ᵢ Wₒₙ'ₜ ₛₜₐy ₕᵢddₑₙ ₐₙyₘₒᵣₑ - H&S

Orpheus didn’t really care about staying on Azula’s good side. Of course he didn’t want to be bullied (did anyone?), but he didn’t want to miss out on the opportunity to have a friend just because Azula was mean. That seemed… well, it seemed really stupid to him. He shook his head of the thought, giving L a tiny smile. He liked L. If L wanted it, he would be friends with him after this project. Maybe he would even start spending time outside of the music rooms. He figured it would be easier to make friends if he did that, but he didn’t really want to. He wanted to be able to spend time making music and doing what he wanted. If he had friends to spend time with, he would choose to spend time with them. He wasn’t going to take time away from music on the off chance that he might make friends, though.
“I don’t think that’s fair, though,” Orpheus replied, shaking his head a little bit. “For math and science, I mean. There’s a right answer and a wrong answer. Just because you aren’t doing it perfectly doesn’t mean you should be counted down for doing it your own way. I think… for the more subjective subjects, too. I wish there was a way to grade those things on effort instead of skill. Good for me might be horrendous for you, because me trying my best at science might be you slacking off. I guess… I just don’t like grades,” he decided after a moment, nodding his head definitively. “I don’t think we should have them. I don’t think they’re a fair judge of other people’s intelligence. Maybe I’m just saying that because I don’t get good grades, though.”

Zuko wasn’t used to losing. He didn’t mean that to be cocky or overconfident, it was just true. Many of the others in the fencing club were good at what they did, but they weren’t at the same level Zuko was. They had practiced, sure, but they hadn’t practiced with the same intensity and drive that Zuko had. He had always liked fencing, and it was an opportunity to finally be better than Azula at something. Of course he had thrown himself into it, silently praying that Azula wouldn’t decide to pick up fencing as well. She had, but she hadn’t been immediately better at it than Zuko was. He had practiced even harder once that had occurred to make sure he stayed as good as he could be. To make sure he could have this one thing to himself.
Losing to Sal didn’t quite feel like a loss, though. It wasn’t inevitable, it just… wasn’t expected. It was incredibly intriguing.
“Well, you won,” Zuko returned, giving Sal an uncertain smile. “Like I said, I’d love to see you when you aren’t out of practice.”

“I guess that makes sense,” Orpheus replied, not looking away from L. “I wish more people saw it that way. I guess… I wish teachers thought of it that way. They teach us things, but then we don’t get to use what they teach us in a practical setting. You can understand what they say perfectly well, but if your intelligence isn’t in doing tests right, then you’re still not going to do very well in classes. And… I mean… I guess there are some people whose brains just aren’t built for the type of material. And if they have a good teacher, and if they actually want to learn what the material is, they might do well, but… I hate that there are teachers who only teach the people who get the material easily. I hate that there are people who slip through the cracks. And I don’t think it’s the teacher’s fault, really, I just think it’s the fault of whoever decided that this was the only way to test children’s intelligence.” Orpheus made a face. ‘Hate’ was a strong word, and one he didn’t use very often, but he was passionate about this. He blushed, looking back at L and realizing that the boy hadn’t really asked for Orpheus to go off about grades.
Turning back to the sheet of paper, Orpheus read over the instructions once more.
“We should… probably come up with a plan for what we wanna do, right?”

It was odd, connecting with someone when you were used to not having anyone at all. Sure, Zuko technically had people. Ty Lee and Azula were supposedly his friends, and he was dating Mai. She said she loved him. He said he loved her back. He wasn’t ready to admit it yet, but they were both in denial. Zuko could see it in the way Mai looked at Ty Lee. He felt it in the way he kissed Mai, like he was wishing it was someone else. He didn’t want to lose her friendship. She didn’t want to lose his. They kept appearances up like it was some kind of game they could win, and neither of them admitted even for a second that their thoughts weren’t what they should have been. They were two people who needed each other. Two people who revolved around each other and held each other up, even though they most certainly weren’t meant to be together. They were good at keeping up appearances. It was hard to lie to Azula, but somehow they both managed it. It was a shame they had to lie to themselves in order to do it.
“Oh,” Zuko replied, giving a small shrug. “Yeah, you’re welcome for not being content with a tie,” he replied, a little bit of amusement in his tone. “It was about giving us both a shot at winning. It wasn’t a favor or anything.”

