Work Text:
Eito stretches arms and sighs. The tutoring center is dead at this time in the afternoon-most people are either in classes, heading home, or going to get an early dinner. Not him, though. A part of volunteering to tutor means just sitting there and looking pretty during dead hours, he guesses.
(That was better for him, though. Fewer awful humans to have to help. He was only doing this for his resume, after all, and future employers wouldn’t know enough to say he spent most of his time waiting around and thanking the universe that he’s spared that much human interaction.)
His thoughts are interrupted by the sound of someone barging into the room with all of the grace of a bull in a china shop as they rush over to him. “Hi, uh. I need help. Lots of help.”
The student has messy, greasy red hair with one black streak (much like a diseased plant would have), deranged blue eyes, and is gripping onto a laptop with a death grip. It’s a perfectly normal look for stressed students, but no more tolerable for it. Even so, Eito’s being paid-well, he’s being compensated in experience for this, so he shoves down his disgust and puts on a smile. “That’s what we’re here for. What can I do for you?”
The guy sits down, scooting uncomfortably close to Eito before turning his laptop to face him. His desktop is…completely empty. “I’m sorry, what am I supposed to be looking at here?”
“Nothing. That’s the problem,” the guy groans. “I’m supposed to do fancy stuff with some kind of terminal here, and I don’t understand where to start at all. Hacker movies make this seem so easy!”
Eito slowly nods, before tentatively placing his hands together, the very picture of letting someone down easy. “I don’t know how to tell you this, but we mostly tutor for things like writing essays. I’m not a computer science major. Maybe your class’s TAs can help out?”
Even though humans are evil by nature, Eito almost feels something at how despairing the student looks. “The TA is busy with people who have reasonable questions. Could you at least try? Please?” The look he fixes Eito with could almost be described as puppy dog eyes, even if it’s an offense to liken dogs to people. “You know, my teacher said a lot of programmers have a rubber duck they explain problems to. Apparently sometimes that works to figure it out?” He beams. “You could be my rubber ducky!”
That-that’s not-how vile, hideous, degrading, humiliating, insulting, trite, saccharine, cloying, overly familiar, demeaning a suggestion…! If there weren’t cameras here, he’d-
Eito takes a sharp breath in, trying to calm down. It was foolish, belittling, degrading phrasing, but what this little imp was trying to suggest in practice would just be listening to his problems and trying to help. That was what he was already assigned to do here, just…for a different subject. While it’s incredibly tempting to turn this guy away now and watch as he crashes and burns, there’s a possibility he’d lodge a complaint and make Eito lose this volunteer job. It burns, but he swallows his pride and speaks. “…Fine. Do you have an assignment writeup I can look at?”
…He doesn’t want any kind of relationship with this idiot, but it’s good manners, so he tacks on “…or a name?”
The boy smiles widely, a hideous sight. “I’m Takumi Sumino. Nice to meet you!”
Eito dials up his fake smile in return. “And I’m Eito Aotsuki. It’s a pleasure,” he lies.
From there, Takumi gives him the writeup. It’s extremely straightforward to the point that it’s impossible to miss how to do any of this. Even so, Eito walks Takumi through, step by step, holding his tongue on how painfully easy all of this is. Eito is a business major, and even he can understand this.
Between the steps of using cd to change directory and ls to display directory contents, something that for some reason both lab writeup and google aren’t enough for Takumi, Eito can’t help but notice something. Takumi is picking up on this not entirely terribly. That he needed help to do something this basic was, is, and always will be humiliating, but he can grasp the concepts eventually. If anything, it seems like the fear is holding him back more than his own lack of knowledge.
(That said, the lack of knowledge certainly isn’t helping. Eito doesn’t have any prior knowledge of Linux-he’s learning at the same time Takumi is-but he still ends up figuring out what to do first. Takumi is…not good at this, but it’s possible he isn’t entirely hopeless. It’s possible this is the last time Eito will have to deal with this hopeless idiot.)
Eventually, they get to the end of the lab. It takes Takumi a bit of slow guidance to understand how to pipe the output on the command line into a file, but with more than a little prodding, he gets it eventually.
If Eito were someone else entirely, he’d find the tired but satisfied look on Takumi’s face endearing instead of unearned and worn like a rotting vegetable. “Thanks,” he says warmly. “I don’t know what I would’ve done without you.”
Odds are, he would have failed this lab and maybe dropped out of the major entirely. What a tragedy that would have been. Regardless, Eito puts on a fake smile. “It was no problem,” he lies. “You were easier to help than most people who came in.” That part was actually not entirely wrong-while it came from a place of foolishness, Takumi had actually listened and accepted his help without argument. Besides, learning something new was almost fun compared to the usual of editing terrible essays for hours. …Of course, the bar is in hell, and he would have preferred no company, but still.
Takumi looks elated at that. How easily fooled he is. “I’m so glad. I’ll be sure to come back next time I need help.” His smile fades, concern replacing it. “Uh…do I need to pay you?”
