Chapter Text
Peridot mindlessly watched as her professor paced at the front of the room, listing off details concerning the images and descriptions being projected above her head.
The woman upfront wore a gray suit with puffy shoulder pads, a white blouse underneath, and gray dress pants that nicely matched up with the suit. A necklace consisting of small, circular yellow diamonds hung along her neck, occasionally glinting in the light of the projection. Her hair was a shade of dull blonde, cut short enough to where it barely reached past her jaw before it curling upwards against her cheeks. Her bangs were oddly cut, but Peridot believed it suited her, and added a little more onto her professional appearance.
Peridot adored each and every factor of the woman's appearance. Unsurprisingly, she was incredible and almost hypnotizing to look at. Her necklace mirrored the nearly gold tone of her eyes, and stood out brilliantly against the dull colors of her clothing. Peridot occasionally found herself believing that her eyes were made from the little diamonds in her necklace, since they were so similar.
Her appearance, of course, was only one of the many things that Peridot grew to love about the professor. After all the years Peridot spent in school, of all the teachers she ever had the pleasure *and displeasure* of meeting, she could without a doubt say that Professor Diamond was her favorite. She was magnificent in her lectures, and the method in which she taught was smooth and easy to follow. She gave fair assignments, and her tests were simple and easy to study for, although she still managing to providing a sturdy challenge for her students with it's content. She was a fantastic teacher who knew every detail of what she was talking about, and she knew how to effectively lead a classroom to learn the information that she was assigned to teach them. It was an experience every time Peridot walked into her class. Peridot would enjoy listening and admiring the professor's intellect, and the smoothness of her voice. Every day the professor would wear a new suit and blouse, and Peridot would become lost in the woman's beauty.
The woman was flawless.
At least, in Peridot's perspective.
Peridot could easily say that she loved the class, all because of this teacher. She managed to take what was supposed to be Peridot's most dreaded subject and turned it into something more than enjoyable for her.
She was smart.
She was beautiful.
She was respectable.
She was everything that Peridot would ever want to be and then some, so of course, Peridot had a crush on her.
Naturally, she wanted Professor Diamond to like her back. She wanted her attention, she craved her approval. She wanted to become important, impressive in the woman's eyes. She wanted to make an impact on her professor in return for the impact she had on her. Just . . . some small form of approval or praise was all she wanted. Validation that she knew she existed. She didn't want to be another face in her classroom, she wanted to be something to the woman. A friend, an ally, a helpful companion, something. But she just . . . she didn't know how she could do that.
Occasionally, Peridot would find herself brainstorming ways to accomplish this. She figured that she could ask for extra work to do outside of class in order to raise up her grade, but considering that she had other classes to attend to, alongside work to go to, Peridot ruled the idea out. She couldn't handle any more work at the moment, even if she was more than willing enough to do it. She thought up a few other ideas, but nothing seemed to stick or stand out as good enough. She fantasized about herself offering to help clean up the classroom, or help the professor with her troublesome paperwork. She imagined staying behind every day to spend time with the woman as she helped her with mundane tasks, like in some cheesy cartoon show. It made Peridot sick to think that she'd stoop to such a low level of romantic fantasizing, but here she was.
Nice.
The best idea that Peridot came to think of was to get herself to the front of the classroom. At least that way she would be more noticeable. They didn't necessarily have assigned seats, but Professor Diamond had mentioned earlier in the year that students should stick to the same seat, so that taking attendance wouldn't be so difficult. Peridot figured that she could simply get an okay from the professor to move seats, complaining that her eyesight was getting blurry, and that she needed a new prescription for her glasses. The more she thought about it, the more she liked the idea. Loved the idea. It was a great idea. Awesome. She could get to the front of the class and she would get to personally talk to the teacher in order to do it.
Once the professor dismissed the class, the students began packing up, rising from their seats and leaving the room in multiple noisy conversations. Peridot grinned as she quickly packed up her things, slipping her bag over her shoulder as she climbed down the stairs.
She took a deep breath before heading towards her desk, stopping in her tracks once another two students cut in front of her, apparently, both had the intention of speaking to the professor as well.
"Um, Professor?" One of them asked. Professor Diamond lifted her eyes from her desk to the students, raising an eyebrow at them questioningly. "Yes?" she asked.
Peridot quietly groaned behind them, which luckily went unheard by the group as they spoke about an upcoming test, and something else that Peridot didn't care to listen to.
'How dare they.' she thought. She finally thinks up a good plan and these two . . . these two clods think they can walk up and take her place! Peridot's nose scrunched up in frustration as she waited impatiently for the two to finish up whatever they had come to talk about. She crossed her arms and waited behind them for what felt like forever, but in all reality, was only around three minutes.
Once they finally left the room, Peridot took a step up to the desk, finding that the professor had already focused her attention back down to her paperwork. A moment passed between them before Professor Diamond took notice of Peridot, who was nervously wringing her fingers together and biting on her bottom lip, silently waiting for the teacher to notice her.
"Yes, can I help you?" she asked, seemingly uninterested and a little annoyed by the silence.
Peridot froze. What was she supposed to say? She had something planned out a while ago, moments ago, but suddenly her mind went blank. The professor stared at her, waiting for an answer as Peridot stalled up. Her chest tightened as every agonizing second went by where she was expected to say something. Every second Peridot found herself more and more lost in her head than before. Words twisted in her throat and ideas stretched around in her mind. She couldn't remember what she was going to say when she came up here. Something about her eyes. Something about her eyes! She couldn't think of any of rational idea as to what it could be. She wanted say something, anything, but she couldn't. Another moment went by before Peridot finally opened her mouth. She didn't have chance to realize what she was saying before it was already out of her mouth.
