Chapter Text
You could hear the usual chatter before classes as Jude Low walked into the classroom. He sat in his usual seat in the back by a large exposed window. As the professor walked in, the talking ceased. “I know it’s the middle of the semester,” the professor started, already opening a PowerPoint presentation, “but we have a new addition to our class.” The students looked around confused. A new addition to their advanced statistics course so late into the term? Jude believed that the school was setting this student up for failure.
He directed his focus back towards the front of the classroom, where a tall, blonde man was now standing. “This is Sharpness Conexion." The professor turned his attention to Sharpness. "Sit wherever you would like.” The man walked around before landing directly next to Jude.
"May I sit here?” "Sharpness," said in an accented voice. Seeing him up close, Jude noticed the man’s emerald eyes and delicate features. He stared at him, entranced, until Sharpness whispered, “Is there something on my face?”
"OH, um, my bad,” Jude stuttered out. "Yeah, you can sit here.” Sharpness nodded swiftly and sat next to him while Jude was silently imploding.
In all of his 21 years on this planet, Jude had never been nervous like that. He tried to steal a glance at Sharpness, only to find he was already facing him.
"Do you have a pen?" Sharpness asked, seemingly searching for what he should call the man sitting next to him.
"It's Jude. Jude Low, and yeah, I have a pen," Jude said, undeniably flustered. He handed Sharpness a pen, briefly touching his hand. He, embarrassingly, flushed at the contact and quickly pulled his hand away. Sharpness smiled at him and muttered a thank you before turning towards the professor. Jude followed suit, attempting to focus on the lesson instead of the blonde boy sitting next to him.
Jude spent the rest of the class attempting to follow along. However, his thoughts and eyes kept drifting off from what he was meant to be learning. Not that it mattered, this class was decently easy for Jude. What truly mattered to him was why. Why did he react to sharpness like this? They’d barely talked, and Jude was apparently smitten.
The lecture ended, and the professor called out, “Mr. Conexion, Mr. Low, come here for a moment.”
They walked towards the professor's desk and turned to him inquisitively. “I would like to make a proposition to the two of you,” The professor turned towards Sharpness. “While you may be an exceptional student, Mr. Conexion, this course is extremely advanced, and I am unsure you will be able to catch up to your peers.” A look of disbelief crossed Sharpness’s face briefly before he quickly returned his face to its neutral state.
"This," the professor then turned to Jude. "is where you come in, Mr. Low.” Jude looked confused at first, but then the professor began to speak again. “I would like you to tutor Mr. Conexion for the rest of the term.”
Huh?
HUH?
HUH?!?!?
If he thought he had a hard time ignoring Sharpness before, he definitely was going to have a hard time ignoring him now. He turned towards the professor and said, “I’ve never tutored before; why did you choose me for this?”
"You have the highest grade in the class, and it seems as if you two are already acquainted." The professor stated as if it were final.
He turned to the annoyingly attractive man beside him in disbelief. He stammered out a quick goodbye before all but sprinting out of the classroom. If he had turned around, he would have seen the Serbian man staring at him with immense confusion.
He exited the classroom and spotted his friend, Parker, standing by the door talking to another classmate of his, Tai. “What took you so long?” Parker asked, confused. Usually, he was the first one to leave his statistics class, so it was quite odd to see him leaving so late.
"I'll tell you later," Jude mumbled under his breath, eyes darting at Tai. While he may enjoy the presence of the voidling, Tai has one of the biggest mouths on him. Actually, on second thought, that might be beneficial. "Wait, actually,” he said, turning to Tai, “do you know Sharpness Conexion?"
Tai nearly laughed at his comment before realizing that Jude was being serious. “Jude, are you being for real right now?” Tai said, genuinely astounded. Sharpness was one of the most well-known students in the university, as was Jude. “Wow, you really are a nerd, huh?” Tai said, sarcasm lacing every word.
Jude looked at Tai, unimpressed, and said, “What does being a nerd have to do with me not knowing who this random guy is?”
"Because," Tai started, “this 'random guy' is one of the most popular people on campus.” Tai continued by saying, “Why are you wondering though?" "I've never seen you interested in anyone or anything."
Jude simply scoffed and said, “I got assigned to tutor him in statistics.”
"Well, to answer your question, Sharpness is the ice hockey team captain. He comes from an extremely influential family. His mother is one of the most respected weapons handlers in the world. He’s also known for being extremely well liked, if you catch my drift.” Tai said, turning towards the end of the hall, silently beckoning the two men standing with him to walk alongside him.
Well, even if Jude hadn’t wanted to ignore him before, he definitely wanted to avoid him now. To Jude, he sounded like a presumptuous, too-good-for-you, rich, mommy's boy.
He quickly fell into step with Tai and Parker, heading towards the main dining hall for students. As he walked, he passed by a white-haired boy talking to none other than Sharpness himself. Tai waved the two over, clearly not understanding that Jude wanted to stay as far away from Sharpness as possible.
"Hey, Saps, Sharp, come over here.” Tai yelled out.
The two made their way over to Tai, Jude, and Parker, and Jude wished the ground could swallow him whole. Sharpness’s friend, Saparata, said, “So, you’re the infamous Jude Low!”
At those words, Jude cocked his head to the side. He understood he was well known in his department, but he had no clue he was popular enough for people in other majors to be aware of who he was. Sure, the occasional confession might happen here or there, but Jude had assumed he was more of a “nerd” type, as Tai had said earlier.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Jude said, slightly amused.
