Today is fantastic. Absolutely deliciously amazing. Derek gets to walk Percy to school.
After grabbing an unfrosted strawberry poptart from the kitchen and his sunglasses, he headed to Percy's house. On the way there, he saw a squirrel. That had to be a good sign.
As he walked up to Percy's porch, he saw him waiting on the steps.
"You're late," Percy spat.
"Good morning to you too, sunshine," Derek replied cheerfully.
"Dude we seriously cannot be late for chemistry,"
"Why, so we can make sure to get someone smart in our group so we don't totally fail?"
Percy didn't answer, Derek knew he was right.
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They rolled up to school...on their feet....and walked to chemistry. Inside, it looked like everyone had already chosen their groups and were sat together in little huddles. Apparently the project was to integrate something we learned during the quarter and make it "exciting".
They needed 3 people for their group but they only had two so far, and they weren't about to go around asking for someone to join their group. That'd be mad embarrassing. After awkwardly sitting at their desks for what seemed like eternity, a tall girl barged into the classroom. The basketball girl on the basketball team. That girl. Derek watched from a far as she apologized to the teacher for being late. Then Mrs. Jones pointed towards Derek and Percy. Good thing Derek was wearing sunglasses, so she totally couldn't tell he'd been staring at her.
She walked over, and he elbowed Percy, who had been doodling on his desk.
"Hey, it looks like we're gonna be in a group together," she said, hesitantly.
"Bombastic. So on a scale of one to ten, how much would you say you pay attention in class?" Derek asked, before getting a harsh kick under the table from Percy. The tall girl stared at them dumbfounded.
"I'm Percy, and this...thing...is Derek,"
"Oh, I'm Via,"
"So we were thinking we'd do elephant toothpaste and maybe make a poster board,"
They literally hadn't discussed any of that.
"Yeah that sounds like fun, so I could get the elephant toothpaste ingredients and write a third of the report if you guys make the poster board,"
"R-report?" Percy's cheeks flushed in confusion.
"Yeah the report on why and how our project works? A CER? We've been talking about it for weeks,"
Derek watched as Percy's face went from flushed to an absolute tomato. Poor guy.
"Of course we knew about the report, we were just testing you," Derek saves the day with his whits and charms yet again.
"...Right, we should probably exchange phone numbers so we can keep in touch," Via said. For some unknown reason to Derek, Percy's face lit up. What a weirdo.
After they'd exchanged numbers, Via went back to her seat and they went on with the rest of the lesson.
Derek put together the pieces of what just happened. Percy's blushing, stuttering, and overall awkwardness could only mean one thing. He had a crush on someone in the group. Possibly Via. He'd need more Intel to be sure.
