Chapter Text
Your fingers drummed restlessly against the desk as you waited for your physics class to start. The lecture hall was full up, with something close to two hundred students, if you remembered the number of available seats from when you’d signed up online last semester. You had little doubt that you’d see much less than that in the coming weeks. You were just hoping that you weren’t going to end up one of those empty seats in the long run.
If you were being quite honest with yourself, you were terrified. You could see the signs. You had the motley crew of your drumming finger and the nervous bounce of your leg. Not to mention you’d also taken out and rearranged your calculator, notebook, and pencil on your small acreage of desk at least three different times. There still never seemed to be enough room for all three of the items at once. You’d given up and balanced your calculator precariously on the edge of your desk and finally shoved your pencil behind your ear. Your notebook, folded over, at least helped keep some space for yourself. Your backpack was another story entirely. You had basically parked your feet on top of it as gingerly as you could, not wanting to crush the potato chips you’d stored for a snack later inside.
Lecture halls just weren’t built for spreading out in mind. Real estate was a precious commodity, and students were intended to be packed like sardines in order to make certain that they got the credits they needed without too much of a fuss. Admittedly some rows were worse off than others. The front rows were zealously crowded, while the back rows were somewhat more sparse. But only just.
You found yourself sharing a row with several other humans, and since you were making a discrimination regarding your own species, it might be best to mention the fact that there were indeed quite a few monsters littering the lecture hall.
From your higher vantage point in the stadium-esque seating, you could see smaller clusters of monsters, grouped together and talking amongst themselves in the before-class ruckus. The humans had given them a berth of a couple seats in almost every location where the space could be afforded that you saw them.
A frown tugged at your lips at this realization.
It wasn’t too unexpected you supposed. It’d been a few years since the monsters had emerged from the depths of the Underground, and although communications had gone a long way and protection and citizenship laws were in place...things were still….rocky. Like the race riots of the 20th century, there was a lot of societal upheaval on the matter. Not to mention the slews of hate crimes and racism that had been occurring on the side while matters were attempted to be settled.
The group from Mt. Ebott had been the first to emerge, but there had been others who had rose from the depths of the underground all over when the ‘barrier fell’ as you’d heard it described on one television interview. Monsters had integrated into society, and although not everyone was happy about it...it looked like they were here to stay. For better or for worse.
Although you yourself experienced some trepidation on monsters, if only because you never knew what to expect with them, you couldn’t help but find them...interesting. They were always unique to behold, coming in different shapes and sizes. Not all of them appeared humanoid either, which could be baffling when you tried to incorporate them in a classroom setting. There was one monster down towards the front who didn’t appear to have fingers or hands, merely hooves, and you wondered how in the world they were even going to take notes.
Some other monsters seemed like they got the luckier end of the deal however.
A prime example of that universal rule was a few seats down from you. The monster was what appeared for all intents and purposes to be a living skeleton. They looked more or less like a human in design, aside from being….well...a skeleton. The professor still hadn’t shown up, so you took the opportunity to openly study them.
They were stoutly built, or at least appeared to be. It was hard to tell, due to the fact that they were wearing a heavy coat (you could only grimace at that, thinking of the late August heat outside), though the shorts they wore revealed the bones that comprised the lower half of their legs leading down to a pair of fluffy slippers. You blinked, taken aback a moment by the eccentric choice in footwear. Then again...you’d worn your pajamas to class on more than one occasion when finals had rolled around last May, so you doubted you really had room to comment on that.
Your eyes drifted back upwards to study their face. Their eyes were closed, which only served to once again baffle you. How could a skeleton even close their eyes if they didn’t have any? Yet the sockets had collapsed downwards, acting like eyelids but in a more solid looking form. A cheshire grin was stretched across their face, and something about it struck you as odd. You weren’t entirely sure why, and you regarded them contemplatively for it.
As you were watching them, those baffling collapsible eye sockets opened, and you could see glowing pupils burning in their depths. More to the point, you could see that their eyes were now fixed directly on you. And you were still staring. Blatantly.
They canted their head to look at you and you saw their grin shift into something more mischievous. They gave a two fingered wave and shut their left eye in a long wink, “hey there.” you heard their voice drift over the din to you from across the gap of the empty seat between you, and you immediately gathered that they were most likely male.
You were still frozen in embarrassment from having been caught staring in the first place, and your words had shored up in your mind forming a rebellious barricade against complete sentences. They were regarding you, clearly waiting for the response you didn't have to give. You felt your cheeks burn a little and hunched your shoulders as you looked away. Your brain finally seemed to unclog itself. "Uh...hi."
Eloquent.
You were saved from your social ineptitudes by the door at the base of the auditorium slamming shut and the professor arriving, bag slung across their shoulder. You turned with some relief away from the probing eyes of the skeleton near you and faced forward. For a few moments, you could still see him watching you from your peripheral vision before they too slowly turned and faced towards the front of the room, perching their chin on a fist as the main lights went out and the projector came to life.
An hour later, your hand was cramping, your brain felt rattled, and your notebook was freshly christened with what you were quickly determining to be indecipherable sets of equations. This was the first class and even after a short time set aside for syllabus review and a portion of a lecture, you still felt like you were in over your head. And you were panicking about it.
You did the best you could to shove down the anxiety, and pulled a highlighter out of your backpack after some finagling at angling to get to the right pocket around your precarious perch and inadequate desk.
Other students are beginning to pack up and file out. While waiting on the chaos to die down before you attempt to try to brave the stream of humanity (and monsters, you silently amended), you took the time to streak bright lines of yellow across your notes to highlight what you thought was important. The skeleton who’d sat a few seats away from you had already stood and was shuffling his way down the row towards the exit. You glanced up as he meandered by to see that he didn’t have anything with him. No backpack. No notebook. Not even so much as a pencil.
Your brow furrowed as you watched him go, and wondered why he hadn’t come prepared. Part of your mind quietly scoffed, figuring that even monsters had some tendencies like humans. If he was going to be the kind to not put forth the effort, you’d likely find his seat empty in the coming weeks. Physics wasn’t supposed to be easy, and your professor had already jokingly called it ‘the widow maker of your degree plan’. A year long course, you could only imagine what kind of a mental state you’d be in by the end of May. You figured it best not to dwell on such things, and finished packing up, following the dregs of students that were still filing out.
You were determined not to fail. You were going to pass this class if it killed you.