SUMMER HEARTS // Quackity X Reader

8

Professor Bernal tapped the board with his marker, circling the sentence he had just written down. Simulacro de juicio.

You leaned over to Tercero. "What does that mean in English?" You asked. 

Tercero thought for a moment before responding. "Fake trial? Something like that, I think."

Fake trial.... "Like a mock trial, okay." You said. You had done a couple of those for your literature classes back in America. The premise was simple - a fake court case about the characters in the book you had read, the more morally grey and controversial, the better. You were glad you had taken extra time to fully understand the book you were reading for class - you would need to use it for a source.

Professor Bernal continued to explain. "This will be your midterm." He said. "You should have read the assigned novel - if you have any lingering questions about the source material, feel free to stay after class or find me during my office hours. I will be the judge for this trial, and don't think you can escape doing work by being the jury - each of you will be assigned either prosecution or defense, and while you and your partner are presenting, the rest of the class will serve as the jury."

You glanced over at Tercero at the word partner and raised one eyebrow. He nodded at you silent question - you would be partners for this project.

"Now." Bernal continued. "Normally I would just divide the room in half and randomly assign you a side of the case, but this time, I think it would be better if each of you choose for yourselves. I'm sure you have plenty of opinions on our protagonist. You have five mintues to find a partner and discuss amongst yourselves to pick either prosecution or defense."

You turned to Tercero. "We want prosecution."

"Sure." He said. 

"You don't have an opinion on the topic?" You asked, slightly confused. 

Tercero shrugged. "Haven't read it yet." He said. "How long is it?"

"I don't know, 150 pages?" You estimated. 

"I'll just knock it out tonight then." He said. "Can you just give me the important bits for right now?"

So you breezed through an explanation, hitting the big points - the main character's backstory, the primary problems in the plot, the way the main character reacted - while also being sure to point out why you thought prosecution would be easier. The protagonist would be relatively easy to condemn from a logical standpoint - disregarding possible mental illness, his actions were unexcusable.

Five minutes later, Bernal was taking notes on who chose what.

He pointed at you from his desk. "Y/N! Partner and position!"

"Tercero and prosecution." You said.

Bernal nodded, writing it down. "Very good." As he moved on to the next group, you turned to Tercero again.

"We should probably figure out where and when we want to start working on this." You said, pullling out your phone. 

Unread messages from Alex were waiting for you on the screen, and you smiled, letting yourself read them before skipping to your calendar, looking at your work hours.

"We could always just work at the library here." Tercero offered. "It would probably be better since we would have everything we need there already."

"What time does the library close normally?" You asked. "Because some nights I work until 10."

"They usually close around 10." Tercero said. 

"I could ask Nieve if we could work at the apartment too." You said. "I don't think she would mind, as she and Reyes are usually out anyway."

"We could probably do some work at my place too, if we need to." Tercero said. "My roommates might get in the way, but it's always an option."

"Cool." You made note of days you weren't working in your calendar, and then sent a link to Tercero. His phone buzzed and he pulled it out, opening your message. 

"Thanks." He said, adding the times that worked best for him as well. As he worked on his phone, you opened Alex's messages.

The first one was a picture of a frog.

phrog

And then,

how do u feel about necromancy? good possible plot point or nah??

You snorted, and Tercero looked up from his phone. 

"That guy again?" He asked, a slight downturn to the corner of his mouth. 

"Alex, yeah." You said, texting back.

depends on who ur necromancy-ing

Tercero set his phone down and you refreshed your calendar, looking at the days that overlapped. Between you both going to classes and having part time jobs, there weren't a lot of days that you were both available.

"It looks like we might have to do this kind of separately." You said with a slight frown. 

"We could make it work though." Tercero said. "If we did a slideshow kind of presentation, we could just work on it whenever we had time to and then put everything together when we can actually be in the same room."

"I mean, I was kind of hoping to do something that wasn't a slideshow since everybody else is probably going to do one too, but yeah, that could work." You said. 

"We'll figure it out." Tercero said.

Your phone buzzed again and you picked it back up. Alex had texted you back. 

it might be schlatt

You tapped back a quick reply. 

schlatt's the one with the chops right? who likes his slurs???

Alex had a lot of friends to keep track of, and you had figured it out pretty quickly. Karl and Sapnap were not the same person, but he talked about them together a lot. Schlatt and Carson usually made appearances in the same sentences, and Aksel was an entirely separate entity. You only had vague ideas of who these people were at best.

Your phone buzzed again.

LMAO can i send a screenshot of that to him

You smiled.

sure

"You really like him, don't you?" Tercero said, a slight edge to his voice. "Every time he texts you, you smile."

You dropped your phone back in your pocket. "I'm sure it's not every time-"

"I would disagree with you." Tercero said. 

You just leaned back in your seat and made a point to frown when Alex texted you again.