Rain slashed the windows while Tiberius gnawed the inside of his cheek until he tasted copper. Fucking English class dragged on like a death march, Mrs. Harrington's voice fading into white noise as he jabbed his mechanical pencil into his thigh under the desk. The classroom smelled like wet clothes and resignation, thirty bodies trapped in fluorescent purgatory while the world drowned outside.
His backpack bulged with other people's futures, homework completed with perfect details, each assignment a transaction, each A+ a testament to his superiority over these fucking sheep. The Homework Club's ledger lived rent-free in his head, a beast of his own creation: twenty-three papers ($8.50 each for basic shit), four lab reports ($45 for the hard sciences, $32 for the soft), seven quizzes ($12 flat rate). $437.50 total. The algorithm never failed, unlike people, unlike parents, unlike every goddamn promise the world had ever made to him.
But one assignment carried more value than its monetary worth.
"Fuck," he muttered under his breath, his eyes flicking from the rain-streaked window to scan the classroom.
Keagan slouched two rows ahead, his man-bun wobbling with each nod of his head, the rat-tail braid dangling like some kind of fashion parasite. The tattoos crawling up his neck looked like they'd been designed by a toddler with access to their first box of markers. Three buttons undone on his polo like he thought he was some kind of discount fuckboy.
Ewan's massive frame occupied a desk that seemed comically small for him, his blue and blonde dreads hanging like dirty rope around his face. The religious pinup girls tattooed on his forearms made Tiberius want to vomit, Virgin Mary with tits out was neither clever nor ironic, just fucking stupid. The camo jacket stretched tight across his shoulders reeked of trauma and cheap cologne.
Terrence's eyes darted around the room, with pupils blown wide from whatever he'd snorted in the bathroom before class. His massive hockey enforcer hands couldn't stop fidgeting, and a thin sheen of sweat glistened on his forehead despite the room being cold as shit, it was pathetic, really.
But then—
The sight hit Tiberius like a physical force, pulling air into his lungs in a sudden, involuntary gasp. He quickly looked down at his notebook, with a heart hammering against his ribs powered by humiliating intensity.
"Get your shit together," he whispered to himself, focusing on the sketch he'd been absently working on. The anime-style drawing was crude but recognizable, himself, drawn with exaggerated features and confident posture, standing beside a smaller figure with careful attention to certain details. He'd redrawn the hands seven times.
The bell's harsh ring sent a jolt through Tiberius's body. He shoved the notebook into his bag with an unusual clumsiness, nearly dropping his calculator in the process.
"Move," he hissed at a student who blocked his path as he darted into the hallway, scanning the crowd with laser focus. There, moving toward the science wing.
Tiberius weaved through the mass of bodies, ignoring the protests of those he shouldered aside. His carefully rehearsed words played on repeat in his mind, a script he'd perfected over three extremely sleepless nights.
"Hey!" he called out, his voice cracking embarrassingly. Clearing his throat, he tried again. "Yo, hold up a sec."
When he finally caught up, the words tumbled out in a rush that didn't match the confidence he'd practiced in the mirror so many times.
"Look, about that Bio lab report—that shit was way harder than I expected. Had to pull an all-nighter to make it perfect." A blatant lie, he'd finished it in ninety minutes while simultaneously moderating a heated debate about Evangelion on an obscure forum. "So I'm gonna need some additional compensation. Or—" he swallowed, his mouth was suddenly too dry, "—or maybe we could discuss alternative payment. Like, I don't know, maybe you could, like, go out with me this Friday? To that new ramen place downtown? I mean, it would actually save you money, so it's like, the logical choice, you know what I'm saying?"
