Hey everyone!
This chapter is a little shorter than the others, but I hope it makes up for that by being completely Steven-based! The May/Steven is going to be a little slow because most of their interaction happens at school, where Steven is working...I won't explain that too much. Just read the chapter!
Enjoy!
Chapter Six: First Day
Harvard University was a beautiful school on a beautiful campus, May realized when she approached the school on her first day of class. For all intents and purposes, her nerves should have prevented her from being able to appreciate her gorgeous surroundings. However, May somehow found a way to take in the beauty of the school while also fretting about College Algebra, her first class of the day and of the semester.
After that she had Geology, which she couldn't lie to herself about and say that she wasn't looking forward to it mainly because she would get to see Steven again. Then, on Tuesday, she would have English Composition I, Biology in the lecture hall, and then the second part of Biology in the lab right afterwards. She was good at science and English, so Tuesdays were going to be fun days for her, while math was one of her weaker suits. She had scheduled math with geology for a reason—it would make Mondays and Wednesdays a good deal less mind-numbing.
She found her way to her first class well enough and while the size of the class shouldn't have shocked her, it absolutely did. She was one of maybe one hundred students and immediately she felt her heart begin to race. Still, she tried to find a good seat near the front so that she could take her notes, preferably away from too many other people. May wanted friends in her new state of residence, but she didn't believe that her weakest class was the place to find them. She was going to have to focus all of her attention on learning in this class and nothing else.
Right on time, the professor walked into the room and introduced himself as Professor Childes. To May's relief, for the most part of the first class they simply went over the syllabus, but her luck didn't last; he assigned thirteen pages of reading and twenty questions that needed to be answered and submitted the next class period. She could help but sigh a little to herself dismally. Harvard was an Ivy League school; of course there would be homework on the first day.
After class was dismissed, May found herself wandering over to the cafeteria. The food there was supposed to be priced for student consumption—in other words, it was apparently very cheap, at least according to the guys who had been talking two seats away from her after class had been let out.
She had had the unfortunate necessity to buy a new messenger bag because the singed one would be suspicious after the explosion in Dawes Island Park and she had to keep herself as removed from that situation as possible. She had made sure the messenger bag was bulky and strong enough to hold her textbooks and notes all at once, which she was starting to think her other would not have been capable of. Still, it was a cute pink bag that rested comfortably on her hip as she walked.
The cafeteria took a little bit of work to find and when she finally arrived, it was very crowded—probably because it was about lunchtime. May wandered over to the line for food, which was rather long, and distractedly read the menu posted above her head.
"May!" came a vaguely familiar voice. Startled, she turned away from the menu and whirled around.
Oh god. It was Steven and he was approaching her rapidly.
Her cheeks immediately flamed red and she waved at him, trying to contain her nervousness. He had a concerned look on his face, which led her to wonder what was going on. It was a little exciting that he was approaching her of his own free will, but for what reason, she wasn't sure.
"Did you hear about what happened at Dawes Island Park?" he asked once he had come up to her in line. "You didn't get hurt or anything, did you?"
For a long, full moment, May drew a blank. She remembered that she had asked Steven about how long it would take her to get to Dawes Island Park. She ran there as fast as she could and met Archie. Not much longer afterwards, the explosion had happened.
Steven knew she had been at the park and he was aware that she had been upset and in a hurry before she left.
Did he know?
It was then that May realized she had been silent for too long. "Oh, I'm fine," she replied as casually as she could. There was a slightly nervous edge to her tone that she hoped Steven didn't hear. "I heard about it, but I was in a completely different area of the park, so I only saw the fire in the distance."
Steven nodded slowly. "I'm glad," he said, sounding very relieved. May could only smile at him and wish she wasn't stuck lying to someone she wished she could be closer with. "Have you ever eaten in the cafeteria before?" he asked suddenly.
May shook her head, a little surprised. She had thought that he was there just to check up on her, but now it appeared he wanted to make small talk—not that she was complaining or anything. "Nope," she replied with a smile. "This is my first day and I didn't come here before class started, so…"
"Never, ever try any of the Delites," Steven warned her, a smile tugging at his lips. "They have a different one for every day of the week and trust me, you don't want to eat that stuff. I've been going to Harvard for seven years now and I still can't figure out what they put in there. It's not worth the risk."
May laughed at his faux-solemn tone. "They didn't sound all that appetizing anyways," she assured him. "I was actually thinking about going for the Swiss cheese and mushroom burger."
