Chapter Text
The first time Phainon met Mydei, they had both just started their second year of college. It wasn’t a particularly pleasant meeting, at the time, but Phainon looked back upon it fondly.
He’d just finished his first class, and was sprinting through the halls, trying to find his next one. Compared to Aedes Elysiae’s school, the Grove of Epiphany was massive, and the halls that composed the endless maze he found himself trapped in seemed to stretch on for miles—everything looked the same, to him, with similar painted roots stretching over every surface.
Admittedly, the roots were pretty useful for navigation, most of the time. They all led back to the massive tree in the central courtyard, where both helpers and digital maps were placed in order to guide lost students, but those options took time that Phainon really couldn’t afford to spend.
He looked at his phone. Two minutes before his class began, shit. Phainon already knew his teacher, Anaxagoras, from the latter half of his first year at the Grove, and he knew well how unwise it was to arrive late to one of his classes.
He’d made that mistake his first time around, and he wasn’t interested in repeating it; the three-page-long apology he’d been forced to write still haunted him whenever he came across it while scrolling through his school files.
Quickly going from speed-walking to sprinting, Phainon began rushing through the school’s corridors, looking at the walls and trying—and failing—to find the class numbered 720, where he was supposed to be in a minute and thirty five seconds.
He was so screwed. Still, he ran like his life depended on it, which wasn’t far from being a true assessment, considering Anaxa’s, well, everything.
A few seconds later, he was greeted with the much-welcomed sight of the number 600 at the junction of two halls. Now, he just had to find which direction had the numbers that continued to climb, and he’d be on course to find—
Suddenly, he bumped into something hard, making him crumple and fall to the floor in a movement akin to that of a wet paper towel. He groaned as he felt pain overtake most of his body, yet he managed to look around to see he’d run straight into another student, making them fall to the floor as well. Well fuck, better apologize before he got berated for being an idiot.
“Shit, sorry, didn’t mean to do that,” he started, the student seemingly about to interrupt him, but he couldn’t afford to waste time if he wanted to reach his class in time, so he continued, “I’m going to be late for my class if I stay any longer to talk, I need to go, sorry again.”
“...Why did you say that twice?” he thought he heard, accompanied by a disbelieving scoff, before his sprint had brought him completely out of hearing range; Phainon didn’t have time to think about the words, and promptly forgot them. Looking at the wall, he could see he’d chosen the right direction, going by the increasing numbers. 690, 700, 710, and…
There! With a few seconds to spare, Phainon busted through the class’ door, almost bashing Anaxa’ face with the hinged piece of wood in the process. Seeing his teacher’s disappointed face, Phainon apologized with an appropriately bashful attitude before sitting down on one of the few remaining free chairs, in the second row of desks from the front.
“The man cursed by Mnestia, what a pleasure to see you could make it on time.”
Though his teacher’s words seemed happy, the tone he’d used to share them implied otherwise.
Phainon sighed. He wasn’t late, at least, so no amount of pettiness could justify Anaxa assigning him homework this time. In the relief of that realization, Phainon mostly forgot about the interaction he’d just had in the halls, though the other student’s face seemed to stick around.
He was kind of pretty, thinking about it. Phainon passively wondered if the rest of him was just as pretty.
“I still don’t understand why you call me by that title, professor.”
“You would, should you listen when I am speaking. As I previously mentioned, Mnestia is believed to be the deity of…”
The second time Phainon met Mydei was, just like the first, not particularly pleasant.
Through no fault of Mydei’s, of course; rather, he’d given himself a horrible hand to play, though accidentally.
“Sorry to bother you, but I saw Anaxa’s evaluation booklet thingy in your bag, could I plea—” Oh, hey, that was pretty-face! "Oh, hey, you’re hallway guy! Nice to see you again. Also, sorry again for bumping into you.”
Phainon was not flirty enough to call a stranger ‘pretty-face’ to, well, their pretty face, no thank you. ‘Hallway guy’ would have to suffice as a synonym until he could get the student’s name.
Pretty-face looked at him strangely, with a mix of apprehension and… whatever that other reaction was. Phainon would’ve loved to call it a blush, considering pretty-face’s slightly-reddening cheeks, but he also looked like he’d bitten straight into a lemon. While also being slightly confused about the situation. Yeah, Phainon was lost on what that look meant, and he decided to not worry about it.
