Chapter Text
Empty coffee cups were scattered around his desk, his books sitting abandoned in the corner in favor of his computer screen. The loud sound of clicking keys filled his room, his poor keyboard being abused despite the fact that he was still losing the round. And failing his exam tomorrow.
Not to mention that his goddamn teammates were straight up smoking on top of each other instead of actually doing something useful—
“Fucking hell Mydei— how do you MISS YOUR ULT??!” He yelled, being way too loud considering he lived in a college dorm. The constant noise complaints certainly made sense. “That shit has the highest range ever, I could hit it BLIND.”
He shrieked as he got sniped from someone in the back of the map, slamming his fist into the desk, his face flushing from embarrassment. Getting killed whilst complaining about his friend’s terrible performance certainly wasn’t the best public image.
Mydei scoffed, his focus more on arguing with Phainon instead of actually playing the game. “Shut up HKS, you play duelist, that’s the damn easiest role— and at least I’m still alive!”
“Yeah well I’m still more useful dead than you are alive. Your K/D ratio is so wrecked that you’ll end up with 14 deaths in 13 rounds!” He argued back, going to his settings for a second to adjust the sensitivity of his mouse instead of actually admitting that he was just shit at Valorant.
“Phai blaming everyone and everything except himself”
“can you two just kiss already”
“no but fr how did Mydei miss ult”
“phainon is lucky that he’s entertaining bc NO ONE is watching him for his valorant skills”
“PLEASE turn on HRTF your performance is physically hurting me”
[@cretzinn donated $5!] dont you have a chemistry exam tomorrow?
Phainon glanced up as he heard a small ding, signaling a donation. He grumbled softly at the reminder, impatiently tapping his finger against his desk as he waited for the next round to start.
“I’ve already accepted that I’m failing it. Might as well make some money in the meantime.” He answered indifferently, chuckling sheepishly and stretching his arms out above him. He could hear his bones crack, unsurprising considering he’d been streaming for like.. 5 hours now? Maybe this was the reason he was miserably failing half of his classes.
An annoyed groan was heard from Mydei as he died from a knife kill, taking the opportunity to make another jab at Phainon. “Clearly exams aren’t the only thing you’re failing.” He remarked sharply, falling into the routine of their usual playful banter.
“Says the college drop out.” Phainon deadpanned, sitting up straight again as a new round began to start. He’d already given up at this point, they definitely weren’t gonna win this match.
“Failing isn’t a word in the Kremnoan language.” He retorted, as if that was a valid excuse.
“Mydei catching strays”
“Pls dont let these two play ranked together ever again”
“nahh let them do this more often this shit making me feel better about myself”
“bro turns into a different person when playing Val”
“I mean who doesnt tbh”
To no one’s surprise, they ended up losing the match. Phainon resisted the urge to blame Mydei as he saw his rank drop to Ascendant 1, pursing his lips as he heard Mydei hang up on him without warning. That damned asshole—
[@Mememem donated $10!] Phainon, go to sleep.
He winced as he saw he heard the username, already mentally preparing himself for the scolding he was gonna get from her tomorrow. He huffed softly, reluctantly preparing to end stream and probably scroll on Twitter for hours on end instead of studying or sleeping. He’d considered stopping with college a few times, but he’d drop dead before wasting 3,5 years of pure suffering and agony by dropping out in his last year.
“Well, you heard her guys.” He said with an apologetic smile, rubbing his eyes as the adrenaline slowly started to wear off and he realized how exhausted he was. “Plus I’d rather not pass out on stream because of exhaustion.”
“boo no fun”
“cyrene walking him like a damn dog”
“Noo it’s alright be sure to get some rest!! <3”
After saying a few more goodbye’s and replying to some questions, he waved bye to the camera and turned off his stream. He exhaled softly, fingers moving swiftly to shut down his computer as well, the bright light disappearing and making him question if he should perhaps invest in glasses.
He took one last glance at his abandoned chemistry books, his hands hovering above the thick, intimidating textbooks— before reaching out for his phone instead.
He was definitely gonna regret this in the morning, wasn’t he?
Shuffling over to his big, comfy bed, he collapsed onto it, pulling the blankets over his tired body. He didn’t even bother changing out of his clothes. He’d do it later.
(he was lying to himself, and would definitely end up falling asleep before he got the chance to change.)
His finger instinctively clicked on Twitter, it was like second nature at this point. Cyrene had even joked that he should go to rehab. In his defense, he just liked interacting with his fan base.