Orpheus wished they could spend more time just talking instead of working on their project, but he knew they did need to get the work done. Orpheus could apologize all he wanted for potentially ruining L’s GPA, but he needed to actually work on the project to ensure that neither of them failed it. He knew other people would have been incredibly grateful to work with L because he would probably be willing to do all of the work, but… that wasn’t how Orpheus worked. He didn’t want to make anyone carry all of his weight. Even though L doing it by himself would probably be more successful. Orpheus wasn’t sure he really knew how to do the project.
“I… don’t know,” he admitted, shaking his head a little bit. “Does it say what materials we have available? We should see if we can make a parachute or something… and then put it in something padded in the parachute so it won’t roll and break when it hits the ground? I wonder if we can ask what was successful last year…”

Orpheus didn’t know how much concentration the actual project would take. It seemed pretty simple in theory, but… if they were to try it and mess it up, then they would have to spend a lot of time cleaning up the mess they made. So they probably shouldn’t do a practice run until they were absolutely certain that the egg wasn’t going to break. But what if they dropped one? That… seemed entirely possible, and Orpheus wasn’t sure he liked the idea. Just… talking seemed a lot less likely to make a mess.
“I think maybe we should start with what worked last year, then,” Orpheus returned, though he had no idea how L had access to those records. Maybe there were professors who just really liked him who were willing to give him access to those kinds of things. Did that mean that L had seen some of Orpheus’ more subpar projects? The ones he had scribbled out the morning they were due because he had spent the whole weekend working on a song that had practically consumed him? He breathed out, focusing his attention back on the problem at hand. “Can I help you go through those, maybe? So we can see what design ideas might be good for our contraption thingy?”

Orpheus grinned, giving L a thumbs up as he spoke. He was grateful that L was actually willing to take his work seriously. As much as he was grateful that L was willing to actually do the work, half the time Orpheus was afraid of working with the smart kids, because they generally liked to make everyone else feel stupid. They might do an entire project without waiting for anyone else to help them, and then they would get all of the credit while the rest of the team learned nothing. They would be annoyed that nobody else had helped, but they wouldn’t listen if anyone else tried to. For plenty of the smart kids, it was the grades that were everything. If they didn’t think their group mates could help them get the grades they desired, then the group wouldn’t do any work.
L wasn’t like that. He actually seemed to care that Orpheus might have ideas, even if they were ideas that weren’t good enough to get them a perfect score. They weren’t even thinking about grades at all yet.
“I agree,” he said after a moment. “I think… we should come up with some more ideas, and then we can practice them with something that isn’t as fragile as an egg, maybe! So we can see how they work in theory without creating a huge mess.”

“You should do it more often,” Zuko said before he could stop himself. He wasn’t sure whether it was a good idea or not, but… “You don’t have to be part of the team to come to the practices. You could practice a little more and then we could have another match where you’re not quite so rusty.” A half smile touched his lips. He would keep training so he could beat Sal even at his best. He had no doubt that he’d be able to do it if he kept at it. He would just work harder so he could win. Fencing was the one area of his life where that actually worked. It didn’t matter how hard he worked at school, he was always going to be pretty mediocre compared to Azula and even most of the other kids in his grade. He was just barely average when it came to school. Fencing, though… he had worked hard to become the best, and he was going to keep working at it.

