Kaz would say that it brought a small smile to his face.
If it had been Kaz, Jesper probably would’ve made a joke about ‘struggling with success’ but the earnest expression on Wylan’s face urged him not to.
“Geometry, probably."
“Oh!” Wylan’s face brightened considerably, and for the first time since he’d sat down, Jesper could see what looked like a smile on his face. “I’m good at geometry, so that’s good.”
“You’re a confident one, aren’t you?”
Wylan rolled his eyes, “You don’t appear to be lacking in self esteem either, and as I recall, only one of us got an A.”
Jesper almost burst out laughing. Clearly, there was more to this boy than he’d originally thought.
“You’re funny, Wylan.”
“I don’t get that often,” he responded, and Jesper was surprised at how genuine the reply was.
“Well, you are! Don’t let the haters get you down!”
“My problem isn’t haters, it’s annoying boys who are trying their best to distract me from tutoring them.”
“Why on Earth would I do that?” Jesper tried his best to feign innocence, but he had a feeling he just looked like an idiot.
“You look very stupid right now.” There it was.
“Well, I am in maths tutoring. It’s my job to be stupid!”
“Technically, that means it’s my job to make you stop being stupid.”
“Only one way to get a stupid look off someone’s face!”
Kaz would’ve said there were many, like chopping off their head, shooting them, cutting out their eyes, or something else equally disturbing, but Jesper didn’t have any of those in mind.
“What?” asked Wylan warily.
“Give them a big ol’ kiss!” he winked, and Wylan instantly turned a deep red.
“You are ridiculous,” he said, shooting a glare at him before turning to look very intently at a page of the maths textbook.
Jesper mimed being shot. “Your cruel words hurt me, Wylan!”
The red-haired boy giggled, and Jesper smiled. Maybe tutoring wouldn’t be as bad as he’d feared.