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Description

  Closing the door behind you, you readjusted your backpack and started down the sidewalk towards your school in the distance. There were barely any cars out now, they wouldn’t be out until much later when sensible people would wake up.

  Unfortunately for you, the school system is by no means sensible. Your schedule for school was getting up at 6am, leaving for the bus around 6:40am, and not getting home until 4pm.

  You were confident though, since this was the last semester of your senior year. Everything you needed for this last year; your senior pictures (which looked awful in your opinion, but don’t tell that to your family), cap and gown, and yearbook; were all paid thankfully with birthday and Christmas money.

  A few minutes later, you entered your school and sat at an empty table in the cafeteria, pulling out your phone and turning your attention to it. Your eyelids grew heavy, and it reminded you of the rough sleep you had. But it’d be almost suicide to fall asleep now. Who knows what the underclassmen would do to do while you slept?

“Hi, mind if we sit here?” A cheery voice asked you. You jerked your head up and looked at the two boys standing there with their breakfast trays. A smaller boy with glasses and black hair, and a taller boy with blond hair and shades.

“Sure, go ahead.” You said quickly, moving your backpack onto the floor from beside you, just incase more people decided to show up. In your experience, people seemed to flock to your table for some reason.

“Thanks!” The small boy chirped, showing off his bucked teeth. You smiled meekly at him. “I’m John Egbert by the way. Vice president of the Game Club, but I’m also in GSA and a couple other things!” He told you. You nodded, seemingly going along with it, but with how tired you were, you just wanted to browse on your phone in peace.

  John looked at you for a moment, almost studying you, while the other guy just stared off at the window beside you. Or at least, that’s what it looked like. Who even wears shades inside, or even outside when it’s still almost pitch black?

“I think I’ve seen you in GSA before actually!” John exclaimed.

“Really? I haven’t been to a meeting in a while,” You said, hoping he’d take a hint.

“Yeah, you were sitting near the back! I noticed a couple people talking to you, but I didn’t see your name,” He trailed off.

“I’m (f/n) (l/n). I’m the secretary of the Foreign Language club.” Although not by choice, you thought bitterly. You didn’t even ask for people to vote for you, but apparently you got majority vote. Whatever, it’d be something to tell your college, if you decided to go.

“Hi (y/n)! Are you a junior or a senior?” John asked.

“Senior, actually.” You told him. God he’s talkative, you told yourself.

“Nice! Dave and I are juniors.”

You let out a grunt and flickered your eyes down to your phone, sliding down the page you were on.

“So are you purposely this rude, or does it just happen spontaneously?” A deeper voice asked you.

  You looked up to see the guy with shades, Dave perhaps, staring at you with a stern look on his face, and John lightly slapped his arm and started whispering to him.

“Excuse me?” You asked, getting ready to grab your backpack and leave.

“I mean, literally John here is trying to be nice since you looked so lonely, but you just fucking blew him off. How shallow can you get, am I right?” Dave said.

“Yeah ok, bye.” You sneered, slinging your backpack over your shoulder and shoving your phone in your pocket, starting off with a stomp.

“No (y/n) wait!” John exclaimed. You stopped and turned around. John’s face was bright red, and he started messing with his fingers.

“Yes?” You asked, still ready to leave.

“Sorry about Dave, he’s blunt to the point of it being rude. I don’t mind you wanting to mess on your phone. Sit back down, and I promise Dave will shut up.” He smiled cheekily.

“And how the hell are you gonna do that?” Dave looked over at him. You gave him a sly smile and Dave glared back.

  As the three of you idled in conversation, the bell eventually rang and everyone started pouring out of the cafeteria towards their classes. John and Dave stood up, swinging their backpacks over them and looking at you.

“We actually have to go, (y/n). Dave has to retake a quiz and I have to go meet my sister.” John explained. You smiled.

“Oh okay, see you guys later then,” You picked up your backpack from the floor to beside you.

“Yeah but we’ll totally be back to torment you tomorrow.” Dave added. “Anyone could find you in a crowd.” He said snidely.

“How so?” You groaned, ready for his snarky comeback. It was amazing how much of a negative first impression he had left on you after just talking to him for a few minutes. Now John, he was fine, but Dave was on a new level of rude to strangers that you hadn’t encountered in a while.

“If we need to find you, just look for the one person in the cafeteria at a table by themselves.” He chuckled, turning away with John to leave. You huffed and turned your head sharply away from that blond asshole and sat there for a few more minutes until most of the people had left, then picked up your backpack and started out towards your first class.

