Chapter Text
The church-like interior of the classroom was filled with rows and rows of long, dark wooden tables that mimicked pews. It truly could have been mistaken as a place of worship were it not for walls and walls of blackboards covered in a permanent layer of white chalk dust and drawings of perfect, and not so perfect, ritual circles upon them.
Class had already ended a few minutes ago, with most students having left before the school bell had even rang. Though a few of them still stayed behind, some for better reasons than others.
One of the students who remained was an infuriated Mina Ha.
She hugged her textbook tightly to her chest like a child would hug a toy for comfort as she glared at the chalkboard in front of her. In big capital letters at the top of the board, it read: "LAB PARTNERS". Her neck craned her gaze down the long, long list until it landed at the very bottom where her name was written alongside another which made her lip twitch.
Arin Fairfax.
This had to be some joke that the professor was playing on her. Did he want her to commit social suicide? That stupid loser who doesn't talk to anyone except for those disgusting creek frogs, and dresses like their blind grandma picked their clothes out for them every morning. She had no idea how they could even pull that off considering they all had to wear those tacky uniforms to class, but somehow they managed to flip that collar in a way that was so stupid it made her want to hurl. She was going to end up absorbing whatever loser fumes they had for this damn project and it was going to take at least six months for it to wear off.
"Hey."
Mina flinched as she heard Victor's hoarse voice whisper beside her. She hadn't noticed him walk up to her while she was brooding at the list and it was clear from the concerned expression on his face that he had noticed something was off. Good. She was glad that someone else could see how much of an organizational oversight this was.
"Ugh." She turned her chin up at the chalk board, glaring at the name carved into it. "I can't believe they put me with Arin of all people."
"Yeah…" Victor's dual-coloured eyes skimmed over the names. From the tone of his voice, it sounded like he didn't exactly share her disdain, though at the very least he sounded like he was apologetic about it.
"I'd offer to swap with you, but Paige has been looking forward to doing a project together and I don't wanna let her down."
Mina wrinkled her nose at that. Paige wasn't any better than Arin was. God, if Arin's outfit was chosen by their grandma, then Paige was dressed up by hobbits. She was equally as bad, if not worse. At least Arin knew when to shut up.
"Whatever," she sneered. "I'm just going to make them do all of the work."
"You know that Professor Dynamo grades by workload percentages, right?" Victor cautioned. "Unless Arin knows how to forge your handwriting, you'll have to at least write your part out."
Mina groaned. Of course it wouldn't be that easy.
He scratched his scarred cheek. "Is it really that bad?"
"Uhh, yes? You wouldn't get it. It's girl stuff." She began to walk out of the class, hiking her backpack up her shoulders.
Victor blinked at her before turning back to look at the rest of the names.
"I saw Arin in the cafeteria, if that helps," he called back.
"It did, thanks."
Now she knew where to avoid.
And she really avoided them. Always sat on the opposite side of the class, taking different routes in the school and dormitories, avoiding them like the plague, because by all means they basically were. The last thing she needed was for them to forget their place on the social ladder and walk up to her while gossiping with her friends.
Thankfully, it seemed like Arin got the hint. Mina only ever saw them looking in her direction when they were in class, blinking like they were trying to beam a message into her head though it was promptly ignored in favour of fixing her hair or talking to someone beside her instead. It was only when the due date for the project was approaching that Arin actually ended up coming to find her.
It was while she was waiting for the rain to stop while trying to go between the dorms and the school. She was not going to get wet right after styling her hair.
Arin had walked out of the building beside her with an umbrella. It looked like they were about to walk past her, but stopped, turning to look at her. Their expression was first one of surprise, then something that looked a bit uncomfortable.
"Are you ready to talk about that project, or are you just going to keep pretending I'm a ghost or something?" Despite their words, there was no bite, only weariness. "We only have a week left to get it done and I don't want to fail."
Mina rolled her eyes and crossed her arms, standing a bit taller as she failed to take a look in their direction. "Depends. When are you going to lose that ugly coat and put on something that isn't vomit coloured?"
Pocket looked down at their clothes as she pointed them out, squeezing the dense green coat in one of their hands.
