The Alternia Dance Band
Your alarm goes off for 6:30, but you always seem to be awake about five minutes before it's set for. Must be some internal clock mechanism. You find yourself trapped by your… partner's long, embracing arms. You know he doesn't like to wake up early, so you gently slide out from his grasp to silence the buzzing from your phone. You unlock the device and see a reminder message from your brother sent an hour earlier. He has to get up at an ungodly hour to set up the campus kitchen for breakfast. You're supposed to meet up with a friend of his so you can get another quick tour of the school before your day starts. Yeah, you're nervous.
A lot of people say the Mohawk hairdo suits you, but it just seems kind of… fake to you. Your brother has a similar style, a lot more vibrant and cooler though. It matches his personality much more than your hair does to your own. Kind of weird that something like hair can describe a person. You do your best to be a courageous person, but to be honest you're a wimp. At least that's what you think. Your boyfriend, err, bunk-buddy would say otherwise. Gamzee has always been a big supporter of you, and it's something you of course greatly appreciate. Time to stop looking at yourself in the mirror and keep getting ready.
You feel a bit apprehensive leaving Gamzee on his own to get ready, but he's usually able to handle himself. This is a totally different environment for him though… Shoot, you're late to meet John!
"Bye, Gamz!" you quietly call out to the occupied bed before gently closing the door behind you. He matters a lot to you. A lot of people don't understand what you are to each other, and sometimes even you aren't so sure.
Breakfast is over in the meal hall, you hope John didn't just decide to leave because you didn't show up on time… A warm feeling grows in the pit of your stomach, but not the good kind. It's the one that makes you nauseous and dizzy. Your brother would be so upset if you screwed up your first day before classes had even started.
You're about to burst into the building, but hold yourself back so you don't accidentally bring unwarranted attention to yourself. You slowly, ever-so-painfully slowly open the door and slip in. Rufioh is already starting to clean up the kitchen so you waste no time in greeting him.
"Uh, hey bro. Sorry I'm late…"
Rufioh turns away from his work and beams at you, "Oh hi Tav. It's no problem man… Come on, let's not keep John waiting."
Rufioh leads you over to a boy with similar skin tone to your brother. John gives you a quirky look… the same you've seen many times before. The one that says, "If you two are related why is he white and you're brown?" You're Spanish. You were adopted. End of story.
An hour later and John is dropping you and Gamzee off at your class. Gamzee's class with Kanaya is first, so he hugs you goodbye. It's a bit awkward being affectionate with him in front of John, whom you've known for what seemed like only a fraction of a second in your mind. Gamzee spares you a kiss and instead heads inside to locate his friend. John guides you in silence to the auto mechanics class. You're unsurprised but happy to see that Equius and Horrus are in this program, so after bidding farewell to John, you sit down at the shop table with them.
This is a boring lecture class about what you'll be doing throughout the semester. Equius and Horrus pay close attention, even though they clearly already know everything. This will mostly be new stuff to you, but all this talking about the layout of the course is so dull. You'd rather actually be working with your hands right now instead of learning how you'll be doing it. Just figure it out as you go! Unfortunately, that has ended poorly many times… As always for courses like this, you'll have to do the WHMIS test. You wish you could just do a general one for all the classes instead of having to do it over and over again for each course.
Auto mechanics class ends and you head out for the next one of the day. You desperately search for your campus map among all the supplies in your backpack. You're always way over prepared. Equius notices you struggling and kindly offers you his copy. You take it sheepishly, just thinking to look it over for a moment to find your way, but Equius is already gone and left you with it. Comparing it with your schedule, you find that your next class is in the English department. Although you'll be forced to sit through lecture again, at least it's for a subject you particularly love! Old English Mythology. Before you can get into other regions' lore you need to study the mainstream stuff you already know, but it's always so interesting to read about.
Once again, since it's the first day, things are pretty slow in class. The teacher reminds everyone about where to find the syllabus, and many required texts. Forty-five minutes later and class is coming to an end. Because this is a specialty course, an essay had to be submitted with your application. She hands back those papers with marks. You know you obviously passed since you're in the class, but you're anxious to see how well you actually did. The topic was on the relevance of English folklore today. You chose to use the modern adaptations from Disney and how they've contributed to keeping old mythology alive. It was one of the more enjoyable pieces you've written for school, if it's possible to enjoy those at all.
The professor hands your assignment back and she gives you a smile, "That was a nice read, Mr. Nitram. There's always room for improvement, though."
"Thank you ma'am…, and yes of course, always," you reply with a shy smile. She nods and continues to give back the essays. You take a deep breath and look at your grade. 89%. Hey that's not bad! Pretty great actually. You carefully put the paper into your binder and close it back up, waiting to be dismissed. The professor remarks that overall she was impressed with everyone's essays and hopes to see more great work in the future. You've got a good feeling about this class.