  Everyday, without fail, John and Dave showed up at your table. Sometimes the three of you would just sit there, silent, doing your own things, and sometimes you could actually find things to talk about.

  You honestly could hardly believe that you were able to easily talk to juniors like this. It was refreshing, especially since the juniors in some of your classes were assholes, acting like they were powerful because they got called upperclassmen once at the beginning of the school year.

  It was a good way to wake you up in the morning, or give you time by yourself if you needed it. You noticed that Dave would ramble on about anything and everything if given the chance, like the one time you were almost late to class because he somehow connected Bill Clinton to the Infinite Universes Theory (although you blanked out for most of it, but it sure lasted for a while).

  Before you knew it, it was close to spring break, which would be your last break from school before graduation. You were terrified of that thought, since school was almost all you knew, and there’d be so many things to do afterwards.

  You were fiddling with a keychain on your backpack, the thoughts flowing through your mind, when Dave spoke up.

“Yo (y/n), something up?” He asked. “Because you look like a chicken who just got its head cut off and now has no purpose in life. I mean, other than that one chicken whose head got cut off and it still lived for a while and performed for people but it needed like constant supervision and- hey uh nevermind that just what’s up with you?” He asked.

“Just thinking about graduation.” You mumbled.

“Oh right, this is going to be your last spring break!” John exclaimed. “Wow, time flies, huh?” He chuckled. You didn’t answer, just smiling weakly. He cleared his throat. “Well hey, how about this! (Y/n), you give us your number, and we’ll give you ours, that way so if we’re on break or even out of school forever, we can contact each other! How does that sound?”

  Without getting a response from you or Dave, John slid his phone over to you, a cheeky grin on his face. You took it and put yourself in his contacts, setting your picture as some obscure shaving cream brand in his photos. He took it back and snorted when he saw the picture.

  You traded numbers with Dave as well and texted them both to check. It felt...oddly soothing to have them available whenever you needed them, even though you had never needed to talk to anyone that urgently before. You were checking the pictures they set for themselves when a feminine voice broke through.

“So this is where you’ve been, John.” You looked up to see an ethereal lady with short blond hair and purple eyes. Her lips were painted delicately with black lipstick and she had a light pink and blue backpack thrown over her shoulder.

“Hi Rose, what’s up?” John asked. Rose’s lips curled upwards.

“Looking for you. Karkat and Kanaya have decided to have a school visit and want to see you. Can you spare a few minutes?” She asked.

“Yeah, sure!” John stood up. “I’ll see you later, guys!” He smiled and walked off with Rose.

You and Dave traded glances, or that was how it appeared to you, and then down at your phones.

“So who’s Rose? John’s girlfriend?” You asked with a coy smile. Dave huffed with a slight curl of his lips.

“Hell no. Rose is engaged to Kanaya.” He told you. “Nah, Rose is my sister.” He admitted. You sniffed.

“How unfortunate for her.” You joked, giving him a grin.

“Ouch. How am I ever going to recover from that scalding burn I’ve just received?” He scoffed, taking a drink from his water bottle.

  You averted your eyes down to the table, tapping it with your fingers, a sly smile on your face. It was much more awkward without John here, as he always knew how to continue the conversation. But Dave was good at rambling, but not good at coming up with the starting subject.

  You shook your head and rested your head in your palm, you elbow against the cold table. Dave pulled out an ipad and opened an app, playing with the settings, the light reflecting against his shades.

“You make music?” You pointed at the app. He glanced up at you, then back down and nodded. “Nice. So is it actually good or is it mediocre?”

“What kind of person is gonna say their music sucks? Of course it’s good. It’s fucking awesome, that’s what my music is. Here, scoot your ass over here beside me and listen to this fucking bop.” He told you, scooting over and plugging a pair of earbuds into the slot.

  You plopped down beside him and put in one earbud into your ear, and Dave did the same with the opposite earbud.

“Okay so this one is experimental, but this one, ooooh, this one is good.” Dave started, his finger hovering over a track named “wrote this one while taking a dump 2k18”, and you chuckled at the name. “Name aside,” He looked at you with his lips pressed tight together. “This one is really good because like, listen to how the bass drops around the 30 second mark, and then it builds up over time and that’s just damn quality.” He pressed play and watched you with a slight smirk on his face.

