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Dying on the inside certainly wasn’t the worst thing that could ever happen to Idia, but it was definitely one of the top five sensations that he wished he didn’t have to live with on a day to day basis. It was a feeling that had plagued him for a long time now, but it seemed that the occurrence of such a feeling seemed to happen with higher frequency after he had first started attending Night Raven College. It didn’t take long to amass data points and map it out onto a graph: the points were clear and simple.
Out of everyone else in that hallowed institution, Idia Shroud was a being ‘other’ than the rest of them.
Yes, there were students who sported fangs. There were those who were blessed (or perhaps even cursed) with furry ears and tails. Others still had pointed ears and a longevity that most mortals would have killed for.
However, among the treasure trove of such eccentricities, Idia was by far one of the strangest.
It was quite obvious, with the flaming hair and the inevitable display of the veritable knives that rose from his gums, that Idia would be singled out as 'strange’.
Well, that was all relative when one had to consider that there was even a student from another world! It was an interesting phenomenon and Idia was sure that there would be more of a hubbub around that student’s origins, but surprisingly, there wasn’t any. At least, Idia hadn’t observed any sort of curious reactions from any NRC students. Then again, he could relate. After all, while the magicless student definitely had main character vibes, they were not as noteworthy as other famous individuals at the school like royalty, child prodigies, and the like.
So, you would think that having a person with main character vibes would give them plot armor, but…
One should not underestimate the power of SSR Problematic Children, especially those who had orchestrated their own boss battles.
The incident happened when Idia had been busy getting a drink from one of the vending machines that was situated in one of the hallways of the school. On this particular school day, he had been tasked with the brunt of a presentation and because it had been weeks since he had set foot into an actual classroom, his professor had requested that he attend in real life. Idia tried to put up a fight (read: he had begged and pleaded via email), but his professor had cited the rubric’s requirements and that it was a mandatory project that needed his presence. Needless to say, despite the fight in Idia, he had ended up folding the instant he thought he read an irritated tone in the email correspondence.
(Idia would have definitely shown up the professor considering that the subject he was required to present was basically the fundamentals to understanding the integration of magic into technology, but decided to let the matter go.
He was merciful like that and he was above such triviality).
When the time came, Idia felt himself sweating buckets and burrowing into the safety of his hooded jacket. Why did the entire world have to be composed of extraverts? Thankfully, during the presentation, his partner had taken the reins, which meant that the Ignihyde Housewarden didn’t have to speak as much as he thought he would. It may or may not be because of the contingency plan he had constructed back when he was a lowly first year. (That is to say, Idia made sure to send a copy of the presentation and notes to his partner beforehand).
As always, his plan worked because, after all, he was a genius.
So, after a lengthy class session that involved Idia pretending to listen to his peers drone on and on about their presentations (most of which were either not well researched or as well presented…and sometimes, it was a combination of both) while he was surreptitiously playing games on his phone, Idia was thirsty. It wasn’t like he had talked much, but effort was still effort, even if it wasn’t at his one hundred percent.
And besides—
Precipice Moirai had teamed up with a lesser known energy drink that Idia had yet to taste. After having checked out the reviews, it was a widespread opinion that the energy drink wasn’t all too dissimilar to others of its kind. The taste wasn’t too remarkable and wasn’t well worth the hype except for the members of the famed idol group plastering their faces upon the tin.
To say that Idia was annoyed was an understatement. Even if Premo had teamed up with a drink that didn’t taste good, that didn’t mean that fans should turn their backs against their beloved idols! Honestly, what sort of fans were they to talk such pessimistic sentiments about something that they didn’t have to buy? Idia was loyal and he was going to drink at least one can.
And for those weirdos who left such disparaging comments on the forums… Let’s just say that they were going to be in for a treat when they finally logged back on.
As Idia punched in the correct combination that would release the sweet, sugary nectar into his waiting grasp, he heard a familiar voice in the hallway. Even if it was from a distance, he felt himself shrink a little in his oversized hoodie and his hands trembled in anxiety. Out of everyone else in this school, no other SSR Problematic Child could appear so cute and unassuming, only to reveal that he himself was as much of a problem as his contemporaries.
Riddle Rosehearts.
