Chapter Text
Peridot jumped awake, her ears bombarded with the tasteful yet unwanted sounds of early 2000s ska. Her eyes snapped open to the sight of her roommate, Amethyst, playing "The World of Skate", in her room.
"Stop that! Why are you in here?" Peridot yelled.
Amethyst raised her eyebrow, "Dude, you asked me to wake you up. Chill!" she continued to play the game at full agonizing volume.
Peridot grabbed her headphones off of her filthy nightstand and put them on to get even the slightest amount of relief from the noise, "Yeah by knocking or calling me! I keep my door locked anyway, how'd you get in?" she almost begged for an answer.
Amethyst snickered and turned off Peridot's CRT, getting up from her clear spot in the trash heap room. Peridot sighed in relief. "You know these locks don't even work here and I choose not to read your "Keep Out" sign." she said, giving Peridot a light punch.
"Ow!" she rubbed her shoulder. "Fine, I guess! Just don't forget I'm clearly going to be jacked by the end of my awesome volleyball class that I start today." she joked, however monotone.
"Right right, Miss Calculator Collection. I'm sure you'll have the guts to kick my ass someday!" she laughed.
"You love math!" Peridot exclaimed, pointing to Amethyst's over sized Math Club shirt.
Amethyst smirked as she walked through the door back into the living area, "I'm an abacus girl, Peri! My brain is huge, girl!"
Peri smiled, she hated her "IRL" best friend in the most loving way possible. She jumped up and maneuvered around to her dresser, topped with useless junk and dust. She needed to wear something sporty, but with the least effort possible.
Finding the first sign of a baggy tee-shirt and her signature green flannel, she was content enough to start her day. "I knew sleeping in my sweat pants would be optimal." she thought and flung her shirts on. Peridot did not like her body, she did not like her face, she saw nothing redeeming in herself. Most of all, she really didn't like other people seeing all the features that she hated about herself and nothing scared her more than what she was about to do today. "Stupid athletic credits, I lied about you being awesome, this is going to suck." she muttered to herself pitifully.
She opened the door, duffel bag on her shoulder. She heard her roommate scream from behind her, "Peri! Eat! You're going to throw up in front of everyone if you don't, I shouldn't have to tell you this, my dude!" Peri sighed at her friend's caring thoughtful comment, "I'm going to throw up anyway, I just know it." She said behind her breath.
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After losing her sense of direction, ending up in the wrong buildings around three different time, she finally found where she needed to be. She was incredibly glad that she bothered to wake up an hour earlier than usual or else she would have missed the first day of her first class of the semester. She stared at her classmates, huddled up into groups, chatting away like they already knew each other. She was, as it seemed so far, the shortest person in the class. "Great, it's high school all over again! Cliques, judging looks, and sweat. Ugh, whatever." she grumbled.
Looking down at her watch, It was already 10:15 am, 15 minutes after the starting time. She rolled her eyes, "Yup, real glad I woke up early." Where was this professor? Suddenly she heard a loud ear shattering clap, turning back she saw a huge woman approaching. Two more claps came as she approached the general location of the class. Peridot was stunned, she was amazing, buff, and did she already think about how buff this woman was?
"Hey Howdy, everyone!" the large, very attractive woman boomed. "I'll be your professor for this class, volleyball! It's a real fun game I promise ya'll that. If you're in this class that is, always a few stragglers from golf that get lost in here. Guess you made the wrong choice, there's always next year!" She pointed at a door with a middle aged white guy waving at the group, "That'll be me for golf, Mr. Universe! Thanks Bismuth, knew I was missing a few."
"Ya'll can also just call me Bismuth, this is college not 7th grade gym. I'm not a history teacher on the side, if you're wondering." Bismuth laughed the most powerful laugh that Peri had ever heard. If this was her professor, maybe the class would actually be fun.
Bismuth took attendance, claiming it would be the first and last time that semester and that she was good with faces. "A few missing, that's alright! Even I get lost in this place from time to time. Gonna need for everyone to be in pairs of two today, nothing fancy for a few classes just the basics." she said quietly counting everyone. Everyone had paired up instantly, these really were like high schoolers, she thought.