  All in all, the song wasn’t bad. It was upbeat, almost like dubstep, but had other elements through in, although those were barely noticeable. While it wasn’t professional, especially on his ipad app, it showed that he was passionate about it.

“Wow, that’s not bad.” You finally said as the music faded out completely, giving him his earbud back. “Very upbeat. Woke me up.”

“Damn straight it’s not bad.” Dave said, putting his ipad to sleep and slipping it back into his backpack.

  At this point, you weren’t sure if you should stay sitting there beside him or move back over to your side, but thankfully, you came up with an excuse and got up to buy a water bottle. As you walked back over to your table, the bell rang, and Dave zipped up his backpack.

“Guess I’ll see you tomorrow?” You smiled, upcapping the water bottle and taking a small drink. He nodded.

“Guess so.” He looked at you for a second, then turned and started off into crowd of people. You watched him leave, then put your water bottle into your side pocket and walked to the end of the crowd, clenching your teeth as some freshmen pushed into you “on accident”.

  As you walked towards your first period, you thought of Dave with some confusion. Out of all people to befriend, why him?

  You had seen him once in the school newspaper when they passed them out in your homeroom last year. He had gotten a scholarship for his music and photography, but the pictures he had taken and put in the newspaper were honestly a bit mediocre. But as you just experienced, his music wasn’t half bad. It could definitely improve, but for now, he was doing fine.

  You stopped that thought. Calling Dave “fine” was like calling slamming your hand down on a cactus “fine”. He was rude, awkward, talkative, narcissistic, and so many other things it made you roll your eyes instinctively.

  Still; you thought, gripping your backpack straps; he was also funny and talented. Not that those made up for his negative traits, but it sure helped to push those aside. You were happy he had John to check him on his traits, although you’ve seen him check John occasionally.

  You let out a small grunt and pushed open the door to the school, walking out into the cold air towards the second building where your class was.

  Perhaps, you decided, having Dave as an acquaintance might not be torture like you had first guessed. This could be a turn in your final days as a senior; having two friends to hang out with and be “buds” with (you could blame John for suggesting that word).

  Even though your impending graduation and future life threatened to swallow your completely in anxiety, your head and body felt lighter than they had in a while, and you walked into the second building with a new confidence.

Description

  Closing the door behind you, you readjusted your backpack and started down the sidewalk towards your school in the distance. There were barely any cars out now, they wouldn’t be out until much later when sensible people would wake up.

  Unfortunately for you, the school system is by no means sensible. Your schedule for school was getting up at 6am, leaving for the bus around 6:40am, and not getting home until 4pm.

  You were confident though, since this was the last semester of your senior year. Everything you needed for this last year; your senior pictures (which looked awful in your opinion, but don’t tell that to your family), cap and gown, and yearbook; were all paid thankfully with birthday and Christmas money.

  A few minutes later, you entered your school and sat at an empty table in the cafeteria, pulling out your phone and turning your attention to it. Your eyelids grew heavy, and it reminded you of the rough sleep you had. But it’d be almost suicide to fall asleep now. Who knows what the underclassmen would do to do while you slept?

“Hi, mind if we sit here?” A cheery voice asked you. You jerked your head up and looked at the two boys standing there with their breakfast trays. A smaller boy with glasses and black hair, and a taller boy with blond hair and shades.

“Sure, go ahead.” You said quickly, moving your backpack onto the floor from beside you, just incase more people decided to show up. In your experience, people seemed to flock to your table for some reason.

“Thanks!” The small boy chirped, showing off his bucked teeth. You smiled meekly at him. “I’m John Egbert by the way. Vice president of the Game Club, but I’m also in GSA and a couple other things!” He told you. You nodded, seemingly going along with it, but with how tired you were, you just wanted to browse on your phone in peace.

  John looked at you for a moment, almost studying you, while the other guy just stared off at the window beside you. Or at least, that’s what it looked like. Who even wears shades inside, or even outside when it’s still almost pitch black?

“I think I’ve seen you in GSA before actually!” John exclaimed.

“Really? I haven’t been to a meeting in a while,” You said, hoping he’d take a hint.

“Yeah, you were sitting near the back! I noticed a couple people talking to you, but I didn’t see your name,” He trailed off.

“I’m (f/n) (l/n). I’m the secretary of the Foreign Language club.” Although not by choice, you thought bitterly. You didn’t even ask for people to vote for you, but apparently you got majority vote. Whatever, it’d be something to tell your college, if you decided to go.

