Chapter Text
Parrot groaned.
This semester couldn't get any worse than this.
He was wrong.
Parrot had his palms in his face, clearly disheveled and tired. He heard a voice approach him from behind as the sound of the chair next to him screeched annoyingly.
“You still color code your notes?” The voice said, now sitting next to him.
Parrot didn't even look at the person. Letting go of his face to look back down at his notes, It was in fact beautifully color coded. Parrot picked up a highlighter to continue highlighting. Maybe if he focused hard enough he could forget who was sitting next to him.
It didn't.
“You used to eat glue.” Parrot finally said.
“Allegedly, you have no proof. You’re never gonna be a lawyer at this rate.” Spoke said, crossing his arms and making a sound like ‘tsk tsk.'
Parrot glanced at him through the corner of his eye. ‘Same annoying tone, same stupid expression. Does that guy even age??? Clearly not.’ Parrot thought.
“But hey, at least I lived!” Spoke said all giddy and happy-go-lucky as he usually was, it sometimes pissed parrot off… Like all this guy sees is sunshine and rainbows.
“That wasn't a challenge," Parrot replied.
Behind them, another chair scraped loudly, which made the very few people in the room cringe. Wemmbu plopped down into his seat and immediately opened his laptop.
“Did you guys remember what today is?" Wemmbu asked, it was more like a rhetorical question.
Parrot leaned back in his chair to hear him better. Spoke turned around and rested his arm on the desk behind him.
“What?” they both said at the same time.
"There's a group project—"
“Oh my god bro.”
“Are we deadass.”
They groaned loudly, the other people in the room overheard and also sighed loudly.
“Do you guys seriously not check the syllabus?” Wemmbu said a bit louder, obviously hinting at the other people in the room rather than the two in front of him.
“I can't do this anymore bro, I'm transferring.” Parrot said, clearly irritated.
“You can’t transfer halfway through the semester." Spoke said, but he was also annoyed as well.
“Says who?” Parrot replied, they were gonna go back and forth, but Wemmbu spoke before they could.
“Relax, it's not even that bad." Wemmbu said as he stared at his screen and typing sometimes.
“You know what… We met you at the start of this semester…” Spoke said in that condescending, fake-thinking tone.
“Yeah?”
“And somehow things have gotten worse.” Spoke said, earning a small giggle from Parrot.
“Wow. You two are so unbelievably fake.”
Before Parrot could explain his side of the story, another chair scarped against the floor next to Wemmbu. They all turned to the person.
“Is this seat taken?”
The three of them stared up at the person. Before Spoke and Parrot went back to do their own thing, leaving Wemmbu in the dust.
Wemmbu glared at the both of them. 'I'm seriously gonna get you two.’ He thought.
"Uh... No," Wemmbu finally said, trying not to sound awkward.
“Cool.” The other person said, sitting down next to him. It seemed that even if Wemmbu refused, he probably would’ve sat there regardless.
There was a pause.
Wemmbu was pretending to be busy, as Spoke was trying hard not to laugh as he imagined what was happening behind him. Parrot ended up actually locking in.
Then suddenly, the guy looked over at Wemmbu’s laptop, making him feel startled a bit.
“We have a group project?” The guy asked.
“Uh.. uh… yeah!” Wemmbu stammered, wishing someone would help him. " Unfortunately," Spoke chimed in, turning back around. ‘Thank god.’ Wemmbu thought.
“We should team then, it's 4 people per group, right?” The guy offered He spoke like he knew they would accept no matter what, like he was so sure of himself.
Wemmbu and Spoke looked at each other.
“Sure!” Spoke accepted happily, he took his phone out. “You got any socials we could add you on... or?"
The guy just nodded and took his phone out. His phone case was plain black but had some flames at the bottom. Completely different from Spoke’s pastel ass rainbow phone case that had a tie-dye look to it.
Wemmbu couldn't help but smirk whenever he saw Spoke’s phone case, it even had a phone charm that he matched with Parrot, It was their minecraft characters heads that Parrot kindly bought for them even though shipping was like 10 dollars.
The guy flipped his phone around to show him whatever he had, he looked like he used Instagram. Spoke stared and began typing on his phone.
“Flame? Can I call you that?” Spoke made sure.
Flame nodded.
