Chapter Text
Despite endless warnings from Mari not to procrastinate on building his schedule for the quarter, Sunny hadn’t opened the class registry until two weeks before term was supposed to start. It was to his detriment. He was just barely able to find spots in his prerequisites, and managed to scoot his name onto the waitlist for an art class (where thankfully, a few days later, he received an email informing him that he’d been allowed into the course) but that isn’t to say that any of his classes are… well, ideal.
The contents are the same, and Sunny thinks he likes the professors just fine, but he’s not really what you’d call an “early riser” and the simple fact is that 7AM is far too early to be crawling out of bed to attend a lecture across campus. He’s cursed as well with the world’s most insufferable roommate—his best friend since childhood—who doesn’t comment as he hurriedly pulls his sweatshirt over his head and makes a grab for his bag and sketchbook. The thing is, Basil doesn’t actually have to comment to be insufferable. Sunny can tell that he’s being laughed at just by the way Basil’s eyes are crinkling.
“You have English 101 this morning, right?” Basil asks. Sunny grunts his affirmation, equal parts too tired and annoyed to try talking right now, and swings his bag over his shoulder. “Have a good time! It should be fun, right?”
Maybe. Sunny doesn’t hate English. He likes all his academic classes well enough, not as replacements for art or anything, but they’re all interesting when they’re taught properly. Sunny has a hard time believing he’s going to like any subject at this time of day, though, if the past couple miserable mornings are anything to go by.
Basil calls another cheerful goodbye as Sunny rushes past him through the door. Sunny does not dignify it with a response, but texts Basil a one-handed waving emoji on his way out of the dorms building, since he has his phone pulled up for the map already anyway. Sunny is a skilled navigator, both in real life and in RPGs, and he’s already done more than a few walks of campus to the point where he feels fairly confident in his ability to find the correct building, but he still uses the map to get himself pointed in the right direction before setting off at a brisk pace.
It’s cold, too. Sunny rubs at his eyes and stifles a yawn, swearing to himself that he’ll have the school website pulled up at midnight on the day that course registration opens. If he has anything to say about it, next quarter will be filled with afternoon and evening classes. He’s already done with this and it hasn’t even been a week yet.
The lecture hall is packed with similarly droopy college students when Sunny slips inside, and pleasantly warm. Shivering at the change in temperature, Sunny scans the rows, eventually climbing the steps to get to the back, figuring he’d better go somewhere he can dose without getting noticed by the professor. It’s not an amazing idea, granted, considering that he is in this class to learn, but… Well, it’s early. Missing one lecture never hurt anyone. And Basil is taking English 101 this quarter too, so Sunny can probably bum notes off of him later on if things really get dire.
Sunny manages to find a bench that is relatively empty, seating himself near the middle and opening his bag for his notebook. He’ll pretend to himself that he’s going to take notes today, even as he can already feel the pull of sleep starting to tug at his eyelids. In the front of the room, the professor introduces herself and starts to talk, a little bit sarcastic—which is appreciated—but still far too cheerful for the early morning. She’s received with very little, which she must have expected from such an early-morning lecture… Except for the very distinctive sound of someone in the very front row chuckling at every one of her jokes.
Pure curiosity compels Sunny to lean forward and try to get a better look. His spot in the back of the room grants him a decent vantage point over the rest of the lecture hall, and so he’s quickly able to make out the man in the front row who is leaned forward and tapped in, clearly a morning person, potentially even someone who chose to take a class at this hour on purpose rather than because he put off signing up until the last possible minute.
He’s attractive, Sunny realises, with tanned skin and pretty brown hair that is long enough for him to have tied out of his face in a casual ponytail. He’s dressed for the day too, unlike Sunny who still wears his pyjamas beneath his sweatshirt, in a letterman jacket over a grey tanktop, blue jeans, and… sandals. No, flip flops. In chilly late September. Sunny squints for a moment. Hard to tell from this distance, but he thinks the man’s toenails are painted. He’s trying to decide if the flip flops make him more or less attractive, if the audacity to go sockless in this weather adds to or takes away the handsome, chiselled features, the strong muscle definition clear even through his baggy coat.