A taskmaster to the core, the infamous Teapot Tyrant of Heartslabyul was busy berating a first year while Idia could only watch in detached horror. Fascinatingly enough, the first year only looked faintly amused by Riddle’s seemingly heated tirade. Now that Idia thought about it (from the safety of the bulky vending machine), Riddle hadn’t raised his voice or shouted his Unique Magic. Yes, the Taskmaster had been gradually mellowed out because of his Overblot (sadly, the experience hadn’t given Riddle a debuff when it came to his perfunctory nature), but Idia had only observed from hearsay and the off chance he decided to note Riddle’s behavior during meetings.
The change wasn’t drastic, but it reminded Idia of the character development for one of the villains in a manga series he had read a few years’ ago. A scary thought to be sure. There was no way Idia could try to compare the intricacies of an award winning manga to the messiness of human nature, but the fact that he had thought of it! For a mere second!
Ughhhh… 2D was always better than 3D.
Before the Ignihyde Housewarden could suffer another meltdown that paled in comparison to the ire he felt at the idea of partnering with someone for a school project, he became all too aware that he was no longer alone at the vending machine. Now, Idia was no macho man (the S.T.Y.X. situation had certainly taught him that much), but he would rather go down into the depths of Tartarus or give access to his laptop without restriction to his mother before saying that he shrieked upon the realization.
Yes, he will admit that he emitted a high pitched sound and jumped a foot in the air at the scare.
But still.
It was nothing more than an excited exhalation of air.
Nothing more.
“Oh, gosh! Sorry about that, Idia! I thought you noticed me since I saw you watching Riddle and I earlier!” The Prefect’s voice was not as grating or as needlessly loud as some of the other students at this school—in fact, it was rather soft and apologetic—but Idia had to bury the urge to cover their mouth with his hands. (No way was he going to risk contaminating his gaming hands with someone who never heard of Premo before!)
Plus…
Taskmaster Riddle could be still lying in wait for the next person to scold!
“Q-quiet down!” Idia’s tablet may have generated his voice, but it clearly conveyed the urgency and the volume that Idia’s vocal cords would have produced. “The world may be okay with catering to the whims of the extraverted, but as an introvert, I will not bow to such societal pressures.”
The Prefect cocked their head to the side and gave Idia one long, hard look.
“For sure. Fight the power, Idia.”
Did he raise his friendship meter with the Prefect? Not that he wanted to, the Prefect was calming to talk to on most days, but that didn’t mean that they were exempt from the disease known as “sociability”. Idia didn’t do that.
“So… is that any good?”
Idia was about to ask what the Prefect meant by that question before realizing that he was still holding the energy drink (unopened). Ah, he had yet to fulfill today’s daily quest.
Idia shrugged, feeling a little bit foolish as he regarded his loot. A part of him wanted to run away or shrink into his hoodie, but it would be too troublesome to rule up the Prefect because once you piqued the Prefect’s interest, bad things happened.
Like Riddle mellowing out.
Or Leona actually taking initiative.
Or Azul—No, he hadn’t changed a bit. A shady businessman to his core, that one.
Whatever the case, Idia was so busy trying to come up with an exit strategy to leave ASAP (he had an afternoon campaign and he was AFK for too long!) that he nearly missed the Prefect’s little sigh.
HAD HE OFFENDED THEM BECAUSE HE HAD SPENT TOO MUCH TIME THINKING?
Utter madness, why did anyone willingly submit themselves to the horrors of etiquette and good manners? The rules of polite society never made that much sense to him…
“Gosh, I wish I could have some of that.” When did the Prefect step closer to inspect the can? “But if Riddle catches me overloading on sugar again, he’s going to make me help ADeuce with dressing up the flamingos for midmorning croquet.”
Three years and Heartslabyul was a puzzle that Idia was not hard pressed to solve. RIP, GG to the n00bs who thought that Heartslabyul was one of the nicer dorms.
Spoiler alert: It wasn’t.
“I know he means well, but he’s not my dad, right?”
