Welcome to Gaia! ::

I hope you all finished your homework sheet. Please leave them all on my desk.

Dude Food had not completed his homework sheet.

His homework sheet had never left his school bag.

Now he pulled it out and stared at all the empty spaces. It was a math sheet and at a quick glance it didn’t seem too hard, he just didn’t want to do it. That would mean thinking and he really could not be bothered right now. He’d had too many waffles that morning to want to think about mathematics.

Maybe he could ask Iron Chef? No, she would never give him the answers. There had to be some other way...

Dude Food was watching as Labyrinth entered the classroom, put her back down on the desk beside his and then left her homework unattended in full view. He sat rigidly for a long moment as she spoke to Miss. Glory. Nobody was watching him, nobody cared, if he just...

Before he could think twice about it he snatched her homework and hurriedly began copying the answers down onto his own sheet. Wait, that didn’t look right... there was no way that multiplied into the hundreds... oh well.

Everything was back in place and Dude Food was sitting nonchalantly in his seat by the time Labyrinth finished talking to the teacher.

“L-labyrinth,” he replied, stumbling over her name slightly and hoping she didn’t notice. It was cool, be cool, don’t worry, it’s not a big deal. He sunk down in his seat, holding out his paper for one of his siblings to take when they walked past.

There. It was done. Damn, he really needed something fortifying. A piece of cheesecake would do the trick.

Dude Food was slower to return to the classroom because he was in a crisis. His lunch, which had been lovingly prepared and packed that morning, had hardly been touched. He hadn’t been able to eat anything at all and he knew why. It was the guilt. Instead of facing up to his own laziness, he’d abused the trust of someone who hadn’t thought twice about leaving her work on her desk.

When he finally trudged into the room, he went straight over to Labyrinth. He’d rather confess and have Labyrinth hate him, then never be able to eat food again.

There wasn't any preamble. He got straight to the point, putting himself at her mercy. “Labyrinth. I need to apologize. I copied your homework this morning because I didn’t do my own. I’m really sorry. It was a terrible thing to do.”

"Well," he was blushing from guilty embarrassment but he powered on, "I was too lazy to do it last night and I thought it would be easier to just copy yours instead of get in trouble for not doing it. I am super sorry."

“Ummm,” he said because she was laughing and he wasn’t sure if that was a good or bad thing. “Wait, I did?” Then she was handing him the sheet and he stared at that big red F before walking to his desk and putting it beside him out which had an equally large red F.

Oh. Well, of course.

“Wow, I guess I deserved that then.” Dude Food burst into laughter.

"Well, I did kinda," he admitted. "I mean, 6 multiplied by 4 definitely doesn't equal 248. But I didn't care, as long I handed something in and didn't actually have to do the work." Which was stupid because he was good at math. He never needed the help of a calculator when he was changing measurements for cooking.

Dude Food handed her back her homework. Working together was a great plan and might actually help him enjoy getting it done. "Deal."