"Pass your homework to the front of the class."
Edd's day always started like clockwork and today was no different. Their math teacher always started class this way, pacing the room like a drill sergeant. Edd cheerily opened his bookbag, looking forward to a new venture in academia. He pulled out his folder labeled, "Math." Inside were blank sheets of notebook paper on the right, and his homework would be on the left.
He stopped. It was empty.
He closed it and reopened it again, as if this were a dream, as if his homework would appear where it should, as it should.
But the left pocket was still vacant, taunting him. Sweat formed on his brow and he hurriedly scrounged into his bookbag, riffling through notebooks, and holding books by their spine, shaking them in hopes his homework would drift out, previously hidden between pages.
Someone poked his back with a stack of papers. It was the homework of everyone who sat behind him. He shook, taking the stack, and nervously handed it to the person in front of him.
Oh Lord. . .It seems I forgot my homework. He pulled at the sides of his hat and grinded his teeth
He looked around himself. Perhaps he could copy-
No. He stopped himself. That wouldn't solve his problem at all, and besides, he didn't really know anyone in class. . .
As if on cue, he noticed Kevin in the corner of his eye- and Kevin's homework still on his desk.
He shook his head. No. I won't stoop to such low methods, he thought.
Still though, he had never been tardy, nor had he ever missed homework, no matter the circumstances - even that one time when Ed ate his homework he had managed to rescue it (much to the teacher's delight).
His chest grew tight, and he glanced back and forth. His desk bare of homework, Kevin, desk, Kevin, desk, Kevin, desk. . .
He tapped his fingers on the desk nervously, and somehow in the back of his mind he felt that if he kept tapping, his homework would appear. It was a silly notion, but obsessive compulsive disorder appears and justifies itself in mysterious ways. His breathing grew tighter and tighter, and soon he was wheezing and tapping.
Wheezing, tapping, desk, Kevin, desk, Kevin, wheezing, tapping, desk, wheezing, Kevin, desk.
Desk without his homework.
He forced himself out of the tapping rhythm and raised his hand. "Pardon me, may I use the washroom?"
At the teacher's permission, he stood and tried his calmest to walk out of the classroom. He didn't notice Kevin's gaze on him as he left, nor did he know that Kevin asked to be excused afterward.
XX
He had splashed cold water in his face to no avail. He was still shaking, stomach in knots, hiding in the bathroom stall. Perhaps he could go to the nurse's office; he was beginning to find he was in no condition to continue with class for the day and it would aid in an excuse as to why his homework was tardy.
And yet, that presented a new problem: he had never been tardy or sent home.
He sniffled, then choked. Raising a brow and glaring, he covered his nose.
Someone was smoking.
Kevin poked his head up over the stall next to him, leaning on the partition separating the stalls. "Hey." He lazily took a drag.
Edd glared at the cigarette. "I'm surprised, Kevin. Don't you know smoking only hurts your respiratory system, which will detriment your ability in athletic activities?"
"Yes." Kevin answered, blowing smoke.
"How irresponsible."
"Speaking of," Kevin's eyes lit like black coals, "you forgot your homework, didn't you?"
Edd gasped, then coughed from breathing in smoke. He waved it away, "A correct deduction."
Kevin pulled out a stack of paper, math problems scribbled angrily across them. "You can copy mine. That's what you wanted to do, right?" As if Edd was thinking it, he defended, I'm smarter than I look."
Double D crossed his arms.
"I saw you staring at me." He flicked ashes into the toilet he was standing on. "Unless I'm wrong and you're gay or something." He looked away, ". . . Which is cool."
"How dare you accuse me of having the desire to cheat." Edd climbed on the toilet carefully so as not to touch it (and making a mental note to scrub his hands clean harder than usual). He held onto the top of the stall and faced Kevin. Silently, vindictively, he took the cigarette out of the jock's mouth and dropped it in the toilet below.
"So you're not denying the other thing I said." Kevin grimaced, ignoring his fallen cigarette. Before Edd could register the meaning to his words, Kevin grabbed the back of his head and kissed him, hard.
He forced Edd's mouth open with his tongue, tracing his teeth. When he pulled away he left the taste of tar and jerky..
Edd stood, speechless. "I. . . I'm not copying off of you," he said, changing the subject, color rising throughout his body. When he blushed, his entire body pinked.
"Oh. Then I guess we don't need this, then." Kevin whipped out his lighter and lit up his homework, just like that.
Again, Edd had no words. He couldn't fathom being tardy or turning in homework late and here Kevin was, waving his accomplishment in his face. And burning it.
"How could you?! You need that."
"No, I don't. I'll just make up the points when we take the test Friday." Kevin sighed. "You worry too much, you know that?" He dropped the charred pages and stepped on the toilet handle with the heel of his foot.
Edd's eyes widened as he realized that only moments before he had been in the middle of a panic attack. When had that dissolved, he wondered. Did it occur when he saw Kevin's bad habit curdling in the corner of his mouth or when he'd kissed him? It was strange that Kevin had followed him in the first place. They rarely exchanged words and yet the redhead was here, helping him. Kevin knew Double D would never have copied off him. He had brought it up as a ruse, to comfort him, and to also teach Edd something. Shocking how the tables turned.
"Thank you, Kevin."
"I didn't do anything," Kevin denied, averting his eyes.
Edd quickly kissed him on the cheek before climbing down the toilet. Kevin jumped down and joined him. At Edd's insistence they both washed their hands before leaving the restroom.
"I'm going down with you," Kevin said. "No homework."
For a brief moment, their hands laced together on their way back to class.