Chapter Text
Scara watched students trickle into the lecture hall, one by one. Hot, dry air swept through the open doors, determined to drag the lecture hall toward thermal equilibrium with the August afternoon. He sat in a chair next to the podium his professor stood behind. Behind him, Professor Kusanali had already written "Happy First Day of Physics 1!" across the chalkboard. The projector hanging from the ceiling cast the same message across the screens above the chalkboard.
“What do you think?” Professor Kusanali whispered to him, watching students find seats and pull out their notebooks and laptops.
“Doesn’t seem like a bad batch,” Scara shrugged. “At least, they seem better than last year.” He shivered, remembering the rambunctious students from his first year of TAing.
Professor Kusanali laughed. “We’ll see.” She walked back to the lectern. She looked out across the sea of students, waiting for them to grow silent.
Scara followed her lead. A few students in the middle already had pencils in hand, notebooks open, staring quietly towards the front of the room. In the back, a handful of underclassmen quietly passed their phones back and forth. Scara remembered what being a freshman felt like– awkward, lonely, desperate to make friends. The front row was somehow the loudest. A group of fraternity guys shoved each other around while arguing over something incomprehensible, and a few girls beside them chewed gum and were chatting animatedly as if class hadn’t started yet. One particularly obnoxious frat bro laughed boisterously, balancing his chair on two legs while his feet were on the desk. His ginger hair stuck out messily under his Ralph Lauren baseball cap.
The ginger in the front row caught him looking and grinned.
Scara looked away quickly, turning his head to hide his blush. Maybe this class wasn't any better than last year's after all.
Professor Kusanali tapped the microphone built into the lectern, waiting for the room to quiet down.
“Hello everyone, and welcome to Physics 1,” she said, her soft voice soothing in the cool room. “Most of you are probably here for the lab credit, but I hope once you finish this class you’ll have fallen in love with physics.”
A few stifled laughs from the front row.
“Who here is a freshman?”
The majority of the room raised their hand.
“Who is a sophomore?”
A few hands went up.
“Who is a junior?”
One person.
“And seniors?”
5-6 people raised their hands.
“Well, regardless of grade, I hope you all will take something valuable from this class. Now, for introductions. My name is Professor Kusanali…”
Scara had long since memorized Professor Kusanali's introduction. Gardening. Reading. Favorite equation. Same as every semester.
“Scaramouche?” Scara blinked, realizing Professor Kusanali was holding out the slideshow clicker for him. He nodded, standing up and taking it. He clicked to his slide, then coughed and leaned into the microphone.
“I’m Scaramouche,” he said, his voice monotone. “I’m in my third year. I’m a physics major. I’ll be your TA this semester.” He handed the clicker back to Professor Kusanali, glancing up at his bare slide as he walked back to his chair. It was a plain white, empty besides his name and a picture of his cat Higgs.
A hand shot into the air.
Professor Kusanali sighed. "Yes?"
The ginger in the front row grinned widely. "Can Higgs hold office hours instead?"
The lecture hall erupted into laughter. Scara wished the floor would collapse into a singularity and take him with it.
Scara opened his mouth, a snarky retort on the tip of his tongue, but quickly suppressed it at the feeling of Professor Kusanali’s cool, small hand on his arm.
She removed her hand, and Scara sat down. He hated swallowing his pride, but he had no choice. He needed to stay professional.
As Professor Kusanali reviewed the syllabus, reminding the students that they should have read chapters 1-5 of the textbook already, Scara pulled out his computer. He scrolled his email, deleting spam and responding to his research advisor. Then he opened his message app.
He clicked through texts from his friends, laughing quietly at Cyno’s puns and Kazuha’s exclamations of how the freshman this year were more stupid than usual.
Scara looked up, scanning the room to make sure no one noticed he wasn’t paying attention. His gaze landed on the ginger in the front row, whose blue eyes were trained intently on his. Scara started in his seat, then narrowed his eyes at the freshman. He looked back down, ignoring his smirk.
“Alright, class! That’s– oh wait, that reminds me,” Professor Kusanali's smile turned just a little too sweet as students began to stand up and pack their bags. Everyone stopped. “I forgot, I have a pop quiz for you all! So please sit down as Scaramouche and I hand these out.”
