the mart(im)yr approach

[Cicadan]

It was raining outside, kind of bleak looking and where inside Timothy was staring at his own fingers and humming pensively at the odd patterns he kinda saw emerging from his palms he was wondering why he was suddenly remembering that palm reading was a thing and the big line down the middle that didn’t curve indicated the length of his life or something else that would probably be an anime premise in three to five years time. Unrelatedly, and belatedly: they were inside. It was raining outside, kind of depressing looking, and by some miracle of generic causality the evening event had been moved inside. ‘Evening event’, a vague titling sounding either fetchingly pretentious or equally fetchingly ominous. ‘This one time, at band camp’, but ending in a decidedly more Higurashi No Naku Koro manner.

Timothy with his finger trapped under a cello string.

Because ‘evening event’ meant ‘try to get people to be social because that's what was advertised on the program flier’. Predictable but it was okay, though it reminded Timothy distinctly of many other school events wherein he’d stare off into the distance and assume at some point all the ‘introducing yourself’ part of group activities would be resolved in a non-humiliating fashion.

Thus, still staring at his palm flesh. There was the valley dug by the tautness of the metal string he called a friend (when it betrayed him all the damn time). There was a triangle. Then on top of that a square where the wrinkle-things kind of intersected. Between his middle finger and ring finger. Or like, more downwards of the space between those two things… Why was he doing this? He’d suddenly started doing that, anyways, in conclusion. Maybe ominous.

Oh wait, so like. No need for introductions this time around. Pleasant surprise when he’d shuffled into camp orientation- he recognized one of the faces.

After like, a few seconds of staring really hard to be really sure. He would someday wear his glasses more regularly than he did.

They were inside, the two of them and everyone else. Maybe it was still raining. He was staring at her all of a sudden, because his gaze was idling on a point of wall two micrometers above her shoulder but that was close enough to be harassment probably.

He had been staring at her, actually. Like, he didn’t want to stare but he did stare because he did those sorts of things when his eyes didn’t know where else to go? He swore he was keeping it clean. Shoulder at lowest. Right now was too late in terms of paying attention to his surroundings- also, the teacher was giving out instructions now, which was actually back when the reed had cracked and only now could he process.

“Mrs. Rucker said we had to do something?”

His voice sounded weird through his own skull. Better than what it actually sounded like, according to the laws of physics as he could remember them- two paragraphs on Isaac Newton and an apple and how waves travel through solid objects and then other waves coming on the heels of the first set of waves destroy human habitations, or something along the lines of all that.

He tugged at the sleeve of the coat he didn’t want to take off because it was raining... somewhere outside. Somewhere in the world.

[Wham Yubeesling]

This one time, at band camp, Verity had been stuck in a room for t-plus twenty minutes, staring at a bunch of people not staring back at her.

Apparently this was supposed to be a social event. Wasn’t really doing a lot for her. She’d walked in with her roommates and within seconds she was suddenly here, alone, near the window, trying to see if there was anyone she knew amongst the huge people pile in the center of the hall. The assumption was that Verity was supposed to get in there and do small talk with people from other schools she’d never see or talk to after this, but… no, that wasn’t her scene. Maybe if the people chaperoning this place added some structure or something to this it’d actually be worth it, but right now meeting and greeting these strangers didn’t really seem to be worth the cost of potentially looking like a stuttering wreck, so Verity was going to be smart for once and not take the risk.

So here she was. Being that one guy at the party who stood in the corner and stared at everyone believing that she was far too cool to be a part of all of this. Well, maybe. Verity wasn’t actually cool enough to go to parties so she didn’t know whether that type of person existed or not but if they did then yeah, she was that type of person. Pretending she was better than all of this. Kinda hoping that someone would see her, think she was cool, and come over and do the hard part of starting the conversation for her. Questioning whether there was a way she could sneak past the teachers so that she could go back to her room and cry herself to sleep.

Yeah.

That was the life.

...It wasn’t actually the life because the life was actually someone coming over to talk to her. Like, not a hypothetical there, someone from her school did just come from another spot in the room to ask her a question. Kinda pointless ‘hey I don’t really know how to start conversations so I’m just going to ask something I already know the answer to purely so that there’s something to actually talk about’ type of question but whatever. Least this guy had the decency to do it instead of her.

