Chapter Text
“Mr. Suptic, please come to the main office.” The automated voice calls. He sighs and stands up, trudging his way to the school’s front office. Mrs. Wang, or Hafu as he calls her, stands there and beckons him toward her office. He follows her and sits down.
“Hey, Haf. What’s up?” He asks carefully, knowing if whatever she’s called him in for was personal, she would’ve just called his phone.
“Steve, I’m speaking to you not as your friend, but as the principal. Your assistant teacher, Tina Carreau, quit.” She answers bluntly.
Steve sighs. He knew Tina was getting fed up with him, but now he was down an assistant teacher, which was very much needed when teaching rowdy 2nd graders how music worked.
“Okay. I’m sorry, I’m pretty sure I overstepped again..” He ducks his head low, knowing he’s said this apology at least twice before. Hafu puts one hand on his shoulder. Her smile is understanding but shows no pity, the one she knows Steve would kill to see in troublesome times like this.
“I know, Steve. Some people don’t understand your humor, especially when you’re joking.” She reassures him. He smiles at her, and she drops her shoulder to keep writing on her papers.
“You can come off a little strong. We can work on that with your next assistant. He doesn’t have teaching experience, but he has a lot of music knowledge!” She smiles.
Steve raises a brow. He’s never worked with a man, usually only women took the time to understand music or even try with kids as young as these. Second of all, if he heard Hafu right, this was his new assistant’s first time teaching anyone.
“Alright. Is he starting this morning?” He glanced toward the clock. 8:20. The school started at 8:45.
Hafu stared at her clipboard intently for a moment.
“Uhh, yeah. He’s gonna come in the second period though, not at the start of the day.” She answers with a small smile. It’s almost as if she can sense his nerves that he’d scare another person off.
“Steve, look at me,” She whispers. His gaze slightly lifts to meet hers. He tilts his head, questioning.
“I think you’ll really hit it off with this guy. He says he’s not easily swayed into different paths when he’s found something he likes,” She says with confidence Steve wished he had, not the mask he puts on.
He finally smiles back, however.
“Right, now go back to your room. Enjoy your day!” She calls as he starts to walk away.
Steve exhales and makes the walk back to his room, the music room, sitting back in the chair with wheels. It screeches in welcome and moves back as he sinks into it.
Having a rough time, huh? It seems to say to him. He opens his computer to check emails, nothing of importance except a complaining parent. He believed that’s all parents ever did, complain.
When his first class of the day starts coming, he pulls up the drum piece they’re watching today, smiles at the early arrivals and waits.
“Good morning, class. Talk to your elbow partner about your weekend.” He finally says, once most kids arrive. They eagerly turn to each other, the familiar loud chatter causing him to smile.
He quickly types away to the attendance, sighing in relief when it finally loads.
“Okay, I’m going to be taking attendance now, please simmer down!” Steve calls out. They all quiet down.
He takes the attendance, ending up with two missing students, Eliot and Finn.
“Today, we’ll be listening to this drum performance, then playing our drums. Sounds good?” He asks, not bothering telling them about the new assistant, since he would have a different class by then. They all nod eagerly. Well, all but one. A little girl, Esme raises her hand.
“Esme?” Steve asks. She inhales, and Steve is preparing to be lectured.
“Where’s Miss Tina?” She glances around the room, as if his ex-assistant would jump out of a closet.
Steve sighs, knowing this question was coming.
“She’s on to help with another class. Today, we’ll have a new assistant come a little later.” He reassures, hoping his smile was fake enough to fool the class of second and third graders.
They seem convinced it’s fine, it’s normal, not that Tina abandoned them due to Steve’s negligence and inability to tell when to stop.
He teaches with a shaky mindset, nearly jumping when kids approach him with a question or try to correct him on something. Fuck, fuck, fuck- why was he messing up so badly?
The door burst open, a tall man with orange hair running in, then catching himself.
“Sorry, I’m late!” He calls then drops his things. Steve hears him curse under his breath, then he walks up to him, helping reassort the papers.
“Hey, dude, breathe. You’re actually early.” He says softly. He freezes up, and Steve takes that opportunity to look at him closer. Probably just showered, tall and looking very scared.
“Oh, sorry. I’m Apollo Willems, the new teaching assistant.” He clears his throat and waves awkwardly at the class. A few kids cheer excitedly and ask him several questions.
“Do you have pets?” Charlotte asks curiously.
“How long will you be here for?” Harley chips in.
“Can you teach me to play piano? You look like you could.” Willa smiles excitedly.
Steve laughs.