MydeisPlushie @DesBelovedPlush
every stream i watch is just these two doing homoerotic shit
♡76.2K likes —528 replies
@moonxeclipse: the closet is deconstructed
@ecientra._: cant two guys js be friends? lol
>>@n1freminetmain: no? lol
@estin9512: Isn’t phai straight? He dated a girl in high school
He sighed in exasperation as he read all the.. ‘interesting’ tweets about his relationship with Mydei. Last month, he’d accidentally fallen into the shipping side of his fandom.. never again. After a single search of whatever the hell ‘Phaidei’ was, he was questioning the sanity of his fans and himself.
He had rubbed it in Mydei’s face that their fans thought that he was top though— in private, of course.
Besides, he did tell his fans early on that he was fine with shipping. He just hadn’t expected his dumb streams to get so popular and for his channel to gain millions of followers.
🌿《 star @mintcatfan
@khaslana you should watch @dromasss_ streams sometime, he’s seriously the only reason I’m passing chemistry and physics lmaooo (totally not biased btw)
♡100.7K likes —1.2K replies
@ich1niko: i dont think phainon is smart enough to comprehend anaxas streams
@hexxin0: snowy gonna start crying mid stream this is animal abuse
@fried_r1ce: I’m a business major but I still watch his streams bc he’s hot 🙏🙏
>>@miski_xx: fair enough but i dont think he’d be Phainon’s type
He raised an eyebrow as he saw read the suggestion. He was always up to try out anything his beloved fans wanted him to do, it was a way that he would show his appreciation to everyone watching him. But now they wanted him to do the one thing that he was trying to avoid and procrastinate while streaming? At this point they were just trying to torture him…
He clicked on the username, deciding to stalk.. research the professor instead of fixing his god awful sleep schedule. Maybe he could convince Cyrene to let him record longer if he was actually doing something useful during his streams.
Anaxagoras
@dromasss_
Rule number one: Do not call me Anaxa. Rule number two: Never interrupt me— silence is golden. Remember that.
Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/dromasss_
3 Following 603K Followers
This guy seems kinda stuck up. Was the first thing that Phainon thought as he read his bio. Anaxa reminded him of all of his other strict professors who acted like they had a stick up their ass and deduct points on his exams because he accidentally spelled a word wrong. It was ridiculous, he was taking biology, not English! And why did this guy have a dromas profile picture? Plus that username???
Anaxagoras @dromasss_
Hyacine came back from abroad after 2 weeks, she got souvenirs.
attached_file.png
♡201.6K likes —2.6K replies
He clicked on the image, blinking a few times to make sure he was seeing it right. It was a dromas themed cup, one that was definitely meant for little kids. The mug had a cartoony background that looked like it was drawn by a little kid; vivid green grass, a blue sky and whimsical clouds. There were comic-like dromases on top of the grass of various colors.
…well, that was certainly something that his professors typically didn’t have. Did this guy maybe have a kid or something? Yeah, maybe this ‘Hyacine’ just got a gift for his child—
@mizuena.canon: drink out of me next professor!!
@hyunluka_218: What does this thing have that I dont tf
@Stelles_lightstick: winks as i turn into a dromas
One look at the comments told him that Anaxa did indeed, not have any kids. He wasn’t one to judge people’s interests— he had played some.. ‘fascinating’ games because his viewers had requested it.
But still, it did seem really absurd to him that a professor, who didn’t seem the most friendly based on his bio, had a soft spot for some weird dinosaur creatures. Seriously, this guy was a walking contradiction..
No matter, Phainon liked interesting people. Hell, he once accepted an invitation to go on a talkshow with two so called ‘raccoons’. The twins certainly lived up to their nicknames, he even saw Caelus digging through one of the trash cans at the studio while they were taking a break from filming, confirming that it wasn’t just a persona they put up for the camera.
As he scrolled through more posts, he noticed that Anaxa didn’t post any photo’s of himself. It was mostly stuff about his streams, answering questions on science with painfully overly complicated words that gave him a headache, or fun facts and stuff about dromases. His thumb absentmindedly clicked on the follow button so that he wouldn’t forget to check out the latter’s streams sometime.
His eyelids were starting to feel heavier, a soft yawn escaping his mouth as his vision blurred. His body relaxed, and just as he was about to fall asleep, a sharp pain hit his face as he accidentally dropped his phone. He groaned, sliding his phone onto his nightstand and massaging his poor nose.
He drifted off into a peaceful slumber shortly after, dreaming about failing his chemistry exam tomorrow.
—
“Phainon! Honestly, what were you thinking?” His friend, Cyrene, scolded him, taking a seat next to him in the lecture hall and jabbing him in the arm lightly. You’re gonna work yourself to death..”
