David is taking notes in a lecture for a class he's planning on taking next term, maybe, when the kid walks in. He's half an hour late, but he doesn't look perturbed, and even though the last few rows are almost entirely empty, he chooses to sit right next to David. His backpack hitting the seat is loud enough to make the teacher pause, but only for a moment, and then he's off again. David takes a moment longer to recover, but then he's back to diligently taking notes. Even if he doesn't take the course for real, it's really interesting stuff, and David knows that if he doesn't take meticulous notes, he'll forget it all the moment he walks out of the room. Nothing he learns verbally sticks. Hence, flawless notetaking skills.
"Dude. You're like a font." The latecomer is peeking at his notes, and he's not really lowering his voice, either. The teacher shoots them an exasperated look, and David frowns.
"Dude?"
"Oh, sorry. That's making assumptions, isn't it?" The boy leans back in his chair, as if in deep thought, and then he's back leaning over David's notes and very much in David's personal bubble. "Buddy. You're like, a font. Buddy's gender neutral, right?"
"What?" This is a weird conversation, although at least the stranger is whispering, now. He's missed the teacher's last slide, though.
"You should never assume people's genders. My brother is the newly-elected head of the gay club, so I know these things."
Someone who is trying not to use gendered words, but calls Out on Campus the 'gay club'? Weird isn't a strong enough word anymore.
"You don't have any problems with gay kids, right? Because if you do, I'm not gonna sit with you anymore."
"…No," David says after a long moment with the boy staring at him. His writing is looking a little sloppier, now, as he rushes to get the rest of this slide written down.
"Good." He sits back in his seat, and David breathes easier, thinking maybe he's lost interest in him. But it's only five minutes later that he's back in his space again.
"This is the coolest part, by the way. You might want to add some Bold to that typeface of yours, or something."
This kid talks fast, doesn't pause for breath, so it takes David a moment longer to process anything longer than a few words.
"Are you repeating, then? The class." He sounds wooden in comparison. He's not good with social interactions at the best of time, but now, in a classroom where he's trying to pay attention, with someone very much in his space, he's even worse.
"Huh? Oh, no." His hand is beating out a quick pattern on his pant leg, completely out of time with his quick words. "I qualify for this special ed thing where they send me the notes because I'm not very good at focusing on things especially for long periods of time and these two hour lectures are pretty damn long especially in these big rooms I'm almost positive there's something in the way they were designed to slow time maybe I'll do my thesis on that, time stealing architecture in the schools of today attention grabbing right?"
He stops. He wants a response. David looks back at him, knowing he's missing another slide but not exactly sure what his neighbour is waiting for. "Right…?"
"Yeah! See?" And he's off again. "So yeah they send me the notes which is pretty cool and this prof is so organized that they actually send me the notes before class even starts so I usually read them and then show up late! But I wanted to come for this part because it's awesome."
And in talking this much, David has surely missed the 'awesome' part. He says as much, and the boy laughs.
"Okay, okay! I'll leave you alone. I'm Tommy, by the way. Tommy Shepherd. I haven't seen you in here before are you always here? Did you just get here?"
David frowns. "David. And I'm not in this class this semester, I just wanted to sit in and see if I should take it for Spring or-"
"You're not even in the class?" Tommy pauses, and then starts tapping on his leg again. "Sorry. I interrupted you. But that's kinda ridiculous. Did you see outside? It's sunny. In February. That's crazy."
The professor brings the lights up again, and David blinks. Apparently they'd talked right up to the ten minute break that marked the halfway point of the lecture. He looks at his notebook, the steadily messier notes with no resolution. Oops.
"Tell you what," Tommy says, standing up and stretching. "How about this. We go get lunch. I'm thinking noodles. We blow off the rest of this class because you missed the cool part so it won't make sense anyway, and I've already read the end so it's not much fun for me anyway. After noodles, we will officially be friends, which means I can just send you the slides for the lecture and you can go back to being creepily prepared for next semester. How's that sound?"
It… actually sounded pretty good. Better than coming back to the lecture without knowing what's going on, that's for sure.
"Sure," he says, surprising himself. "Yeah. Noodles are good."
"Dude," Tommy smirks at him. "Noodles are awesome."
He stands up, packing up his pencils, slipping on his jacket. It's heavy and comforting and feels right on his shoulders, and with it on, he can match Tommy's smile.
"Okay."
"Okay!" Tommy repeats back at him, and David follows him out. Maybe making friends at school won't be the hardest part of university, after all.
(No, the hardest part of uni will be trying to keep Tommy out of trouble for longer than five minutes, but David doesn't know that just yet. In this moment, he is blissfully ignorant of how often he will apologize to someone on behalf of his best friend in the next four years, how many nights he'll spend lost in the city on Tommy's whim. But hey, university is supposed to help you experience new things, right? And a best friend he'd do anything for is a new experience he wouldn't give up for the world)