Chapter Text
The wind blowing between the buildings is brisk enough that Satoru is glad he wore his turtleneck with his jacket zipped all the way up today, allowing him to tuck his nose down into it as he walks as fast as his long legs will take him. The science and mathematics building is the farthest from his apartment, and he asks himself again why he made the choice to live there. A choice made because the apartment is close to his favorite coffee shop where he used to annoy his favorite barista every day, but that's another thing he tries not to think about lately.
There are a lot of things on the list of Do Not Think About This Or You’ll (Probably) Die lately. The cafe he used to frequent so often they had his drink made right when he walked through the door like clockwork, the difference between white and black holes, where his favorite sweatshirt is, the man that broke his heart, among many other things.
Anyway.
Satoru can hear the chatter of his freshman students waiting for class to start down the hall. It’s the first week of the winter semester. He can’t find it in himself to be as excited as he usually is. It’s cold outside and he hates being cold. Whatever, he’ll get used to it like he does every year. The second, and main reason he’s not at level 100 on the excitement scale, is setting up their presentation slides at the desk when he finally walks through the door.
Sleek black hair pulled up in his signature half bun, onyx stones in his ears, shiny silver jewelry in his lips glinting when he chews on his lip in concentration.
Getou Suguru, social psychology grad student, fellow TA in this Statistics 100 section (Because the professor loves how well they work together. Hah). Also his ex-boyfriend as of two days, eight hours, and 37 minutes ago. Not that Satoru is counting or anything.
He hangs his coat on the back of the desk chair that Suguru is currently occupying. He doesn’t miss the side eye he receives in return. Suguru loves his personal space. Satoru also loves Suguru's personal space. Loved? No, definitely still present tense. He sighs before turning to address the room full of eighteen-year-olds.
“Good morning, everyone! Let’s take our seats so we can get through these god awful ‘Get to Know Me’s, huh?” Satoru lets a small smile grace his face at the small laughs he receives. He needs to at least try to live up to the expectations of the people paying to be here.
It’s not that Satoru has a huge ego (he does), but he knows what people post on the website where people share their experiences about their TAs and professors at this university. Some people say that they never expected the exuberant astrophysics nerd and the placid psychology fanatic would teach a statistics section so well, but here they are. In their second year of grad school, he and Suguru have the highest rankings for this particular section. They always have. And he's going to do everything in his power to keep it that way, pit in his stomach be damned.
Satoru is known for his over the top enthusiasm when it comes to all things statistics (and why does he always wear those glasses?); Suguru is known for his calmness and his ability to put students’ minds at ease when they’re struggling to understand a concept. Suguru is the serenity one finds in the rain and wind of a storm. Satoru is the storm.
“How do you expect the world to take you seriously when you don't even take yourself seriously?”
Why take yourself seriously when the world gives you so many reasons to know that seriousness only leads to heartache? The devil-may-care attitude suits him just fine, thank you. Doesn’t stop those words from haunting him since they were thrown at him like poison-dipped daggers from the man he loves.
The class carries on as usual during syllabus week. They review the overall layout of the course, note upcoming due dates, and review the components of group work. Suguru hates when they get to the group work portion of the semester. It makes him anxious with all the questions that come up. Satoru thrives when the students group up. Something about people working together to discover the secrets in statistics excites him. Maybe he’s the weird one.
Syllabus talk moves to the Get to Know Me portion. What was once a team presentation is now an individual one. Wow, Satoru’s heart hurts.
Suguru’s slides are all clean and professional, noting his educational career so far and what interests him in the studies he’s helping with for his thesis. There is no longer a slide dedicated to the travels he and a certain white haired man have been on in between semesters.
Satoru’s slides are more…messy. They are full of emojis and animations and pictures of his life outside of academia. The (rather impressive) list of his educational accomplishments take up the least amount of space. His travels are still documented and there are still pictures of some of his favorite places, but there are none of him in them. He couldn’t find any where he was the only one in the shot.
He’s stopped from exiting the classroom once he finally answers all the questions from enthusiastic students by the voice he knows too well. It hasn’t been directed towards him in two days, ten hours, and ten minutes.
There's a clearing of a throat, as if it hurt to speak to him. “We need to decide what days we’re meeting for class prep.”
Suguru didn’t even use his name. It shouldn’t hurt as much as it does.
“You know what days work for me,” Satoru throws over his shoulder as he leaves the classroom to escape back to his apartment.
Fridays for Satoru are sacred. They're the one weekday during his week that he has off from everything. No classes to attend or teach, no homework to do because he makes sure to do all his homework for the next week every Thursday night, and, most importantly, no meetings with his advisor.
This Friday is distinctly not one of those days.
“I need you to cover a section for one of the other TAs today.” Yaga’s voice is gruff from where it comes out of the phone sitting on the counter while he gets his breakfast ingredients around. Maybe he's not making breakfast after all.
“You mean I have to go babysit a bunch of eighteen year olds because someone had the audacity to get sick during the first week of the semester.” Satoru can practically hear Yaga’s eyeroll through the phone. “And why is it my responsibility to cover for them? Is it even a subject that relates to astrophysics at all?”
“It's an intro psych class.”
Now that's something.
Satoru has only covered an intro psych section a handful of times. Those times were favors. Funny that he thought he'd never do it again.
“And why can't the usual TA be there? They're actually sick, aren't they.” It's not a question, more of an accusation than anything. Satoru tries not to slam his milk on the refrigerator shelf as he's cleaning up his almost-breakfast and grabs his phone to go and change into something more appropriate for work. (He loves these pajama pants with the little pumpkins on them that he bought for Halloween two years ago, but he doesn't feel like getting made fun of by a bunch of teenagers today.)
Yaga's voice is tired when he speaks next. “He’s not sick, Satoru. He just can't make it in today.”
“Sure. I'll be there, but you owe me.”
Satoru is in a decidedly horrible bad mood by the time he finds himself halfway across campus. Maybe it has more to do with who he's having to cover this class for and not that he's losing a few hours of his Friday, but that's neither here nor there.
He's pissed. Pissed even more that Suguru felt the need to have Yaga of all people be the messenger. Probably because he knows that Satoru fully believes in killing the messenger, and while Satoru loves getting on the older man's nerves, he's not going to do it to the point where actually gets on his bad side.
He definitely pushes the door a little too hard on his way into the building, but can you blame him?
The class goes off without a hitch. Not that he expected otherwise. Although he would have loved to be able to present Suguru’s slides about himself and rip into him without him there. He just tells the students that they'll meet the man next week.
It's as he's making the walk back to his apartment that Satoru catches a flash of long black hair in his peripherals. He'd know that messy bun anywhere, even if he wishes he wouldn’t.
Suguru is sitting at a cafe table that still has yet to make it inside for the season. This is normal for him. He's always liked the cold and he likes to sit outside even when Satoru complains incessantly about it. Satoru almost has the nerve to go over and demand answers, but he's stopped when he sees a familiar blond man sit with him at the table.
Nanami Kento, a close mutual friend of theirs, setting two warm drinks down and waiting intently for Suguru to start speaking once he settles into his chair.
Satoru decides that he no longer has the energy to expel and returns to his apartment, where he makes the most sugary concoction of a breakfast and settles into his couch cushions to spend the day rotting away and watching as many of the shitty romantic comedies he's collected as he can.