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Nate wasn’t a big fan of English class. He knew how to speak it, and he knew how to read it; he’d studied it extensively when he was in Japan to prepare for moving to America. Of course, he hadn’t anticipated the southern twang that the people here spoke with, but it was something that he’d gotten used to. It had been so long since he’d started learning English that his own Japanese accent wasn’t as thick as it used to be; he was easily understood by his peers, and he understood them, and that’s what mattered.
He was somewhat decent at English; he’d had to be. He knew the general sentence structures and verb rules, knew most of the little nuances and the complex little details, but there were a few things that slipped his mind if he wasn’t paying attention. He did well in his other classes, all things taught in English, but that same proficiency didn’t translate over to his language classes. No matter how much he studied outside of school, he just couldn't get a grasp on it.
The classroom was made up of several long tables and multiple individual desks. The longer ones could seat two, which meant that Nate had a deskmate. His name was Buck, and he barely paid attention in class, always doodling in the margins of his papers or working on something completely unrelated to school (were those rocket ship blueprints?), but he got higher grades than Nate did. Part of him was a little bit upset about it, but it was a given; Buck was a native English speaker, and Nate wasn’t. The more frustrating part was the fact that he knew Buck also took Japanese, and was almost as good at it as he was at English. He’d seen the worksheets spread out on their shared desk before, carelessly tossed aside as the ginger dug through his bag for the crumpled assignment sitting at the bottom of it. Sure, it was relatively simple, but the characters were uniform and neat, and from what Nate could read, he didn’t make a single mistake. It was a little infuriating.
There he was, in another hour and thirty minutes of suffering and frustration, definitely putting too much pressure on the lead as he wrote. His letters turned out wonky and his grammar lacking, and he tried not to feel too much like a failure. He wished he had a friend in the class he could ask for help, but all the people he’d managed to befriend were in other classes. So there he sat, behind that shared desk, trying to get his letters to look right while his deskmate doodled, his own essay already finished. He makes it look so easy, thought Nate, a touch bitter.
A sharp tap on his shoulder jostled him out of his thoughts. He whipped his head around to find that it was only Buck, his eyes closed as he smiled wide.
“You’re missin’ an S there!” He said cheerfully, pointing down at Nate’s paper. He followed his finger down to the offending missing letter, and found there was, in fact, a missing S. It was the most basic mistake he could have made.
“Thanks,” he said, trying to sound friendly.
“No problem,” chirped Buck, and then he was back to doodling on a half-crumpled piece of lined paper. How he’d managed to catch Nate’s grammar mistake from all the way over there, he had no idea. Nate continued to write his essay, trying extra hard to make sure he remembered all his letters. Three lines later, he noticed that he’d skipped a comma. He very slowly and very deliberately went back to add the little line, and that’s when his deskmate decided to interrupt him again.
“Would ya’ like some help writin’ your essay?” Asked the boy. Nate bit back a biting remark about doing it himself, and then bit back the apology that followed. The silence following Buck’s question stretched out longer the more Nate thought about his answer. On one hand, working with Buck would help him get the essay done faster, and with less stupid mistakes; on the other hand, it would probably put Nate in an even worse mood.
“Yes please,” is what he ended up saying because he was a people pleaser and he could really use the help.
“Alrighty!” Exclaimed the ginger, then promptly shoved all his own papers to the side of the table, nearly sweeping them all to the floor, “whatcha writin’ about?” Nate shifted in his seat.
“Springdale,” he replied, “the Japanese town I come from.” Buck snapped his fingers.
“I’ve heard of that one!” He said excitedly, “I had this project in Japanese class that was to research a smaller Japanese city, town, or village n’ present it to the class. A girl in my class did her presentation on Springdale, and I thought it was mighty cool,” rambled Buck. Nate shook his head.
“It’s mostly just boring,” he said, “like any other nowhere place.” Buck chuckled.
“If it’s a borin’ nowhere place ya’ wanna talk about, look no further than BBQ itself,” he said, “only interestin’ part are the aliens.” Nate tilted his head.
“Aliens?” He asked. Buck nodded gravely.
“Aliens,” he confirmed, “but those are probably in every corner of the world, so BBQ isn’t special.” Nate had no idea what the guy was talking about, but he himself believed in Yo-Kai and the supernatural, so he wasn’t in any position to judge.
“So,” said Nate, “the essay.” Buck’s eyes lit up.