If the flip flops do detract, though, his warm personality only adds, shining in every little laugh he lets out, the engaged smile that tugs at his lips. He twirls a pencil between calloused fingers and occasionally raises his hand to make a comment—they’re not yet at the point in the lecture where they’re actually learning anything—and though he’s seated across the room and not speaking in a microphone, Sunny can still pick up the rich warmth of his voice, the way his smile sweetens it.
Sunny can’t remember the last time he was so distracted by another person. He draws his own pencil from his bag to chew on the end of it. He’d crushed on his friend Aubrey for a painfully long time while they were children—and how tragic that was, given Aubrey’s own romantic proclivities—but aside from passing attraction to classmates in senior year and random people he’s seen while travelling, Sunny really hasn’t crushed very actively in the years since. Not that he would call this a crush, but he’s certainly aware of the man, of the way his teeth sink into his lower lip when he stifles his laughter, of the way he glances at the students seated on either side of him every so often as though to bring them into the discussion.
He’s in the wrong class, Sunny thinks. The wrong crowd. Someone so charming and magnetic should be taking a 2PM class, too far from either morning or evening for people to be tired and with enough distance from lunch to have shaken off any post-meal sleepiness. Instead he’s taking this lecture with a bunch of veritable zombies. Sunny certainly feels a bit of a brain fog still, though he’d have to be completely oblivious not to know that the source of that may have… shifted… by now.
The lecturer moves into talking about the actual subject, and Sunny hears the sound of papers rustling across the hall. So clearly people are at least paying enough attention to know when it’s time to take notes. Sunny himself flips his notebook open, but finds himself looking towards the man in the front row again, specifically when he starts to speak, this time asking a question about the material.
He seems to do that a lot. Ask a lot of questions. Sunny knew a few kids like that back in high school, the ones who raised their hands every few moments with another clarification, another thought. Sunny always sort of thought that they were just like that because they liked to talk—liked the sound of their own voices, so to speak. But he doesn’t get that impression from the man in the front of the room. It’s more like—well, maybe Sunny is just biassed because he’s attractive. But it seems like this man is genuinely curious, genuinely engaged, listening so attentively that he knows well enough when he doesn’t follow something to ask for a clarification.
Sunny thumbs his eraser, then looks down at his blank notebook page. He carefully pens the date in the top left corner, then titles the page. When the man in the front of the room speaks again, Sunny notices that sunlight has begun to peek through the windows, breaking through the early-morning cloudiness. It illuminates little specks of dust dancing in the air overhead, and casts a gentle golden glow down on the students it touches. The man Sunny has been watching all morning seems almost lit aflame, his hair taking on an almost amber shine, and Sunny is struck by the visual, by how pretty this man would be as the subject of a painting.
Not that Sunny is capable of that right now, exhausted and without any paints available, but his hands move automatically for his sketchbook, opening it to the first blank page and sketching out the shape of the man’s head before he can really think better of it. It takes two attempts to get the exact swoop of his bangs correct, and several more to do the line of his jaw, but Sunny finds that he can’t quite perfect that smile. It’s too—it seems too organic for Sunny’s artstyle, which utilises dark shadows and harsh lines, and Sunny worries his lower lip as he erases and redraws.
The lecture is over before Sunny is satisfied. Which means that not only did he not learn anything, he also didn’t even get a drawing out of it… But at least he didn’t sleep through the two-hour session, which he decides to count as a victory. He quickly packs up his things and slips down the stairs, tugging out his phone to double check his schedule, and collides right into someone on his way to the door.
Not someone. The man from the front row. Sunny stumbles back, more out of alarm than because of the impact, and feels large, warm hands closing around his shoulders to steady him. Sunny makes—a sound. He’s sure that it’s not a squeak, but it’s not anywhere more dignified than that, his voice squeezing past his throat in a pathetic wheeze of air.
“Sorry!” the man is already saying, his hands squeezing Sunny once before letting his go. “Definitely my fault, I wasn’t looking where I was going. You alright?”
He smiles, apparently so casually charming even face-to-face, and Sunny takes a moment to catch his breath. He has to look up to make eye contact with this man, so so much taller face-to-face than Sunny had realised. When Sunny has finally calmed down enough, he nods.
“That’s good,” the man responds, apparently unoffended by Sunny’s lack of a verbal response. He takes a step back then, and for a moment Sunny thinks he’s going to leave, but instead he rocks back onto his heels and gives Sunny a onceover. Then his eyes slide over Sunny a second time, lingering on his face with a sort of—weight, behind them. A heaviness. Not the bad kind.