“Yeah. Something about, um, talking to people. Making friends with everyone not in our school, or something.”

[Cicadan]

The sleeve was comforting to keep tugging on, rearranging in place for no reason, but apparently stimming was something autistic kids did and apparently he wasn’t autistic, emphasized according to his parents and the opinions of all of the no professionals that had been consulted on the matter. He stopped that, and started…

What… Huh. Was her name again? He knew he knew her face (and why did he even know that? This girl wasn’t Bethany so no way he had a pointless crush on this girl against all common sense) and he knew the class they shared was… was.

It was, as a matter of fact… could’ve been?

In hindsight he’d spoken too soon and used his brain too late. It was among the many things he’d come to accept about himself lately. His brain was perpetually stuck on the slower side of daylight savings.

But that quip didn’t work, Daylight Savings time moved back and forth, so eventually- (shut up)

“Huh. Why would we even make friends with people in our own school?”

His smile just then probably looked stupid. Too much teeth. But like, he hadn’t actually initiated it, it had kind of just happened?

“I mean that was bad, but,” There. Self-deprecation defenses engaged. “Maybe if we stick together we get, you know… through it easier. Harder to be awkward when you have a buddy.” Huh. He’d managed to string together coherent sentences for the first time in a long time. How To Human 101, so he had no business feeling pride, but dammit he was marching in that there parade. She could shoot him down right now and he wouldn’t even

okay he’d still be a bit upset and also shit he still didn’t remember her name

[Wham Yubeesling]

The guy was… a guy. A………. guy. A nerd guy. Verity was really really trying to figure out which specific nerd guy this nerd guy was but her head was not coming up with much when she tried to scrawl through it to figure this nerd guy out. There were memories of times when Verity had seen this nerd guy around during the past year and a bit she’d been at Mangrove Garden, but… nothing really more than that. He was a nerd guy who she saw around and she thought had maybe had an anime girl on his shirt at some point but other than that there wasn’t really much to him. He was a background figure. If Verity was the type of person who saw the world only in terms of video games she wouldn’t really have any problems calling him an NPC.

...Honestly wouldn’t have any problems regardless given how the NPC was doing a really good job being an NPC with the way he was approaching her, but whatever. He was trying to talk to her and not doing a particularly good job at it. Verity emphasized.

“I mean, like, it’s probably need since it’s been, um, a year or so and I still don’t know who you are, but…”

She saw all the people grouped up in front of her. Classmates with strangers. People who found it easy with people who also found it easy. She turned to her side. Made her eyes and her body face the NPC. May as well be nice.

“But… um, sure. Let’s hang. Was planning on just bailing, but…”

She placed her attention towards the door for the second. Saw the two teachers she didn’t recognize standing around there.

“Probably can’t sneak through by myself.”

[Cicadan]

“I don’t talk a lot? Surprising if you know me.”

… He still didn’t talk a lot, that remained true even now. Whatever bit of dumb luck had allowed him to put together some ideas without a buffer of silence and space away from humanity? Used up and gone. It was a stupid thought but Timothy occasionally had to wonder if life would be easier if it were a video game. Even a little Heads Up (Display) about obvious mistakes that were probably only obvious if you actually had developed social skills would be nice, right?

But man he probably would have really not wanted to check out his own stats lines, he guessed, if given the options. Imagine all the values so low he was close-to-dying from attribute drain. STR? Forget about it. DEX? Not if all his sewing machine jams and broken needles (scary whenever it happened, by the way. If you didn’t take your foot off the operator pedal immediately when the tension ratcheted too high that thing was like what a loser Pinoy mall ninja incel could imagine grenade shrapnel was probably like) had anything to say about it. CON?

He was *probably* a quickshot, according to the internet. And INT and WIS and CHA were all equally right out, given his personal experiences with all of those stats practically applied. Sure he could take tests well, but couldn’t everyone do that?

“Think… we could sneak through as a group? Yeah. If we paired up they might allow us to walk if we ask.”