“Right!” He said, “English is one of my favourite subjects,” he said, “so I like to think I’m pretty good at it.” He paused. “Then again, I like most of my subjects. Regardless, I’m mighty good at essays, so you’re in the right hands!” Nate, despite himself, offered a little smile.
“I didn’t need you to list out your credentials in the class,” he said, and immediately felt bad when he realized his words could be taken as snippy, “I just need help with my thesis statement. And maybe my conclusion. And a couple of my body paragraphs.” Buck snapped again, seemingly a common reaction of his.
“Understood!” He snatched Nate’s paper from his desk and started to read it over, his expression not turning negative or confused even once. Nate was a little impressed; usually, the people he asked to proofread his work had some sort of visual reaction by the fourth or fifth sentence.
“This is some good stuff,” said Buck finally, “ya’ got some good content, and your grasp of the structure is really good.” Nate didn’t see how a guy who used good in the same sentence three times would be any help, but he didn’t voice that thought. Buck picked up a pen, blue, and uncapped it. “Can I write on it?” He asked. Nate nodded. Buck grinned. “Alrighty,” he said, “most of your problems seem to come from agreement and word variation. Both are understandable for people who learn English as their second language, and even some native speakers struggle with it.” He put the paper back down on the desk and started circling little things here and there, “and with this,” he said, putting a little mark down at the start of a sentence, “I’d reword it. The way ya’ have it is a little confusing and can be interpreted in a way that contradicts your next sentence.” Nate squinted down at his paper and found that Buck was right with…well, all of his corrections. He decided to give the guy some more credit.
“How would I fix it?” He asked, peering at Buck from across the page. The ginger grinned.
“Just move the words around a tad,” he said, drawing little arrows around the sentence, “like that.” Nature glanced down at the paper and read the words he’d written in Buck’s chosen order, and found that it did, in fact, make a lot more sense.
“Oh,” he said, and tried not to feel too inferior, “thank you.” Buck just smiled, not even a hint of malice in it, and didn’t say anything at all. He was kind of odd, Nate decided. He was kind of odd, but he was helpful and he was kind, so he didn’t mind so much. After all, Nate was used to some pretty odd things.
Nate wasn’t a big fan of English class. They were watching some old YouTube videos on the structure and syllables of poetry, and he was thoroughly bored out of his mind. Beside him, Buck was similarly bored.
“Hey, Nate,” whispered the ginger, “you got any spare paper?” Ah. That was probably why he wasn’t drawing right now.
“No, sorry,” answered Nate. Today was the one day he’d forgotten his notebook, and he wasn’t one for loose leaf paper. Buck, on the other hand, didn’t seem to have notebooks and instead did all his work and all his doodles on loose paper. The ginger sighed and dug through his bag once more for a piece of paper that didn’t exist, while Nate turned his attention back to the videos.
In his side vision, he could see Buck gripping a pen, dragging it across his skin. It left far crisper lines than it should have, little swirls and waves, skateboards and alien ships. He doodled characters from comic books Nate had never read and a few of the local cats. He was filling up his left arm with drawings, each one filled with little details and intricate shading. Some of them were as small as little blobs with faces, and others were bigger and more ambitious. He even caught sight of a cowboy he’d once seen on a movie poster, his face expressive and his fingers gripping a gun. The drawing’s eyes were piercing, and Nate felt like they were staring straight at him. How Buck was drawing all of this on his arm, Nate had no idea. He turned back to the poetry video.
They were talking about similes. Most of the time, the teacher played videos that were more advanced than this, iambic pentameters and sonnets, but every once and a while, they went over something sweet and simple. This seemed to be one of those days, and Nate found himself wishing that he’d remembered his notebooks so he too could doodle and draw. He wasn’t an artist by any means, having more of a cartoony and outlandish style (most of it inspired by the Yo-Kai), but it was something fun and brainless that he could be doing instead of learning about the most basic literary device imaginable. Beside him, Buck ran out of space on his arm and sighed loudly, leaning back in his chair. His hands, one of them covered in stars and smiles and squares and planets, flew up to pillow his head. He slid down in his chair a little bit, seemingly resigning himself to the fate of actually paying attention to the video. I get it, Nate thought, resting his chin in his hand, man, do I get it.
Nate wasn’t a big fan of English class, but today, they were watching a movie, so it wasn’t all that bad. He hadn’t brought his notebooks today, knowing that he wouldn’t need them, but it seemed like Buck had just forgotten all his papers again. A pen twirled idly between his fingers, his left arm already covered in ink and doodled. He caught Nate looking and smiled, looking a little bit bashful.
