Tethered

Chapter 3

Science class was boring, to say the least. Your teacher let you guys have some downtime as she prepared for the next thing on the agenda, so your seatmate thought it was a good idea to start asking you how it felt like to almost die.

"Did it hurt? Were you scared? Did you see who pushed you? How do you know you're not actually dead? Wait, if you are does that mean I don't exist? Am I just a figment of your imagination?" Ah... that's a lot of questions.

"It-" You were interrupted by your teacher talking.

"Alright class. So as you know, we're starting our semester long project today. Each of you will be paired up with a partner to work with. At the end of the semester there should be a completed model and report turned in. And before anyone asks, no you do not get to choose your partners. Everyone will move seats to sit near their new partners." You silently sighed. Great now I get to work with someone I don't even know. Your teacher started to call out the groups.

"Katayama Rin and Fujimura Kiyoko." Your seatmate stood up along with another girl across the room and they both moved to an empty table.

"See you later (L/N)-san." She waved bye to you.

"Bye Katayama." Your teacher continued reading off group names until she reached your name.

"(L/N) (Y/N) and Tanabe Sadao." Ah that's me. Standing up, you looked around the room to see who your partner would be. Another person with longish black hair stood up in the row across from you. Wah, he's tall. You walked over to the empty seat next to him and sat down. He promptly took a seat next to you and rested his cheek on his hand. Your partner had a really bored look on his face. His violet eyes shifted over to you for a second before looking away.

"Uh hi I'm-"

"Skip the introductions. Look, I'm not interested in making friends. I'm gonna tell you right now that I'm not a reliable partner for any projects. Just tell the teacher I refuse to cooperate or something so she puts you with some competent people and I don't have to worry about other peoples' grades." The boy sighed and turned his head to look out the window. To be honest you felt a bit bad for the guy; why would he flat out let you leave and work by himself? Man I can't believe I'm about to say this.

"Don't worry about it. Just... do what you can." The boy perked up at your voice and turned to face you.

"What the f*ck? Are you deaf or something? I told you I don't wanna work with you. Piss off." You mentally sighed. Oh boy this is gonna be fun.

"Look man I don't know why you want to work by yourself, but I'm sure as hell not working on this project by myself. So let's just do what we can and get a passing grade at least, okay?" The boy sighed at your words.

"Whatever. You dug your own grave."

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Working with Tanabe proved very difficult, as he promised. The boy was constantly pulling out his phone and frantically checking it for something. You once tried to peek over his shoulder to see what he was doing, but he caught on and sent you a spine-chilling glare.

"Uh did you wanna do a poster or slideshow? A poster would be a bit more work and we can't both work on it at the same time, but it may stand out a bit more. A slideshow is-" You were cut off by Tanabe.

"I don't care, just pick one." He checked his phone again and mumbled something while quickly packing up his things.

"Wait what are you doing?" Tanabe didn't say anything as he picked up his bag and left the classroom without a word. Wait did nobody see this guy just ditch class? You looked over at your teacher, who was busy grading papers. I guess not. You sighed in frustration. I guess I work by myself now.