“Oh! I wasn’t trying to be rude or anything,” Saps started, clearly trying to apologize for whatever he had said, “Sharp was just talking abo-”
“Anyways,” Sharpness cut in, turning to the purple-haired man “Can I have your number?”
There was a brief moment of silence before Parker and Tai started to laugh.
Not loudly.
Just a snicker or two under their breaths, hands covering their mouths.
Jude, whose ears were now tinted a light pink, stammered out, “Yeah, um, when are you free? For tutoring.”
“I have practices in the morning, and games are usually Saturdays or Fridays.” Sharpness said casually, like he hadn’t just managed to fluster Jude with the most simple words. Jude pulled out his phone, as did Sharpness, and they exchanged contact info. They had arranged for their first session to be later that day. In Jude’s opinion, it was much too close for comfort.
“Bye Jude!” Sharpness called out, walking away with Saparata.
They were silent for approximately five seconds before Parker started laughing. Hard.
He was doubled over, clutching his stomach, gasping for air, laughing.
Tai followed in suit, laughing until his eyes started to water from joy.
Jude muttered a shut up, not that it derailed them.
They continued their walk to the cafe, Parker and Tai laughing the whole way. When they got there, they saw another friend of theirs, Lopezz. Tai, still gasping for breath, says, “LOPEZZ, you wouldn’t believe the drama I have to tell you.”
“Oh? Pray tell.” Lopezz says to Tai, clearly interested in what he has to say.
“Get this,” Tai starts, still laughing his ass off, “Jude over here was all flustered while talking to Sharpness!”
Rolling his eyes, Jude says, “Tai, shut the fuck up.”
At the same time, Lopezz yelled out, “NO. WAY.” She leaned forward and asked, “What happened exactly? I need details.”
“So, me and Parker were waiting for Jude outside his statistics class, like the amazing friends we are,” Tai says, “then Jude suddenly asked who Sharpness was.” Lopezz looked over at Jude, a look of disbelief on her face.
“Wow, you really don’t talk to anyone.” She said, as if not knowing who one person was meant Jude was an asocial chud.
“Anyways,” Tai continued, “after that we were walking over here and we saw Sharpness, so I called him over. He came over and asked for Jude’s number.”
Lopezz’s eyes grew wide and she snapped her head over to Jude. “Jude! Explain, now.”
“Nothing happened Lopezz,” Jude muttered, “he asked for my number because I’m tutoring him.”
“Since when do you tutor?” Parker said, in shock.
“Yeah, what’s up with that?” Tai asked, “Every time I ask you for help you tell me to fuck off.” Jude, again, rolled his eyes. He could’ve sworn he already told them why he had tutor Sharpness.
“My professor is making me,” Jude started, “Sharpness joined the term late, so I’m just gonna help him catch back up.”
Tai smirked and said, “That doesn’t change that you got his number. He’s extremely private with his information, honestly you could sell his number to desperate fan girls for cash.” Jude put his head in his hands, clearly done with this situation.
“Whatever bro, I’m gonna head to the library.” Jude said, standing up and starting to pack up his stuff.
“Dude, it’s like two,” Tai said, “I thought you were meeting up with Sharpness at 7?”
“I am,” Jude said, still putting his things away, “I just wanted to get some studying done first.” He stood up and waved goodbye to his friends. As he walked, Tai turned back to the other two.
“Do either of you know what that's about?” Tai asked. Jude was a naturally smart person, and while he still has to study occasionally, he was never in the library for that long.”
“He’s gonna burn himself out,” Parker sighed, “he wants that stupid internship for EthosLab so bad, he’s working himself to death.”
⋆⋅ ♰ ⋅⋆
Sharpness arrived at the library at 6:45. Sure, he was a little early, but he doubted Jude would mind. He walked around, searching for the purple-haired man. He looked around a little before spotting a familiar mop of violet curls. As he walked closer, he noticed Jude was already deep in focus reading a large textbook.
“Hey.” Sharpness said, getting the man’s attention.
Jude looked up, clearly surprised. As he turned towards Sharp, Sharpness noticed a pair of glasses resting on Jude’s nose. Cute, Sharpness thought.
Cute?
Pushing away his thoughts, he sat next to Jude and asked, “So, what should we start with?”
Jude put his engineering textbook down and picked up a different, significantly smaller, textbook. “So,” Jude said, “I was thinking we could start with the basics and then expand into some more complex topics.”
As Jude kept speaking, Sharpness slowly felt himself listening less and less. He was trying to focus, but the words coming out of Jude’s mouth started to fade to one. Sharpness turned his head slightly, resting his head on his hand, staring at Jude as he spoke.
The more he stared, the more he noticed smaller things. The way he scrunched his nose when he found something slightly more difficult to explain, the way his front two teeth were slightly longer than all of his others, just like a bunny.
“You got that?” Jude said, turning to Sharpness. Uh-oh, Sharpness thought. He had no clue what Jude had been saying for the past few minutes, so he had nothing to do except give Jude a sheepish smile and ask him to repeat himself.
Jude rolls his eyes and restarts, speaking a little faster now. Sharpness, now focused, listens intently to everything Jude says. Without realizing it, he slowly moves closer and closer until Jude turns back to him. When Jude turns he realizes just how close he really was. Him and Jude were eye to eye, close enough to hear each other's breath before Jude turned away.
“I think you’re good for today.” Jude mutters before packing his things up at top speed and rushing out of the library.
Sharpness sits there, now alone in the library, trying to comprehend what had just happened and what it made him feel. Little did he know, somewhere in the dorms across campus, a certain purple-haired man was thinking the exact same thing.