Chapter Twenty-Eight
McCoy watches in shock as Pavel solves the Rubik's cube in 10.88 seconds. He stares at the Russian a little while and just shakes his head.
"You scare me sometimes, you know that."
The Russian breaks out into a grin. "I want to get it in five seconds and then learn to blind solve it."
"You're crazy, but at least you found a new hobby."
Pavel shrugs. "At least I can take my mind off things, it's nice to have something to make me stop thinking about Hikaru."
McCoy's face softens. "I think he's doing the right thing. You know, with you being so young and all."
Cogs start turning in Pavel's mind and he looks at the doctor. "Wait, what do you mean…?"
McCoy realises he's screwed up. "You're still underage Chekov, he shouldn't be going after you."
"Wait, wait, wait, you didn't talk Sulu out of being with me because of my age, did you?"
"Chekov…"
"You didn't."
"You're too young okay, he needs to respect that. I think that really-"
"No," he says boldly, standing up. "I don't care what you think. Starfleet is about diversity and if we can treat species or gender or sexuality the same way then why the hell can't I be respected as a normal part of this establishment because of my age?"
"Because if something goes wrong Sulu's gonna end up in court or on the sex offender's registry! If you really loved him you wouldn't put him in that kind of danger."
Pavel's mouth drops open. How dare McCoy not only force Sulu into avoiding him, but also emotionally blackmail him.
"You can't tell me what to do with my decisions okay? I'm only seventeen for three more months and I am not going to let you get in the way of what I need in my life."
Pavel leaves before he can hear the rest of McCoy's argument. The one thing the Russian hates more than feeling sad, is feeling angry. He gets home and pegs a grapefruit at the wall. He didn't even know they had a grapefruit there, but it made a crack in the wall and spattered everywhere, and that makes him feel a little better.
"Oi Chekov, why is there grapefruit all over the wall?"
He ignores Scotty calling out to him and goes back to his seven by seven cube. They take him longer to solve but his times are comparatively better on the larger and harder cubes.
"Did you throw the grapefruit at the wall?"
"I guess."
"Well you either did or you didn't, laddie."
"Okay, whatever, I threw the stupid fruit at the wall I'll clean it up later."
"What happened?" Scotty asks gently. He's never really seen Pavel angry before and he doesn't really like it.
"I don't really want to talk about it." Pavel loses his train of thought and forgets where he's going with the seven by seven cube. He sighs and puts it down on the table, running his hands through his hair.
Scotty decides to leave him be. Pavel goes back to work on his cube and frowns. The cube isn't giving him the normal peace it does with Sulu related problems. It makes me him want to get a harder cube but Argos said no more cubes (or any other shaped coloured puzzle) until he can solve the seven by seven in under three minutes. He's pretty close but he knows that after losing his concentration he's going to have to start again.
The Scotsman ends up finding out why Pavel's angry through McCoy. Scotty talks about it gently with Pavel as he scrubs the grapefruit off the wall. The citrus smell is still pungent throughout the kitchen and the Russian does feel a little a guilty about it. Scotty helps him refill the crack he made in the wall. Pavel tries not to throw another piece of excessively large fruit at the wall as he talks about McCoy and then about Sulu. Pavel calls him a coward and Scotty tries not to get too concerned over the acrimonious tone of his voice.
Pavel gets his time to 2:45.11 on the seven by seven, beating a former world record. He's still a fair way off from developing the speed in his hands but Argos is proud of his progress. Argos is half Greek, half Chinese and all talent when it comes to cooking. Pavel thought Sulu could cook but after having a few club meetings in Argos's dorm, he is quite mistaken. Argos's cooking follows not distinct culture but it is flavoursome and wholesome and Pavel loves it. He leaves all the meetings feeling full and too slow to solve any more cubes.
Weirdly enough, Argos's speciality is the one-handed 3x3 cube. He can solve it with one hand and in all honesty it kind of scares Pavel and the other club members. Their total attendance has gone up to seven people. Argos, Pavel, a human engineer Pavel met on Delta Vega, an Andorian woman, two twin girls of a species Pavel can't actually identify and a Vulcan man who insists building speed in his hand is logical.
The twin girls Pavel helps with the 3x3 cubes seem to be nice. They're a little flirty but they're super funny and insults they throw at each other are hilarious. Pavel is in tears listening to them one day and he can't even finish his solve with them. They're so perfectly in sync with ideas and comebacks and the way they pay out Argos just makes Pavel feel so at home amongst the group. He can't exactly pronounce their names right but he tries and in return they purposely mispronounce his and it makes him grin every time.