Oh, he’d said like. That *entire* sentence before really thinking through the implications. He’d have to be the one to ask the teachers, right? What would they say? No? Bitch please? Shit, he’d probably die. So said the vague and familiarly boring dread churning his stomach that just so happened to be, like, always doing that anyways.

He felt guilty for hatching stupid schemes that he was belatedly hoping he wouldn’t have to take responsibility for with someone he didn’t know. He swore if he looked at her longer he might remember? But then he didn’t want to look at her. She was like, right there. What would she think about pimple boy daring to look her in the eye?

“At least we’d be out of here for a bit. Wouldn’t even have to talk to each other anymore, like, if we didn’t want to.”

…

“Travesties of human conversation, and uh, such.”

Again, these things he said unfortunately only sounded atrocious to him *after* they’d already drooled out of his lips.

[Wham Yubeesling]

“Maybe.”

That was in response to the idea of possibly making a break for it. Going full MGS and sneaking past the teachers so that Verity could hang out in the rain. It’d probs be easier to do it alone if that was the way she was going about it but… eh, the NPC probably wasn’t as imcompetent as he was making himself out to be (she hated people like that — ooh uwu i have no self esteem because i’m so bad at everything let me make every bit of conversation i join in be about how much i’m bad at everything because really all i want is attention and nothing will ever satisfy me uwu uwu), if the plan to sneak out of this dumb night activity now needed a second party member to tag along then Verity could make that work.

“The best way to do it would be to… just ask if we can go,” she said, ignoring all the other shit the NPC said because all she needed to actually acknowledge was how he was planning on helping her stealth her way out of this. “Give them a semi-valid excuse for the both of us to leave for a couple minutes and, um, then don’t actually come back.”

She thought about it for a second. Anything that could get the two of them together out of here without getting, like, the red exclamation mark?

...Probably not, but she imagined the age-old excuse would work as well. She looked at the NPC.

“You need to pee?”

[Cicadan]

Timothy continued to contemplate parts of the room that weren’t expecting him to answer right away.

“True.” He’d for sure assumed it would be more complicated and harrowing than she plainly spelled it out to be. Like, if an activity was supposed to be happening and people were actively not engaging in it then the consequences- per the many thoughts he actively did not want to have but were still going ahead and existing- could have been dire and severe and unbearable and other scary words. He didn’t know why that phantasm of the camp staff in his head was taller, more misshapen, strutting around with cruel sickle-shape smiles watching him for his every mistake… They weren’t even looking at him, like, ever. Not like he ever spoke up in activities to date.

Why was he even here? He didn’t like playing the damn cello. Its weight distributed wrongly in his hands, as he almost bashed it into his knee without noticing.

“You should, like, be the one to bring it up first. They’d expect you to take longer.”

His immediate thoughts: kinda creepy thought to have out of context (even in it?), also, he’d made at least nominal sense with a surprisingly quick response time. He was on a roll today, as if it mattered at all what day he got a lucky streak anyways.

[Wham Yubeesling]

Um.

…

(there he goes)

(mask off)

…

Well, okay. He… wasn’t really lying when he said that, so…

“Okay. I’ll, uh. I’ll do that. Meet me… meet me? At the… girls dorms? Does that work?”

She didn’t move.

[Cicadan]

He’d very much been expecting to get smited and the anxiety had only dragged more in the quarter of the second it had taken her (they hadn’t even exchanged names yet wtf) to respond. Feelings with a sinking quality to them had a certain Titanic-ness to them, shit felt cold, melodramatic, people died even though they could share in the suffering together and live, so on.

“I-”

The awkward pause where he broke eye contact because it had been sustained for too long and the normal human behavior had become too much to cope with.

“Yeah, gotcha. If we hang out until everyone’s coming back then we have an alibi if a teacher sees us. Still doing the group work, like, just chose to hang out elsewhere.”

How was he capable of thinking this quickly all of a sudden? Maybe he needed to come out to this camp every year.

“Bring our instruments? Or too suspicious?” Timothy finally put the cello down- it had suffered long enough in his grip.

