Thorunn

4-1

Laine couldn't help his grin when he caught sight of the video playing on repeat on Ethaba High's bulletin board. Less than a month and he already occupied the spot of honour reserved for outstanding students. Mom was happy with the good grades he'd been bringing home―a necessary sacrifice to achieve success in the one thing at the school that actually mattered.

"Admiring your handiwork?" Yoon Ah said as she came up beside him.

"You know it!" He watched himself score the winning goal against the rival team he and the Ospreys had crushed last week. Then he watched it again. And again.

"Andy complains about how much he has to wrangle you guys, but if Dad is putting the team on display so early in the school year, he's doing something right."

"Doesn't hurt to have such a cute cheerleader in the stands."

Yoon Ah blushed, her long hair―aqua this week, she rotated through colours faster than outfits―falling in front of her face when Laine winked at her.

"Hitting on my girl again, Laine? You're really angling fer a week of fetching lytorade an' towels fer us ain'tcha?"

"Come on. You wouldn't bench your star player when I'm only acknowledging a universal truth."

Andy slung his arm around Yoon Ah and levelled a mock glare at Laine. "I'm certainly not gonna deny that Yoon Ah's the prettiest girl on all of Thorunn, but I don't need to hear you say it."

"Oi, Laine!" Dustin called as he rushed past, arms full of books, "Class's in two minutes, and I need your answer by the end of the week!"

"Ugh, that stupid mathletes event. It's technically right before the last match of the season, so I don't really have a way to get out of it, but guys, I hate hanging out with Dustin."

Yoon Ah and Andy exchanged matching expressions of concern.

"Surely a little trigonometry talk is hardly a burden when he practically worships you."

"No, but he follows me around at all hours of the day, constantly badgering me to join chess club and astronomy club and engineering club just because I happen to have the second-best math grade in class, and it's honestly exhausting at this point."

He'd petitioned Principal Kim to let him switch seats, but after an awkward talk wherein Laine had to explain that no, he was not being bullied―the opposite in fact, his classmate was too helpful―his request had been denied, and Dustin continued to pester him with lollipops from his seemingly bottomless bag.

"You could be a little nicer after all Dustin's done to make you feel welcome," Andy said.

Laine shrugged. He'd been nice, the first week or so, and Dustin had taken the inch, and gone several light-years, so Laine had had to lay down some ground rules, and it was nobody's fault but Dustin's if Laine avoided him outside of school. If he kept up the pestering, he'd soon find himself ignored during classes as well.

"Maybe, if he'd just shut up about the 'intricate beauty of numbers.' Anyway, your house after school since we're taking a day off from practice, right?"

Andy nodded, and Laine fist bumped both his friends before dashing into class where Dustin was making increasingly worried signals at the approach of their English teacher, a man prone to giving pop quizzes on his favourite subject: great writers of the late twenty-first century.

After suffering through that and history class, revisiting the tragedy of the Apollo XXII colony for what had to be the fourteenth time―seriously Professor Grennal had a sick fascination with showing the slides of the ghost town the soldiers had found―
Laine grabbed his things and met Andy and Yoon Ah on the front steps of Ethaba High.