He really doesn’t know anything, does he? “This is a volunteer organization. Don’t worry about you.” Really, though, you should pay me for having to put up with you.
“Oh. Makes sense. Well, uh. Thanks again, and see you later!” he says as he waves goodbye. Eito doesn’t watch him leave-he’s just another student in need of help.
Even so, as he goes back to the same old and the next student that comes in needs help on their barely readable essay, his mind drifts back to Takumi. Helping him had been so much better than this. A break from the monotony, to be sure. A chance to learn something new, rather than just the same boring routine. If he comes back again instead of another one of these neanderthals who can’t distinguish which there to use, that wouldn’t be half bad.
—
It’s another two weeks before Takumi shows up again, this time with a packet of paper in his hands. “Hey, uh…I don’t suppose you could help me again?”
Eito could. Now, whether he would-well, it wasn’t a question. He’d love to play coy, but he doesn’t really have the option to turn people down at this job. …Besides, today is another slow day. This is better than nothing. “Sure. What is it this time?”
“It looks like it should be easy math problems, but they didn’t make any sense in class, and I’m hoping you can help,” Takumi sighs, plopping down despicably close next to Eito. “I mean, first one is 15 and 30, right? Shouldn’t that just be 45? But none of the examples in class worked like that.”
At least he has enough of a brain to recognize just from context clues that it can’t be simple addition. Eito scans the page and quickly sees the issue. “This is binary arithmetic—that means it’s in base 2, not base 10. You’re going to need to convert these first,” he says while pulling out his phone. While reading enough sci-fi novels had taught him how to convert a number from decimal to binary, his special interest had been history, not math. This is going to need a bit of research on his own to do, but he can keep Takumi busy until-
“Uh, about that,” Takumi interrupts his thoughts.
“Hm?”
“…Isn’t binary just random 1’s and 0’s? How does that connect to 15 + 30?”
Eito stares blankly at him, before sighing deeply. This was supposed to be a computer science major. “Takumi, do you know what binary…is?”
He looks deeply uncomfortable. “I’m not…really a math person,” he says quietly. “Geometry and algebra were hard enough in high school, so I didn’t keep up with it anymore.”
Then why are you in a major that requires so much math-Eito takes a deep breath and composes himself. That, along with many things he’d love to say right now, falls under “things he can’t say if he wants to keep this position”. How would he explain this to a five year old… “Base 2 isn’t that much harder than base 10. It’s roughly how you’d count if you had only two fingers, instead of ten. Just like you get to nine, run out of fingers, and get to double digits, then you count to 1, get to double digits, then run out of fingers and start again.”
Takumi sighs. “I can kind of get that part, but they lose me with the different places. Once my teacher started talking about the eighths or sixteenths place, he lost me. Where did those come from?”
“From the same place the 1000s or 10,000s place comes from when counting normally,” Eito says, adjusting his glasses. Takumi tilts his head, and he elaborates. “Think about it. We have the tens, hundreds, and thousands places normally, right? Those are ten to the first, second, and third power. Now, if you change that to two…then it’s the twos place, fours, and eights. Sixteen is just the next one up. Then thirty-two, et cetera. You know your powers of two, right?”
Takumi looks at him blankly. Another not exactly promising sign from a CS major, but he has a plan B to work with. “Scratch that-did you play 2048 in high school?”
Recognition dawns on Takumi’s face. “I did! I still play it in-“ he stops midsentence, looking embarrassed. “-between classes.”
He’s not fooling Eito, but at least he gave him something to work with. “The numbers that game uses are the powers of two. If you could write them down on the side of the page…”
He waits for Takumi to do so, supplementing the higher ones when he stumbles, before continuing. “There. Now, let’s start with fifteen. What’s the highest number on that list that fits in 15?”
This one, Takumi fits quickly. “That’d be 8.”
“Right,” Eito says while writing a 1 down on the page. “Which leaves 7 left. Now, what’s the next highest number for that one?”
Takumi’s brows furrow. It looks like he’s starting to get it. “4…which leaves 3. And then 2, which leaves 1…”
Eito writes down another three 1’s. “And then you’re done. It’s 1111 in binary.”
Takumi looks up at him. “So it’s all 1’s.”
“That’s because it’s one less than 16. 16’s just 1 in the sixteens place, then four zeroes. So, one less than that is all 1’s. They won’t all be. Try the next one on your own,” Eito says while googling binary arithmetic operators on his phone.
Takumi, to his credit, is able to get most of the next one on his own. He needs a bit of help for one step, but he gives Eito more than enough time to figure out what to do next. “Alright,” Takumi says once he’s done. “What next? Do I just…add them?”
Eito shakes his head. “Binary arithmetic’s more like comparing them. If both of them have a 1 in the same place, put a 1 down in the answer. Otherwise, put a 0.” He moves to write down a 01 on the paper. “So, since only 30 has a 1 in the 16’s place, that’d be a 0. But both 30 and 15 have a 1 in the 8’s place, so that’s a 1. So…”
Takumi slowly nods. “So they both have a 1 in the 4’s place, so that’s a 1. And both have a 1 in the 2’s place, so that’s a 1. But there’s a zero in 30’s last digit…” he says while writing down 110.
