Chapter Text
Well, fuck.
How the hell was Kid supposed to know that there’d be a test today? He was seriously considering turning around and leaving, bullshitting something or other about a sickness or a dead relative, but he made eye contact with the professor before he could. He was a pretty hard student to miss, bright red hair and all. There was no way he could fake being sick now.
Even worse, the only available seat (he was almost ten minutes late) was right at the front of the class.
Well, fuck.
He sat down and let out a gruff sigh at the paper in front of him.
“Can I borrow a pencil?” He whispered to the guy next to him, who glared at him in lieu of a response. “Ay. A pencil? Can I borrow one?”
“Please, no talking during the exam,” the professor snapped.
The guy next to him, clearly unwilling to be dragged down alongside Kid, rolled his eyes and wordlessly slid him a pencil, sharpened and pristine. Sucker. Kid wrote his name at the top of the paper, but that was about as far as he got confidently.
Question 1: Introduce yourself using the vocabulary we learned in this unit.
Tener Eustass Kid. Tener 18.
That was one of the verbs he thought they’d learned. Or at least mentioned. It seemed right enough. Maybe he’d get partial credit.
Question 2: Describe where you are from.
USA.
Well, that definitely wasn’t gonna get him any credit. Was the rest of the exam like this?
He flipped the page and saw a vocabulary section and a word bank with maybe one word in it that he could define. Then, a short writing section.
Kid took a brief glance over at the exam next to him, which belonged to the grumpy pencil-lender.
Me llamo Trafalgar Law. Yo tengo dieciocho años. Yo soy estudiante.
Meticulously, he copied the words and switched out what didn’t apply. Not that he knew what didn’t apply, other than his name. He just hoped he wasn’t wrong.
Okay, this could work.
Question 2:
Yo soy de Estados Unidos.
Nice. Kid smirked to himself as he erased his work and kept a careful, sly eye trained on the paper next to him. Maybe this test wouldn’t be so bad after all. He’d study for the next one, for sure.
“You two,” said a stern voice that was much closer than Kid wanted it to be. “Come up here. Bring your exams.”
The guy next to him, Trafalgar, shot up in his seat and looked around, as if the professor was talking to someone else. To his dismay, he was looking directly at the two of them. He then looked at Kid, a look of disdain in his eyes. Kid got up, a bit pissed off, and trudged to the front of the class while the other students looked after him with sadistic amusement.
Trafalgar followed him, bright red and glaring daggers.
“Care to explain?” The professor asked Kid, who just shrugged. He took both of their tests, examined their identical answers, and huffed. “Zeroes for both of you. I expect better work in the future. You’re dismissed.”
“H-Huh? A zero? Just like that? He was cheating off of me! Why am I being punished too?”
Kid could not stand the bitchy, self-righteous tone of voice that this guy was assuming. It was exhausting. He rolled his eyes.
“Don’t lie to him,” he said nobly, inwardly beaming at the look of horror that crossed Trafalgar’s face. “You said I could cheat off you as long as I let you cheat off me next time. The jig is up.”
Trafalgar’s jaw dropped to the floor. The professor nodded curtly, put their exams on his desk, and looked at them both with disapproval.
“Boys, it’s the first exam of the year. I advise that you cut this out now, or you won’t get very far in life. You’re dismissed.”
Kid shrugged, pocketed the pencil Trafalgar had given him, and left. Behind him, he heard Trafalgar still protesting.
“I don’t even know him!”
“Sucker,” Kid muttered to himself, shoving his hands into his pockets with a grin. Sure, he’d gotten a zero. What the fuck else was new? Above all, he’d pissed off that stuck-up nerd next to him and landed him with a zero, too.
“HEY!” He heard from down the hall. Forcing his grin to dissapate, he turned around. “What the fuck was that? What’s your problem? We’ve never even talked before! Have you even been to class yet?”
“Nothing personal,” he assuaged. “Just didn’t study. Coulda been anyone in that class. I just so happened to sit next to you.”
“Okay, so why did you drag me down with you?” Trafalgar crossed his arms impatiently.
“It’s funny.” He turned back around and walked away, even though it was tempting to see the look on Trafalgar’s face as he left. He heard an infuriated, seething scoff from behind him, followed by what he assumed was Trafalgar storming off to cry in the bathroom or something.
Despite being busted for cheating, which would definitely drag his grade down into a hazardous place, he walked back to his apartment feeling lighter than ever, replaying Trafalgar’s indignant scoff over and over again in his head.
“You’re back? Already?” Killer asked him when he shut the door and flopped back onto the couch.
“Mhm,” he replied smugly. “Cheated off some asshole, and we both got busted. Ha!”
“What did he do to you?”
“Looked like a dickhead,” Kid snorted.
“What, so you’re just gonna fail Spanish now?”
“This one test won’t fail me! Not if I do well enough on the rest of ‘em. You don’t believe I can pull through?”
“Fuck no, I don’t,” Killer laughed.
Offended, he leapt off the couch and five-starred Killer’s waiting ass.
~~~
The next time he showed up to Spanish was a few days after the test. He figured he’d let Trafalgar cool off a bit before they saw each other again, but he also figured that he could use the other guy for notes and stuff, since he clearly knew what he was doing.
When he walked in, he saw that Trafalgar still didn’t have anyone next to him. It was honestly sad.
He took his seat and shot the other guy a grin.
Trafalgar looked at him like he was from another planet. He hurriedly packed all his shit up and marched to the exact opposite side of the classroom, deigning to sit all the way in the back rather than sit next to Kid. Fair enough.
Kid looked back at him and bared his teeth like a rabid dog, and Trafalgar furiously flipped him off.
What a fucking dickweed.