[R] Problem Set #1 (Vera + Andrea) [FIN]

[oneironym]

Andrea stepped into the junior-senior cafeteria at Meadowview High with his backpack over one shoulder, glancing around at the other people gathered there. It was immediately after school, but having his last class halfway across the building meant that the halls had had a bit of time to clear out on the way over.

He had never been to one of the Math Team meets before. Last year, math class had been easy enough that just getting the homework done every night had been enough to get him a respectable grade in spite of not fully understanding all the concepts the first time over. This year, though, it was definitely more difficult, and, to his surprise, Andrea had pretty soundly bombed his last test.

Fortunately, pretty much all of the math teachers, his included, offered extra credit points for showing up. After last chapter's test grade, Andrea would have to go to quite a few meetings in order to make up for it, but he hoped that he would at least enjoy it.

... And it made the sophomore feel a bit better to see so many of his classmates here, too, truth be told. Apparently he was not the only one.

For the moment, the students were still standing or sitting around in small clusters or alone, occasionally chatting. Andrea glanced over the bunch of them for any other familiar faces as he made his way to the vending machines, where he purchased himself a cola and a bag of miniature chocolate chip cookies. Then he noticed a girl seated by herself at a table by the window staring at him.

The dancer was used to being watched, but being stared at traditionally unsettled a lot of people. He looked around at everyone else in the cafeteria again as he wandered away from the machines, mostly because he had to figure out a place to sit, but also because it served to distract him from the pigtailed girl staring at him. Still, though, he found himself across the room at her round table on the opposite side of the room, and shrugged his backpack off his shoulders to sit down.

"So uh, you come to a lot of these?" he inquired in an attempt to make conversation. Since she was still staring at him.  

[Ithiltari]

Vera was not failing math. Yet. It was really only through the efforts of once Janice Fitzpatrick that she was not, in fact, looking forward to another year of Algebra II next year. As long as Vera passed this class, she was planning on not taking any math next year. Her grades, even with her friend's help, were borderline enough that her teacher had gently suggested attending the after school Math Team for extra credit.

Janice had agreed, pointing out that it was a better use of her time than just doing more archery practice while waiting for Jazz Band to finish. She'd also pointed out what had happened that one time, which Vera viewed as profoundly unfair and possibly more than a little bit Janice's own fault.

So she'd been attending for a few weeks, and her grades had made a small upturn, with the extra credit and the fact that Vera was, possibly, finally understanding higher math. She'd settled into something resembling a routine - show up, sit down at a table, and ignore everyone else. It had worked out fairly well so far, with only minimal interaction required when she needed help with something. Her normal level of stand-offishness had eroded somewhat as she got used to everyone else attending.

Which explained why she'd been staring at Andrea - someone new required attention, and Vera was not very good at hiding her direct stare. While it was hard for her to fathom why other people found it so off-putting, it was useful for keeping others away. So it was mildly surprising that he was actually coming over to her. Purple eyes narrowed slightly as he sat down.

"Only when my friend has to stay after school herself," she answered after a possibly too long pause.  

[oneironym]

... It was always awkward when you said something to someone and they did not hear you or did not bother responding. Andrea was bent over rummaging in his backpack to try to let his apparently unheard question dissipate so he could move along like nothing had happened. And then the girl responded.

"Oh," he replied, sitting straight again and setting a mechanical pencil and one of those retractable erasers down on the table to use when the math sheet came around. "Are the problems very hard? For a sophomore?" he then asked, cracking open his soda and quirking a brow at her as he took a sip. Hopefully he was not bothering her too much by asking, but really, he was curious and it seemed to make sense to ask one of the upperclassmen, and someone who had been here before, at that, as opposed to one of his own classmates.

Andrea picked another miniature cookie from his bag, and then offered the other girl one. "Chocolate chip cookie?" She seemed kind of weird, but he still wanted to try to be nice.  

[Ithiltari]

Vera seemed blithely oblivious to the conversational faux pas, as if it was perfectly normal to let a minute or so lapse between question and answer. While Andrea was searching his backpack for a pencil, the girl twirled hers in an absent-minded gesture, a nervous tic of sorts that she was no longer really aware of.