Eito nods, feeling almost proud that he got Takumi there. “And you’re done.”
Takumi looks a bit skeptical. “But…isn’t that lower than both numbers? How is that addition?”
Eito shrugs. “Plenty of normal addition gets that result. What if you add a negative and a positive number?”
Takumi puts his arms up. “Spare me, please. That’s around when I lost touch with math.”
That explains so much. That said, he doesn’t feel like teaching Takumi any more, so he moves on. “You should be able to handle this, though. The next one uses OR, not AND, but that one’s easier. After you convert both numbers to binary first, just place down a 1 if either of them has 1’s instead of if both of them do.”
Takumi still looks confused, so he draws a Venn diagram, shading in each circle. “If they’re in either circle, you write down a 1. Whereas for and, you just use the center.”
Takumi finally seems to get it, a small smile crossing his face before he gets to work. He still needs a bit of help, but a lot less than before. He is slowly but surely getting the hang of it.
Midway through his packet, he looks up at Eito sheepishly. “Most of these are doing that, but while I’ve got you here, there’s one more thing I’d like you to show me. What’s NOT?”
Huh. A reasonable question from Takumi for once. “Oh, that’s the easiest of the bunch. If you see it, just flip all the 1’s to 0’s and vice versa.”
Takumi nods, and he gets another problem done in blissful silence before hesitating. “I guess if I know how to do these three, I don’t really need your help anymore. Mind if I stay here anyways? …Just in case I run into something I can’t handle.”
For once, Eito is torn. Having someone around him this close is deeply irritating-it’s not as though Takumi smells good. That said, with Takumi here, he may deter someone more annoying from coming by. …He’ll probably regret this, but…”Go ahead. I’ll do what I can.”
Takumi nods, visibly happy, demeanor like a mole no one has whacked yet. They work on their respective assignments in silence, aside from the times Takumi needs help. Which, to his credit, could be less numerous. He’s able to do the basic problems well enough, it’s when the problems combine two or three operations into one that he needs help.
When he’s done, he gets up with a contented sigh. “I think that’s all of it. You’re a life saver. I never would have known you’re not a major. Really, thanks so much.”
His praise feels…weird. It’s not a lie, and it’s not unwarranted, Eito did work hard to help Takumi out. But it was out of the norm. Most students just left without a word, treating him more like a chatbot than a person. Which to be fair, was in keeping for humanity. But being seen and thanked like this feels…bizarre. Uncomfortable, almost. “It’s nothing, but…you’re welcome, I guess,” he says awkwardly, discomfort coming through in his words.
Takumi laughs, as though this is funny somehow. “Aw, did I embarrass you? It’s good to see you’re just as human as I am!” Takumi says with a smile that makes Eito want to claw it right off his face.
His annoyance must show, because Takumi amends his statement. “In a good way! Just…you feel actually approachable. That’s a good trait for a tutor to have. You really are good at this.”
With that, he leaves, presumably not to put his foot any further in his mouth than he already has. Eito watches him leave, unsettled feeling not yet eased. Takumi’s…a strange one. Mostly stupid, but there’s something about him that Eito can’t fully comprehend.
—
It doesn’t take long for Takumi to come back. Less than a week, and he brings his laptop this time. He doesn’t even ask before he sits down. He’s…too familiar, too fast.
“What is it this time?” Eito asks, slowly looking up from his own computer.
Takumi only looks a little embarrassed-it’s like he’s growing more comfortable with Eito. What a revolting thought. “I don’t suppose you’ve heard of hash tables?”
Eito blinks. This is the first thing Takumi’s come to him for that he’s unfamiliar with. Of course they don’t teach hash tables in business school. “I…haven’t, no.”
Takumi’s face falls. Clearly he hadn’t considered that Eito couldn’t help him. “Uh…”
Eito’s not sure what makes him do it. It must be boredom-he’s been here for hours, helping people with their assignments and working on his own nonstop, and he could use a break. But regardless, he finds the words tumbling out of his mouth. “But I can look it up. Just give me a few minutes, and I can help you.”
Takumi immediately brightens. “Really? Oh, thank goodness. That’d be wonderful.”
He’s so casual about benefiting from Eito’s hard work. It’s tempting to go back on it, but…he is a man of his word, and the idea of writing any more about opportunity cost right now is exhausting, so he pulls open a new tab to start reading up on hash tables. Takumi starts fidgeting as the minutes drag on, and eventually he succumbs to making conversation. “So…what’s your major? I mean, you know mine.”
“Business,” Eito says without looking up from his computer.
“Oh. Uh…fun. …Mind if I ask what got you into it?”
