29th october 12:35

"so, hu tao.."

"what is it my dear friend?"

it was currently your and hu tao's lunch break and you were spending it together as previously arranged. after all your classes you and hu tao planned on going bird shopping since hu tao randomly decided that she needs a bird a few days ago.

"what kind of bird do you want to get?"

"a loud one"

"huh"

"a very loud one, i plan on pranking my neighbors. but don't worry, i will still take good care of the bird before and after my little prank!" that really sounded like hu tao. you never suffered her pranks in real life, yet, but from your time being online friends with her it was very clear that she was always up to something. so often that it was weird that she hasn't pranked you yet.

"a loud bird to prank someone...? i feel like you just want to make their ears suffer.."

"aiya! don't put it like that, i don't wish for anyone to become deaf or anything"

well, you couldn't argue with that. sure, hu tao loved pranking people, a little too much sometimes, but you heavily doubted that she would ever wish harm upon anyone innocent. someone might suffer a little from the consequences of hu tao's actions, but it wouldn't be anything too serious.

"alright i guess"

you dropped the topic and went back to staring into the void while sitting next to hu tao not long after having lunch. suddenly your phone rang. a text from xiao..?

xiao

xiao

kazuha's gonna be back on monday

you

i feel like the only time you text me is to inform when someone is coming back

xiao

well, why else would i text you then?

if i have anything to say i can always find you in person

or perhaps do you want me to randomly update you what i'm doing through the day?

you

no thanks

it would suffice with a random hi from time to time🥲

xiao

okay then

hi

you

hi?

you didn't have to do this rn tbh

xiao

you said to do it

hi

randomly, so i did it randomly

you

you have been around venti too much

you don't greet people in the middle of a fucking sentence

that has nothing to do with a greeting

xiao

says you

you...

aren't you supposed to be in class or something?

xiao

no

i'm currently on a lunch break

and you?

you

on a one too

xiao

nice ig

after xiao's last message no one texted anything. seeing that you likely won't continue your conversation with xiao, you checked the time and put your phone back down.

12:47

there were still 13 minutes until your next class would start.

"so what's your next class hu?"

"history, you?"

"math, and do you also have that group project in history?"

"no..?"

"maybe we just have different history teachers"

"there are only two history teachers here so it's a 50/50"

"well okay i guess"

your short-lived conversation was about to end.

"it's like roughly 10 minutes till the next class, i'm gonna go now, bye hu"

"bye bye my dear friend, see you after school"

not long after leaving hu tao and walking to your next class you once again saw ganyu. there wasn't a lot of time left before the next class but you figured it was enough for a quick conversation with ganyu.

"hey ganyu!"

"oh y/n! it's a pleasure to see you again, how have you been doing?"

"good, and you? anything of note?"

"not really, thanks for your concern y/n"

"well uh, welcome? anyways, wanna exchange numbers? so that we can talk sometime later again?"

"ah yes of course y/n!"

ganyu handed over her phone to you so that you can enter your number in it. then you took note of ganyu's number and saved it on your phone.

"let's talk later then, i have to go to class"

"alright, see you around y/n!"

and so you left for your first math class in this new school. entering the classroom you saw that you shared the same math with scaramouche. only on mondays thursdays and fridays you had math. so the previous two days that you were in school you never had math, therefore never knew you had math together with him.

looking over the area you saw that there was a free double desk by the window. more precisely one half of the desk was free - the other - taken. since you didn't mind sitting with someone else you went and sat down at the half-taken desk and made it fully taken now.

of course, you didn't know who your deskmate was, but at the moment it didn't matter to you.  after the bell rang you realized that your deskmate is your history project partner, scaramouche.

as scaramouche was walking back to his desk he noticed that there is now someone else sitting next to his half of the desk, the new student, you. scaramouche noticed how you were blankly following his movements as if he was a void to endlessly stare into. meeting your gaze he kept eye contact right up until he sat down.

then you spoke.

"so, scaramouche right? well we're kind of history project partners and so we need a way to contact each other therefore i think we should exchange numbers..?"

at the end you started dragging out your words and questioning whether you worded yourself right, which came off as you not being sure about what you were saying, which wasn't completely wrong.

scaramouche looked at you with a blank expression, not showing anything except a slightly raised eyebrow.