“Cool! I can just add you to our group chat!” Spoke said, leaving Wemmbu confused on which group chat.
He looked to see if it was the groupchat in messages, nope. He checked instagram, nothing there. Then suddenly he got a notification from Discord.
‘Ugh seriously? Freaking discordians.’ Wemmbu thought.
_________________________________________________________________________
By the time lunch rolled around, the group had… grown. Some familiar faces, and some new.
“This is not a group, this is, like… a gathering," Parrot said.
“Me and Rek brought snacks!” Squiddo announced as everyone got in place to get ready to snatch all the good snacks. Squiddo hesitated before a moment before placing the snacks down and, in a blink of an eye, watched as most of it disappeared.
“You guys are actual animals," Ash said, like he also didn't participate in it.
“Yeah… sure buddy…” Rekrap said under his breath as he sat down next to Minute.
Flame fiddled with his drink, clearly a bit uncomfortable and self-conscious with the number of random people around him.
Minute smiled at him and reassured him from across the table.
Next to Flame, Zam had her laptop open, not bothering with the group as she was typing up a storm.
“Dude. It can't be that serious.” Mapicc said as he stared at the screen. “OH SHIT IS THAT THE PROJECTS DUE TODAY??? Fu-” Mapicc yelled, the lollipop he had in his mouth dropped on the table. Earning weirded-out glances from the other tables filled with people who watched that happen.
“EWWW MAPICC.” Squiddo cried out.
Minute scolded him on how nasty that was. But it all went through deaf ears.
“YES BRO. I TOLD YOU ABOUT THIS LAST NIGHT," Zam replied, not looking at either of them as she continued typing.
“I fell asleep.” Mapicc stated, earning an annoyed grunt from Zam. He picked up his lollipop to throw it out.
Parrot pressed his fingers to his temples, it was always like this. Well, since the start of his first semester. He was glad that some of his friends from high school made it to the same college he did, but seriously, they all still act like they're still in high school.
Parrot watched as Leo sat down in Mapicc’s seat and began complaining about the quiz he had for his typography class.
Clown silently peered over from behind Zam, just standing and watching.
final_project_REAL_final_v5
“... You made five versions already?” Clown asked.
Zam didn't even notice that Clown was behind her, she just kept typing. "Yeah, dont worry about it.” 'He's right behind me, isnt he….’ She thought.
Across the room… Theo was building something out of wires and what looked like parts of a calculator.
It made a soft clicking noise.
Nobody said anything.
Even Spoke didn't comment on it.
Which felt like a bad sign.
____________________________________________________________________________
After a few hours, most people decided to go home. It was the afternoon, and the four of them decided it would be best if they started on the project early to get it out of the way and so that they would have one less thing to worry about.
At some point, the table split without anyone officially saying it would.
Not physically, everyone was still there- but it was obvious who was actually working and who wasn’t.
Parrot, Spoke, Wemmbu, and Flame ended up on one side.
Everyone else was doing their own thing.
“I’m just here for moral support,” Mapicc said from across the table.
“You’re eating all the snacks,” Zam said.
“Moral support requires energy.”
“That’s not—”
“Let him cook,” Fanst added, Baablu sleeping on his shoulder.
“We are literally cooking nothing.”
Parrot had the assignment pulled up. Spoke was leaning over his shoulder. Wemmbu was doing the same, they both were resting peacefully on Parrots shoulder.
“Okay,” Parrot started, tapping at his keyboard. “We just pick a topic, write it out, done.”
“No,” Spoke said immediately
Parrot didn’t bother looking at him. “You don't get to say no to everything."
“I do."
“You don’t.”
“We’re not doing something basic.” Spoke added, "That's boring.”
“We’re still gonna be graded regardless," Parrot replied.
"Exactly." Spoke said, as if he had come to some major conclusion, "Okay, so that solved nothing.”
“He’s not wrong, though." Wemmbu cut in the conversation, well, more like starting argument.
Parrot turned. "Don't encourage him.”
“I’m not encouraging him, I’m just saying we could do something… better.”
“Define better," Parrot asked, crossing his arms.
“Something that actually stands out.” Spoke and Wemmbu both said at the same time.
“That just sounds like more work." Parrot claimed.
“It is more work," Spoke confirmed.