Eito sighs, frustrated that Takumi’s not picking up on his “don’t talk to me” energy, but he answers anyways. “I plan to get into politics. There’s…a cause I care about a lot. All of this is for the sake of furthering it. So for right now, I have to devote all my time to getting good grades and networking as hard as possible.”
Takumi slowly nods. “That must be why you seem so driven. It…sounds hard, though.” he confesses. “I can’t imagine giving up on parties and stuff to study and work more.”
It’s hardly a surprise that Takumi can’t understand him, Eito notes with a hint of bitterness. “It’s worth it in the end. No difficulty is too much for the right cause. That’s why I can’t stop working. …It’s also why I’m here. Volunteering looks good on my resume. Any other questions?” he asks, perhaps a bit too snappily.
Takumi silently shakes his head, letting Eito have some peace and quiet to learn in, irritation dissipating as he focuses hard. This is definitely a new concept, but he thinks he understands it well enough for now. His intellect is his only ally in this world-it won’t let him down now.
Eventually, he’s ready. He does see the opportunity to torment Takumi by keeping him on pins and needles for longer, but after two minutes of drawing it out, the novelty wears thin. “Alright, I’m ready. What do you need help with?”
Takumi’s looks sheepish. “Uh. Everything…? The next lab’s due this weekend, and it uses hash tables, and I have…no idea where to start. At all.”
…He could just be nice to Takumi, but asking him personal questions just to not come close to understanding was irritating. Irritating enough to make Eito want to see him squirm. He puts on the smile extra wide. “Oh? What hash function are they having you use? I assume MD5, but it could also be SHA-1 or SHA-2. Are they going for lighter on the memory or better efficiency?”
Yep. That deer-in-the-headlights look on Takumi’s face makes this all worth it. “Uh…Um…” he stutters, visibly completely lost.
“Do you know what a hash function is in the first place?” Eito prods.
Takumi looks down, visibly ashamed. “…No,” he admits quietly. “The professor went over it in class, but…it just didn’t make sense then.”
It’d be fun to push him more, but he can see Takumi’s at his limit. Maybe he can spare him after all. “That’s understandable,” Eito lies. “Sometimes lectures just don’t land. Don’t worry, I can explain it to you. …Imagine we’re in a vault right now. A vault with 10,000 safes. You need to deposit 1,000 dollars there, so now the question is what safe they put it in.”
Takumi looks up, already frustrated. “So is it my 1,000 dollars or someone else’s? Because if it’s mine, I think I’d already be living the dream. Where they’d put it wouldn’t matter.”
Ah. Takumi was living the broke college student lifestyle. Eito only knew that secondhand-the inheritance from his parents was sustaining him just fine. “…Sorry, do I need to change it to something else for it to not distract you? Takumi went into the vault with 20$ instead.”
Takumi stares at him, eyes hungry. “If I had 20$ right now, I’d still be living a dream. I’d be able to go get a nice dinner.”
…Okay, now he has to be messing with him. “…Takumi goes into the vault with one dollar,” Eito amends pointedly. “The bank needs to put his one dollar somewhere they can find him when he needs to withdraw it-it is 20% of his savings, after all. Now, which safe do you think they’d store it in?”
Takumi looks confused now-at least he’s not disputing the example. “Uh…an…open safe?” he says slowly. “Shouldn’t the first one they find be enough? They can write it down so they know where to go when I come back.”
There it is-he’s engaging with the question. He knew Takumi had it in him. “That works okay, but…wouldn’t it take a long time to find the first open safe? There are 10,000 of them, after all. What if the first open one was in the 9,000s?”
Takumi doesn’t look amused at his question. “Since when do word problems have to make sense? They don’t most of the time in math. It doesn’t matter when train A would crash into train B if you just don’t take the train.”
Bear with me,” Eito says, stifling a chuckle at Takumi’s own example. More word problems should involve humans getting into car accidents. “This vault has a machine that will take any word, process it, and output a specific number for it. So, they can just enter “Takumi” for you, and it’ll output what safe to put it in. That way, you can bypass the step of checking each safe. When you come back, they can just enter “Takumi” again to find your dollar.”
Takumi looks lost again, and he sighs. “Alright, where did I lose you this time.”
“That’s…a very specific solution,” he says slowly. “Like, there’s no way I would’ve come up with that on my own.”
“The point of this isn’t to lord intellectual superiority over you,” though that is a benefit of doing this, “it’s to teach you about something. That’s what a hash function does. It takes in a string, encrypts it, and returns an address you can store things in.” He pushes up his glasses. “Usually a string to be used in hash maps, but you can convert it to a number fine.”
Takumi nods, so slowly that it’s clear he’s getting scared off, and Eito sighs. “Do you want to get started coding it?”
Takumi nods. “Please. Maybe then it’ll make sense.”
It does, but it takes a while to get Takumi to fully understand, and even longer to get the code to work fully (and even more time to handle what to do if two entries need the same address). By the time they’re done, Eito looks up at the clock to find his shift…done. It ended nearly an hour ago.
…Huh.
