Chapter Text
University is different for everyone, Yak knows that. Not everyone throws themselves into their faculty’s freshy week kum-by-ya forcible getalongs and has a blooming social life right off the bat, some people are introverts or can’t immediately mesh with other people like that. But freshy hazing, as tame as it is nowadays, really did form fast bonds and it's hard not to look sideways at the stragglers who were still finding their feet. Were they just shy, stuck in their shells waiting for the right kind of friend to bump into during class, or was there a reason they weren’t making and keeping any friends?
Yak is definitely quick to judge, it took barely an iota of imposition for him to throw out any random idiot onto the metaphorical pile of garbage humans in his mind, clearing the way for him to never think about them again; he also found that rarely did anyone pull themselves out of that particular pile and raise themselves in his esteem afterwards, but exceptions did happen.
It was the exact same way with Spring.
He had seen her the first day, strawberry blonde hair bright in the harsh sun and small round face open as she laughed so much louder than everyone around her. During group activities she was bossy and domineering, even when they were all doing different things!
Yak had been irritated completely by the end of the first day, and decided he was gonna avoid wherever she ended up; unfortunately they had been lumped together for every goddamn thing that whole week.
And thank god they were. Yak would have missed out on one of the best goddamned friends he’d ever had had he been allowed to flee and distance himself from her. Freshy week and its mandatory group fun had allowed him to see how weird and frankly sincere Spring was, how despite the fact she entered every social interaction like a conversational despot, she was a despot who knew what she was about and it was usually the right call to listen to her anyway.
He also realised by the end of the week that fate was gonna keep throwing them together until he succumbed to their will as Spring put it “accepted his place as her rightful minion”.
People had quickly realised that freshy week was something to be endured and embraced just for the sheer benefits it brought as a lonely new adult in a strange new world. Even life-long recluses steeled themselves through it so they could actually find someone to commiserate with the heavy new curriculum and sudden adulthood thrown at them.
One person who hadn’t got this fundamental message or seemed to have found their own Spring was Porsche.
Yak had first seen Porsche when he had burst into the gym where all the rest of the new students had already settled and were waiting for the array of suitably intimidating seniors to start off their first activity. He had seemingly been immune to the glares of their upperclassmen as he had slipped out a broad shameless grin and scuttled over to join his classmates in their vague seated huddle, giving a few waggling wai gestures with his palms towards the disapproving faces still standing.
Yak had twisted his lips to repress the tingle of irritation at the lack of fucks given by this guy who had not only turned up late but also not given the appropriate level of shamed-faced apologies you were meant to when you mildly inconvenienced a large group of total strangers. Yak had looked round and seen that some shared his spark of being irked by this display of shamelessness, whilst others, notably girls but not exclusively, seemed charmed and amused by the little sideshow they had received that had broken the deliberate tension created by the seniors to keep them quiet.
Yak had noticed Porsche sparingly throughout the week, as he had turned up to only the barest of events but also somehow in relative main-character tendency had ended up centre stage, half the time on accident.
Porsche after two days had half the freshman girls hanging around him because he had gotten in the face of a pushy senior who was trying to get a girl’s LINE number in exchange for his signature. Yak was unsure how many of them had a crush and how many were there in support of those who did have crushes; Spring had pointed out then that some were there because there was more than one pushy senior this year and a lot of the freshman girls felt safer keeping the odds in their own favour by having Porsche at least in shouting distance.
Yak at that point in time still hadn’t realised Spring was a rough treasure and had just nodded, hoping she would get he was rebuffing her and that she would leave him alone (she had actually noted his lack of regard but had similarly disregarded his rebuffing, which he was later entirely grateful for).
Porsche was the one who could bend back the farthest in the limbo competition during their last mixer before classes startted, suitably showing up the previous four guys who had barely made it into a proper angle before collapsing and jumping up, hoping they looked fun and loose rather than a little bit pitiful in front of a whole room of girls who they wanted to impress for romance reasons and boys who they had to impress for platonic bro reasons.
Porsche had also saved a guy’s face from being temporarily mashed up by catching a football with his bare hand just before it made contact. He had apparently only leant over and stuck out a broad brown hand with such casualness that the split second before the ball made a loud thwacking impact the guy had begun frowning, obviously wondering why this guy had decided to thrust his hand out so close to his face.
Yak hadn’t really been paying attention during this scene, having been instructed to lay out cones across the field; but according to Spring who had been nearer, it was very heroic and dramatic and all the things you would want to happen to an establishing main character in a series to prove to the audience and fellow characters the superior agility and dashing skills of said main character, without making him look like an attention hogging prick.
Yak wasn’t so sure Porsche wasn’t a prick but despite a whole series of weird little incidents in freshy week that had meant everyone knew who Porsche was, and that many people had decided he was either satan or their dream future boyfriend, Porsche didn’t seem to covet any actual attention. He didn’t turn up to enough things for that to be the case.