“Got bored in math,” he said as a way to explain, “nothin’ new was goin’ on anyway.” By now, Nate was pretty sure he was sitting next to a genius; so by ‘nothing new,’ Buck probably meant that they were going over quantum physics or something equally as challenging…like graphing quadratics. Nate wasn’t that good at math either, sue him. The ginger cleared his throat. “Say, Nate, I don’t suppose you got anything I could draw on, do ya’?” Nate shook his head.
“No, sorry,” he replied, “I didn’t bring my notebooks today.” Buck deflated a little. “Sorry,” Nate said again, because now he was feeling bad about it.
“No worries,” replied Buck, “don’t feel bad, it’s not your fault or your problem.” Nate still felt a little bad.
Buck never seemed to stop moving. It seemed that when he didn’t have anything to focus on, something tactile and hands-on, he couldn't focus at all. His foot kept bouncing at a rapid pace, his fingers fidgeting with an elastic band on his wrist, and he kept adjusting himself in his chair like he was trying to get more comfortable. When the bouncing got too repetitive for him, he started glancing around the classroom, his eyes getting stuck on various things. He eyed the girl doing her science homework with envy, his gaze stuck on the paper, before it passed along and did another sweep of the screen. The teacher had already told him to stop moving around and ‘being distracting’ twice, but it seemed to be the one thing Buck was unable to do.
Nate felt kind of bad for the guy. Buck was obviously the type of person that needed constant stimulus, needed something to work on and something to think about. He was hyper, thoughts jumping from one thing to the next, and he just needed somewhere to put everything he was thinking about; which was why he needed the paper and the doodles. Without them, he was untethered and floaty. Eventually, the teacher sighed, bringing a hand up to his forehead.
“Hazeltine,” he said, “do you need to go on a walk?” Buck snapped to attention, and after processing the question, nodded eagerly. “You have ten minutes,” said the teacher, “on the dot. Don’t be late coming back.” Buck was out of the room before the man even finished talking.
He came back fifteen minutes later with three pieces of crumpled lined paper clutched in his hand. He looked a lot better, less frantic with his movements and more in control of his fidgeting, and the sight of it made Nate feel a little calmer too. The teacher didn’t even really care that Buck had been five minutes later, dismissing it as he often did. Buck immediately started drawing and doodling, and everything in English class was right again.
The movie was long enough to take up two days of class time, so Nate didn’t bring his notebook to the next English class either. He thought about it, thinking of ginger hair and penned stars, before dismissing the thought. Buck would probably bring his own paper.
“Hey, Nate,” whispered Buck, and he felt the awfullest case of deja vu, “do ya’ have some spare paper?”
“Sorry,” said Nate, and nothing else. I knew I should have brought it anyway, he thought to himself, idiot. Buck’s arm, like the day before, was already covered in drawings. Math class must have been just as boring as it was yesterday.
Nate hadn’t found Buck’s fidgeting from yesterday annoying. It was constant movement and it could have been distracting, but it somehow wasn’t. Maybe it was because Nate knew that it was worse for him, spending an hour and a half doing nothing but trying to focus on a movie that couldn’t hold his attention. (Let it be known that there were no subtitles; Nate found himself spacing out too.)
Buck tried to settled further into his seat, resigning himself to another day torture and suffering, and Nate, before he could think about it, gave him his right arm. It was a colder day, autumn, and it hadn’t rolled up his sleeves yet, but the gesture was obvious. Buck’s eyes lit up, and that made Nate’s impulsive decision worth it.
“Ya’ sure?” Asked the boy, and Nate nodded, reaching forward and using his left hand to start pulling his sleeve back. Buck sat up, delighted, and rifled through his bag for a pen. He came up with a blue pen, something that looked both cheap and expensive at the same time, and moved it deftly between his fingers as he waited.
Buck started with stars. He tried out different styles, from scribbles to outlines, sparkles and dots, before he started connecting them and making little constellations. He drew the moon, a sharp and elegant crescent, before drawing blobby and deformed clouds to accompany it. He drew a comet, streaking across his sky, before a little rocket ship and an alien. He moved on to flowers next, delicate petals next to sharp ones, the levels of detail varying as he went. Some of them had long vines covered in thorns, twisting and arching up to touch the stars above them.
