Just Keep Moving (a Beastars Fanfic)

Ch13. Friends

AN: Haven't had much time to write this. It's quite a bit shorter, so sorry in advance.

    I waited in my seat, watching the door to the classroom. I had arrived as early as I could, and I was waiting on Legoshi to arrive. He came in just before class started, and I decided that I would have to talk to him after class instead of before like I had planned.

    I spent most of class brainstorming ways to approach Legoshi. Despite this, I probably looked more studious than I had in previous classes due to how my head was buried in my notebook. In reality, I was just writing down what I could say and how to say it. There were a few points I'd thought of to convince Legoshi to be my friend, but class ended all too soon for me to practice. I was out of time, and I would just have to hope that I didn't come off as too awkward.

    "Hello, Legoshi," I said as I approached him. "I'm Tim, your neighbor. Would you like to be friends with me?"

    He sat there silently, looking at me. I could feel my palms starting to become sweaty as I nervously wondered if he was going to refuse. Quickly, I thought back to my reasons for convincing him to be my friend.

    "We can help each other out," I said. "You know, with issues including but not limited to homework, emotional difficulties, and potential physical threats."

    Silently, I berated myself for including the last bit. If I mentioned physical threats, he would probably think that I was threatening him or would get him involved in danger.

    "Umm, alright," Legoshi said, interrupting my silent panic. "Do you have a phone number we can stay in contact with?"

    "Oh! Yeah!" I said. An awkward exchange of phone numbers ensued, the complete absence of both mine and Legoshi's social skills slowing it down considerably. In the end though, I was just glad to have succeeded.

    Next up was Juno. For her, I decided to reuse the speech I had with Legoshi. I was actually interested in Biology too, so I would be freed up to pay attention if I reused my previous speech.

    We had moved onto evolution, and I was slightly surprised to learn that dinosaurs had also existed in my new world. They were closer to animals from my world, but I had a little laugh thinking about taking dinosaurs.

    When class ended, I was just barely able to catch Juno before she left. When she saw that I wanted to talk, she gestured for the people she was talking with to keep moving without her.

    "Don't worry about me, I'll catch up," she said. Then turning to me, she asked, "Did you want to tell me something?"

    "Yes, well I've been thinking about you," I said. Not noticing how her face turned slightly red, I continued. "I've noticed that you are a friendly and generally nice person. Therefore, I would like you to be my friend. Friendship includes benefits such as help with homework, socializing, and any physical or emotional conflict."

    Juno looked at me with a strange expression on her face, somewhere between exasperation and murderous intent. After a long and painful moment, she finally said, "I thought we already were friends already, but sure, I'll be your friend. Someone needs to teach you how to interact with others."

    "Thanks," I said. "Do you want to exchange contact information?" That same strange expression came into her face. "You know, so we can keep in touch?" I continued. We exchanged numbers without much further hassle, and Juno ran off.

    I chuckled a bit as I watched her run. I'd already gotten to befriend two people, and if I could find the rabbit girl, I could very well end up ahead of schedule. I was proud of the fact, but at the same time, I was reminded of what Gouhin had said.

    "Hard time forming emotional bonds, huh?" I mumbled. "I guess he was right. What kind of a person sets a quota for making friends? I guess I could tell Gouhin about my success so far at least."

    The rest of the day went by, and though I was unable to find the rabbit girl, I wasn't too concerned. I could always find her on the weekend, just as I had before. All I had left was to finish my shift at Pete's Meat, but I had a few hours until then, hours which I could use to relax, maybe work on writing the play.

    I soon found that writing was much easier said than done. I was just staring at the paper, and I could not, for the life of me, understand why it was so difficult to copy a story from memory. Sure, I knew the plot start to finish, but I just didn't quite know how to translate it to a stage. It was then that my phone rang, distracting me from my current predicament. Picking it up, I saw that the casket was Legoshi, so I answered.

    "Hey, Legoshi," I said. "Any reason for why you're calling?"

    "My roommates want to meet you," Legoshi said. "Could you come over to room 701? It's okay if you're busy, I was just wond-"

    "Give me a few minutes," I said, cutting him off. "I can do it." I still had about two and a half hours left, so I wasn't concerned about it taking too long.

    "Alright, see you," Legoshi said, and he ended the call.

    Stuffing my phone in my pocket, I stood up from where I'd been sitting at the dorm table. Then, I walked out and over to the door of room 701. I took a deep breath, then knocked on the door.

    From the other side, I could hear the sound of some stumbling and hasty conversation. A chair scraped across the ground, and the door was opened by a fluffy yellow Labrador. He had a wide smile on his face, but then again, all dogs I'd met seemed to be smiling. Perhaps it was a unique personality trait?

    "You must be Tim!" he said happily. "Come on in!"

    Dorm room 701 looked just like what I expected most normal male dorms would look like. For a moment, I was reminded of my dead roommates, but I brushed those thoughts aside. I was there to make friends, and I couldn't do that if I was worrying about a lack of grief for dead roommates.

    Homework was scattered throughout the room, and the actual residents were somewhat the same. Legoshi sat in the corner of the room, a sheepdog and a hyena were sitting in front of a television playing Zoo Fighter, and a small, foxlike student, the only one doing homework, was sitting at the table. The moment I entered the room, every one of them turned to look at me.

    "Hello everybody," I said. "I'm Tim."

    "Oh, hi," Legoshi said. "Uhh, everybody, this is Tim. Tim, these are Durham, Collot, Jack, Voss,  and Miguno."

    "Oh, so you're Tim!" the coyote who Legoshi had introduced as Durham said. "Is it true that you killed your roommates?"

    Jack opened his mouth to apologize, but I just waved him off. "It's fine," I said. "The police report said that they were killed by the Shishigumi. Happened right before school started. If that's a rumor about me, you have for to tell me what other people are saying."

    "Damn," Durham said. "But yeah, you see..."

***

    As it had turned out, I was generally seen as a weirdo in the school. Admittedly, I had been acting as a paragon of normality, but I hadn't expected to have already made a name for myself. School had only started a few weeks ago.

    I sighed, looking back to the notebook sitting in front of me. It was filled with both messy notes and scribbles of how I expected the actors to move, and I knew that I would need to organize it more for it to be accepted.

    Honestly, I'd just picked up the project for fun, but it was slowly becoming more and more tedious to continue. It would soon be worth it though, and I was also too fast in to turn back. Groaning, I started writing in a new notebook.