"Look," they muttered, ignoring the question, "I hate this as much as you. Hell, I've already done most of it. I just need you to do the bare minimum and that's all. After that you can go back to pretending that I don't exist."
Mina turned to glance back at them just slightly. "I'm not going anywhere where I can be seen with you in public."
"I figured that you wouldn't. That's why I'm proposing that we go out of town for a day. Somewhere where none of your friends are. Newark or something."
She pursed her lips. "Where in Newark?"
"I know a cafe we could visit. I can pay, as long as you go."
Mina narrowed her eyes at them. It was sounding suspiciously like a bad date. "Thursday."
"I can't do Thursday."
"What, you have a meeting with the toad council?"
Arin's eye contact broke as they muttered something about their father that she didn't care about.
She scoffed. "Fine. Friday. But I'm busy on the weekend so we have to make it quick."
"Deal." They smiled at her, and Mina found herself smiling back, overcorrecting it into a scowl.
Arin just laughed a bit as they opened their umbrella and held it out to her. One of the arms of the poor, battered thing was broken.
"Want some help with the rain?"
"Hmph."
She snatched the umbrella from them without a word, leaving Arin under the awning.
They followed far behind with that smile, not seeming to mind the rain at all. Almost like that umbrella was never meant for them in the first place.
-
The two of them were not exactly the smartest when it came to planning their meeting. Mina had to reluctantly speak to Arin at the end of their next period in order to actually figure out the details of where they were going and when they had to meet up. Though most of it was Mina blaming them for their complete mismanagement.
Arin had the foresight to cover their face with their books on their head while they were talking, but she didn't know if that made it better or worse. At least none of her friends came up to ask who she was talking to. She was silently thankful with how discrete they were trying to be about the whole thing. If there was one thing they understood, it was where their place was in the hierarchy.
When they finally figured out all of the details, the trip to Newark was a very merciful one. The taxi ride to the cafe was relatively smooth, and the driver didn't speak a word. She felt tempted to tip, though she often didn't. But for today? Why not? Arin was going to pay for their little cafe trip, why not pay that kindness forward?
She dropped a generous extra dollar into the payment tray, the driver giving her a thanks that she paid no mind to when she left.
As she stepped out of the taxi and onto the walkway, she looked down both ends of the street for Arin, though they didn't seem to be here yet. Mina furrowed her brow in frustration. They had set the time, and yet they had the audacity to be late.
She stepped closer to the wall of the cafe they were going to meet at and sighed as she watched people walking down the street and cars eagerly pushing through busy traffic. Their shiny exteriors reminded her of the sewing machines back in her little studio at home. Glossy blacks and pale ivory whites laced with glittering silver accents. Or at least, the cars that belonged to anyone worth knowing were like that.
Though one car in particular caught her eye. A sleek but boxy black car with windows nearly opaque. It reminded her of a police car.
She wondered what a vehicle like that was doing out here in Newark, until it pulled up right in front of her and Arin Fairfax pathetically clawed themself out of the back seat. Her jaw practically dropped to the floor as she saw a glimpse of what looked like some sort of agent who had been sitting beside them gazing straight back at her with hawk eyes.
Arin looked back at the car, nodding to the man sitting inside who closed the door before the vehicle pulled back into the road.
They grimaced as they watched the vehicle drive away, ears red with embarrassment. "Gaudy, right? I told them to drop me off further down the street, but we were late so they just pulled up here."
Mina's eyes were wide with shock, still reeling from the car.
"Okay, what kind of blackmail do you have to be riding around in something like that? Is your dad the President or something?"
They flinched at her, looking a little uncertain and a bit ashamed. "Uh… Something like that."
Arin walked past her, shifting around a shoulder bag to a more comfortable position as they went to open up the door to the cafe for her. "Ready?"
She still had a lot of questions, but Mina swallowed them for now, letting out a huff as she walked inside.
It took an earl grey tea from Arin and a caramel macchiato from Mina before the two of them could stomach doing any sort of homework, not that there was much of it left to do.
Arin had been true to their word and they had already done most of the work for them. After giving it a read, Mina was surprisingly impressed by its quality. Despite their antisocial attitude and general inaptitude at anything relating to people, Arin clearly knew what they were doing when it came to magic.