There was a note of ruefulness in the Prefect’s voice that Idia was quick to note, but just as quickly discarded because no. Absolutely not. No, he was not going to get roped up into the Prefect’s problems. He had Board Game Club following the events of the winter holidays and Azul was quick to complain about the destruction done to his restaurant! (There was also the Scarabia Overblot, but not many people talked about it unless you were a Scarabian and offended on Kalim’s behalf, but that was another matter entirely).
“And you know what else?” Was the Prefect still talking? Sevens, the Prefect was still talking! Was Idia’s blatant discomfort not enough to dissuade further social interaction? Or had Idia unlocked a secret achievement: meeting a sassy, sadistic Prefect? “He told me that I needed to start tying my ties because he won’t do them for me anymore! I can do them, I just like it when he does it because his knots are perfect and I feel like an honor student.”
Idia was going to regret this later (in hindsight, he could have ended that conversation then and there by agreeing with the Prefect and then saying that he had plans to do! because! he! had! a! campaign!), but he piped up, sardonic judgment in his voice, “So that thing around your neck is Riddle’s doing?”
“This gorgeous thing?” The Ramshackle Prefect patted their tie that had been so horrible crumpled and knotted into a sad mass of fabric that looked like it wanted to be a tie, but was weighed down with too much responsibility. Like child support. Taxes. And maybe vehicular manslaughter. Or you know, weighing down your future with expectations that you had to fulfill because of your lineage. “You know, you have the same look Riddle gave me when he saw me earlier. It’s like… he was so amazed by my mad skills that he had no choice but to stare. A total loss for words!”
“You…” Gloomurai abort. Gloomurai. Abort. Gloomurai! Abort! “You need help.”
Scratch that, Idia needed help.
Send dudes! Send the troops!
Call in the reinforcements!
Sevens, screw his thoughts regarding internet anonymity! Send in Muscle Red!!!
He needed an adult!
(Yes, he was technically not a minor anymore, but he needed an adultier adult!)
“Um…”
“Shhh!”
Idia huffed a little to himself as he looked at the length of the Prefect’s tie, the fabric somewhat wrinkled and worn from their attempts to make some sort of bow around their neck. For reasons that Idia could not quite fathom, the conversation right after he had noted how much the Prefect sucked at tying their tie had resulted in this.
(“You’re such a total n00b! ROTFLOL. No wonder the Taskmaster himself singled you out! In fact, I wonder why the final boss from Pomefiore hasn’t talked to you yet!”
“Oh, Vil? He did.”
“And?” Idia hadn’t meant to ask, but his curiosity was piqued. Thr Ignihyde Housewarden managed to evade his fellow third year because of their differing class schedules, but that didn’t mean he did not have his fair share of scoldings.
“He told me that poor little potatoes like me needed to get tended to better. Whatever that meant.”
Lucky! Usually, Vil would have had Idia on the ropes, fighting for his life, while Vil threatened to throw toner, moisturizer, and other beauty products at him. Pfffttt, as if the family curse wasn’t already doing wonders to his body.
“Ha! I definitely could do better than you!”
“Oh really?” Oh. Oh no. Whenever normies looked like that, it could mean only one thing: trouble. “Why don’t you show me how?”
Say no.
Idia say no.
Idia say—
“You’ll be like my kouhai! For tying ties. Unless you’re as bad at it like me”
That did it.
Idia placed the energy drink on the ground and began typing in a search query into his tablet.
“First of all, kouhai means junior. Obviously, I’m your senpai or your senior. Second of all, of course I know how to tie a tie! What do you take me for? I’m going to tie a tie so—“)
After wrangling the Prefect’s tie away from their ratty uniform, Idia tried to remember how to tie a tie. His fingers, as deft and as quick as they were when commanding the keyboard or maneuvering a mouse, were somewhat slow and clumsy as he tried to shift the fabric into a loop. How did his father teach him again? It was somewhat awkward—when were things not awkward?—and it lasted a lot longer than it should have, but eventually, Idia was choked into submission into society’s standards of what a young man with a promising future should look like.
Ugh.
And then his dad tried to talk to him about the future, but Idia kinda, sorta tuned him out because he really didn’t want to think about the future any more than he had to. Thus, Idia was dressed like any first year student should… But that was only for a little while.