Zuko usually wasn’t good at detecting hidden tones in people’s voices, but with Sal it was just obvious enough that he didn’t actually have to worry about missing it. He gave a small smile, nodding lightly.
“I know,” he said after a moment, shaking his head just a little. “It just means I need to practice. Next time we cross blades we’ll both be more prepared. You won’t be rusty anymore, and I’ll beat you anyway.” A flash of the competitive edge pulsed through Zuko, but it wasn’t the same kind of competitiveness he felt when he was around Azula or his other teammates. There, he had something to prove. Here… well, he had already proven himself, hadn’t he? Sal knew exactly how good he was. He knew he could get better. It was a challenge, certainly, but it wasn’t about proving that he was capable of anything at all. Sal didn’t know him as Azula’s much stupider brother (probably). If there had ever been anything to prove… their duels had taken care of it.
“Good,” he breathed, trying to hide at least some of his excitement. He didn’t want to seem too enthralled by the idea. “I’ll save you a foil. Not one of the bent-up ones.”

“I look forward to it,” Zuko replied, his own smile touching his lips. He hadn’t yet learned to read Sal, but he thought he could see the other boy’s competitive spirit in his eyes. He found he didn’t want to just duel Sal again. He wanted to train with him. He wanted to see what he could learn from the way the other boy trained, and he wanted to see if they could teach each other some tricks. Everyone had their own unique way of fighting, even within the guidelines of fencing, and though Sal and Zuko were similar enough in some ways, he had a feeling that they both had very different signatures. Even if Zuko could never master Sal’s signature, he wanted to figure out how and why Sal moved the way he did. He wanted to see how much he could incorporate into his own fighting style.
“You’d have to do something pretty messed up to deserve some of those bent blades,” he added, voice light. “I don’t know why some of them haven’t been retired.” He understood the implication in Sal’s words, though he wouldn’t hold him to it. He could only hope there would be more than one practice with Sal, but the guarantee of one was enough for him.
“Well,” he managed, glancing down at his phone, “See you around, Fisher.”

Orpheus knew he wasn’t the most intelligent person in any room. He knew that he didn’t have the same logic and reasoning skills as many, and he was even worse at math and science. He could do poetry and song, he could wow any English teacher with his writing and persuasive essays, but his grades in general were… poor. He knew that part of the reason people bullied L was because they liked to think of themselves as smart and L proved that he was smarter, but… Orpheus didn’t particularly see himself as smart. Having proof that L was smarter was just… well, it was a given. And Orpheus found he wanted to learn from him. Besides, it wasn’t like L was boastful about how smart he was, he just… was.
“Oh… that’s a good idea! Something that won’t make as much of a mess. But… how do we make sure it’s more fragile than an egg?” Orpheus tilted his head a little bit, then blinked as L brought them both back to the problem at hand. “I think… whatever we build should have a parachute, right? So the egg won’t hit the ground so hard? Because…” he frowned, trying to remember the physics principles they had been learning. “Force… force is mass and acceleration, but if we change the acceleration then it won’t hit as hard...?”

Orpheus knew that there was a bullying problem in their school, but he had never been as aware of it as he was when talking to L. It was as though the other boy had to change every single one of his behaviors to account for the possibility of someone deciding it would be fun to hurt him. It was beyond heartbreaking. Orpheus closed his eyes, trying to stop himself before he said something about the bullies he would end up regretting.
“How do we make something strong enough?” Orpheus asked after a moment, frowning. “I mean… if it’s too heavy because we’ve made it stronger, won’t it just end up crushing the egg when it lands on it?” He let out a breath, shaking his head. “I don’t know how any of this works physically speaking, but… I think a lightweight parachute might be better.” He tapped his fingers against the table in a rhythm, keeping them anchored to the song he had been playing before their meeting.
“You know,” Orpheus whispered, hazel eyes flickering up to meet black, “the teachers are supposed to be there to help people when they’re being targeted. Have you ever tried telling one of the teachers when people are being mean to you? If you chose the right teacher, they wouldn’t tell the bullies.”