Turning up fashionably late was a way to get people to notice you; not turning up at all only worked a couple of times before people got over the mystique and forgot even the lack of you.
By the start of classes Porsche had been absent for most of the non-essential events, and only his “devastating good looks and cripplingly sweet smile” (Spring) and the mentioned weird series of incidents were either Porsche saved someone, tripped on a cable and/or thin air and broke a thing or a person, or one occasion had got everyone’s attention by turning up in a very sharp-looking gem-coloured suit (expensive looking one at that) and had given the excuse he hadn’t had time to change.
Spring had said he looked edible; Yak had been fighting the humidity since first light that day and had only noticed with deep resentment that even wearing a sleeved shirt and jacket Porsche had looked quite cool and refreshed. Fucker.
Not even Porsche and his idiosyncrasies could keep the full attention of a whole year of business students who had crashed full pelt into lectures and projects and study groups with the blind panic of the ill-prepared and ill-fated.
Yak and Spring (mostly Yak) had resolved their rough interactions into a smooth well-oiled machine after one group project had left them murderously fuming at the absent cretins who had abandoned them with various excuses and no shame whatsoever, and the late nights muttering together bitterly as the two did the work of five people. In the aftermath of a presentation where they may have snidely included a credits slide at the end that was a little too truthful, Yak had been able to sleep the sleep of the vindictive and victorious; and when his brain had rebooted and he found himself still hanging around with Spring almost constantly for non-project reasons, he had realised that Spring was now his friend. Not only that but as the term went on, more foul group projects plagued everyone and classes continued, Spring stayed his friend and even became his best friend. He had made several others, Korn and Fuse and Deer, the people he mainly wanted to be around and sit with in class, with other friends he saw sometimes but only hung out with at bars or in larger group meet ups.
But Spring was who he met in the mornings, who he barely needed to mention lunch to before he was dragged to their spot, and who sometimes was already hanging out in his room when he returned because they were a tiny dictator who didn’t take no for an answer when they asked for your room code.
And Spring was the one who had decided Porsche was the only logical candidate for their faculty’s moon, making it Yak’s problem by association. Yak didn’t know if the gods were blessing him or punishing him with Spring’s friendship sometimes. Perhaps both.
Perhaps just cursing him, Yak thought dourly as he slouched next to Spring, trapped by her tiny claws needling his poor arm, her anticipation only causing him more pain as she got more and more excited.
“He’s not a fucking celebrity, why are you so excited, and why the fuck did he have to be the one you backed for faculty moon? How did he even win?? He barely turns up to anything organised, he doesn’t seem to have actually made any friends, only weird groupies, and that one girl who I’m guessing would already be his official stalker if she could pin him down long enough to get some quality stalking in.” Yak hissed at Spring as she ignored his sage advice and only tugged harder at his arm, still peering into the car park like it would magically rain tall svelte pretty boys named Porsche upon her.
“He says he’s busy, and that he tries to make it to everything important that he can. I think he must have at least two jobs because he mentioned during a project a really great business example that he had come across ‘during work’,” said Spring, finally relenting a little on her death grip and retracting her nails from Yak’s poor flesh, “but then also mentioned his shoulder ached one time because his job is really physically demanding? Maybe an office job for experience, and then one to pay bills and fees? Anyway, I would be flat out with even one job let alone multiple, on top of the course load we have at the moment.”
Yak felt mildly impressed with Spring’s deductive skills, and a flash of sympathy with this little revelation. Yak’s parents had chipped in a lot for fees and his various bills, but Yak had also spent most of the summer doing various delivery jobs to save enough that he could be job-free during the term. With all the coursework and classes he had right now, he was really goddamn appreciative of past-Yak’s thinking.
“Wait, so you think he has two jobs…and you want to give him a totally unwarranted, unpaid, extra curricular third job that takes up even more of his time and rewards him…how exactly?”
Spring scowled at him, her face saying ‘shut up if you want to live’.
“Shut up if you want to live.” Now her mouth was saying it too. Spring seriously needed less caffeine in her life, or less time watching dramatic mobster films. Or both.
Spring sighed as she checked the time on her phone. “He better be here soon or you’ll have to run ahead and get my coffee before first class.”
Yak’s face would have twisted in exasperation if this wasn’t actually the thousand and one-th time Spring had dictated his future movements as if he had nothing better to do and no brain to decide elseways. Maybe he should retract his sincere appreciation for their friendship.
Better not to bother, Spring would just tell him to reverse his retraction and he would have wasted some valuable time in futility.
“Does he even have a car? What are we looking for?”
Spring shrugged. “No clue, but I’ve seen him coming to class from here pretty regularly, maybe he comes from the bike racks and skirts round here instead of cutting through the quad to the other side like other people do, but this rough area is definitely the best place to catch him.”
“You would be a great pokemon trainer.”
“The very best, like no-one ever was.”