You enter into the meal hall for the second time today. After grabbing your lunch, your brother directs you to the table where John should be sitting. He isn't there yet though… Wait, is that Gamzee? He was always one to get comfortable with everyone. You cautiously sit next to the familiar taller boy, waiting for someone to be puzzled by your sudden appearance at their table… but no one really says anything. Not exactly inviting, but they certainly don't seem to mind you being here.
You begin to survey the people around you, the new faces whom you may be hanging out with for the rest of the year. On the other side of the table from you are what you can deduce are John's friends. A few girls and boys… The blonde-haired one with aviator shades is kind of cute. He looks pretty disinterested in what's going on around him though. Sollux, a friend who was a year ahead of you in high school, sits with a girl who has big round glasses and beautiful black hair. She even has a darker skin tone like yours, you just can't quite place it. Pacific origins, that's for sure. You hear from Gamzee that Kanaya is off with Rose. You've met Rose on a few occasions, and from what you can tell you like her. Equius and Horrus join the table a few minutes after you and sit close to you but leave a few chairs between you and them. Later, John and some others arrive. He's with a girl who looks strikingly similar to him, and two others that look like twins too.
John sits next to you, and after some time into lunch he asks you to introduce the Zahhak twins to him. They aren't exactly social, but they are always courteous, so they oblige in greeting John. He later gets up to leave, saying he has to attend to some "business" and that he probably won't be back before lunch is over. He actually does come back a few moments later to quickly gather up some of his pals, but he's off again just as soon as he arrived. As lunch draws to a close you leave early to get to your next class. Gamzee says he has Medieval History with Eridan. You've got… Botany. With nobody you've met yet, as far as you know. Your best friend heads off to the Global Studies wing and you're off to the Science department.
John waves to you with a goofy grin when he enters the class. Oh goody. John is a swell guy but he's a bit overbearing. Better get used to it, you might be able to avoid him in the halls, but class is a whole other dilemma. The girl with nice hair and round glasses from lunch looks up from her gaze on John to smile at you. She says goodbye to him and goes to join another table. Like a fair amount of your other friends (which you suppose includes John), you're here for the excellent arts program, but no matter what program you take at Mobius University, there's always required courses. Tech isn't so bad, but science just isn't all that appealing to you. You happen to be good at it, but that's only because you felt you didn't have much of a choice if you wanted to be successful, so you applied yourself. Impressively this institution offers some interesting looking courses: Botany is the study of plants, and during the second semester you're slated for an intro to Zoology class. After getting that prerequisite, you could take a course on Animal Behaviour, which is something you do actually find fascinating. If music doesn't seem to be working out, you could definitely see yourself moving onto veterinarian school.
There's a bit of casual banter between you and John before class begins. He asks you how your day has been so far, all the usual pleasantries. You give him vague answers, just wanting class to start. You think he gets the point and he starts taking out his own supplies. This is usually a second-year course, thus why John is here, but you took advanced biology in high school, which lets you skip ahead in any institution that recognizes the AP classes. Arts scholarships were stretched thin among the talented people at school, so you opted to go for a few sciences. It turned out to be worth it, earning you multiple thousands-dollar bursaries so long as you take a certain number of science courses and keep up a high average.
"Psst! Tavros!"
Who was that? You turn around to see… Holy shit! It's one of your best friends Aradia!
"Ah! Hey Aradia, it's so good to see you," you say to her, beaming. She's just as excited to see you in a class with her as well.
John butts in, "Oh, is this one of your friends?"
"Uh, yes. John, this is Aradia," you acquaint the two.
She shakes his hand and speaks up, "Hello John. Tavros and I went to high school together, we became good friends in our AP Biology classes."
"Ohhh, so that's how you got in here, Tav! It's not usual for freshmen to get into sophomore courses," John explains. Did he just call you Tav? That's kind of a… close friend kind of name for you. Not that you'll tell him not to refer to you as that, it's just a little weird for you.
"Quiet please, everyone," the professor announces. You hope you can catch up with Aradia before you have to part ways for the last class of the day.
At the ring of the bell, you're lucky to get just a minute to chat with Aradia. She has to get going because her next period is in another building. You just have to move a floor upwards to make your way towards Psychology. Unfortunately there was no one you knew in this class, and everyone seemed pretty reserved to themselves. Oh well, guess that means you won't get distracted by anyone. The professor actually starts off with a few interesting videos on the subject, including that infamous prison experiment, and one about a scientist pretending to be some duckling's mother. You find that cute and fascinating at the same time.
Wow, you're at the end of your first day of classes. You know what? It wasn't too bad either. You wonder if Gamzee has anything planned for this evening. You begin the trek back to the dormitories with a little spring in your step.