I sat waiting as the rest of the students filed in, searching the sea of faces for one I recognised. I soon gave up on that, though, and looked towards the front of the gym.
"Hey, ith anyone thitting there?"
I looked up and saw some weirdo wearing red and blue glasses, gesturing to the empty seat beside me.
"Uh… no. No one is."
"Thankth." He lisped, sitting down and pulling out a smart phone.
He put his feet up on the seat in front of him and I noticed that he was wearing one whit shoe and one black one. I shrugged to myself, whatever works for him.
"Name'th Thollukth." He said, not looking up from his phone.
"…..Thollukth?"
"No. Th-Oll-Ukth. Thollukth." He repeated, attempting to clarify.
"I'm sorry, I don't…" He tapped on his phone a few times, then turned it to me, showing a single word on-screen.
'Sollux'
"Oh. Sollux. Hi. I'm Karkat."
He nodded to me, then turned back to what he'd been doing.
~~~
After the standard 'Welcome to the School' speeches and basic rules rundown, we were told we'd be split up into groups of four – three juniors and one senior – and have a huge (!) scavenger hunt to get to know the school better.
I didn't pay attention to most of the names as they were called, but there were a few, like Sollux Captor, the guy sitting next to me, John Egbert, Strider's bucktoothed friend, and Dave Strider himself, which I paid attention to.
"Vantas, Karkat – Eridan Ampora."
I stood, finally, the last name to be called, and made my way to this Ampora guy.
"W-well, I guess w-we can make the introductions now-w." The senior looked a list of names that had been hastily scrawled on his hand. "Sollux….?"
Sollux looked up from his game.
"Thup?"
"Okay. Cool. I noticed you w-were sittin' next to….." he trailed off, looking at me, clearly searching for a name.
"Karkat." I supplied.
"Next to Karkat earlier. Do you know-w each other?"
"You could thay that I gueth."
"Good, good. So, now-w w-we'v-ve met Sollux and, by extension, Kar. Last but not least w-we hav-ve-"
"Oh fuck. It's you again…"
I'd finally bothered to look at the last member of the group to find Dave fucking Strider leaning against the wall.
"And it is such a pleasure to meet again, my vertically-challenged friend." He drawled, fluorescent light glinting off his glasses.
"I'm not fucking short." I growled.
"No. You're just the regular garden-variety of short." Strider smirked.
"Uh…. Sorry to interrupt but w-we kinda hav-ve to start." Ampora stepped between us.
I gave him an once-over. His scarf and hipster glasses were stupid and the purple streak in his hair made him look like a douche. Despite that, though, he didn't look like a bad guy.
"Ugh. Fine." I stepped aside, letting Ampora lead us wherever we had to go.
Stupid school. Stupid Scavenger hunt. Stupid fucking Strider.