Phainon winced softly, groaning as he got woken up from his half-dazed state. “Ow.. I knooow… I’ll try to stream less.” He muttered, his head still buried in his arms which were folded on the desk. He felt guilty for making her worry so much about him all the time, but bad habits died hard.
She huffed softly, visibly doubtful. “You said that the last 12 times. I’m gonna make you stay at my dorm if you don’t stop neglecting your health.” She threatened as she unzipped her bag, taking her laptop out and starting to boot it up.
“Mhmm… I cant disappoint my fans~” He whined, using the same excuse he did every time. He had to live up to everyone’s expectations of him after all! Seeing so many messages flying by in the chat always made him so excited, he loved being able to make people happy with his silly little streams.
Cyrene was understandably unamused by the excuse, starting to get annoyed. Her constant pestering was always out of worry for both his mental and physical health, yet he seemed to never take her advice.
She sighed again, exasperated and not afraid to show it. “Your fans are worried about you too, idiot. We’re all begging you to take a break.”
“You’re one to talk with your 5 photoshops a week.” He retorted, like pointing out her unhealthy habits made his own any better.
“At least I’m not failing half my classes.” She responded blankly, thoughtlessly tapping at the desk. Modeling had been something that she’d taken up to pay for her student loans, and it definitely seemed to work quite well. Phainon had been happy for her at first, but he also felt worried about her safety.
He yelped softly as he felt a hand playfully messing up his already disheveled hair. Finally lifting his head from his arms, he noticed that their professor had already arrived. One glance at the clock in the front of the room told him that there were 2 minutes until the lecture would begin.
Not that it mattered, no way would he be able to pay attention after only sleeping for 2 hours. Besides, his biology professor was unbearable.
The old man was a very no-nonsense type person who looked and acted like he hated his life every time he explained the same concept for the 15th class in a row, which left them too little time to cover the rest of the subject, forcing them to cover the rest of the textbook by theirselves. He would definitely be skipping class everyday if attendance wasn’t worth 30% of their final grade, and he was damn sure the rest of his classmates would be too.
His professor’s dull tone always made him more sleepy too, maybe he should get a new job and read bedtime stories for little kids instead of giving shitty lectures to overworked college students. Not to mention that the guy’s voice was way too quiet— he couldn’t hear what the hell he was explaining for 80% of the lecture!
His tired thoughts were interrupted by Cyrene elbowing him, gesturing to the front of the class where their professor had already started the PowerPoint presentation. He huffed softly, begrudgingly opening his notes on his laptop and resisting the urge to walk out of the lecture hall since he was already failing the class anyway.
As his professor started to ramble on about epigenetics, his head dropped, the lecturer’s sentences melting together until it was just a distant hum. Perhaps this time would be better spent on studying for the chemistry exam they had after this, which he did not study or revise for. At all. But maybe that sacrifice was worth it.
He could hear a quiet, exasperated complaint from Cyrene as he dozed off.
—
A soft thud echoed throughout his dorm as his backpack was thrown into the corner, the bed creaking the moment that he collapsed face first onto it. He wasn’t even tired anymore, thanks to him falling asleep in half of his lectures.
Lifting his head from his soft mattress, he noticed the neglected chemistry textbooks from last night still in the corner of his desk, reminding him of how terribly he had failed the exam today.
Yikes, he was pretty sure he had napped for half of the exam. Maybe Cyrene was right.
(she was, and they both knew that.)
He hoisted himself off of his bed with a soft groan, shuffling over to his gaming set up. Streaming was definitely something that he used as a coping mechanism to distract himself from all his problems— but hey, at least it was better than smoking or alcohol. Plus the reassurance from his fans always made him feel a lot better!
He turned on his computer with a few soft clicks, his mouse moving to open up Discord. He moved his cursor to his DM’s with Mydei, opening it and quickly typing up a message.
Mydeimos
>Got time to stream?
no<
ive got a little something called a ‘social life’<
you should try it sometime<
HKS<
He huffed softly as he read the response, rolling his eyes. Of course Mydei couldn’t just say no like a normal person, an insult just had to be thrown in. Besides, he did have a social life! He was arguably more sociable and extroverted than Mydei.
Well whatever, seems like he won’t be losing any brain cells from their bantering today. So then what else could he stream?
Valorant? Eh, less fun alone.
Genshin? Ouch, he’d probably already done too many mindless grinding streams this past week.
ZZZ? Maybe not, the comments he got when playing that game were.. less than PG.
