Chapter Text
Nico POV:
It's way too early for this.
Jason and Percy are having a "who can eat the most pancakes" challenge. Annabeth is shouting quadratic formulas like it's a chant. Hazel has abandoned me to go talk to Frank. And Piper, the girl who invited us all to her house yesterday in the first place, is painting her nails as if her house isn't getting annihilated in front of her eyes.
It's 7 am on a Monday morning.
Basically, I'm regretting my life choices. I ask Piper where the kitchen is so that I can make myself a coffee. Caffeine is the only way I can deal with this. Thankfully, that's around the same time our alarm rings. Since almost all of us have ADHD, we keep alarms for everything so that we don't lose track of time. That alarm signals that it is now time for school.
On the way, my friends tease me about all the extra credit work I did for math. "You're such a teacher's pet," Leo says to me.
"Or maybe, I'm trying not to fail since my dyslexia makes that hard enough," I grumble.
"Your grades are already high. Just admit it, you're a nerd," Leo says.
"Seriously? Using the word 'nerd' as an insult? Can't you come up with at least one creative insult?" Annabeth says.
"We could, but you banned swear words," Percy says.
Annabeth sighs, like she's given up on trying to have an intelligent conversation. I think back to the nerd comment. It's not often that people see me as the overachieving type. I dress in a way that old people see as "delinquent", and combined with my ADHD and Dyslexia, I seem like the very opposite of the word. It took many years to make my teachers like me, but some people still think I'm some sort of punk.
I reach my locker, only to find the most hideous sight imaginable. Okay, it wasn't quite hideous. The boy in front of me has blue eyes and curly hair, and he looks rather cute. Objectively, of course. The problem is with his clothes. He's wearing denim on denim, and to top it all off, flip-flops. The sight makes me agitated. I ignore the fashion crime in front of me and walk to my chemistry class. Sadly, the image is already burned into my brain. Clothes are an art style. Who could even commit such a heinous act? Though he didn't look that bad.
Ugh. I'll stop thinking about it. The teacher is saying something about the upcoming exam, and I don't want to fail. Of course, luck is on my side, because the teacher introduces a new student. It's denim on denim guy. He says his name, but I'm too distracted to hear it since I'm still looking at his flip-flops. Piper nudges me. "You're staring," She coos.
"Yeah, because he's in front of the class." I can't deal with this right now.
"He's hot."
"I'm telling Jason you said that. I can not allow you to cheat on my best friend."
"I thought I was your best friend!"
"Think again."
"You're mean."
"You finally realised?"
"I still think you're into him."
"I will throw you out that window."
"Ahem," The teacher spoke. "Mr. Di Angelo, Miss McLean, please stop gossiping in my class."
I groaned and nudged Piper. What had I missed? I focus on class for now, regretting my decision to sit with the class gossiper. To be honest, Piper never bad-mouthed anyone, just talked about random bits about people's outfits or who likes who. Sometimes I added to those discussions, but today was not one of those days.
To my horror, I also share a history class with denim on denim guy. I can't stop looking at his jacket while the teacher rambles on about ancient farming techniques, and wanting to rip his clothes off. Wait, I just realised how that sounds. I don't want to take off his clothes in that way, just replace them with something acceptable. Maybe a pair of jeans with a light blue shirt, paired with a flannel...
Ugh. I'm distracted again. They should start dress coding bad fashion choices. They're way more distracting than spaghetti straps on girls. Not that I would know, since I don't like girls at all. Oh yeah, fun fact, I'm gay! A year ago, that was like my deepest darkest secret, but after coming out to my friends, I stopped caring so much. Other than the occasional, "Hey, that guy's hot, you should go for him", my friends didn't really treat me any differently except for matchmaking.
Two months ago, my friends had tried everything to get me and a guy named Malcolm together, despite us not even being into each other. I wonder which guy could be my friends' next victim. I hope the guy will at least be cute.