[Wham Yubeesling]

“Eh. We leave them here overnight, usually, so, um, yeah. Keep them here.”

She looked past the NPC and at the door. She stayed still — not really thinking about anything — for a few seconds before the vital essence people called ‘confidence’ finally showed up. She took a step forward, turned to the NPC for the last time (at least in here) and gave her… cue. Goodbye. Thing?

“I’m, um, gonna go now. Remember to meet me at the girls' dorms.”.

And with that, she was off. She walked away from the NPC and went to the door. Said something (she’d long since left earshot) to the teachers, got nods in return, and left the room. She looked back at Timothy once, turned right, and then left FOV.

[Cicadan]

He’d forgotten about where the instruments were kept. Way to look like a first timer. Which he actually was, but looking like one was only the goal for people who wanted to look cute. Jury was out on whether he wanted to, but looking the part was not possible. He was a guy. Guys weren’t cute outside of, like, anime.

--

Weird lingering thought he was focused on arbitrarily in a capriciously passing moment of awkward public vulnerability: how burnt out the teachers here had to be after getting stuck with this job after however many years of music school. All those mega high-stress recitals (that Timothy commonly imagined himself, a two-year practitioner, acing in a blaze of glory) and all they had to show for it was student debt and pubescent kids trying to find a non-chaperone spot to bang.

Not him, of course. That he was thinking about it in such clumsy virginal terms meant he had no chance.

He was lazily Asian Squatting™ by the side of one of the benches in front of the girl’s dorm’s main door. A rickety light overhead, a dry and girthy (eyes emoji) tree branch in his hands that he kept flexing in the middle, repetitively trying to break it and not noticing that it was happening. It would take him a while anyways- his arms echoed that PE was his only form of weekly fitness.

He glanced up at Verity- her name, apparently. They’d only gotten here a bit ago but somehow the conversation already felt dried up, and not the delicious kind like a sun-dried tomato.

“Is, like, something like this going to happen every night? How did you survive your last times here?”

[Wham Yubeesling]

“Usually they’re more interesting than this.”

The NPC was apparently named Timothy. Verity would need to take a bit of effort in remembering that. Not as if he was forgettable — hey, anyone who actually knew Verity existed was worth something in her book — more that she was actually pretty bad with names initially. Like, eventually in a couple months or so she’d be able to name everybody in her cohort given enough time and ability to think clearly, but right now… yeah she knew and recognized a couple people but that was it. She hoped this guy wouldn’t take it too hard if it took a bit for her to commit him to memory. Like, okay, the convo here had died incredibly quickly, but he gave her the idea of how to sneak out of this place and he was being kind to her so even if she was kinda being a bitch internally he didn’t really deserve it, y’know.

“Like, sometimes it’s a quiz night or a costume party and those are actually exciting, but, um, yeah. There… wasn’t really any flavour to that. It was just… ‘sit here for four hours. Try to talk to people.’”

Besides, the conversation had been okay for as long as it had lasted. May as well try to keep it going, even if she didn’t know how and even if it’d be better for the both of them to get out of this rain and get inside some-

...Y’know, Verity hadn’t really thought of Timothy in any way other than ‘dude I’m talking to I guess,’ but…

Yeah. That could work.

“It’s too cold out here. Wanna come inside? See a girl’s room?”

[Cicadan]

Quiz night sounded like something he could do (while the back of his mind gently grumbled at his deafer front lobe that he didn’t know shit about music, actually), costume party just brought up all kinds of fun thoughts about himself in dresses but then the accompanying ‘it would be around people who aren’t anime nerds’ anxieties and he almost just missed that last bit.

But then his brain caught up. Like, kind of. There was a lag between hearing and actually understanding.

“Uh huh...”

He had just agreed to what she had just said, and what she had just said...