It’s not as though he couldn't have made Takumi go home and figure this out himself; he’d done that plenty of times to spare himself any more irritation from helping a student. Hell, there have been times he’s left in the middle of editing a sentence (a well-placed lie about having somewhere to be works wonders). So, he should have had no problem leaving this time. Ugly Takumi must have distracted him from checking the clock this time-something he should fix for next time.
“How much do I owe you now?” Takumi asks jokingly. “This is the third time you’ve saved my skin.”
Eito looks up at him, still feeling disoriented. He’s…he must not have had enough to eat today or something like that. That’s why he’d make a mistake like that. “Don’t worry about it.”
“If you’re sure,” Takumi says with a big yawn. “I’m beat, so I’m gonna go head out. Have a nice night!”
Eito watches distantly as he leaves, feeling distinctly out of sorts. He should leave too, but he doesn’t want to leave with Takumi. It’s possible whatever spell that came over him hasn’t passed.
Instead, he pulls out his laptop and navigates to the university’s Canvas page, searching the class Takumi’s in. If he’s going to keep coming back, then it’d save Eito time to be prepared on whatever topic the next lab is going to be on. It’s putting what he’s learned in classes to use-investing time now to have less time with Takumi later. He is a business major, after all. He doesn't have any more prior experience with this than Takumi does.
(Correction, he doesn't navigate to the class’s Canvas page, he navigates to the class’s separately hosted HTML page. The idea that CS professors are just too important to have an easy-to-find website like anyone else is just another aspect of how awful humanity is. Pride is one of the gravest of sins, after all.)
—
The next time, Takumi gets there before Eito does. When he comes in to start his shift, Takumi’s already at his table, looking despondent.
He perks up like a dog seeing his owner when he sees Eito. “Thank God you’re here. You won’t believe what the next lab is like.”
Eito raises an eyebrow. He can very much believe it, he already studied up on it in preparation for this. “Oh? What is it this time?”
Takumi groans. “Whatever a doubly linked list is. I don’t get why we can’t just use arrays and not bother with anything else…”
…Though it’d give away that he researched for this, the allure to correct Takumi is too strong to resist. “Arrays don’t have as much flexibility as linked lists. They’re fixed in size; linked lists aren’t.” He moves to sit down next to Takumi. “What are you struggling with here?”
Takumi lays his head down on the table, right next to his laptop keyboard, defeated. “Pointers are evil and made to torment me,” he groans.
If that were true, then Eito would have to concede pointers as a wonderful invention the human race could be proud of. Seeing Takumi pout like this brought him no small amount of amusement. “Give me your lecture notes, I’ll see what I can do,” Eito lies, establishing his alibi.
Takumi hands them over, and Eito gives them a cursory glance, feigning learning for a few minutes. “This makes sense. I can help with this, don’t worry. You understand that pointers are like addresses, right? Just like how the address to this center helped you get here, the pointers on the list help you get to the next node.”
Takumi very slowly nods, though he still looks confused. “I mean, I get that in theory…kind of. It’s just…” he trails off. “Whenever I see code of it, it makes no sense to me.”
As much as he’d like to write this off as a Takumi thing, from what Eito read online, most students hate pointers this much. …Which is why he’s prepared for this. “Would you like me to draw you a diagram?”
Takumi nods, and Eito gets to drawing three boxes. Each one has two lines linking each of them, one line forward to the next one and one line backwards to the previous one. He labels them, before looking back up at Takumi. “See? Each of these lines are pointers used to navigate. Any questions?”
Takumi stares down at the paper. “Man, your handwriting is really neat,” he wonders aloud.
…That’s not an important thing to focus on. He’s getting distracted. “Takumi,” he hisses. “You’re not just here to compliment me, are you? Ask what you actually need help on.”
“Fine, fine,” Takumi grumbles. “It makes sense just fine when you lay it out like this, and then when I go to code it, it…all falls apart,” he sighs.
That’s a familiar story from him. “We can start there, then. Take it just one step at a time. Have you defined the nodes yet? They need room for the data, then two pointers.”
Takumi looks at him awkwardly. “Uh…so, I kind of haven’t gotten pointers working yet, so if you could help with that, that’d be wonderful…”
Eito has to hold back a frown as he starts to help. Disliking pointers was perfectly normal from what he’s seen, but not being able to get them working at all wasn’t. Takumi should know this already-it’s not just fear getting in his way.
The fear still slows things down, though. It takes twice as long as usual to get Takumi to make any progress—he has to painstakingly explain what pointers are and what syntax they use at least four times before Takumi finally gets it. It takes even longer from there to get the list working at all, and don’t even get him started on the iterator—by the time they finally get one-way traversal working, the sun’s already started to set.
“Finally,” Takumi groans tiredly. “That felt impossible.”
“Uh, Takumi?” Eito starts. “Not to bring down the mood, but isn’t your work just half done? Didn’t the assignment say doubly linked list?”
