The sound of graphite running coarsely against paper filled the room as every student tried their best to keep up with the teacher's explanation. He was speaking fast, his hand only a couple seconds behind as he wrote the notes on the board that he expected each student to copy down. Class that day had begun a few minutes late and, as such, he'd decided to speed things up for a bit in hopes they could still achieve the day's agenda. He would write in straight lines, filling up the dry erase board to max capacity before going back to the beginning, erasing everything, and writing more notes for the students to follow. Without asking the class whether they were ready to move on or not, he could only hope that they were capable of jotting everything down.
"Ugh, I wish he'd slow down just a bit."
Muttering to herself under her breath, [Name] tried her best to write down the words her teacher was currently putting on the board. Without the use of her dominant hand, copying notes during class proved to be a rather difficult task. The pencil she held was weak in her grip, causing it to slip about on the page as she tried to write. More often than not, she would make a mistake and draw a line longer than needed or make a mark that was barely visible, so she would need to go back with her eraser or pencil to fix the problem. Her non-dominant hand had started to tremble, still not used to the work it took to write a proper sentence.
Noticing the difficulty that [Name] was having writing even one word from the board, let alone an entire paragraph of notes, Arakita couldn't help but feel a bit frustrated at their teacher for not slowing down a little. With an annoyed growl, he kicked his legs out in front of him, knocking his feet against the seat in front of him by accident, but the subsequent noise it made proved to be in his favor. Both the teacher and the class turned to look at him with wary eyes, wondering what had set him off this time around. [Name] was looking at him in bewilderment, completely at a loss for why her seatmate would suddenly get so aggressive for what seemed to be no reason at all.
"Oi, you're moving too fast," he complained rather loudly in the teacher's direction, throwing his pencil down onto his desk for emphasis. "I can't copy down everything that fast." He had to bite his tongue to keep from swearing at his teacher; his goal was to help [Name] out, not get himself in trouble.
With a heavy sigh, the older man at the front of the classroom turned back to the dry erase board and began writing once more, saying, "Arakita-san, do you honestly think professors in university would bow down to your whim and slow their lecture? If you can't keep up, it'll have to be something you need to get used to in the future." As if mocking him, Arakita swore he saw the teacher speed up their writing further.
Feeling as if he was already at his boiling point for the day, Arakita's muscles tensed up as he got ready to jump out of his seat to confront his teacher. A single hand reaching across to land on his shoulder stopped him though, and he looked over at [Name]. She was glaring at him, shaking her head to discourage him from doing anything too brash. The single pulse her good hand gave his shoulder was enough to somewhat calm him down and he resorted to leaning back in his seat instead, tapping his foot against the linoleum floor in frustration.
Noting that Arakita no longer looked like he wanted to murder the teacher, [Name] retreated her hand from his shoulder in favor for picking up her pencil. She had realized Arakita's intention when he complained about not being able to copy the notes down fast enough and, though she was happy he was speaking up for her, she didn't want him to get in trouble either. She went back to taking notes, her hand shaking a bit from the unfamiliar action and causing her words to look barely legible. Watching her for a moment, Arakita was reminded of the reason he had spoken up in the first place.
Frustration seeped into him once more. His first plan to help [Name] out with her note taking had backfired tremendously, but there had to be some other thing he could do. Glancing down at his own notebook that lay open on his desk, he eyed out the blank pages. He had taken some notes down, only jotting on the page what he deemed as important, but halfway through class he had stopped taking notes out of boredom. Glancing back over to what [Name] was writing, he saw that she had just gotten to the point where he had stopped writing.
Clicking his tongue, Arakita picked up his pencil and began taking notes once more. He shifted his gaze back and forth between his papers and the board, quickly writing down notes as the teacher went over them. It wasn't until he had finished taking about a paragraph of notes that he realized his normal handwriting wasn't the best. With an irritated growl—which everyone around him chose to ignore—Arakita went back and started rewriting his notes from the beginning in a more legible script. It was tasking having to write neat and fast at the same time, but somehow he was able to manage it.
By the time the end of class rolled around, [Name] had long since given up on taking notes. Her non-dominant hand had started to cramp up due to getting overworked and she just couldn't see herself catching up with the notes she needed. It wasn't something she would look forward to doing, but she would need to ask a few friends if she could copy their notes. Knowing how slowly she wrote with her non-dominant hand, it most likely would take all night to complete.
With lunch officially starting, [Name] slowly started to pack away her pencils and notebooks as the rest of class rushed to leave the room. As she was struggling to shift through her bag with one hand, the flutter of papers landing on her desk caught her attention. Looking at them, she noticed some unusually nice handwriting and what appeared to be the lecture notes for the day.
"What's this for?" Turning her gaze over toward Arakita, she tilted her head in question.
Refusing to look her in the eye, he barked out a, "What does it look like, dumbass? They're today's notes."
A grin spread onto [Name]'s face as she picked up the small stack of papers, flipping through a few of them to confirm that they were indeed the complete set of notes for the day. She was careful to place them in her bag, sticking them between a couple of folders where she would be able to find them later.
"Thanks, Arakita," she cooed in appreciation, her tone transforming into a teasing one as she continued with, "Who knew you could be such a sweet guy when you put your mind to it."
With an unflattering snort, Arakita picked up his bag and began walking toward the exit of the room. "It's not like I was going to be studying with them, anyway. Just don't expect it to happen every day," he warned. "Hurry up, or we're going to miss lunch."
"Yes, sir!"
