Whatever professor had decided to put these two together for a group project was clearly less than qualified to be assigning partners. There had been a few snickers when it was called out, but the teacher just shrugged and let it go. Kurloz Makara, the mute who spoke only sign language, would be working with Damara Megido, the girl who spoke only poorly constructed sentences in Japanese. Neither would be able to understand the other without some elaborate workaround.
Damara herself didn’t say anything about it when it happened, though she had crossed her arms in minor defiance. There was no way she was going to let some arbitrary partner assignment mess with her four point oh, especially not for something as stupid as this. So, when they were given the rest of the class to make plans with their partners, Damara marched right over to where Kurloz sat with no problem.
“私のためにこれを性交しないでください。” That was the string of syllables that came out of her mouth, as though she had some reason to believe Kurloz would be able to understand what she was saying. Hell, even people who spoke Japanese had trouble understanding her sometimes. The Makara wasn’t exactly a likely candidate for being able to translate her on the fly.
Making room for herself, she scooted into a seat next to him and tore a piece of paper out of her notebook. On it, she wrote three things: the number 108, ‘Tomorrow’, and ‘3:30P′. Pointing at each respectively, she tried to explain to Kurloz what that meant. “Dorm number. Meeting day. Meeting time,” she said as her finger passed over each piece of information. “遅刻しないでください。” From the tone of her voice, Kurloz might have been able to pick up that this was a stern sort of warning.
* * *
That’s the story of why Damara was standing there, in the living area of her dorm room, staring at the door with crossed arms. Her phone’s clock read 3:29, and she swore to God that if this fucker was late, he was toast. Twirling a loose strand of hair in a finger, she tapped one foot on the ground, awaiting the inevitable knock on the door. Of course, she was just going to offer to do all of the work anyway, but they had to make it at least look like it was a group project.
Tugging up on the hem of her jeans, she adjusted her tank top and fidgeted with the bun in her hair. Really, she was just antsy, waiting for the final minute or so to pass before the guy – she didn’t even know his name – would show up and they would get their chemistry project on, or whatever. At least, she would get her chemistry project on. If he couldn’t keep up, that’d be his problem.
Finally, the knock on the door came, and Damara was right there to open it straight away. Glancing at the clock on her phone for a moment, which read 3:31 PM, she then looked up at her guest with a judgmental glare. “遅いよ。” Stepping aside, she waved a hand for him to come in, though she still looked just as annoyed as ever.
Silently, she led him to her room of the apartment, slamming the door behind them as soon as he was inside. “私は働く。あなたが見て。” She really wasn’t in the mood to deal with someone slowing her down when she had a 4.0 to maintain. Gesturing towards the general direction of her bed and a chair in the corner for him to sit wherever he wanted, she bent over her backpack and dug out her chemistry textbook. With a thump she dropped it on the desk, sitting down in front of it.
There was space for Kurloz to move a chair and sit at the desk with Damara if he wanted, but she seemed perfectly content to work on her own. If he wanted to interrupt, he could do so at his own risk. Then again, if she screwed all of this up, his grade was at stake, too.