“Ugh, no.”
Across from them, Flame had been quiet for a minute—just watching.
Wemmbu didn’t look up. “We could simulate instability instead of just analyzing it.”
Parrot hesitated. “…That’s actually not terrible.”
“Yeah, obviously,” Wemmbu said in a ‘duh cause’ I'm the one that said it’ type tone.
Flame leaned forward slightly, resting his elbows on the library desk. “Simulate how.”
Wemmbu finally glanced up. “By building a model and stressing it until it breaks.”
Flame nodded. “Okay. That’s actually good.”
There was a short pause.
Then—
“That’s basically what I was going to say,” Flame added.
Wemmbu blinked. “No, it’s not.”
“It was.”
“You just repeated what I said.”
“I was going to say it.”
“You didn’t.”
“I would’ve.”
“But you didn’t.”
Flame leaned back a little. “You don’t know that.”
Wemmbu stared at him. “I literally just watched you not say it.”
Spoke made a quiet face noise, like he was enjoying this way too much.
Parrot rubbed his face. “Can we not argue over who said something first?"
“I’m not arguing with nobody,” Flame said.
“You are," Parrot retorted.
“I’m clarifying," Flame added.
“You’re definitely arguing.” Mapicc inserted himself in the conversation.
“I’m not.” Flame asserted. “You are," Wemmbu contended.
They both paused and stared at eachother.
“…Why no?” Flame asked.
“Because it was my idea,” Wemmbu said.
“You just said it out loud first.”
“That’s how ideas work.”
“That’s not how group projects work."
“It should be,"
Wemmbu grumbled.
Parrot looked over at Spoke. “Do something.”
Spoke leaned back, smiling slightly. “No, this is educational.”
“This is NOT educational.”
“It’s teaching us about conflict.”
“I don’t need to learn this, bro.”
Across the table, the rest of them were very much not helping.
“Who do you think would win in a fight,” Mapicc was saying, “purely hypothetical.”
“It’s not hypothetical if it’s them,” Fanst said, gesturing over.
Baablu sighed, awoken from his sleep.
Parrot noticed the way Flame leaned forward slightly, like he was already sizing things up—not in a serious way, just enough to be annoying.
And the way Wemmbu didn’t drop it, even when he easily could’ve.
Like two people deciding, without saying it, that they didn’t like each other that much.
Or maybe that they didn’t trust each other yet.
Parrot sighed. “…This is going to be a long project.”
“Yeah,” Spoke said lightly.
He was still smiling.
___________________________________________________________________________
It turned 9pm slowly, everyone else had packed up already.
Wemmbu’s phone buzzed.
He flipped his phone to the front - and paused.
It was small. Easy to miss.
But Parrot noticed.
“You good?” Parrot asked.
“Yeah,” Wemmbu said, a little too quick. “I just—I’ve gotta go somewhere later.”
“Where?” Spoke questioned.
“Hospital,”
The word cut through everything.
“...Why?” Flame asked, looking at him with genuine confusion. He was staring at him looking for any look of pain or any bruises.
“I just need to visit someone,” Wemmbu said.
“Egg, right?” Parrot asked to make sure.
“Yeah.”
“For what again? "I forgot," Spoke said.
“Something with his eye,” Wemmbu said. “His right eye. Infection or something.”
“…That bad?” Flame asked.
Wemmbu shrugged, but it didn’t feel like a real answer.
“I guess. He just hasn’t come back.”
That didn’t really make sense. Not for something like that. But nobody said it out loud. Egg showed up the first week at the start of the semester and then randomly stopped coming, but really no one noticed. But they could see how close Wemmbu and he were.
“Hope he gets better,” Parrot said quietly, Spoke nodded.
Wemmbu stood up, stretching a bit before he went to tidy all the papers he owned on the table and put them in his bag. And walked off.
As Wemmbu walked off, he glanced back.
Just for a second.
And Parrot didn’t know why it stuck with him, but it did.
____________________________________________________________________________
That night, Parrot’s phone buzzed.
Biggest birds ❗🦅🇺🇸
wemmbubu:
im here.
A minute passed.
wemmbubu:
fuck His eye. It looks bad.
Typing.
Stopped.
Typing again.
wemmbubu:
i'm scared for him.