Chapter Text
Gem’s class was odd, for lack of better terms. Every day, her peers managed to amaze her with their sheer strangeness. She went to a small school in the middle of absolutely nowhere, called ‘Hermit High’ with a class of around 30 people. She didn’t feel like counting how many classmates she had, and they could never hold still for long enough if she tried.
Here’s the thing about Hermit High, it was a private school. And, unbeknownst to many, private school students had many home life issues, leading to an eclectic group of teenagers with too much free time and the same, sarcastic sense of humor.
When you put 15 crazed teens in a classroom for long periods of time, you are bound to get some great interactions.
Gem sat in first period, boredly doodling in her notebook as her teacher rambled about direct and inverse variations. When she would use this outside of class, she didn’t know. The boys sitting behind her had managed to get into some debacle about gum flavors.
“I don’t know how you can chew that mint stuff, I can’t feel my mouth when I eat it!” Scar said, and it was a miracle their teacher hadn’t noticed.
“That’s what she said.” Bdubs whispered from where he sat next to Scar.
“How can you take that out of context?” Grian asked. Bdubs merely shrugged.
“No seriously, how do you do it and not cry?”
“Very easily.” Grian puffed up proudly at his ability to chew gum. “I should be asking you about why you’re chewing on soap?”
“What do you mean?”
“That watermelon gum you have. I’m convinced that all artificial watermelon junk is secretly soap flavored, and the government doesn’t want us to know.” Grian had a point, now that Gem thought about it.
“How do you know what soap tastes like?” Valid question from Scar.
“Your mom never washed your mouth with soap when you were younger?” Grian seemed genuinely confused about this.
“YOUR MOM WASHED YOUR MOUTH WITH SOAP WHEN YOU WERE YOUNGER?” Scar all but yelled, and as he was lectured by the teacher, Grian shrugged.
Like she said, private school students were weirder than you might think.
Gem leaned over and copied the notes off of Pearl’s page.
“Someone should write a love story about the variables and the numbers.” Pearl wrote on Gem’s book.
“A forbidden romance?” Gem scribbled back.
“Ofc.”
“You have too much free time if you want to read that.”
“It would be beautiful.”
“It’s math, not art. Numbers and x y coords aren’t pretty.”
“The advanced math class would disagree.”
“That’s their problem.”
“X betrayed the alphabet.”
“Don’t tell Xisuma that.”
“Alright class!” The teacher interrupted their note passing. Rude. “You have to do this packet for homework, and it’s due tomorrow when you enter my classroom!”
The class let out a collective groan. 9 in the morning was too early for algebra one.
The packet had fifty questions on graphing and mapping and all that nonsense.
“You wanna call tonight and get this done?” Pearl whispered to Gem as she put her homework away.
“You bet.”
At that moment, Joel burst through the door. His hair looked like he just rolled out of bed, and his college hoddie was askew. He fumbled with his energy drink while handing the teacher his tardy slip.
“Are you going to put that in a water bottle?” The teacher glared at the canned drink like it personally hurt her.
“No.” Joel looked her in the eyes.
“No drinks unless they’re in a closed water bottle. Go throw it away. School policies.”
What Joel did next was probably one of the best things Gem had ever witnessed. He brought the can up to his lips, and stared the teacher in the eyes as he promptly chugged it.
It was brilliant.
“He’s gonna regret that when the heart palpitations start.” Pearl whispered, and Gem snickered.
Joel flopped into the seat next to Gem with all the grace of a half-awake 14 year old, and Gem wondered how late he stayed up the night before.
They were then assigned classwork, and Gem did her best to explain it to Joel, who looked completely and utterly baffled.
Real.
“You have an Ao3 account, right?” Pearl asked Gem when the teacher gave them permission to talk quietly.
“Yeah, why?”
“Will you write a fic about the variables?”
“Absolutely no-“
“What’s Ao3?” Joel asked, and Gem stared at him.
“I don’t feel comfortable answering that question.” Gem eventually said.
“It’s a Yaoi website.” Pearl supplied.
“What’s Yaoi?” Joel was full of questions today. Gem blamed his energy drink.
“It’s Yuri but men.” Gem told him.
“Yuri?”
“Yaoi with women.”
“You don’t want to know.” Pearl told him.
“But what if I do want to know?”
“You don’t.” Gem said.
“Hey Grian,” Joel turned around in his seat to look at the Avian. “What’s Ya-“
“YOUR DOG’S NAME IS X Y AXIS?” Bdubs shouted from his spot next to Scar.
“WHAT?” Ren shouted from across the room.
“Boys, quiet.” The teacher glared at them from her desk. Hah.
“What?” Pearl stage-whispered to Gem.
“I have no clue.” She stage whispered back.