“Sorry to bother you,” although getting to talk with pretty-face wasn’t so bad, “but I have an exam for his class in about fifteen minutes that is entirely on that booklet of his. I forgot mine at home this morning,” he totally didn’t drop it in a puddle while making his way to school from the dorms, “so I’m in trouble. Could I borrow it for a while? You’d really be helping me out, man.”
Pretty-face scoffed, for whatever reason. Phainon knew he sounded a little pathetic, sure, but it wasn’t as if he’d admitted he’d clumsily let his booklet get soaked; everyone forgot their stuff at home every so often, the lie did not deserve such a reaction.
“It’s my friend’s booklet, I don’t have any of Anaxa’s classes. I’m not sure she’d be alright with lending it out, however.”
Oh wow. Pretty-face had just gained a new synonym for his name, ‘pretty-voice’ was just as accurate. Maybe Phainon should just call him ‘pretty’ altogether. His body would certainly also fit Phainon’s criteria for being pretty, from what he could see of it. The slight outline of muscles beneath his clothes implie—
“The name’s Mydei, by the way.”
Oh well, he supposed the name-replacements were doomed to disappear eventually.
Mydei, mh… pretty name.
“Mydei, then. Nice to get rid of that ‘hallway guy’ nickname,” he laughed, “My name’s Phainon,” he continued, holding out his hands.
The other student grabbed it, shaking it. Mydei’s hands were a little coarse, but he liked the sensation, though he wondered why they were coarse in the first place. Maybe from working out? Mydei clearly did, at the very least. His body—
Wait, shit, he still had to get his hands on that booklet, this was not the time to get distracted by a hot guy holding his hand. How to convince Mydei that he’d take perfect care of it… begging should work, yeah; Cyrene loved to remind him about how he had his puppy eyes down pat, even when he wasn’t intentionally trying to look pathetic.
“Anyway, I really need that booklet, I promise I’ll take care of it,” he insisted, putting on as pathetic of an act as he could muster with four-hours-of-sleep’s worth of energy and its accompanying eyebags, “I’ll pay your friend a new booklet if I end up tearing even a single corner of a page off of this one.”
Ah, if only this was Mydei’s booklet. Phainon could easily imagine himself offering alternative methods of payment; surely offering to suck the student off would be worth more than that booklet. He could already imagine it, the way he’d trace along every vein with his tongue. Oh, and his groans—Mydei’s voice was already so pretty, so hot, Phainon just knew the man’s groans of pleasure would be like music to his ea—
“Take it,” Mydei seemingly spat out, strongly shoving the booklet against Phainon’s chest. Confused, though brought out of his thoughts, he looked closely at Mydei’s expression to see that the man was… flustered? That assessment was surely wrong, considering that nothing embarrassing had happened to him; with the previous expression he’d been unable to read, Phainon assumed Mydei was just expressive in a way that he hadn’t seen before. He’d have to spend more time with him if he wanted to read the other just as well as he could read most people.
Mh, that didn’t sound so bad. Far from it, really; Mydei seemed to be very interesting.
And hot. That helped a lot as well. Phainon could imagine Mydei under hi—
“Don’t you have an exam to study for? You should go and do that, Phainon.”
Oh, right, he did have an exam now in—quickly looking at his watch—eight minutes. Well, he really should go and study.
See, Mydei was responsible! Befriending him would only bring good in his life. Hopefully, the chaos he’d bring in Mydei’s life would be appreciated, he seemed a little… cranky.
He’d imagine ways to help Mydei relieve said crankiness, but as the student had said, he had an exam to study for. Although, he did need to make sure he could keep contact with Mydei…
Right, that works.
“Oh, right, thank you, I completely forgot. Here,” Phainon said, borrowing Mydei’s pen from his hands to write down his number, “text me whenever and we’ll figure out a time for me to give the booklet back. Have a good rest of your day, and I’m pretty sure I didn’t get to say it, but thank you, genuinely.”
With that, Phainon rushed to Anaxa’s class, Mydei’s friend’s booklet in hand, thankful for the student’s help and looking forward to a blossoming friendship, even if he still had quite a bit of work to put in before he could consider Mydei anything more than an acquaintance.
For now, however, he had an exam to study for. He really hoped his procrastination during the past week didn’t mean he’d get a failing grade.