Maybe some indie visual novel? Right, that could work. He liked supporting small game creators.
He fetched his phone from his pocket to open Twitter and look for any recommendations from his fans. Although the last time he had played a suggested game it ended up being a horror game disguised as a dating sim with cute girls… playing that at 2 am wasn’t very enjoyable for his poor heart.
He raised an eyebrow as he read the first thing that came up on his TL.
Rin [☀️] @puppy._owner
OH MY GDO PHAINON FOLLWOED AANAXA I REPEAT PHAI FISLLAY FOLLWOED SOMEONE NWW?????
♡ 97.7K likes — 3.6K replies
@edostar_: STUDY STREAM WHEN THO
@flame9271: this can NOT be this big of a deal
@madohomu5ever: Fan artists and fanfic writers unite!!
@popopoi_pop: u ppl be shipping him with anyone who breaths the same air as him
>>@pha1non0verload: guys i breathe air too ship phai with me
Oh. Yeah. Of course his fans would notice that he had followed someone new. His following count had been 12 for what felt like ages after all, he tended to only follow people he knew personally. Well, there goes his peaceful stream. His chat would definitely be asking about that the whole time.
Might as well lean into it, right? Great marketing, perfect opportunity to earn more money!
(he was coping.)
Well whatever, it didn’t hurt to indulge his fans every once in a while. Jeez, he was supposed to be streaming to avoid his studies, not to actually do his schoolwork! But if that was what his fans wanted, there wasn’t much he could do about it.
Phainon @khaslana
Study stream in 20!! https://www.twitch.tv/khaslana
He started preparing his set up, making sure the lighting looked somewhat acceptable and shifting his camera. He slid down his chair, grabbing his physics books from the large pile of textbooks and notebooks under his desk. Being organized had never been his strong suit, and it certainly didn’t get any better now that he lived alone.
“Hello? I got a new mic, hope it’s working fine.” Phainon said with a small chuckle, adjusting his microphone slightly.
A small charm of himself was dangling off of it, he had started selling merch after Cyrene had idly suggested it when they were drunk. One thing led to another, and it actually turned out to be really successful, although figuring out things with manufacturers and deliveries had been a huge pain that resulted in countless sleepless nights.
“HI SNOWY”
“Your mic is working well! :)”
“no mydei?”
“shut up go watch Mydei’s streams if you want him that badly”
His eyes scanned over the chat as messages flew by at a pace too fast to read, the view count going up by the second. Ouch, his viewers were asking about Mydei again? He understood that Mydei was popular and entertaining to watch, but this was HIS stream— He was funny too!
“Ehem right—“ Phainon cleared his throat. “Honestly it’s just what the title says: I’m studying! More specifically, I’ve seen some people asking me to uhm.. what’s his name? Anaxa? Yeah, watch his streams.” He trailed off for a second, hoping he’d gotten the name right. “I’m actually struggling with a physics paper currently. Hopefully he’ll be better at teaching than some of my other professors.”
“its anaxaGORAS lol”
“What subject arent you struggling w/ tho”
“Phainon and studying in the same sentence the world must be ending”
“Anaxagoras, hm? Think I’ll stick to Anaxa, it’s simpler.” He commented idly as he opened the professor’s channel page, scrolling through pasts streams until he found a topic that was relevant to his class. All the thumbnails were the topic in plain, black letters with the Verdana font on a white backgrounds.
Verdana was the best font for STEM after all, because it didn’t have any overlap between the number one, the lowercase ‘l’ and the uppercase ‘i’, like most other common fonts. He’d been told this by practically every professor— Comic Sans actually didn’t have this overlap either, but for some reason his professors seemed to really dislike it when he used that font…
After a bit of scrolling and absentmindedly talking with his chat, he paused as he saw a video titled “Thermodynamics #1”
Titans, it was 2 hours long.
He clicked on it, grabbing a pen from his pencil case and flipping open his notebook to an empty page. Maybe he’ll make some notes. Probably not.
He thoughtlessly clicked his pen as he waited for the stream to load, sputtering as soon as it did— it wasn’t an old and grumpy professor like usual, like he was expecting.
Instead, he was met with the sight of a relatively young-looking man. He was slim and tall, his pale skin accentuating the red tattoo on his arm. His mint hair perfectly framed his pretty face, his eyes were unique as well; a soft aqua color with magenta pupils. The medical eyepatch also caught his attention..
…and the dromas pyjama???
The comments on Anaxa’s posts should’ve really been a sign for him that he wouldn’t be an ordinary professor— but at the same time, he was aware that some people really didn’t have the best taste in men..