“Class, calm down. Don’t scare our new assistant.” He orders, playfully stern. They giggle and wave at Apollo, who nervously waves back. Steve puts a hand on his shoulder comfortingly.
“You guys can call me Apollo. I have two cats and a dog. I hope to be here for at least the rest of the year and if your teacher here has a piano, I’d be willing to play and maybe teach you.” He smiles, it looking genuine but distant.
“There’s one under the tarp over there,” Steve pipes up. Apollo meets his gaze and walks over to the tarp to lift it off.
The piano is dusty, since Steve hasn’t really had a chance to use it, but Apollo pays it no mind and just wipes it off the keys. His fingers find home on a few keys, pressing down gently as if to get in the mood for playing. The kids are all quiet, watching Apollo.
He begins to play a beautiful melody, Steve already getting lost in the keys he presses. Apollo is really good at playing the perfect song, quickly catching everyone’s attention with a singular touch to the keys.
The kids and Steve are mesmerized, even Hafu pops in at one point to listen. When he’s done, he flushes awkwardly at the attention.
“I’m not the best, sorry.” He says quickly. Steve’s eyes widen with disbelief.
“Dude, that’s the best piano playing I’ve heard in a while.” He declares, Apollo blinking in shock from the praise.
“O-oh. Thanks.” He smiles awkwardly. The bell rings and the kids line up by the door.
Apollo waves to them as a goodbye and sits down next to Steve’s desk.
“So, I should properly introduce myself, huh?” He chuckles wryly. Steve blinks.
“I mean, sure. If you want to.” He lays back in the chair, still glancing at Apollo.
“As I said, I’m Apollo Willems. I haven’t really taught before but I like kids, when they’re not too crazy. I have a bachelor’s degree in music and worked in a music store before coming here. I came here for a change of pace. I’ve composed a few piano pieces, but that’s really it.” He rambles, then Apollo looks at him expectantly.
“Oh, right. I’m Steven Suptic but you can just call me Steve. I’ve been working here since I got my bachelor in music. I make music as an artist called SUGR?. It’s good to meet you, man.” He answers. Apollo sighs in relief, sagging in the chair.
“So, what do we do at the good Crewfu Elementary?” He jokes after a moment.
Steve glances at his schedule.
“I have prep right now, so really nothing. D’you maybe wanna exchange numbers in case we need to call in sick or something?” He asks abruptly. Apollo’s eyes widen, shell-shocked, but he nods and pulls out his phone. Steve notices his background is a furry, and he even had furry stickers on his binder.
“I don’t mean this in any offense at all, but are you a furry? I noticed the stickers and now your wallpaper,” Steve blurts suddenly.
Apollo is a bright shade of pink now, nodding slightly, hesitating to take Steve’s phone.
“Dude, that’s so cool. I bet you’re a doggie. A dumb dog. Dumbdog, huh, that rolls off the tongue nicely,” Steve says, mostly to himself. Apollo snickers and snatches Steve’s phone to write his number and his name. When Steve gets it back, he promptly changes the name to Dumbdog and demands a fursuit picture for the icon.
When they’re all done with phone numbers and shit, Steve fumbles with his vape and takes a drag, trying to remember what flavour he’d bought. Oh, right. Mango. Apollo smirks with amusement.
“Isn’t that unprofessional?” He squints at the vape but Steve can tell from his tone he doesn’t care, just is making an effort to annoy Steve.
“Boohoo,” He pouts jokingly, striking a laugh from Apollo.
“I need something to get through the day. You haven’t met these kids, you don’t understand,” He substitutes the rest of the sentence for another drag of the vape. To his surprise, Apollo pulls out a can of a mango flavoured energy drink. Monster, Mango Loco the can reads.
“You think I didn’t come prepared?” He has the grace to look offended, so Steve just takes another drag rather than answering. He rips the soda tab off, the drink nearly exploding on both of them. Steve laughs, tears beginning to form at the sides of his eyes.
Apollo narrows his eyes and takes a sip of it, humming contentedly.
“Cheers to a mango-flavoured world?” Apollo holds out the drink, Steve bumping his vape against it quickly, then taking a drag while looking in his piercing blue eyes.
The bell rings again, and Steve quickly shoves his vape in the back pocket of his bag, not wanting to set a horrible example for the next kids.
Every set of students had liked Apollo. The furry seemed to like the students. Perhaps the new assistant would be even better than Tina.
She’d made an impact on the kids, that was for sure, but they’d instantly clicked with Apollo, which they’d never done for any of Steve’s past assistants. Even Steve had clicked with Apollo fairly quickly. They complemented each other fairly well, despite Apollo’s earlier nerves. At least they would continue getting along.