#yeah i listened to doodle while doin these

[faunandfloraas]

Changbin "ATE", teaser images.

[gaoau]

True And Kind

Everyday, Properly warnings — none. word count — 639

next.

Top of the class, not once a failing grade, diligent and proper, Mr. No Gaps Kita Shinsuke from a couple desks away. Both a person and a mind worth envying and admiring. Where he turns in his assignments in time and never needs a second chance, [Name] shrugs her shoulders under heaps of procrastination materialized into blank pages and a 23 that does nothing to motivate her to try. Where he raises his hand to nail every question thrown his way, she doodles asymmetrical shapes next to the unreadable kanji she is meant to study from later.

The clock changes and time ticks away. It's still English class. Unstimulating and simple, as it has been for the past years; the most she can get out of it is some deeper lore for her D&D world-building. The teacher hands back a test with a 99 circled on top. She scans the paper for her one mistake, flickering through half-assed words and letters that only exist if she squints at the graphite.

Ah. 

She finds her error.

Yeah, she could've avoided that. She shrugs to herself before slipping another 99 inside her binder. The teacher goes off to explain even more sentence structures and [Name] spares a glance at Kita a few desks away again.

He knows the language, he knows the material, he knows the answers to any question he could be possibly asked. Yet he sits down, pen in hand, back straight against his chair, and he listens intently to every word he can jot onto his notebook for later reference.

Where he earns an effortless 100 on every paper, [Name] hovers above 97 and on the edge of 99.9 without a care. Where he has become captain in the sport he poured his heart and soul into since middle-school, she ties her earphones around her neck like a noose and fiddles with a screwdriver on anything she can find. Where he wants to carry things out properly, she starts projects that never see completion while browsing the depths of YouTube.

Average and bordering on senioritis, flipping between 20's and 90's like a metronome, present but absent, Ms. Well Whatever [Surname] [Name] from a few desks behind him. A walking contradiction, as Kita's own book defines her. Where she can easily snatch the top spot of the class from his nimble fingers, she instead uses her chair as a swing and counts the tiles on the ceiling. Where the school offers her endless chances to make her potential shine, she instead arrives late to class because she made a stop at the vending machine.

Something didn't add up for Kita upon first acknowledging her. Not anyone could make it into advanced classes, yet this careless girl managed to stick around for their entire first year with grades that mimicked a lifeline.

As class representative, he saw it fit to take matters into his own hands. After going through each of his classmates and the observations he had built through the months, he approached [Name] as she sat by herself.

"[Surname], can I have a word with ya?"

She looked up from her phone with a raised brow. "Sure?"

"Why won't ya put yer brain to good use for the whole year, rather than every other week?"

Her brows furrowed. She wasn't offended, but taken aback. "I don't see why?" Her head shook slightly and her shoulders shrugged. "I passed, anyway."

"The end don't justify the means, [Surname]."

"I ain't tryna justify 'em." That shrug of hers seemed to be a must. She shoved her phone inside her skirt as she rose from her chair. A sigh squeezed out from between her teeth. "Ya keep doin' you, Kita. I'll survive. See ya in a few weeks."