After Idia suffered through a week of choking himself or looking the fool with his poorly tied tie, he ordered a special, custom-made hoodie. And then he never looked back. Yes, he was not as well dressed as someone like Vil or Riddle, but it wasn’t like he aspired to be them. As if anyone other than overachievers and those with images to maintain actually cared about what they looked like.
Idia was already a freak; if he looked like a normal preppy extravert, he would undoubtedly look even more freaky.
(Like an alien trying to fit in).
Anyway, back to the matter at hand, Idia was screwed.
He screwed up.
GG.
FF.
All of his HP had decreased to an increasingly concerning level and now, he was only a second away from curling into a ball and crying. Where was Ortho when he needed him? You could only watch the same Magicam video of how to tie a tie so many times before you began to realize that you were not as skilled as you thought you were.
Also, the Prefect was giving him a strange smile that made Idia’s cheeks heat and his hair—SEVENS HIS HAIR!
Curse this curse!
“So… do you give—”
Idia, in an uncharacteristic manner, bared his teeth wide as he glared at the Prefect with the power of a million dying suns. “No! I will git gud! This tie will bow down to my brilliance!”
The tie was not OP, it couldn’t be.
That was unreal and Idia was being realistic.
All he needed to do was breathe and—
“You know—” Stop talking. Stop talking. Why are you talking? “—I think I know what the problem is!”
Idia, in near tears and just about ready to call it a day, had no choice but to blurt out, “What? What could it possibly be?”
Yes, he was that desperate.
“Well, you’re holding it in your hands and tying it that way. Don’t you think that it would be easier if you tied it on me? Plus, if you succeed, I get a perfect tie!”
PHYSICAL CONTACT.
WAS THIS WHAT THE WORLD WAS COMING TO?
PHYSICAL CONTACT?
And then, Idia heard the ‘if’ that the Prefect said. And then the implication set in.
If he succeeds?
There was obvious psychological manipulation here—the Prefect must have spent way too much time at Octavinelle because this stunk of seafood—but Idia had no choice.
This was like the sunk cost fallacy. He had already spent so much time trying to show off in front of the Prefect that it would do him no good if he backed off now.
“O-oh! O-okay!”
Idia’s fingers trembled as he approached the Prefect. Now that he was close to them, he realized that even though he was slouching, the Ramshackle Prefect was actually really short compared to him. In hindsight, he shouldn’t have felt so nervous—the Prefect was not as intimidating as other Night Raven College students—but still.
Was the Prefect going to recoil in disgust when he touched them?
Were they going to make fun of him for fumbling for so long?
Or—
“Keep going, Idia!” The Prefect cheered. Their eyes were on his hands, both of which were maneuvering the fabric of the tie around their neck with slow, stuttering movements. Swallowing hard, Idia found himself entranced as the Prefect’s small hands began to guide his own into vaguely familiar movements.
First, the tie was measured out to its correct length. Then, when Idia began to falter, the Prefect (again) guided his hands until he remembered that he had to cross the length of the left piece of fabric over the right. He would then bring up the left piece again. A beat passed as Idia tried to remember the succeeding steps before starting up again, this time, with a little more confidence. Once that was done, he brought up the left piece of fabric that was longer and thicker than the right so that it could enter into the loop that was created from the previous steps.
And then, Idia tugged until the knot of the tie was perfectly formed and flush against the Prefect’s throat.
He…
He actually did it?
He actually—
“Oh, wow! That’s so cool!” The Prefect beamed the world’s brightest smile at Idia.
The effect was immediate and painful; the AoE would have been off the charts if it were not for the following move that the Prefect made.
Without so much as a look of remorse, the Prefect tugged off the tie, undid the loops, and gave Idia the looping, crumpled fabric.
“Now, you gotta teach me this time.”
NO.
NO.
NOOOOOO—
“Ortho, I have now entered my villain era.” Idia slumped into his bed, not at all minding the crumbs from his ultra healthy dietary habits. As he curled up, he saw that Ortho was floating beside his head, a look of concern over his childlike features.
“Are you referring to your fashion session with the Ramshackle Prefect? I saw the entire thing! I had no idea that the Prefect was so bad at tying ties!”
“Me neither.”
“But at the very least you managed to taste that new energy drink, right?”
Idia felt his breath catch.
“FUCK.”