Every Universe

‣ superpowers AU

pairings ‣ Harrison Chang x Quinton Aoki, Hannah Zhao x Noah Wisetkaew

prompt ‣ superpowers AU

notes ‣ this story takes place in Malaysia, but I recently learned homosexuality is illegal there, so this isn't very romance-y so it theoretically could take place in the real world. if this is super inaccurate, I'm sorry. and because she inspired this fic, this AU is dedicated to Sharon (the-water-city), who is one of the kindest, coolest people I know! she's one of my closest internet friends, and I don't care that we're many, many time zones from each other, because talking to her always makes my day. hope you enjoy all the not-so-minor cameos!

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The day started off as any normal day, with Harrison taking diligent notes on number theory in his composition notebook and Noah sleeping in the seat behind him.

Using his blue gel ink pen, nicked off Hannah in exchange for when she never gave back his red gel ink pen, Harrison wrote neat notes on the moderately easy mathematics lecture, feeling calmer than he had this entire week. After spending the entire week studying for chemistry, trying to make sense of the chemistry review packet, it was nice to win one.

Of course, he tried not to think about the fact Noah was going to ask to copy his notes later.

Unfortunately, in the past five years, Harrison and Noah being in the same class had become an expectation rather than a hope, simply because the two of them took their courses in Mandarin. There had been many moments where Harrison considering transferring into the English class, but of course, that would mean being in the same class as Hannah. She, although fluent in multiple languages, took classes in English because she thought it would be more practical for when she left for university in an English-speaking country.

Therefore, Harrison spent much of his time fantasizing about sharing a class with Quinton, but unfortunately that was impossible. Quinton, unlike the three of them in the science stream, was in the art stream, so though he took classes in English, because he moved from Japan and decided English would be easier to learn than Malay or Tamil or Mandarin, he could never be in the same class as them.

Which meant Harrison had to pick between one of the two evils: Noah, who slept all morning and asked to copy notes, and Hannah, who was a prefect and would most definitely want to study with him.

Harrison chose to learn Malay, but unfortunately his mom would not let him do that.

"...and remember your next test is this Friday." The teacher, a woman in her late 30's, glanced around the classroom to everyone finishing up their notes. "Our next unit will be statistics and probability, so get ready. This is typically the unit that most people do poorly in. I'm talking to you, Noah."

Since Noah didn't share a desk with anyone, Harrison took it upon himself to nudge Noah awake. Only seconds after, Noah jolted at the sudden stimulation and jumped up on his feet. "Yes, ma'am!" His shout in English generated laughter throughout the room. Noah blinked a few times, looked at the whiteboard with the mathematics teacher's neat handwriting, and then wiped the side of his mouth in case of drool, which was common enough.

The teacher shook her head. In Mandarin, she said, "Class is over, Noah, but I hope you start paying attention during the next unit. Luckily I'm teaching in the afternoon next week, so you should be awake then. Sit back down." Noah plopped down in his seat, turning to look at the clock on the back wall. "Class dismissed."