Sunny swallows and puts his phone in his pocket. He thinks, maybe, his next class isn’t coming up too soon, and even if it is he doesn’t know if he should care.
“Are you a first year?” The question is posed with a slight head tilt. It’s cute, almost puppylike. Sunny nods again, then scratches his arm, figuring he should probably try and communicate too, though he is sure there’s not a chance he’ll be able to speak verbally in this kind of environment.
He juggles his sketchbook to sign, What about you? and raises his eyebrows expectantly. The small gesture has its intended effect; the man in front of him gasps, his eyes going wide.
“Oh—shoot! Wait. Are you—” He points at his own lips. “Should I slow down? Are you lip-reading?”
Sunny suppresses a laugh and shakes his head. He hesitates, not sure if there’s a point in signing again when he hasn’t actually gotten an indication of whether the man in front of him can understand ASL. As if sensing his hesitation, the man rocks on his heels, nodding a little to the silent question.
“I mean, I’m not fluent. I know how to sign my name and stuff—but I had a Deaf neighbour when I was a kid, so I know a bit.” He sounds a bit embarrassed though. “Sorry, I totally assumed.”
You didn’t assume wrong, Sunny signs back, shaking his head. I can hear you. I’m just selectively nonverbal.
“Oh!” Now the man grins, full and toothy, like a ray of sunshine right to the face. Sunny scratches at his arm again, feeling suddenly restless, like he needs to start pacing or something. He simultaneously has zero desire to leave the conversation though, even as the rest of the lecture hall continues to clear out, so he copes with the urge by rocking on his own heels, mimicking the earlier body language of the man in front of him. “Well, cool. Okay. I’m a first year too, by the way. Uh, I guess that was probably obvious by my question though.”
Sunny nods to agree that it was obvious. He’s a fair person.
“But, uh, well.” That grin becomes slightly goofy. “I’m Kel. Kelsey Montoya, but nobody calls me Kelsey.” He lets out a slight laugh and extends a hand. “Nice to meet you!”
Put in sort of an awkward position here, Sunny shakes, then pulls back quickly to sign back, Haru Fujioka, but I go by Sunny. Haru is almost exclusively reserved for when his mother wants him to wash the dishes. He does not tell this to Kel, only because he’s not sure that would translate when Kel only knows minimal ASL.
Kel beams at him. “Hey, we both have nicknames! It’s good to—oh.” Kel blushes. “I guess I already said that. Well…”
He’s a little more awkward than Sunny had initially thought, in a sweet way. Sunny shifts his weight, feeling the urge to smile in a way he doesn’t often, tightening his hold on his sketchbook. Kel seems reluctant to leave too, lips twitching like he’d like to say something else, when he suddenly gasps.
“Crap! I have class,” Kel says suddenly, grabbing at his phone. He curses under his breath and shakes his head quickly, gaze darting up to Sunny’s face. “I gotta run—uh… can I get your number, Sunny?”
The full force of those words hits almost as heavily as Kel’s gaze from earlier had, and Sunny nearly gets lost in the lurch of it, but he nods. He takes out his own phone to show Kel his personal contact, feeling his heart do a sort of, jump and drop routine in his chest. Over and over, like it’s being lifted and dumped. He sort of likes the feeling, the kind of lightheadedness that comes with it, like riding a roller coaster or watching a horror film.
Kel finishes putting in Sunny’s phone number and smiles at him all over again. He smiles so much, but strangely none of those looks seem disingenuous. Just different in intensity, in emotion. Sunny has never known someone so expressive when they smile.
“I’ll see you later,” Kel says, starting to back away. “Maybe sometime soon?”
His voice lilts hopefully. Sunny nods at him, feeling a little smile tug at his lips, and Kel seems to light up at the sight of it. He trips backwards over his own feet, catches himself, and resurfaces with a ridiculously wide grin, waving to Sunny before he turns around and jogs out of the lecture hall.
Sunny is left with butterflies in his stomach. When it finally occurs to him to check his schedule, he sees that he has another lecture across campus in less than three minutes, and has to literally run out the door.
He thinks, probably, it was worth it.