His pen clattered onto the ground, snapping him out of his thoughts as he noticed he probably looked really stupid, staring blankly at the guy like that.
Shit, right, he was still streaming.
Phainon awkwardly cleared his throat as he paused Anaxa’s stream, reaching down to grab his pen from the floor and also taking it as an opportunity to somewhat compose himself. He had a public image to contain after all.
He adjusted in the chair, sitting up properly again as he fiddled with his pen, trying to distract himself. “Ah well… he seems awfully young to be a professor, no?”
“valid reaction”
“LMAOO HELP IM CHOKIGN”
“I heard he graduated really early lol he’s probably a prodigy or smthing”
“ME TOO BUDDY ME TOOOO”
“back off anaxa my turn”
He avoided looking at the chat, knowing damn well that his fans weren’t gonna have any mercy with his current embarrassed state. Swallowing nervously, he reluctantly clicked the space button and let the video play again. His fans were only gonna get more worked up if he kept mindlessly staring at Anaxa.
Study stream my ass, this was a planned execution.
“Hello. I’ll be covering thermodynamic today, as in accordance with the textbook of College Physics for AP courses.” A cool and smooth voice was heard from the stream, a small microphone clipped to his pyjama. Any questions can be asked in chat.”
Fuck, his voice is hot too.
Anaxa was standing in front of a chalkboard, a white piece of chalk loosely held in between his thumb and pointer finger. He noticed that ‘Thermodynamics’ was written on the board in an elegant handwriting.
It was the complete opposite of his own messy handwriting, which many professors had complained about and one even refused to mark one of his tests because of it.
He was painfully aware of how flushed his cheeks were. All of a sudden his dorm felt a whole lot warmer than before as he tried to pay attention to the professor’s rambling instead of his spiraling thoughts. Not his proudest moment— especially not while he was live for hundreds of thousands of people to see.
…this was definitely gonna get clipped and haunt him for the rest of his streaming career.
Anaxa continued speaking, not bothering to chat with his viewers like most streamers did. “I’ll be covering the basics today, so feel free to skip this stream considering its simplicity.”
Phainon felt like it wasn’t gonna be simple at all. Hell, if Anaxa managed to become a professor at such a young age, he must find anything simple. Or perhaps Phainon was the one who just who had too much difficulty understanding easy topics.
Probably both.
“Thermodynamics is a branch of physics that deals with heat, work, and temperature, and their relation to energy, entropy, and the physical properties of matter and radiation. First and foremost, I’ll be discussing the four laws of thermodynamic that form an axiomatic basis.” Anaxa spoke like everything was common sense, which it probably was for him.
Unfortunately for Phainon, his comprehension with any topics beyond basic physics was six feet under. He could practically feel the marbles bouncing around in his empty head.
“Phainon looks like he’s already gonna start crying”
“poor puppy”
“cant believe this guy has me watching things about PHYSICS”
“It’s not the lighting he’s def blushing”
One distracted glance at his chat immediately made him regret it, internally cursing his viewers for being so blunt and forward. Of course it was easy to say whatever they wanted when hiding behind an anonymous identity, but unfortunately for him, he’d have to suffer through the rest of the stream.
This was gonna be a long couple of hours..
—
Anaxagoras @dromasss_
Please refrain from asking about this ‘Phainon’, my email is for business inquiries ONLY. Any questions about science material can be redirected to my personal messages, however I doubt that this is about anything remotely knowledgeable.
♡472.6K likes —5.9K replies
@milimem_: OH MY GOD WHO EXPOSED PHAINON
@ratsinthecar: yeah guys stop this is probably really uncomfortable for him anyway anaxa im free on friday and i like dromases too yknow js saying
@eimiko_canon: ANAXA ACKNOWLEDGING SOMEONE OTHER THAN HYACINE FOR THE FIRST TIMEEE?€??£?1?2?1!!1?1{€
@phaireneslanderidk: If you dont want phai ill take him
Oh Titans, Phainon was gonna dig himself into a ditch and never leave it ever again.
The extremely pretty man that he’d been blushing over live in front of hundreds of thousand of people, and probably millions had seen the clip of— KNEW THAT HE’D BEEN DROOLING OVER HIM?? AND HIS FANS WERE (lightly) HARASSING THE GUY?????
Cyrene was casually reading along over his shoulder, drinking a packet of strawberry milk, the one that she always bought from the vending machine. She chuckled softly before leaning back on the bleachers, very amused compared to his current panicking.
“I told you to stop streaming so much.”