“Hi (y/n)! Are you a junior or a senior?” John asked.

“Senior, actually.” You told him. God he’s talkative, you told yourself.

“Nice! Dave and I are juniors.”

You let out a grunt and flickered your eyes down to your phone, sliding down the page you were on.

“So are you purposely this rude, or does it just happen spontaneously?” A deeper voice asked you.

  You looked up to see the guy with shades, Dave perhaps, staring at you with a stern look on his face, and John lightly slapped his arm and started whispering to him.

“Excuse me?” You asked, getting ready to grab your backpack and leave.

“I mean, literally John here is trying to be nice since you looked so lonely, but you just fucking blew him off. How shallow can you get, am I right?” Dave said.

“Yeah ok, bye.” You sneered, slinging your backpack over your shoulder and shoving your phone in your pocket, starting off with a stomp.

“No (y/n) wait!” John exclaimed. You stopped and turned around. John’s face was bright red, and he started messing with his fingers.

“Yes?” You asked, still ready to leave.

“Sorry about Dave, he’s blunt to the point of it being rude. I don’t mind you wanting to mess on your phone. Sit back down, and I promise Dave will shut up.” He smiled cheekily.

“And how the hell are you gonna do that?” Dave looked over at him. You gave him a sly smile and Dave glared back.

  As the three of you idled in conversation, the bell eventually rang and everyone started pouring out of the cafeteria towards their classes. John and Dave stood up, swinging their backpacks over them and looking at you.

“We actually have to go, (y/n). Dave has to retake a quiz and I have to go meet my sister.” John explained. You smiled.

“Oh okay, see you guys later then,” You picked up your backpack from the floor to beside you.

“Yeah but we’ll totally be back to torment you tomorrow.” Dave added. “Anyone could find you in a crowd.” He said snidely.

“How so?” You groaned, ready for his snarky comeback. It was amazing how much of a negative first impression he had left on you after just talking to him for a few minutes. Now John, he was fine, but Dave was on a new level of rude to strangers that you hadn’t encountered in a while.

“If we need to find you, just look for the one person in the cafeteria at a table by themselves.” He chuckled, turning away with John to leave. You huffed and turned your head sharply away from that blond asshole and sat there for a few more minutes until most of the people had left, then picked up your backpack and started out towards your first class.

  Everyday, without fail, John and Dave showed up at your table. Sometimes the three of you would just sit there, silent, doing your own things, and sometimes you could actually find things to talk about.

  You honestly could hardly believe that you were able to easily talk to juniors like this. It was refreshing, especially since the juniors in some of your classes were assholes, acting like they were powerful because they got called upperclassmen once at the beginning of the school year.

  It was a good way to wake you up in the morning, or give you time by yourself if you needed it. You noticed that Dave would ramble on about anything and everything if given the chance, like the one time you were almost late to class because he somehow connected Bill Clinton to the Infinite Universes Theory (although you blanked out for most of it, but it sure lasted for a while).

  Before you knew it, it was close to spring break, which would be your last break from school before graduation. You were terrified of that thought, since school was almost all you knew, and there’d be so many things to do afterwards.

  You were fiddling with a keychain on your backpack, the thoughts flowing through your mind, when Dave spoke up.

“Yo (y/n), something up?” He asked. “Because you look like a chicken who just got its head cut off and now has no purpose in life. I mean, other than that one chicken whose head got cut off and it still lived for a while and performed for people but it needed like constant supervision and- hey uh nevermind that just what’s up with you?” He asked.

“Just thinking about graduation.” You mumbled.

“Oh right, this is going to be your last spring break!” John exclaimed. “Wow, time flies, huh?” He chuckled. You didn’t answer, just smiling weakly. He cleared his throat. “Well hey, how about this! (Y/n), you give us your number, and we’ll give you ours, that way so if we’re on break or even out of school forever, we can contact each other! How does that sound?”

  Without getting a response from you or Dave, John slid his phone over to you, a cheeky grin on his face. You took it and put yourself in his contacts, setting your picture as some obscure shaving cream brand in his photos. He took it back and snorted when he saw the picture.

  You traded numbers with Dave as well and texted them both to check. It felt...oddly soothing to have them available whenever you needed them, even though you had never needed to talk to anyone that urgently before. You were checking the pictures they set for themselves when a feminine voice broke through.

