"And your looks," Maya teases back.

"And your snark," Sable adds.

"And how much you care."

"And how cutely you try to hide it."

Hailey hides her face in her hands and grumbles, blushing brighter.

That's very gushy and incredibly cute but it doesn't actually help him on the figuring out who is dating who front. Unless this is a Wheel of Time situation? It is probably not a Wheel of Time situation.

He doesn't recognize the term "tsundere" originally until he realizes that actually he's just been mispronouncing that word this entire time. Okay, apparently they like anime? Or internet memes? One of the two, or both. He's tempted a bit to try to lightly jump in with the teasing, but that would be hard to get right, he doesn't want to risk saying something wrong and making someone sad or angry. Instead he just basks in the reflected warmth. 

Maya leans over and kisses the top of Hailey's head, smiling fondly.

"So we should probably exchange numbers to coordinate, in case you want to go home first or something next Tuesday."

He can give her his number, then. 

He'll remember to consider what giving a girl your number tends to mean late that night while he's in bed, and it will take him half an hour to reassure himself he didn't somehow miss something important. For now, though, he simply continues to puzzle through their relationship graph. Who is dating who?

If he wants an actual answer to that question, the girls will have to know about his confusion. This Sable is unfortunately not psychic.

"How was class today?"

"Pretty solid, so far! History is always nice, and we're reading Hamlet in English. Morning has been nice so far. Well, besides World Politics, I've got Willards. He's funny sometimes but kind of a dick. Dude mocked me in front of the class for saying North Korea was supported by China as a buffer state during the Cold War."

He's fully aware he's right about that. He's, uh. Not actually sure how Mr. Willards doesn't know that. He seems pretty smart, most of the time.

(It has not occurred to Joshua that he seems that way because he gets to read ahead in the textbook.)

"Ugh, mocking students is just mean and counter-productive." Sable shakes her head and scowls. "What an asshole."

Hailey tilts her head, puzzled. "I mean, isn't that the obvious reason for China to support North Korea?"

"Some people do things for ideological reasons instead, darling."

"I mean, yeah." She frowns. "Not fuckin' geopolitics, though."

"No, usually not geopolitics."

"I mean, I do think there was actually a lot of ideology behind it, probably? Or at least I don't know. Just- he found the idea itself absurd, I think? He seemed to think that the question of why China did that was just sort of innately a mystery, completely beyond explanation. China was just doing things for no reason."

It's nice to see them displeased on his behalf.

"He thought it was a mystery!?" Hailey furrows her brow and shakes her head. "Mysteries aren't fucking real."

Sable tries to interject. "Um—"

"Yes yes you know what I mean," Hailey scoffs. "They're real in a way but only in people's heads. Not as an answer. Like you don't stop there."

"Ugh. This is why I don't respect teachers."

Maya laughs and shakes her head. "You hardly respect anyone unless they earn it, darling. I doubt Willards being a teacher has much to do with it."

Oh. 

Yes, yes, that's exactly the things, mysteries are only in your head. That's such a good way to put that. He can feel half-formed thoughts go click, the structure suddenly on slightly firmer ground. He's felt that, had it as a stepping stone in his thoughts. A place he goes back to, a half-formed talisman he touches when his thoughts don't feel quite correctly shaped, but now he can see exactly the right firm way to have it shaped, the right way to nail it down. The structure of mystery is as a fundamentally internal, subjective thing. It's like- well, all of the hundreds of other subjective things.

One step taller, one step forward. 

"Oh, that's such a good way to put it. Mysteries are real but in people's heads. They're internal! Subjective! In the perspective looking out at the world, not in the world itself."

He's looking at Hailey a bit like she just threw him a water bottle after he spent a day in the desert. And like she's cool.