Wilbur Soot and The Curse of Death's Carved Crow

Exegesis

"Everyone understands this, correct?" Wilbur said, turning to the faces sitting in the lecture hall. He gestured towards the chalk scrawled on the blackboard. A unanimous sound of affirmation traveled through the small crowd. "Great, now we can-"

"I have a question."

Wilbur turned, knowing that voice all too well. "Yes, Tommy?"

Tommy beamed from where he sat, his feet kicked back on the desk. He clumsily spun a pen in his hand, and anyone who saw his would have written him off as not paying attention. "So is it L'Manburg or L'Manburg?"

Wilbur sighed exasperatedly, causing a chuckle to ripple through the hall. "Well, technically there's nobody left to tell us. But, there's related languages, so our best guess would be the first."

Tommy cheered quietly, high-fiving the student next to him. "I win," he said, not nothing to hush himself.

Ranboo looked unimpressed as he handed Tommy a small handful of money. Tommy grinned, stuffing it into his bag. Wilbur huffed.

"Right," he said, glancing at the clock on the wall. "If anyone has any questions, I'll be at my desk."

Students soon started shuffling out of the room, talking amongst themselves. Wilbur sat down at his desk in the corner of the room, waiting for the room to fall into silence again.

It wasn't the biggest lecture hall, and even still the seats were largely empty. Even with a full class, there weren't many faces in the crowd. Still, Wilbur enjoy just being in the room. It wasn't dark, but it wasn't bright like the hallway with the off white linoleum floors. The desk and seats were made of rosewood, and no matter how old and dated they looked, Wilbur never had the heart to get rid of them.

A rubber band struck his forehead. Wilbur jumped and looked up to see two people in the otherwise empty lecture hall. And Ranboo wasn't the kind of person to shoot rubber bands at people, so that left one person.

"Why the fuck do I even let you in my class," Wilbur muttered. Tommy shrugged before shoving a huge pack of rubber bands into his bag, getting up and standing in front of the first row of seats.

"I have a passion for learning," Tommy said, grinning.

"Like hell you do," Wilbur muttered, leaning back in his chair. He glanced at the stack of papers on his desk before turning back towards Tommy. "How did Ranboo even convince you to take this class?"

"I honestly don't know that myself," Ranboo said, clutching their books to their chest. He stood a few steps behind Tommy, but they still loomed over him.

"Hey!" Tommy said defensively. "I still think it's cool."

"Don't you have other classes?" Wilbur asked. Tommy shook his head proudly.

"Me and Ran-"

"Ranboo an I," Wilbur said teasingly, glaring at Tommy expectedly. Tommy paused for a moment.

"Fuck off." He glanced back at Ranboo. "Anyway, we don't have anything for the rest of the day. You're stuck with us."

"Don't you have a class in half an hour?" Wilbur raised his eyebrows, looking expectantly at Tommy. "With my brother teaching, if you remember?"

Tommy silently set down his bag, pulling his phone out of his pocket. He stared at it for a moment. "Shit."

Ranboo chuckled. "You go, I'll catch up," he said. "Techno will have your head if you're late again."

Tommy scoffed. "Why do you get a pass?" He whined.

"Maybe because unlike you," Wilbur said, looking pointedly at Tommy. "Ranboo actually listens to the lesson."