Equations with Lines (or Something Like That) [open]

Chiyo would always insist that she wasn’t stupid and, to an extent, that was true; she made it into Kizuna, after all, although that was after several all-night tutoring sessions from a frankly amazing teacher, which most likely made all the difference between her dropping out and continuing her education. No, when asked, Chiyo would always claim that she just didn’t like school work, therefor didn’t bother devoting her time to it. Usually, this excuse would work and anyone who questioned her would nod and scurry off back to wherever the Hell they came from, leaving Chiyo with a sense of smug self-satisfaction that she’d successfully scared off another potential bully.

Too bad teachers seemed to be immune to a scowl and vague explanation, especially the 2-A teacher Mr. Surikawa, who Chiyo had the displeasure of having as her homeroom leader for the rest of the year. Unlike most of her past teachers, Surikawa wasn’t content with just leaving the girl to do as she wished, and had ordered her up to the library to read up on... what was it called? Linear equations? Beh, it was something ridiculous that nobody (aside from her fellow classmates, it appeared...) could do.

So, since her Aunt wouldn’t be too happy to hear about her disrespecting a teacher, Chiyo trudged up to the library, a frown etched on her face and her brows furrowed into a glare. Stupid Surikawa and his stupid desire to teach. With a huff, Chiyo entered the large room, making a b-line towards the chairs, tossing herself in one before bothering to glance around. The library was nice enough, she guessed; bookshelves covering every wall and elegant wooden desks that were probably made of something expensive and extravagant.

She adjusted herself in the surprisingly uncomfortable chair, pulling at her skirt in hopes it would cover just a little more of her legs to shield them from discomfort, only to dislodge her carefully tucked in shirt. Scowling, Chiyo reached under her sweater to fiddle with her outfit, glaring at any unfortunate student who glanced up at her to question what she was doing. The cuts lining her fingertips made it difficult to properly grip the end of her shirt - her Aunt insisted on bandaging every little scape, which made things much more difficult than necessary for Chiyo - and she quickly gave up in trying to appear picture perfect for any teachers or student council members. She wasn’t there for them, anyway. She was there so she could get her stupid teacher off her back for once.

“Hey,” she called out to a student sitting a few chairs away from her, his nose buried in a book. “Where are the books about equations with lines?” The boy stared hopelessly at her, awkwardly shrugging his shoulders.

It was going to be a long day.

The green haired girl hesitantly turned to stare at the boy who addressed her. Lib-rare-ee-n? Oh. That was the old lady standing by the front counter, right? The one with the scrunched up nose and eyes too small for her face. Scoffing, she shrugged, shifting her gaze back to everywhere but the person speaking to her. Why was he even bothering addressing her, anyway? Nobody came up to someone and just started talking without some kind of motive - so, the question was, what did this guy want? Everyone knew Chiyo wasn’t a rich girl, Hell, she lived in the country for most of her life and her Aunt lived comfortably, yes, but she wasn’t rolling in cash, so speaking to her in an attempt to get money wasn’t likely. She also wasn’t popular, so there was no chance of him leeching off any kind of success she’d managed to scrape up.

Confused and a little annoyed, Chiyo’s scowl deepened; the only thing worse than being told she was dumb was actually feeling dumb. “Didn’t ask for your name,” she grumbled, gaze fixed on the strange boy sitting beside her. He didn’t look like an ass, then again, not many books could be judged by their covers, but even Chiyo, with all her paranoia, had to admit he had a somewhat trustworthy face.

“...Watanabe.” Her tone was short and sharp, leaving no room for comment or debate and lacking any kind of warmth or friendliness; it was fact and nothing more. Still, it was enough to have Chiyo mutter under her breath and shrug lower into her chair, her arms tightening over her chest. Socialization was never her strong point, and ever since coming out of her self-imposed exile, it proved to only become more and more difficult, which made it all the harder for her to relate to any of her fellow students.

Suddenly reminded of her Aunt’s not-so gentle encouragement to go and talk to the people around her - it was more of a threat than anything, a ‘go make friends or get out’ situation - Chiyo’s head snapped back to the boy. “I don’t like that woman,” she begun, cocking her head towards the librarian, “She looks like a baddie out of a shoujo manga.” And if life followed the rules of shoujo manga, approaching the villainess would end up with Chiyo covered in even more bruises and a newfound understanding and appreciating for love and friendship.

God forbid that ever happened.