She watched him set up with polite bordering on rude attention, tilting her head to the side slightly at the second question, red hair falling loosely over a shoulder at the movement. "Depends," she settled on finally. Depends on what, Vera did not elaborate on. Could be the sophmore in question, or just the variance in problems from time to time. Depends on how he took her response, mostly.

"No," she said to his offer of a cookie, "Thank you," Vera added automatically. She had a few ingrained polite mannerisms, but otherwise would be content to ignore everyone. Except Janice.  

[oneironym]

"Okay," Andrea replied with a shrug, and ate the other cookie.

Then, after a moment's consideration, he elaborated on his question to see if he could get a better answer from her. "I'm, ah, here for extra credit because I sorta messed up on the conic sections chapter test in my Algebra class. Do you get many questions about that?"

He shifted in his seat, leaning his elbows onto the table as he folded a foot under himself to sit on it. "And like, what are the problems like in general? Do you remember any of the ones from last week?" Andrea would still get credit just for showing up, but if he could get a problem or two correct, he may be able to glean a few extra bonus points.  

[Ithiltari]

Vera looked blankly at Andrea for a moment while she processed the question. "I have no idea what that means," she admitted finally, uttering the most words in a row for that day. She lifted one shoulder slightly in an attempt at a shrug; clearly, she was here for much the same reason. Extra credit: what better way to inflate the numbers for your after-school club.

"Varies," she replied to the second question, slipping back into single word answers for a moment. "Some weeks are harder than others." A slight flick of her finger tapped the pencil lying on the table in front of her back into perfect alignment with the notebook open next to it, crisp white paper unmarred by any marks.  

[oneironym]

"Hopefully this week will be one of the easy ones," Andrea replied, and took a drink of soda.

It was definitely awkward trying to talk to this girl. But he still wanted to be nice, especially if he might be running into her here every week. "Well, good luck on yours," he told her. "My name's Andrea, by the way."

And then his soda stepped up with one social embarrassment to save him from another - a burp welled up in his stomach, and since trying to hold it in was totally a bad idea (soda burp out the nose hurts), he put one fist to his mouth to stifle it a little as he let the belch out as slowly and quietly as possible. It provided a great excuse to avoid offering a handshake, he thought, since he figured at this point the strange girl might leave him hanging, and that would have been totally awkward. It was probably too far to reach across the table anyway.

"Sorry," he mumbled and patted his chest a little. "Thirsty, so I drank it too fast."  

[Ithiltari]

"Hopefully," she echoed back, nodding slightly. It would be nice to have something she could actually understand, for a change. "Vera," she offered in reply to his introduction, glancing behind him as the sheets for the week were handed out to the other tables.

It was while they were recieving their problems that Andrea burped, causing Vera to blink and then, in what had to be a rare occurance, actually smile at him. "Better than inhaling it and choking," she said after her brief grin had faded. It was a slightly macabre thing to say, but there was a sort of good-natured humor to it. Possibly.

Or she really was that odd, that the first thought she had after someone burping was that they hadn't choked. Hard to tell.  

[oneironym]

"Nice to meet you," he said with a smile, pleased that she had apparently not thought him too gross. Her response seemed to indicate that she understood, which was good - he suspected that everyone understood, just of course not everyone was ready to admit it.

Andrea looked up at the teacher as she set his piece of paper down on the table in front of him (by the slight disapproving look in her eye, he suspected that she was one of the sorts who did not care to admit that burping was a necessary part of life). Fiddling with the corner of the page in anticipation and waiting for the signal to start, he lowered his voice and leaned forward a little to tell Vera, "Good luck!"  

[Ithiltari]

A gracious nod indicated that Vera reciprocated the feeling; at least, that's probably what she meant by it. And indeed, it was kind of nice to meet someone who hadn't been screend by Janice, like pretty much everyone she met outside of a school setting.

The teacher slipped Vera's problem sheet next to the girl, who simply eyed it somewhat pensively. Last week hadn't been very kind to her, so sure this week would be, right? At Andrea's whisper, she glanced over at him, a somewhat worried smile barely creasing her face as she whispered back, "You too."  

[oneironym]

Andrea leaned both elbows on the table and hovered over the sheet as he flipped it over, and looked up to give the girl across the table a quick smile.

... Which quickly faded when he read the math problems.

At least he got points for showing up confused