Everyone groaned. Scara laughed internally. Professor Kusanali told him long ago that she only did the pop quizzes when a class was extraordinarily disobedient, which apparently this group had proved to be (not that Scara noticed as he scrolled Twitter the whole period).
"A pop quiz? On the first day?" it was the red head again.
Professor Kusanali smiled sweetly. “Yes.”
"I was told college would be different," the frat guy sighed dramatically, pulling laughter from the room again.
You were told wrong, Scara thought.
Scara finished handing out all the papers, and sat back down at the front of the room. After 10 minutes, Professor Kusanali tapped on the microphone and announced that all quizzes would be returned to Scaramouche.
Scara stood with open hands as everyone walked towards him. Some students smiled politely at him, while some glared, shoving their quizzes at him. Scara just stayed still, his resting bitch face speaking for him.
"Go easy on me, TA,” the ginger said once reaching Scara. A few of his frat brothers laughed behind him.
Scara glanced down. The page was almost blank. "Wasn't planning to."
***
Scara stepped into the library that evening, scanning his student ID and clocking in on the student staff clipboard before beelining for the vending machine. His research advisor, who he had met with that afternoon, had already piled work on Scara. He had a feeling tonight would be a late one, and he needed caffeine.
After paying, he cracked open his Red Bull and took a long swig, then sat down behind the return counter.
He sighed, pulling out his clunky laptop and headphones. He opened his music app, selecting his favorite homework playlist. Then he pulled up his coding software.
After an hour or so of typing away, he stopped. He could’ve sworn, over the sound of his music, there were people shouting. He paused the song he was listening to.
Yep. There were people shouting in the library.
Scara cursed under his breath. He took off his headphones, fast-walking in the direction of the noise. He ignored people around him looking up from their studies as he stormed by.
Finally, he turned a corner and spotted the source of the yelling. At a table sat four guys, and from their baseball caps and tank tops Scara could tell they were frat guys.
One guy with a navy ponytail was cheering. Next to him, a guy with a hat and long white hair was arm wrestling– you guessed it– a ginger, his hat backwards. Next to them was a guy with grey hair, whose posture was impeccable as he read his book, ignoring the fray next to him.
Scara scoffed. He walked up to the table, waving to get their attention. The navy-haired guy immediately stopped, a smile growing across his face. The ginger looked up, which promptly led to the white haired guy slamming his fist to the table, jumping up, and hollering in victory. The book-worm didn’t even look up.
The guy with the ponytail pulled the white-haired guy back down by the back of his shirt, who sat with wide eyes once he noticed Scara. He took off his hat and ran a hand through his hair nervously before putting it back on.
“This is a library, you know,” Scara said, trying to stay calm. Kazuha was right, the freshmen were abnormally dumb this year.
“Sorry upperclassman-sama,” the navy-haired guy drawled. The guy with the white hair laughed, then slapped a hand over his mouth loudly.
“Hey, you’re my TA!” the ginger exclaimed. “Scar… Scaramouche, right? Or should I call you Scara? Or Mouchie?”
Scara groaned internally. This guy was like a plague. “Definitely not Mouchie. Please try to stay quiet in the library.”
“Scara it is!” the ginger said brightly. “I’m Childe! And this is Kaeya–” he pointed to the guy with the navy ponytail. “Itto is the one with the tattoos, and Alhaitham is the one whose face is always stuck in a book.” Each frat guy waved or smiled (or in Alhaitham’s case, did nothing) when Childe said their name.
“Great. Now, please be quiet or I’ll have to kick you out,” Scara said.
“Sorry, sorry,” Childe said, smirking. “We’ll remember to be quiet. Especially because we’ll be here so often.” He laughed.
Scara frowned. “What do you mean?”
“I got elected education chair of the frat,” Childe explained. “They reserve it as a punishment for one of the freshmen. I have to hold study hours three times a week.” Childe sighed and shook his head dramatically. “It really is a shame.” Then he looked up, smiling widely at Scara. “That means I’ll be seeing you a lot! Wait– I was meaning to ask you at the end of class…” he trailed off, biting his lip, his canines sharp.
“What?” Scara said. Why was he even telling him all this? What a weirdo.
“Will you tutor me? 20 bucks an hour?” Childe said. He blinked up at Scara from where he was sitting.
Scara stared down at him, eyes narrowing.
“No.”
“40?”
“No.”
Scara turned on his hell and left before Childe could propose an even higher number.