Steven's eyes light up and he smiled genuinely. "That's my favorite. You're a girl after my own heart," he said. May blushed so strongly that she was surprised her head didn't explode from the rush of blood to her cheeks.
"Y-yeah," she stammered, trying to laugh off her embarrassment. "S-so, are you here to get food?"
Steven nodded. "I was going to check up on you in class, but since I found you here, I figured I could knock out two birds with one stone." He grinned and followed May forward as the line moved up. "How was your first class?"
"Oh," May said, rolling her eyes a little, "It was College Algebra. If math wasn't so crucial to my major, I would never take another math class in my life."
Steven laughed. "I hate math, too, but unfortunately, geology requires a lot of it as well. What's your major?"
"Marine biology," May replied. She could feel the heat from her cheeks receding as she got more comfortable with Steven's presence. "My specific concern is the pollution of the ocean, so my minor is going to be in environmental sciences. Of course, working with sea creatures is definitely something I'm looking forward to, too."
The conversation continued on in that way, with Steven asking May questions about her schooling and May answering, but eventually she grew confident enough in the conversation to ask him some questions of her own. Apparently, Steven was a grad student currently, studying to get a Ph.D. in geology and working part-time as a teacher's assistant to help pay for his schooling. Apparently, his father owned a large up-and-coming technology company that was spreading quickly throughout the United States, but Steven was determined not to leech off his father's company and wanted to make his own way in life.
"My dad really wanted me to follow in his footsteps and work at the company, but my interest has always been with the earth and rocks, so I had to decline," he was telling her after they had picked up their food and were heading to go sit down. May was surprised and not just a little excited that he was paying so much attention to her, going as far as to sit down and eat lunch with her.
May nodded. "My dad wanted me to go into business like him, but that was never something I wanted to do. You know, he traveled so much when I was younger that I really never got to see him and it was kind of like having only one parent." When Steven's eyes softened in sympathy, she just shrugged. "It's no big deal. He was always home for holidays and every summer he would take us on a month-long trip to wherever my mom and I wanted to go, so he totally made up for it in the long run. I'm rather well-traveled, and since I always wanted to go to the beach, I've got some pretty good experience with living near the ocean."
They sat down and began to eat their burgers, which were both Swiss cheese and mushroom. The conversation was steady and without pause and May was thoroughly enjoying getting to know Steven. A slightly vindictive part of her thought about what Lucy Bennett and her friend would think of her getting to know Steven one-on-one like this, but then she let that thought dissipate because it wasn't like she was in high school anymore.
Suddenly, while Steven was mid-sentence, his phone started to vibrate. He gave her an apologetic smile and picked it up to answer the text that had just come through.
"I'm so sorry, May, but Professor Devon has an emergency he needs me to come handle."
May nodded, not feeling disappointed in the least. This was more than she ever could have hoped for. "No worries," she said with a smile. "Work comes first, right?"
Steven grinned, seeming thankful that she was so understanding. "Well, I'll see you in class, alright? You have the 2:30pm period?"
"Yup," she replied. "I'll see you then."
Steven waved and took his tray to the trash can before all but running off in the direction of the science department. May sat over her half-eaten burger with what she hoped wasn't too dreamy of a smile on her face. She was just so lucky, wasn't she, getting to talk to Steven for what amounted to about an hour and then getting to see Archie so frequently.
On that thought, she pulled out her phone and considered texting him. They had texted a few times and in the middle of math class, he had sent her a sarcastic text about hoping her first day of school wasn't too shitty in that special, supportive-but-'unconcerned' way that only Archie could pull off. It had made her giggle softly before slipping her phone back into her pocket. It seemed only fair that she texted him back, so she quickly typed a message into her phone.
To: Archie
From: May
Message Body: It's bearable. Math class sucked, but I think I made a new friend out of my TA. :) My next class starts soon, though, so I'll ttyl.
She didn't expect Archie to reply any time soon because she had started to notice that he usually slept during the afternoons. She was a bit envious of him in that regard.
May frowned at the thought of sleep. She wouldn't be able to go home and just crash after her first day of class, unfortunately. Maxie had called her in for a meeting at eight o'clock that night and she was a little frustrated and more than a bit confused at the request, but perhaps it had to do with her schedule now that school had started. Still, she wasn't sure why he couldn't do the meeting during regular work hours.
She decided to start in on her math homework since she had a bit of free time, but by the time she had finished reading the first chapter, she was almost late for geology.