Bismuth looked down at Peridot, she had about two feet on her height-wise, "Looks like we're gonna pair up, not enough people for everyone to get someone. Lucky you, you'll be getting some private lessons." she said motioning her hand to the last court. Peridot followed her with arms crossed, still nervous that anyone would see her (self described) ugly body.
Peridot was surprised by Bismuth's gentle serves, she was afraid that the ball was going to knock her out when she first looked closely at her professor's massive arms, but even she was able to catch up to the ball and attempt to hit it back. They practiced for about two minutes, then Bismuth would have to run to teach someone how to hit the ball just right, another two minutes, ect ect. Even so, Peridot was sweating like a pig. Finally, Bismuth came back with someone next to her.
"Hey, look what we found you! An actual partner!" Bismuth motioned to the girl beside her. Peridot looked over from panting, this girl wasn't as tall as Bismuth, but still around a foot taller than Peri. She opened her mouth to say hello, but before she could she looked at the girl's face. She was beautiful, however she had the most intimidating scowl that Peri had ever seen in her life. "I'm, uh, Peridot." she said with an almost inaudible voice.
"Lapis" the girl simply said, looking down at Peridot.
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Peridot was horrified. Lapis had gone straight to the other side of the court without saying a word, she thought this was a beginners class but Lapis was serving the ball hard and fast, she had to narrowly avoid getting hit every single time. She couldn't even attempt to hit it back. At this point she was sweating more than she ever had in her life and between actually passing out and exposing her arms in class, she chose the latter.
She took off her disgustingly wet green flannel and wrapped it around her waist. She hadn't taken a break since Lapis had started her assault, she was gasping, coughing, and hunched over with one hand on the net. She looked up from her daze, Lapis was right in front of her, looking at her with what seemed to be hateful fervor. Her pupils shrank, was this how she died?
Lapis touched her arm with a cold water bottle. "Eep!" Peri shrieked, shocked from the cold but mostly out of pure fear. Lapis nodded, her demonic gaze slightly lessened.
"You look thirsty, have some." Lapis said, less hatefully than Peridot expected. "T-Thank" she said and then sipped, still looking up to her "y-you" she exhaled. Lapis reached for the bottle back and drank from it, Peridot was just enough of a nerd to think of it as an indirect kiss. A very horrifying indirect kiss.
Lapis put one hand behind her back to stretch, "So, I guess class has been over for like ten minutes. Sorry for keeping you so long." she said and walked away quickly. Peridot stared at the floor in utter shock, "This girl wants me dead, I'm sure of it." she whispered, covering her hand.
Holding onto her sides she slowly walked over to her bag, gathering it up to bring to the woman's locker room. Peridot was horrified yet again, was her hair okay, were her arms too weird, did she shave that morning? She had to think of all of this before entering, but she had to either way, just get in and get out. She timidly stepped into the locker room and scurried over to an empty area. She didn't have the luxury of using the open showers, so she had to be miserable in her own sweat the rest of the day. She flung up her shirt and unhooked her bra, speeding to pull out and put on her spares from her bag. She was nervous, still no one around. She almost took off her pants but pulled them back up as someone turned the corner into Peridot's empty space.
It was Lapis. Peridot froze, thankful that she got her pants back up in time, but still horrified. "You." Lapis approached, hands in her hoodie. "This is it." Peri though, "I'm going to die, everyone is going to know and I'm going to get kicked out and humiliated and I'll have to switch Universities and and-" Lapis was right in front of her now, a piercing gaze looking straight into Peridot's soul. "I think you dropped this." Lapis pulled a tiny notebook out of her hoodie pocket that Peri had never seen in her life.
"Oh, silly me, hah... thank you." She carefully took it from the scary girl's hand, not wanting to make a wrong move. Lapis looked to the side and walked away, not saying another word. Peridot collapsed as soon as she couldn't see her anymore and took a deep breath. She picked up her stuff and ran out the door, forgetting completely about changing her pants.
After she escaped the locker room, she looked down at the mysterious notebook, which definitely wasn't hers. Opening it to the first page she saw only the words "Text me, sweaty girl" above a phone number and on the next page a name was written.
"Lapis Lazuli"