"well alright" scaramouche unlocked his phone and handed it over to you with an uninterested expression simply looking at the board.

what the- isn't he afraid i'll do something to his phone? i mean okay sure ganyu did give me hers like this too but, we had already met before that!

whatever, not that it mattered that much. quickly writing in your number in scaramouche's phone and saving his on yours you attempted to give his phone back to him.

by attempt i mean, you placed his phone down on his side of the desk but he didn't even give it a glance, just continued looking in the direction the teacher was supposed to come in.

a little while later your teacher came in being late at that. a teacher can come in 10 minutes late yet a student misses 30 seconds and they get scolded? make it make sense.

sighing you dropped the topic and began paying attention to your teacher.

after another day of classes that half of them didn't matter to you, it was time to go meet up with hu tao and buy a bird for her antics.

hu tao

you

where are you?

i'm infront of the gates already

hu tao

ah srry

smn is holding me up

wait

you

okay?

turning off your phone you wondered what is hu tao busy with. could it be that she's dragging other people into her pranking? probably not, if assumingly - someone is actually holding hu tao up and she's not simply wording it like that - then it would make more sense that she got in trouble for a prank she previously pulled on someone.

or it could be not related to pranking at all. but given the fact that you two were about to go buy an animal to include in a prank; you immediately thought that the reason hu tao got held up is because of some prank that she pulled off at one point.

it wasn't of much use to try and guess a test's answer right before it was about to be handed out, so with that being said you stopped thinking about the reason why hu tao is late and simply scrolled on your phone until you heard the said person calling our your name.

"y/n! i'm here, barely managed to get away" hu tao unhurriedly approached you.

"what did you do this time?" you asked almost in disappointment

"well you see my dear friend, a couple of days before your arrival i organized a study party with one of the student council secretaries, kujou sara. well, more precisely dragged her into it. you see, that girl is so serious, stern and strict all the time that i thought she needs to, yknow, unwind a little and have some fun. so of course i pulled a prank on her during the study session!"

hu tao shamelessly admitted to maybe harassing the student council's secretary. but you hoped that calling it harassment was over the line.

"so while a friend of mine asked sara to come closer to her, a secretly put some sticky thingy on sara's chair so that later on she couldn't get up. really, that was all! just a harmless little prank that she took too seriously. the next day she sent the authorities on me, by authorities i mean she filed a complaint to the minister of safety who later on contacted my teacher who then contacted my parents. so yknow how it went after that. a few days later i gave my honest and most sincere apology to sara and even willingly volunteered to take the library cleaning duty! but apparently, it still wasn't enough for that girl. so today the minister of safety came bothering me again saying that i pulled yet another prank on the student council's secretary, while i didn't even touch a single strand of her hair after i apologized!"

"just stop messing with important people, let's just go buy your bird to ironically for you to mess with your neighbors but oh well. what do you not do for friends?"

"hehe"

and so you and your prankster of a friend went to the animal store. on the way, hu tao told you that at first, she wanted to take an animal from the animal shelter, but unfortunately, when she contacted all the animal shelters in the square, none of them had a parrot so in the end, hu tao had to turn to animal stores.

knowing the fact that your friend initially wanted to adopt a rescued animal was heartwarming, hu tao was sometimes a little annoying but you knew that she had a good heart. after chatting most of the way you two finally stood before the store.

walking in through the doors, not breaking the glass windows and barging in like some criminals, you saw some workers on the left and approached him to ask about where are their parrots.

"ah, sorry to interrupt but could you tell us where are the parrots?"

hu tao lightly tapped on the man's shoulder before asking.

"hm? oh, ah yes of course! go straight from here then turn left and walk past the fish section, after that there will be a turn to right and you will arrive at the bird section, just look around and you will find the parrots somewhere"

"thank you"

the store was like a maze, after all it was the biggest pet store in the square, so getting directions was much needed if you didn't want to get lost. so once you got the directions you headed for your destination

after a minute or maybe more you were standing in front of various birds. simply looking around for the time being. directing your vision from one bird to another you landed upon a completely white parrot that seemed very energetic, almost like hu tao.

"hey hu look, doesn't this whitey remind you of yourself?"

"i suppose it does, it also looks like it would love to host a concert! y/n you have great eyes, i'm taking this one"

"that's a quick decision, i thought you would take some more time deciding"

"if it wasn't for my dear friend's golden eyes i probably would, now go fetch me the cashier!"

sighing at your friend's command you went on and called some staff member over.