Wait wait, give him another second. He needed that much time to process what she’d just said was like, some combination of inappropriate (in his egotistical wildest dreams) and concerning (more realistically) and he didn’t know how to react to it? It was just going into a room like any other, only that room was off-limits for many important and critical societal reasons, only it particularly wasn’t in like, teen drama flicks and anime- sure, Juno had been a bit of a weird movie and maybe he’d watched it too young but he’d related an awful lot to the protagonist (was she a protagonist, technically speaking?) and he’d lost his train of thought a couple of stations ago, or to a derailing… something something bildungsroman, life-long friend and adventure with some girl he’d just learned the name of, heaven forbid this be an event flag in some romance VN which he hadn’t played enough of as a genre to know what to say-

“You’re sure I won’t get like, kicked out of camp if I go in there?”

Strictly speaking, this had probably happened before without forcible expulsions. No no, see, it was probably painfully transparent that he was grasping for an excuse to avoid having to actually commit to an answer?

“It’s not that cold- I mean, for me.” Flailing and fumbling. Now this was the sort of voice he was more used to hearing coming out of his own mouth. “Uh. I’m willing to go in I guess.”

[Wham Yubeesling]

“It’s only band camp. If you found something, um… dirty, there, I’d be surprised.”

She hadn’t really thought about the ~~implication~~ until the words had come out of her mouth. Well, no, she actually had thought about the implication, it was just another case where Verity hadn’t thought about the consequences of saying what she said before opening her mouth and actually saying it. Usually when she did that the consequences were mainly someone on staff DMing her and going “hey, Verity, don’t do that” but now they were… um, something else. Probably not Timothy wanting to have hardcore secks — even if that’d be appropriate for the band camp setting — because lmao @ the idea of anyone wanting to fuck Verity but… okay, yeah, what he said. If they got caught goodbye to Verity’s enrolment at Mangrove Garden. Hadn’t been going good even for the limited time she’d been here but… hey, it’d only been a year. There was still time to maybe make this something better.

(said the last time things didn’t get better)

(and the time before that)

(and the time before that)

“So, uh… come in?” She opened the door and realized that oh, hey, she really hadn’t thought about the implication. There were about five more beds in this room that weren’t hers (even if only three of them were being used) and while she was pretty sure she had nothing incriminating that Tim could look at she was pretty sure that her roommates would have a problem with a guy they probs didn’t know being here.

Whatever. They were currently busy being ~~social~~ right now. They wouldn’t notice.

“Come over here,” Verity stated, walking through the room and to the bottom bunk where she’d slept yesterday. “Don’t look at anyone else’s stuff. They’ll probably... scream at me if they, uh, saw us… do stuff… together.”

[Cicadan]

The reference was right there, somewhere in the dimmer lit alleys of his front lobe, something about it being this one time at band camp. It wasn’t coming out of his lips though, which really was the more familiar state of affairs, him being unable to say anything nice or anything at all. Good thing he was tongue tied for no reason probably. The quip wouldn’t be that funny? And he hadn’t even watched the rest of the movie, incidentally, he’d just sponged that particular bit of pop culture from like… An AMV edit, actually.

“I’ll be respectful to the space,” Timothy dully echoed the first line that came to mind. Also the only line that came to mind. Maybe he could at least partially blame her for no reason- listening to her trying and failing to dodge around all the awkward phrasing was certainly distracting in its own way.

It was very much just a modestly messy bunk room. A carbon copy of the one he was staying in, actually. He’d been anticipating that a woman’s dorm wouldn’t be anything special because he’d spent forever reading accounts of how girls kept their bedrooms so he could do the same for the… vibe, that was probably the word? The slight deflation of general novelty-induced anxiety decently approximated disappointment. He could have pretended in a different life that he was the bildungsroman protagonist let down by the clumsily written noobish encounter with the realm of the opposite sex, he guessed.

He sat cross-legged at the foot of her bunk. Not staring much at her or at anything around her- something he was good at, his gaze evaporating into thin air by intently focusing onto nothing in particular until something broke his trance and he forgot he’d ever learned such a skill for hours after.

“What do you do in your free time here?” It had been an actual curiosity, really. A question Timothy had intended to have without intending to ever ask out loud. “I thought I’d be spending more practice on time than I am. Like, because I pick the new pieces up quick.” A very auditory lie, but Tim had happened to reflexively tell the falsehood that made him look better even though he wasn’t even interested in flexing. “But I didn’t bring anything to do at night.”