May was looking forward to seeing Steven again, although she told herself not to expect him to pay her any extra attention in class. While he was teaching he was at work and she wouldn't expect anything different from him.
With a small smile on her face, May started off to her next class.
So, I'm a little surprised and 100% excited to say that overall, Maxie becoming part of the love-triangle-soon-to-be-square received overwhelming support. So that's great! We'll be seeing more of Maxie next chapter - which was going to happen anyway, but this adds a twist to the interaction I hadn't previously planned for. Good thing the chapter isn't written yet!
READ THIS NEXT NOTE:
I have NOT played Omega Ruby yet, nor did I ever play Ruby before the revamp. Unfortunately, that means that I have little to no idea what characterizes Maxie beyond what little I have inferred from Alpha Sapphire/Sapphire. Which means I'll have to do a little research (meaning, play Omega Ruby!) I'm certainly not complaining, but it means I have to at least get to the first Maxie/player interaction before I can get a decent idea of how he speaks, his motivations, his personality, etc. Some of you have said I'm doing an overall great job with keeping characters realistic, and THANK YOU SO MUCH, but if we're going to be seeing tons of Maxie and in a romantic light, I need a lot more information.
The more information I get, the better Maxie will turn out, since I'm obviously not going to play the whole game through just to write Maxie. (I'm too excited for this story to do that!) SO...
IF YOU ARE FAMILIAR WITH OMEGA RUBY/RUBY AND ARE A MAXIE FAN, PLEASE LEAVE A LITTLE TIDBIT ON HIS CHARACTER IN A REVIEW!
Anybody who does this will be helping the story in ways that I cannot even describe! Please, I beg of you!
Now, for responses:
A round applause to: j2jackson321, terracannon876, mupp3tbab3h, Felicity Dream, JetravenEx, LeprechaunGreen, TrebleKnight, CelestialOwl, Okeanos-heart, statickandy, Guest1, Guest2, Mononokehime503, DragonkynNatKiasu, EnigmaUniverse, Akatsupure, Almiaranger, Hunter the Weavile, , katzeko, F. Flotsam, becksterRES, L van Am, StubblePrince, Anti-Ivory, loli-belle, and 0Shadow Panther0. Special big thanks to those who gave nice, long reviews! You guys are awesome!
Felicity Dream - GIOVANNI FTW! Haha He's always been special to me, the first big bad guy, but Archie has a special place in his heart for me. I'm sure after the Author's Note in this chapter you can understand why Maxie's scenes have been "few and vague". ;) Never be ashamed to write long reviews! I love them, they're like chocolate for the writer's soul!
JetravenEx - as far as kitty Groudon, you'll just have to wait and see. ;) Top 3 favorite champions? Steven, Grimsley, and Lance. Maybe Cynthia, too. Thanks for asking!
DragonkynNatKiasu - You are AWESOME for all the questions! I answered them over PM because I didn't want to load up the chapter with a false word count, but you definitely get a mention for all the thought you put into your questions! :D
LeprechaunGreen - I'm sorry that you didn't want Maxie to be added in. I hope you'll still stick with the story and just see how it plays out! My favorite legendary of all the regions...hmm...probably Suicune. My first ever game was Pokemon Crystal and I chose it for Suicune specifically. Runners-up are Articuno and Lugia. (I don't really care TOO much for the newer legendaries, although Xerneas and Kyogre are fantastic, too.)
Mononokehime503 - So sorry that it's going to be a square now! I hope you'll stick it out and just see where the story goes for a little while before clicking that sad little x button and the top of the screen! D:
EnigmaUniverse - I was actually uncertain as to whether I should include that line in the story, but then I decided that, just like May, I couldn't give any more fucks and did it. I"m glad you liked it! And no, your long review was fantastic! Keep it up!
Almiaranger - I don't usually appreciate puns, but that was pretty great. I got a nice laugh out of it. :)
F. Flotsam - I'm so glad you liked post-bombing Starbucks therapy! I thought it was a rather nice touch, myself. ;) And Archie...your description of him is perfect. Weird scary-gangster-marshmallow. I love it!
That's all for now. Damn, I might need to respond to people via PM. So many people are leaving such fantastic reviews! :D
As for me, I'd date Archie. Is is not obvious how much I love him?
QUESTION: What was the first generation you played?
So, keep up the love and don't forget: IF YOU ARE FAMILIAR WITH MAXIE, GIVE ME SOME INSIGHT INTO HIS CHARACTER! You get brownies if you do!