"so you would like to take this bird? very well then, this poor guy has been sitting here for a long time already, we were worried that if no one wanted him we would have to send him to his ancestors sooner than anyone here would like."

"so how old is he?"

"hm well about 20 years? his species usually live to 45 years at max so we say he will still be around for a good while, however, most stores don't hold an item that no one takes an interest in so we were afraid we were gonna have to get rid of it; which would be a great unfortune, we the staff here have been around for 15 years at least, this guy has been here for almost 10 years so you could say we all grew attached to it. because of our attachments, we were able to keep him here for so long. but we knew that if no one takes this poor guy we will have to do some unspeakable things. for as why none of the staff members bought it themselves, well one of us has 5 cats at home, and well all know birds and cats aren't the most suitable partners. pretty much a lot of us have a lot of cats, most of them being the ones we bought from here ourselves because we didn't want them to suffer simply because no one else wanted them. then another one has an allergy to birds, even if she loves them she can't stand birds being in the vicinity. then the other people can't take it for some other reasons. oh wait, it seems i have rambled on for too long!"

the guy finally became self-conscious. he kept talking non-stop for almost 5 minutes, if it kept going on you were afraid you would have to interrupt the man's passionate ramblings.

"you're quite the talker, mister, now could we please also get a cage along with your...beloved parrot?" hu tao paused for a second to pitch on the word she would describe the parrot as.

"ah yes of course! please follow me, i will show you our cage section!"

and so both of you followed the talkative staff member and quickly came to the cages. hu tao looked around and asked a few questions about which cage would suit the parrot most, what was the parrot's preferences and some other things so that she could be a good owner. after picking out a cage hu tao also bought some other necessities for the bird and then finally you went to take the bird.

"well my guy, seems like you will finally be heading to your forever home, now be a good boy and get into this temporal cage so that you can be carried home"

the man seemed slightly sad but he was more happy than upset.

"well hello whitey, i'm hu tao, your new owner. i'm sure we're gonna be great partners in crime, hehe" hu tao reached out her hand to the bird as if it could shake it.

instead of shaking whitey just chirped and hu tao guessed that it was his way of agreeing.

"so i suppose i have some papers to fill right?"

"well of course, we must ensure that every adoption process is legal and the documents are valid in any case"

"then my dear friend, please hold the cage for me while i go and fill those formalities"

when hu tao said cage, she actually meant all of her bags and the bird in the cage. sighing you just went to the cashier with your friend's bags and waited. at first the cashier was a little confused why you were simply standing and not paying but then later realized that you were probably waiting for the other girl that came in with you and that she was the actual client.

after a while, your friend emerged from the staff room with some papers in hand.

"so what did you name this bird after all?"

"whitey of course, i don't think there are any more suitable names for my little friend out there"

"should have predicted"

ending your small talk with hu tao the both of you went to finally pay and leave the store.

"well that took some time, and i'm tired too already"

"i have to agree, my dear friend, how about we head to my house and get everything settled down before my parents arrive? they wanted so that when they come home they can immediately see the birds whole set up"

"alright hu"

and so you took your time walking to hu tao's house instead of taking public transport which probably was a better option. half an hour later your legs were sore and you wanted nothing more than to sleep. seeing your exhaustion hu tao told you to just rest in her room until she sets the cage up in the living room and then brings it to you so that you can go home after seeing everything in place.

not having much reason to refuse you agreed. but once you were in hu tao's bed you couldn't put your mind to ease since you remembered about your history project with scaramouche and the girl named yoimiya. knowing that it won't leave you alone you texted scaramouche.

scaramouche

you

hello, this is y/n from math and history, i wanted to talk about the project

scaramouche

alright

what do you want

you

well uh

decide to where meet and when so that we can do the project..?

scaramouche

alright

i'm free tomorrow from 15.30 - 17.00

you

sounds good enough

should we meet in the library?

scaramouche

meet me at the two storytelling staged building's first floor's left corner.

you

okay

that man didn't even consider your option since his text came literally right after yours which indicated that he was typing before already which then meant that he had an option in mind. well whatever, not that it mattered that much.

moving on, was the two storytelling staged building the café you met xiao and venti at? you weren't completely sure so decided to ask xiao about it later. but now you would simply go to sleep for the time being and worry about everything else later

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