“So this is where you’ve been, John.” You looked up to see an ethereal lady with short blond hair and purple eyes. Her lips were painted delicately with black lipstick and she had a light pink and blue backpack thrown over her shoulder.

“Hi Rose, what’s up?” John asked. Rose’s lips curled upwards.

“Looking for you. Karkat and Kanaya have decided to have a school visit and want to see you. Can you spare a few minutes?” She asked.

“Yeah, sure!” John stood up. “I’ll see you later, guys!” He smiled and walked off with Rose.

You and Dave traded glances, or that was how it appeared to you, and then down at your phones.

“So who’s Rose? John’s girlfriend?” You asked with a coy smile. Dave huffed with a slight curl of his lips.

“Hell no. Rose is engaged to Kanaya.” He told you. “Nah, Rose is my sister.” He admitted. You sniffed.

“How unfortunate for her.” You joked, giving him a grin.

“Ouch. How am I ever going to recover from that scalding burn I’ve just received?” He scoffed, taking a drink from his water bottle.

  You averted your eyes down to the table, tapping it with your fingers, a sly smile on your face. It was much more awkward without John here, as he always knew how to continue the conversation. But Dave was good at rambling, but not good at coming up with the starting subject.

  You shook your head and rested your head in your palm, you elbow against the cold table. Dave pulled out an ipad and opened an app, playing with the settings, the light reflecting against his shades.

“You make music?” You pointed at the app. He glanced up at you, then back down and nodded. “Nice. So is it actually good or is it mediocre?”

“What kind of person is gonna say their music sucks? Of course it’s good. It’s fucking awesome, that’s what my music is. Here, scoot your ass over here beside me and listen to this fucking bop.” He told you, scooting over and plugging a pair of earbuds into the slot.

  You plopped down beside him and put in one earbud into your ear, and Dave did the same with the opposite earbud.

“Okay so this one is experimental, but this one, ooooh, this one is good.” Dave started, his finger hovering over a track named “wrote this one while taking a dump 2k18”, and you chuckled at the name. “Name aside,” He looked at you with his lips pressed tight together. “This one is really good because like, listen to how the bass drops around the 30 second mark, and then it builds up over time and that’s just damn quality.” He pressed play and watched you with a slight smirk on his face.

  All in all, the song wasn’t bad. It was upbeat, almost like dubstep, but had other elements through in, although those were barely noticeable. While it wasn’t professional, especially on his ipad app, it showed that he was passionate about it.

“Wow, that’s not bad.” You finally said as the music faded out completely, giving him his earbud back. “Very upbeat. Woke me up.”

“Damn straight it’s not bad.” Dave said, putting his ipad to sleep and slipping it back into his backpack.

  At this point, you weren’t sure if you should stay sitting there beside him or move back over to your side, but thankfully, you came up with an excuse and got up to buy a water bottle. As you walked back over to your table, the bell rang, and Dave zipped up his backpack.

“Guess I’ll see you tomorrow?” You smiled, upcapping the water bottle and taking a small drink. He nodded.

“Guess so.” He looked at you for a second, then turned and started off into crowd of people. You watched him leave, then put your water bottle into your side pocket and walked to the end of the crowd, clenching your teeth as some freshmen pushed into you “on accident”.

  As you walked towards your first period, you thought of Dave with some confusion. Out of all people to befriend, why him?

  You had seen him once in the school newspaper when they passed them out in your homeroom last year. He had gotten a scholarship for his music and photography, but the pictures he had taken and put in the newspaper were honestly a bit mediocre. But as you just experienced, his music wasn’t half bad. It could definitely improve, but for now, he was doing fine.

  You stopped that thought. Calling Dave “fine” was like calling slamming your hand down on a cactus “fine”. He was rude, awkward, talkative, narcissistic, and so many other things it made you roll your eyes instinctively.

  Still; you thought, gripping your backpack straps; he was also funny and talented. Not that those made up for his negative traits, but it sure helped to push those aside. You were happy he had John to check him on his traits, although you’ve seen him check John occasionally.

  You let out a small grunt and pushed open the door to the school, walking out into the cold air towards the second building where your class was.

  Perhaps, you decided, having Dave as an acquaintance might not be torture like you had first guessed. This could be a turn in your final days as a senior; having two friends to hang out with and be “buds” with (you could blame John for suggesting that word).

  Even though your impending graduation and future life threatened to swallow your completely in anxiety, your head and body felt lighter than they had in a while, and you walked into the second building with a new confidence.