It’s like he popped a balloon with a pin. Takumi’s enthusiasm just deflates, and…huh. Eito wouldn’t lie-okay, he’d lie to others like he breathes, but he wouldn’t lie to himself that one of the few benefits of this position was watching people suffer as he tore their essay to bits. It was one of the few occasions he had to be as vengeful as he felt most of the time, as long as he had a nice face on with it. He should feel the same for Takumi here, but for some reason, the satisfaction doesn’t come. It’s not like Takumi didn’t have this coming-he’s in a major he couldn’t be suited worse for, yet somehow, Eito gets no satisfaction seeing him so down.
“God, I’m gonna be here all night…” Takumi groans, before straightening up. “If I type any more, my head’s gonna explode. I need dinner. Wanna come with?”
He misinterprets Eito’s hesitation as some kind of shyness and elaborates. “My treat-I still owe you for all the help you’ve given me.”
“Well first, I have strict dietary restrictions, so I can’t eat anything in the dining hall. Or on campus, really. I can’t eat anything I don’t make.”
…It should end there, but honestly, he feels cheated. Takumi should have given him the satisfaction of watching someone struggle against the inevitable before succumbing, but he hasn’t. Eito deserves that, doesn’t he? Maybe it’s just delayed. Maybe, if he stuck with Takumi, he’d get a front row seat to that. “If that doesn’t bother you, then sure. I can come with you.”
Takumi beams, despite nothing about his situation improving in the slightest. If anything, having to waste time socializing makes his tight deadline even tighter, not better. Something is wrong with him. And something’s even more wrong with Eito for saying yes.
—
The dining hall is empty at this time of night, which Eito appreciates. It spares him plenty of its usual hideousness. The building itself is still very tacky, though, and even if he could tolerate food other people made, the selection is grim. It doesn’t seem to bother Takumi any, judging by the nauseatingly cheesy meal he picked out.
(Despite the scent of it being appalling, it’s probably for the best that Takumi picked something like that. The stench should be a wake-up call from whatever malady that keeps giving Eito time blindness while he’s around Takumi.)
“Man, that hit the spot,” Takumi says, contented. “You sure you don’t want anything? There is a salad place here.”
“I’m good,” Eito grits out. He’s seen what passes for salads there, and it’d make him ill. “While we’re here, though…well, you know why I’m in the major I’m in,” he lies. “Why are you a CS major? It seems, well…” He bites his lip, visibly keeping back from saying anything insulting but letting the implication sit.
“…Like I’m struggling a lot?” Takumi says wryly. “You noticed.”
“Hard not to, as your tutor.”
“Fair enough.” Takumi leans back and arches his back. “I’m mostly in this major for the money, honestly. I needed to go into some major, and I heard computer science is super lucrative.”
He can see the reasoning, but Takumi’s missed something big. “I can understand that, but…” He puts on a concerned look. “Takumi, have you heard of the term “weed-out class”?”
Takumi nods casually. “I have, but that just means the first few classes are deliberately hard, right? If I can get past those, then things will get way easier.”
Eito purses his lips, trying to figure out a good way of telling him how wrong that is, when-
“Takumi? Hey, Takumi!”
Someone interrupts his train of thought. A blonde-haired girl waves at Takumi, before walking over with a smile. Eito recognizes her-she’s the one who threw up from nerves while he was editing her essay. More than once, in fact. He’d had to dial up the niceness to frustrating levels to keep it from happening a third time. As such, his stomach turns when he sees Takumi wave back to her.
“Hey, Tsubasa! You’re out late too-lab treating you that bad?” Takumi greets back with an irritating level of cheer. He seems to realize his social faux pas quickly, turning to Eito. “Oh, I should introduce you. This is Tsubasa, she’s in my CS class. …Which is kinda weird, now that I think about it.” He turns back to Tsubasa. “Why are you in CS? I thought you were going into engineering?”
“I am,” she sighs. “For some reason, it’s a pre-req for electrical engineering. It’s such a huge pain. I tried telling my advisor I’m more of a hardware person than software, but nooooo. God, this lab was brutal.”
“Tell me about it,” Takumi groans. “How’d it treat you?”
“Bad!” She grumbles. “Traversal was pretty free, but adding and removing items took a lot of doing. I’m out here to treat myself for a job well done.”
Takumi’s smile gets strained. “That’s…roughly where I am, too,” he lies.
It’d be so easy to humiliate Takumi and mention he’s nowhere near close to there, but there wouldn't be any sport in it. Besides, the conversation would end faster if Takumi wanted to hide a secret, so holding his tongue was the best way to get it back to just him and Takumi.
Tsubasa nods. “Well…best of luck,” she says cheerily. “For my part, I’m gonna go crash. Maybe go fix something up or do some kind of small project. Have a nice night!”
Takumi waves, but his face falls as she leaves. “God, I’m not even halfway done…This lab is due tomorrow. I’m screwed, aren’t I?”