The diagrams were well-drawn and thoroughly explained, even made with a few spell contractions that had been giving other students a run for their money. Either they were actually smart, or talking to those frogs was doing something to make them better at magic. Then again, when you didn't care about your self image, what else was there to care about other than nerdy stuff?
"Competent," Mina says, though she finds herself having to wrestle the half-compliment out of her mouth. "Who did you pay off to do all this work for you?"
They frowned. "No one. I did it by myself." Arin took a sip from their tea, no doubt having grown bitter by now. "Not like I have much else to do in my spare time."
"Yeah, obviously." She picked up her pen and clicked the end a few times before beginning to write. Though she didn't get very far before curiosity was eating away at the edge of her brain.
Clearly there was more to Arin than what she initially thought. Sure, they were an eyesore and utterly pathetic to talk to, but now that the two of them were actually within speaking distance, Mina could tell that that green jacket she told them to ditch was actually a Kelsey Evans overcoat. One from an older catalogue at that. Possibly a hand-me-down? She could even catch the flash of an expensive leather watch from under the cuff of their sleeve as they ran their hand through their hair, too deep in thought to notice her staring.
Her lips wrinkled into a scowl. If there was anything Mina hated more than someone who couldn't dress themself, it was someone who had the money to fix the problem and still had the audacity to walk around like a complete wardrobe disaster.
"Who do you think you are?" she asked accusingly.
Arin looked up at her, a look of slight confusion slowly melding onto their face. "Pardon?"
"All you do on the schoolgrounds is sit around sulking all day and be weird and lame, but you're clearly rich or something. Either that or you're a klepto."
They blinked incredulously at her. "...I thought you knew?"
"Knew what?"
"That I'm a Fairfax? I thought you knew my last name."
"Yeah, but I didn't think you were actually related to 'Fairfax Industries' Fairfax. They're all about public image, and you?" She can't help the snort that escapes her. "Don't even get me started. I just thought it was a stupid coincidence."
Arin furrowed their brows at her, their expression turning stern. "Mina, just because I'm related to them doesn't automatically mean I have to be an asshole too."
"Ugh– I never said you were an asshole, Arin. I'm just saying that you're weird." She paused before finding herself adding, "...Not that that's bad."
Arin stared at her with an expression that she didn't quite know how to interpret. It looked like disgust mixed with disappointment and bewilderment. She hated that it was coming from them of all people, and she hid from their gaze behind another sip of her drink.
The next hour of work was done in complete silence aside from the occasional clinking of ceramic mugs and scraping of pens and pencils against sheets of paper. Though there were some parts of the report that Mina was struggling with, she would rather take the hit to her grade than ask Arin for help on understanding it.
By the time they were both finished, the day was still young enough for more activities, but Mina didn't want to spend more time with them if she could help it. She was quite sure that her happiness was directly connected to her proximity to Arin, and she was sure that those loser fumes had already penetrated her own jacket.
Though despite desperately wanting to leave Newark, she also desperately wanted to see Arin off. If only to confirm that she had actually seen them in that strange black car, and not that she had been hallucinating the last hour and a half.
Arin had told her that she didn't need to wait for them, but she insisted.
"You really hate me so much that you want me to leave so soon?" she joked. Though her smile soon fell as their expression remained deadpan.
They stared at her for a moment, but could only answer her with a shrug before looking at the concrete below them with an indiscernible look on their face. Mina wasn't sure why it made her anxious for some reason.
As the same black car pulled up on the side of the street, Arin turned back to give her a small nod before disappearing into the void of the backseat.
She found herself staring at the car as it left before waving down a taxi herself.
Sitting in the back of the vehicle, she tried to ignore the smell of cigarettes staining the seat and held the files of her and Arin's project tightly to her lap. She had insisted that she take the papers, lest Arin accidentally lose them.
She tried to imagine what sitting in the back of that black car was like. Probably nothing like what she had to go through now.
Of course they were a Fairfax. No wonder Arin never talked to anyone. Why would a Fairfax need to do anything they didn't want to? They probably had everything handed to them on a silver platter.
What she wouldn't do for a life like that.