Chapter Text
The first feeling that greets you when you gingerly slip your feet out of the provided dorm bed is a sense of drowning. You are overwhelmed with worry and expectations and pressure and homesickness. You are miles from where you made your home on the edges of Blackrock, and now you’re here, in the big city, at the school of your dreams— maybe nightmares now, but it’s too late to go back.
Your once familiar morning routine feels strange and offputting in this new space. Your bathroom is to the left instead of to the right. You have a new horn polish for some reason. Your closet is filled not with the familiar sporty attire but with some attempt at business casual. The shoulders were stiff and you couldn’t quite get used to the shoes, but you tried your best to shrug it off and went as early as possible (which was not very) to your first class to make sure you could find it.
A shrill, grating almost-yowl followed you down Hall E. “And what might you be doing here?!” He demanded. “Seems we had the same idea!”
“My, who are you harassing now, Subspace?” Asked a third freshman, rounding the corner. He seemed indifferent to you, but the cold stare he gave to the first person who’d joined you conveyed more hatred than you thought possible accompanied by such a casual tone. “Hello Meddy!!” The first inphernal, Subspace, greeted, “Great minds think alike, don’t they?” He glanced briefly at you. “I suppose that makes you a great mind. It is just a saying, though. So perhaps not.”
“Really?” “Meddy” chided his obnoxious… friend? Acquaintance? Enemy? Probably that last one. Perhaps you could befriend one or both of them— best not to be totally left out of the social hierarchy, especially as an outsider. “Uh… so hi, I’m Bomb, what are your guys’ names?” You asked. You wanted to glare at yourself, that line was so out of place.
“Medk—”
“The great Subspace T. Mine, at no one’s service!” The first one interrupted.
“...Medkit,” Medkit finished.
The second they were done with your impromptu interview, they went back to arguing. You tuned them out and decided to try your hand at making friends later with someone less… preoccupied, cold, or obnoxious.
Unfortunately, fate had other plans.
Several of your classmates came into the hall and lined up on the wall outside the pre-calc classroom with you, Subspace and Medkit. At 7:45, fifteen minutes before class, your teacher opened the door to let all twelve of you early birds inside.
There you discovered that the stars were not in your favor, as you were meant to sit in assigned table groups of four. And who better to sit with than Medkit and Subspace, and a third forever-empty seat?
People trickled slowly into class until 8:00 A.M., at which point the bell rang and the teacher began to introduce herself. “Good morning class! My name is Crowbar, a pleasure to meet you all. Today we’ll be going over the rules and reviewing some things. A lot of important concepts can slip your mind over summer break! But first, roll call!”
After that was over, Crowbar went through some housekeeping, late policies, hall passes, what have you. Then, since there was around ten minutes leftover, she called for everyone to introduce themselves and their favorite math concepts with their table groups. (Not just names, she explained. Really make an introduction!) This most definitely would not have happened at a normal school, but at this school full of nerds? Absolutely.
“Aha! Yes, well… as you two should know by now, I am Subspace T. Mine! I belong here. I’ve been raised by famed scientists and researchers. Not sure about you two…~ And… hm, my favorite math concept has to be Euler’s identity!” (For those readers who don’t know, it’s (e^(iπ) + 1 = 0).)
“My name is Medkit. I enjoy the golden ratio,” he said simply. A boy of few words, evidently.
“Uhh… Hi, I’m Bomb. I like… messing around, a lot. Y’know, goofing off. I like Penrose tilings,” you explained. Subspace tapped his foot impatiently, obviously bored the second nothing was going on. Medkit seemed completely uninterested in either of you, giving off constant prickly leave-me-alone vibes. He glanced over at you, but his expression was flat and deadpan. You guessed that it was not nice to meet you. As Medkit and Subspace started to bicker again, you sighed and went to take something out of your backpack to entertain yourself until the end of class.
“Can you stop tapping your foot? It’s getting under my skin,” Medkit groused.
“Don’t tell me what to do! I am the great—”
“I’m not telling you what to do, I’m asking you to keep it down.”
“Well shut up! I don’t like it!!” Subspace carped.
“You’re being louder than I am,” Medkit pointed out, voice forever monotone.
They were cut off by the ringing of the bell.
You were puzzled by the face that greeted you when you turned to see who’d tapped on your shoulder after class. Why would Medkit be approaching you after seeming so disinterested in you earlier? Why did he care? “Hey. Need something?” You asked.
“I suppose… I just wanted to apologize for the noise earlier. Subspace can be quite irritating. I’m aware that it can get noisy.”
“Oh! Yeah… it’s whatever, just don’t drag me into it, haha…!”
“I won’t,” he assured. “Don’t die.”
That piece of very versatile and useful advice was meant to be a goodbye, but neither of you split paths. You walked together in uncomfortable silence, awkwardness prickling at the back of your neck. You stuck together until you realized that you were walking to the same class when you went in together. This classroom hadn’t assigned seats, so you waved embarrassedly and quickly took a seat on the opposite side of the room from him. You looked up at the board and the already-exasperated looking teacher and prepared for your second class of the day.