Eito doesn’t respond, something else on his mind. Takumi…has a friend in that class. Maybe even friends. It’s possible he’s close with them, possible that next time he’s stuck, he’ll go to her. Or one of the TAs. And then will keep doing that, leaving Eito behind in a sea of boring, tedious, samey essays to go through. Despite that Takumi’s a filthy human, something about that thought stirs something in him-something raw and hateful. This was the most interesting thing to happen to him this semester—the only thing that he couldn't have predicted from the start. How dare Takumi threaten to take that away from him—not only that, but give it to some human?
Eito pulls out a piece of paper, quickly writing down his email and number before giving it to Takumi. “You don’t have to be. If you need more help on this, reach out to me.”
The tired, sad smile Takumi gives him as he takes the paper and registers Eito’s contact info into his phone is hideous, yet there’s a kind of beauty to it. After all, it’s the smile of a trapped man, of a fly trapped in his web. How could Eito hate that?
—
The next two weeks pass without incident, but also without any visits from Takumi. Which makes sense, the next lab on the website was a breather between two much harder ones. Frustratingly, Eito finds himself almost missing Takumi. It must just be by contrast-the normal students at the tutoring center have nothing interesting for him to help with, no awareness of their shortcomings, and treat him barely better than they would a robot helping them. The only upside has been the essay brought in arguing why art isn’t political—explaining how even outside of proving a negative is notoriously difficult, proving that negative is a lost cause was very fun.
(Besides, all art is political. It shows the vileness of mankind either through subject matter or through having their grubby prints all over it.)
Either way, his time recently has been valuable for his resume, valuable for reaffirming how hideous and tedious humans are to be around, and nothing more.
Most of a third week goes by before finally, late one afternoon, Takumi barges into the center with an urgency he hasn’t shown since the first time he came here. He rushes over and slams his laptop down on the table, hands shaking and eyes wide. “Please. God. Help. I don’t know what I did, and-“ he rambles, visibly in a panic.
“Calm down” Eito starts. Takumi’s’ going to be worse to be around this worked up. “Whatever it is, we can fix it. What’s going wrong?”
“I don’t know,” Takumi moans. “It’s not even giving me an error messages, it just…stopped!”
Takumi shows Eito his computer, and indeed, it’s frozen up. He can see how Takumi would freak out, but also, he checked ahead for this. “Okay, first, you can stop the program using control-c,” he says, while stopping the program. Takumi slowly nods, still visibly panicked. “Second, are you using any print or debugger statements?”
Takumi looks at him. “I mean…”
He narrows his eyes. “Takumi, that’s how you figure what’s going on behind the scenes,” he chides, before pushing his glasses up. “Now, what’s this lab about?”
Takumi looks nervous. “I don’t suppose you know anything about recursion?”
“I…saw it in passing,” Eito lies. Really, it’s impressive Takumi believes him on any of this—what does he think they do in business school? “I’ll do what I can.”
Getting Takumi’s program to stop freezing is easy. Getting it to work, though, is an exercise in frustration. The assignment is to sort an array by repeatedly dividing it in half, sorting those halves, then recombining those piece by piece. It makes perfect sense in theory, but actually getting it to work is…difficult. It seems he’s finally reached the limit of what he can do with only secondhand knowledge on short notice.
“I’m sorry,” he finds himself apologizing to Takumi after the fifth time the code fails to work. Surprisingly enough, he means it. “…When is this lab due?”
“…Tonight,” Takumi says quietly. “It’s not your fault. I should’ve come here sooner.”
He looks like a kicked puppy-a sight that should be more pleasant than it is. It isn’t a lovable creature being kicked, after all, it’s a human. “I don’t mean to pry,” Eito starts, “but I saw in passing that there are office hours for this class today. You could have gone to those, yet you came here.”
Takumi looks away. “…I can tell I don’t belong in the CS building,” he says quietly. “I feel so stupid around everyone there. If I got help from the TA there, there’d be a line of people behind me just waiting for when I get out of the way, and that’d be long before I get the help I need. But…” His voice softens. “I don’t feel dumb around you. Even though you know more than me, it doesn’t feel like you’re judging me for it. Like I can trust you for advice.”
Eito feels speechless. Takumi…really can’t read him one bit, can he? The Eito he thinks he’s talking about and the real one don’t match at all. But even so, seeing Takumi like this late at night is just…
He sighs. “Takumi, I think you should go home and rest. You can turn this in for late credit later.”
Takumi looks down at the table, visibly conflicted. “You’re…probably right,” he grits out before letting out a quiet sigh. “Do you think I can make it through this major?”
…Eito had a choice of to lie or tell the truth. The best thing to do for his job here would be to lie and leave Takumi feeling satisfied, but well…it was already too late for that, wasn't it? If he could have gotten merge sort working faster, that’d be fine. Besides…the truth was obvious. Takumi had been living in an impossible dream. Someone needed to wake him up. “…Everyone has their strengths, but this…doesn’t seem to be yours,” he says, careful to keep some semblance of his customer service face on.