Yak decided he would return to staring out across the hazy car park pretending to look for a guy he didn’t care about, because if he responded he knew he was just inviting a multitude of bad pokemon puns to batter him for the next hour.
Best not to provoke the beast.
A tinny roar of a motorbike cut across Yak’s fake air of looking-like-he-was-actually-scanning-for-Porsche-but-really-he-was-wondering-if-he-should-get-a-muffin-with-his-coffee-and-what-muffin-it-should-be, and he startled back to reality as a really shiny monster of a bike rumbled to a slow pace and swung into an open bay, engine cutting off smoothly as the rider propped the kickstand out and leaned back, pulling his helmet off and shaking his head slightly.
Yak blinked. According to Spring Porsche had two jobs, and Yak had seen himself Porsche usually wore fairly cheap looking converse knock-offs and brought his own food, never a sign of the consistently affluent. But maybe the reason he had no money was he was insane, and had spent it all on this fucking behemoth of a motorbike.
Yak didn’t know bikes; he’d had a moped, like most guys his age, had ridden the small cheap zippy bikes that made up a huge chunk of traffic. But proper gleaming, fast and the furious motorbikes? Out of his league, out of his world, best not to even contemplate it because the concept of spending that much money on one thing was terrifying. And even Yak could tell this was the sort of bike that was so much more expensive than it looked, and it looked like it was worth a fucking mint.
Knock-off converse or not, Porsche might just be a secret billionaire’s son with how expensive and custom his bike looked.
Spring looked like she didn’t care a whit about how secretly loaded Porsche might be, only that he was there and he would submit to her demands. Or demand really. Spring only ever really had one demand of any person. Obey her.
She waved cheerfully at Porsche, and Yak felt oddly embarrassed as Porsche caught sight of them clearly lying in wait for him; Yak stood as short as he could be, slouching into his tall frame, Spring’s head only just clearing his elbows as she almost left the ground in her vigorous waving, as if Porsche could miss them two feet away and obviously starning back.
Porsche raised a brown hand, the other reaching to hang his helmet on the handle of his bike. “Hey..Spring? And..friend? You guys are here bright and early for class huh?”
As he spoke he had swung a long leg round to dismount his bike, flicking open the saddle to remove a tatty rucksack and formal looking binder filled with paper. Yak noted as Porsche shoved his helmet in the freed-up space that Porsche was actually quite graceful.
Maybe it was the fact that the one time he’d seen Porsche trip over the same cable three separate times during a two hour period, but he’d put Porsche down as ‘not to be let near glassware or precarious structures’.
“Hey Porsche! Actually we were waiting for you! We have great news!”
Porsche’s eyebrow raised, but he let slip a responsive smile to Spring’s enthusiasm and wandered over, again oddly graceful for how many times Yak had seen him almost faceplant over almost nothing.
“What’s this news? Have exams already been cancelled?”
Yak wished. They had barely even begun the term and already teachers were peppering various lectures with ‘remember this for the exams’, ‘this will be used during exams’, the worst being ‘this may or may not be used in your exams’. Goddamn Schroedinger’s exams, filled with everything and nothing until you actually open the test and take it.
Spring shook her head, one of her plaits swinging free off her shoulder to thwack Yak softly in the arm. She smiled beatifically, “Nope, even better!”
She (a little overdramatically Yak thought) stretched the handles of her tote bag wide so she could plunge her hand in and remove a little metal pin. She thrust it towards Porsche who seemed to catch it more on instinct than any active impulse to receive a random object from a clearly unhinged acquaintance on an early Monday morning.
“I put you forward as faculty moon, and you won! Congratulations, you are Business faculty’s official faculty moon!”
Spring added a little jazz hand as he finished and Yak really appreciated Spring’s strength of character. He wouldn’t have had the unmitigated gall to do jazz hands in front of a man whose face clearly communicated that right quick soon as the shock was over, Porsche was going to remember that rage was a thing.
Like a red flag in front of a bull, but jazz hands in front of a blindsided boy.
Yak shifted as Porsche seemed to finally take in what Spring was so jazz-handy about (thankfully her hands were jazzy but also swift and they were already back in their usual place, dragging on Yak’s arm and causing slow but sure scoliosis). His face went the full rainbow of anger, denial, bargaining, back and forth in flashes before damning acceptance seeped onto his features.
Porsche looked from Spring, to Yak like he could alter reality and save him, and then after Yak silently communicated he wasn’t gonna be saving Porsche from reality or Spring, back to the little pin in his hand.
“......Kinn’s gonna be so fucking smug about this.” Porsche muttered.
Yak didn’t know who Kinn was, maybe someone in their faculty he was blanking on, but Porsche seemed to have pretty easily accepted this, which A meant Spring was over the moon ecstatic and B Porsche was going to be a lot more involved in university events from now on.
Yak felt a premonition that this had potential to be a decision that was costly for both his health and soul. Looking at just how gleeful Spring was, Yak thought that was almost probable to outright definite.