It was hard to pay attention to the movie when Buck was beside him, drawing on his arm. He was endlessly gentle, the pen barely scraping into his skin and leaving behind smooth blue lines. He found himself enraptured by the art, even more compelled to notice the details and pay attention to the lines now that he could feel them on his skin. The wings of birds were scribbled in, next to gusts of wind and little swirls. There were a few lizards here and there, and then cicadas and crickets, foxes and dogs, cats and frogs. Nothing seemed to have a theme. It was like he was drawing whatever was coming to mind; and it led to things that didn’t even exist, like a meerkat with eight eyes and a leopard gecko with eagle wings. Nate didn’t even notice the time passing, too busy watching his deskmate make gorgeous rolling hills out of nothing but ink and imagination.
The bell rang, and Nate was almost disappointed. Buck just grinned at him and blew on his most recent lines, drying them quickly so they wouldn’t smudge when he rolled down his sleeve.
“Thanks,” he said, all genuine and starry-eyed, “ya’ really saved me.” Nate smiled, and he hoped it was even a fragment as bright.
“It was nothing,” he said, bringing his non-inked hand to his neck, “I really like your drawings.” Buck’s smile got wider.
“Really?” He said. Nate nodded. “Aw, shucks, that’s sweet of ya’!” A pink hue had taken to his cheeks, a healthy flush that highlighted the little freckles and dots smattered on his skin. He looked good, happy and smiling, and Nate found himself a little bit infatuated.
“N-no problem,” he replied, feeling like the world’s biggest and most average loser.
It had become a thing. Nate would walk into English class, and Buck would be early, or he would be late, pen already in hand. He’d ask if Nate had any spare paper even if he had some of his own, and even when Nate had his notebook, he’d always say he didn’t. Then, he’d roll up his sleeve and offer his arm, and Buck would smile and his eyes would shine, and neither of them would get anything done in class. Their teacher had definitely noticed the sudden lack of work coming from their table, but as long as the work was handed in on time, he didn’t care. Buck started talking as he drew, asking questions about Nate’s schedule and his hobbies and the little things he likes, and Nate found himself listening to theories about aliens and complicated facts about space. He contributed his own things to the conversation, talking about Springdale and old Japanese myths, sharing his own little obsession with Yo-Kai, similar to Buck’s aliens. Every time he talked about oni or kitsune, Buck’s eyes would shine. Tell me more, tell me more, they demanded, and Nate would, every single time.
To make up for their lost class time, outside of school, Buck would drag him to local cafes, paying for both their orders and helping Nate through whatever worksheet needed doing. He was a surprisingly helpful tutor, explaining things in ways that were easy to understand and providing examples. He didn’t even mind when Nate started bringing out his math or science homework, equally as happy to help him out with those subjects too. Nate stopped making so many mistakes in his essays, catching himself whenever he misplaced a letter or switched tenses. Buck had started to draw the Yo-Kai from the myths on his arm as he imagined them, beautiful and dangerous and cool. Nate stopped rolling down his sleeve after English class, showing the artwork off to anybody who saw it.
“I don’t know what I’m gonna be when school’s done with,” said Buck one day, mindlessly talking while he drew a little campfire on Nate’s wrist, “I always thought somethin’ space-like' would be real nice. I’m pretty good at math n’ science, I think, but I also really like inkin’ people up like this. I mean, you’re the only person who lets me draw on ‘em, so there’s a small sample size, but I think I’d make a pretty good tattoo artist.” Nate listened silently. It was like the world no longer existed outside of their table group.
“You could be anything you wanted,” said Nate honestly, “and I mean that.” Buck went quiet for a second, his hand nearly slipping where it was shading in one of the logs. Then, he chuckled, and kept moving, his cheeks a little pinker and his smile a lot brighter.
“Thank you,” he said, and Nate knew that he was being as serious as he could because he’d tried to drop his accent, “that– you mean a lot to me.” Nate’s face got warmer and the corners of his lips turned up in a smile.
Nate wasn’t a big fan of English class, but it was an hour and a half of uninterrupted time with Buck, who doodled on his arms and told him outlandish stories and talked about movies Nate had never seen. It was an hour and a half of half-baked plans for the future and the intricate details of spaceship blueprints and the scientific explanation of comets and stars. It was an hour and a half of talking about home, about his friends and the Yo-Kai, and everything he missed about it. It was an hour and a half of talking and listening, of comfort and care, of smiles and gentle blushes and being utterly besotted.
Nate wasn’t a big fan of English class, but now, watching Buck draw and feeling the ink spill between his skin, it wasn’t so bad.