"I, uhm. I had the same question as the others in front of me. I was listening so I have the answer now. Uhm. Thank you. Sorry." Peridot clumsily sputtered out the lie. Heat rose up to her face and even if she didn't look it, she felt like she was going to throw up from embarrassment.
The professor simply gave her a long, confused stare before looking down at her paperwork, seemingly slightly more annoyed than before. "Very good. You can leave then."
Peridot barely managed nod before she was out the door, walking down the halls on shaking, unstable legs.
'Stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid STUPID!!!' she screamed at herself in her mind.
'If those clods hadn't gotten in front of me I would've remembered what I wanted to say! Those clods! Those jerks! Those assholes! Those, those- arrrrgh!!!!' She slammed her palm against her forehead and drug it down her face, gritting her teeth as she replayed the embarrassing scene in her head on repeat.
She couldn't try again even if she wanted to! Professor Diamond would remember her face! She'd stall up again! Some other students would get in her way! It was all their fault! She had this idea fucking perfect and now she couldn't even remember what it was!
Peridot groaned as she trudged into her next classroom. She could go home and dwell over this all she wanted after this class. But until then, she had to get through 45 agonizing minutes of a math lecture.
~ ~ ~
"What's up, pointy?" Her roommate asked, dropping her gym bag onto the floor before kicking her shoes off, watching as Peridot typed away on some document on her computer.
"Research paper." Peridot stated blandly, ignoring as the girl stood over her shoulder, resting her hands on the back of the chair as she stared down at the computer screen, filling Peridot's nostrils with the scent of sweat, metal and heat.
Her roommate, Jasper, was a tall, buff girl with bright eyes and long hair. Her skin was brown in color with patches of lighter skin that stretched over her eyes and various other places on her body. She told Peridot once that it was some sort of condition called Vitiligo, which caused patches of her skin and hair to loose pigment and change to a lighter color. The disease caused strands of her hair to turn white, and instead of dying those strands back to her natural brown, she dyed her whole head of hair to the white color the disease wanted. To say that Jasper looked unique was an understatement. She caught the eye of many people, and was often given a fair amount of compliments, and unfortunately, insults as well. Although, those who dared to even murmur ridicule towards her were often awarded with a black eye or bloody nose. Jasper was a force to be reckoned with, and her physic allowed her to make certain those who made fun of her thought twice before doing it again.
Peridot and Jasper didn't exactly hate eachother, but they didn't love each other either. They were close, but they tolerated each other at best most of the time. They got along fairly well, despite their relationship being made up mostly of name calling and pissing each other off. Despite the occasional bickering and name calling though, they had a decent friendship, and they never aimed to seriously hurt one another with what they said. They would never go out of their way to compliment one another, or to even verbally call themselves friends, and that was just the way things were between the two. They did consider each other a friend and they did care about one another, even if they wouldn't show it. If anyone were to ask, they would simply state that meathead and nerd were forced to be roommates, and only hung out with each other because they were both friends with Lapis Lazuli.
Speaking of Lapis.
"Hey, Lapis asked to hang out later. You wanna come?" Jasper asked, walking away from the chair to the closet, grabbing herself new set of clothes.
"Sure, whatever. Just take a shower before we leave, you smell like roadkill." Peridot stated, holding a hand up to her nose to block the scent, causing Jasper to roll her eyes. "I'm not walking around next to you smelling like death."
Jasper let out a huff. "Yeah yeah, whatever. I'll take a shower." she said, raising her hands above her head, stretching the muscles in her arms and back before lowering them back down to her side. "Why don't you add an extra point to your hair while you're waiting on me."
Peridot scoffed, clicking away at her keyboard as she tried to ignore the grin spreading over Jasper's face. "For the last time, my hair isn't a fucking joke. I don't know why you guys see it like that, it just sticks out a little!"
Jasper shrugged with a small smirk resting on her face. She turned around and headed towards the bathroom, slipping the ponytail holder out of her hair along the way. "Whatever you say, pointy."
The bathroom door locked shut and Peridot sighed, clicking on her computer's camera option to take a look at herself.
Peridot was a rather skinny person. Her arms were slim and her face was long. Her platinum blonde hair stuck up at the sides and at the top of her head, soft and messy and barely reaching below her chin. When it was wet though, the tips could just barely touch her shoulders. Her skin was tanned and her eyes were a dull green behind her circle-shaped glasses. She was wearing a black tank top at the moment and a pair of green jean shorts. Peridot grumbled as she ran her fingers through the tuft of hair sticking up on her head. It flattened, and she repeated the process with the other two sides of her hair, pulling them behind her head, and then down to her shoulders, messing around with different styles for a few moments.
After pulling her hair back into a ponytail, she gave the image of herself a underwhelmed expression before attempting to push it back in it's original style. An image popped into her head of Professor Diamond's hair, and Peridot froze for a moment, glancing to the bathroom door before she stared back at her computer screen, weighing her options before grabbing her hairbrush off her bed, trying out another style with her hair.
~ ~ ~
Jasper walked out of the bathroom with a towel in her hands, drying off her mop of white hair and tossing her dirty gym clothes onto her bed.
"Hey Peridot, you ready to g-" Jasper stopped mid-sentence to throw her panicking roommate a confused stare, watching as she frantically tried to brush her hair out of some weird style.
"What the hell are you-"
"Nothing!! I'll be ready in a minute!!" She practically screamed, brushing her hair back into it's three segments and abruptly standing up from her chair, walking over to her bed to put her shoes on.
Jasper watched the scene before rolling her eyes, walking back into the bathroom to get ready.
"Weirdo."