“I don’t wanna deal with her, so tell me where the books about line math are.”

Chiyo watched the weird boy head over to the library counter, nose scrunching and brow furrowing as she stared. Why was he doing this for her? People like him didn’t make any sense and that... well, she couldn’t tell if it was a pain in the ass or kind of refreshing. She was still considering whether or not she should be grateful when he returned with the information about the books, catching her off guard and making her jump in her seat, instinctively raising her arms to cover her face. Back in middle school, whenever someone snuck up on her, a flurry of punches or a rotting bento soon followed, and there was no chance she was going to let that happen, again.

Chiyo quickly noticed what was actually happening and went bright red, immediately lowering her arms to cross them back over her chest. How embarrassing, she must have looked like some kind of trembling pansy.

“...Kano, right?” She mumbled, awkwardly clearing her throat as she pushed herself out of her chair. “Why’d you do that?” There was probably a much nicer way to phrase that, but Chiyo wasn’t exactly sure what that was. She got excellent scores in otome games - the bishies always said she had a magical way with words - but that was pre-written; there were visible choices that she could scroll though and select, and when she had no idea what to say, there was always a walkthrough somewhere on the internet for her to use. But, in real life, there was nothing. Just her and her inability to speak without offending someone and pushing them away, which, when she considered it, was probably for the best.

“Uh, I mean, uh...” Chiyo trailed off, face still red and fingers twitching nervously. “Lead the way.”

His enthusiasm was... well, weird. Not weird enough to make Chiyo uncomfortable - she’d spent two years with only the company of 4chan, so was more than well versed with the strange and discomforting - but enough to put her even more on edge that usual. People who smiled that much were usually hiding something; whether it was something big or not was irrelevent, secrets were connected to lies and lies lead to betrayal. She internally pomised herself to keep an eye out for this smiling, helpful boy, more for her own safety than any kind of concern about him being taken advantage of by less savory students.

She stared at him as he sorted through the math section of the library, still hesitant about being overly-friendly with him, but not seeing any reason to push him away too quickly, just yet. After all, he did face the manga villainess for her and didn’t complain once... And he was scanning the shelves for her, even though she could easily do it herself. With a slightly confused scowl, Chiyo muttered to herself about ‘annoying boys’ and her ‘stupid Aunt’ - why did everyone have to be so damn confusing?

Snapped out of her thoughts by Genji’s words, Chiyo glanced at the front cover of the book, immediately shaking her head. “I said math with lines, not lin-linear...? Yeah, linear stuff.” Her scowl morphed into a pout and she shook her head at the boy trying to help her, “You didn’t listen.” Despite her casual body language, her tone sounded legitimately disappointed, almost hurt, at Genji apparently ignoring her words.

Chiyo’s nose scrunched when he insisted on trying again. What was the point? When you got something wrong, you were supposed to slink off to your bedroom and cry for a while, not go back out and put yourself in a position to look like an idiot. Unfortunately, before Chiyo could inform Genji of the proper way to react to his failure, he had already stuck his head back in the bookshelf, frantically gathering texts for her. To say she wsa uncomfortable would be an understatement; she was close to running out the door out of sheer terror. Why was someone being so nice to her? Wasn’t she just some idiot punk not worth wasting time on?!

When the boy turned his attention back to her and begun showing each book in hopes of helping her find the right one, she glared to the side and snatched the books out of his arms, shuffling back to the desk, seemingly finished with him, judging by her dismissive action.

“Don’t carry so much stuff,” she scolded, still refusing to turn and face her savior. “You’ll hurt your back.” She nodded, as if confirming her own statement, and once more perched herself in a chair, brow furrowed as she glanced at each of the ten books, trying to figure out what she was supposed to be learning. It was when she saw the last text, one with ‘X=Y+1’ displayed across the front that she shoved her pointer finger at it, eyes wide.

“This!” She called, the students around her jumping at her sudden declaration. “This one! The book on...” Her voice went dead and her shoulders slumped. ‘Linear Equations’ it read. O-oh. So that’s what those were. Chiyo cleared her throat, cheeks going pink when it clicked with her that ‘math with lines’ was supposed to be ‘linear equations’; the very first book Genji had shown her.

“Sorry,” she mumbled, flipping the book open andstaring blankly at the complicated text. X, Y; what were they doing with a bunch of numbers?! “I’m kind of dumb, apparently, so, uh, don’t get mad.”