Takumi doesn’t move or respond for a long second, and Eito’s about to prod him when he gets up. “I see,” he says quietly. “Thanks for being honest with me.”
…Something about this just doesn’t feel right. What should it matter if someone hopeless about computer science is failing their classes? That’s just natural, the circle of life claiming a victim so the others can feast. Even so, it feels…hollow. Eito finds himself speaking. “Let me get your files, at least. I'll text you if I figure it out.”
Takumi nods. “That’d be nice. Though if you can’t…don’t stress it. Night.”
He leaves, visibly downcast, and though it’s not the first time Eito’s sent someone off like that, it just doesn’t sit right with him. It feels like he’s accidentally eaten some kind of human concoction and it’s sitting heavily and undigested in his stomach. Maybe that’s why he finds himself downloading Linux to code on his own computer, staying in the tutoring center for an extra hour to finally figure it out. When he’s done, he sends it over to Takumi with a message about making sure to just use it as a guide to not plagiarize.
That should be enough-that’s far more than he should do for any human. He’s already over the line. And yet, some part of him still doesn’t feel satisfied.
Maybe he should have never helped Takumi in the first place.
—
Takumi’s there the next time Eito’s volunteering. He looks tired, but there’s a sort of calm in his demeanor there hasn’t been until now. “Hey,” he greets, laptop nowhere to be seen.
Eito scans him. The next lab was another brutal one, he doubts Takumi understands binary trees already. And yet, this is the most at peace he’s seen Takumi yet. “Afternoon,” he greets. “What’s the problem this time?”
“No problem,” Takumi says. “I just…need to rethink some stuff about my major, and figured I’d do it here.”
“…Oh. I guess you can do that, it’s not like I’m busy with someone else,” Eito says slowly. “…While we’re on the subject, though, would you mind telling me which advisor suggested this major for you? I’ve been wondering,” he says gingerly, ill intent concealed.
Takumi doesn’t meet his eyes. “No advisor did. I got to junior year and realized I didn’t have an actual major I was lined up for, so I just tried to pick something lucrative.”
The surprise must show on Eito’s face, because Takumi just laughs. “Not a good idea?”
Eito clears his throat. “I think any advisor worth their salt would have told you to pick anything else.”
“Yeah, I gathered,” Takumi sighs. “I sorta didn’t tell my friends, because I was worried they’d laugh, and…that should’ve been an omen. I’ve got a new major in mind, but there’s a lot I need to iron out there, so…that’s why I’m here.”
Eito stares at him. “…You know I’m just a business major, right? I can’t help you with most of that.”
“I know,” Takumi says. “I just feel calmer around you, so I figured that’d help. Plus…” His face reddens for some reason. “I needed to double check that you do essays too. I was going to go into film history, and well…”
…What is he getting at? There’s something strange about his demeanor. “And…what?”
Takumi’s voice is tinged with embarrassment. “And well, I wanted to make sure I’d pick a major that’d let me keep spending time with you. This has sorta become my favorite place on campus over time. It’d suck to just…drift apart from you.”
This stuns Eito where he sits. It almost sounds like-no, it doesn’t just sound like Takumi likes him. He…does. To the point of planning to keep Eito in his life plans. Maybe he’d been too nice to Takumi, to allow feelings like this to fester, to allow such a sickening idea to come to pass…!
Eito has to look away, breathing heavily as he keeps himself from retching as he thinks through this. It’s tempting to turn Takumi down-he more than deserves it, after all. But, well…having Takumi visit him and provide him with problems to solve had been the most fun he’d had since he’d even started college. He’d gotten satisfaction on something completely unrelated to his goal, both in having his intellect challenged and in having someone, anyone praise his work and enjoy his presence.
It meant nothing in the grander scheme, of course. Takumi had only enjoyed having someone help him. If Eito had stopped providing him with a service, he’d reveal his true, ugly nature. But that was the nature of human relationships. …More importantly, that was the nature of networking. Connections were important to reach high places where merit wasn’t enough, and while he couldn't directly see anywhere Takumi could take him, his ignorant, foolish nature would, if nothing else, be a good tool to manipulate people with.
He knows what to do here. For the plan, he thinks with an internal grimace, before he puts on a soft, warm look. “You don’t need to worry about that-you don’t have to need tutoring to spend time with me.”
Takumi’s smile widens, nearly breaking his face. “Thank goodness…! In that case, is there anywhere you can eat? I really want to take you out in return for all the help you’ve given me. If there were a punch card for favors, yours would be more than filled out by now.”
Eito raises one eyebrow, seeing an opportunity to get back to more familiar ground. Teasing Takumi, he knows how to do. “Are you offering? I should warn you, there’s no currency quite as dangerous as an unspecified future favor.”
That was a mistake. Takumi blushes even further. What’s wrong with him?
…This whole thing is a bad idea-a horrible one, even. But he’s going to see it through to the end-get everything he can out of Takumi before discarding him last. Besides, if nothing else, life with Takumi around will be less boring than before.