Tomonori is not looking for someone else to do all his homework. He does wonder if he should ask the crying Shanghai boy if he needs anything, but he doesn't know if he wants to give anything that would help. Better not to talk to him at all than be rude without meaning to, or be too nice and cause some other kind of offense. It's very confusing that being too polite turns into being rude, Tomonori still isn't sure why everyone else just agreed to that.

He'll focus on his work rather than the crying boy. At least he feels better today.

Oh look a victim potential ally.

"Hello!" he says. "I'm Nie Huaisang." 

"Hello. Matsumoto Tomonori."

He hopes that the conversation doesn't distract from the lab work- it's the first day.

Oh, this is going to be easy. Nie Huaisang thinks about his smile, the way his hair is mussed, how adorably flustered he'd probably be at the concept of someone being attracted to him, and-- moves his brain into the configuration where Tomonori is the cutest and most interesting boy in the world and it's astonishing (but lucky for Nie Huaisang!) that no one else has noticed. 

"Can I see what you're working on?" and his voice sounds so very interested.

"-okay. Today I want to work on distilling kun from dragon's blood. I think I could add new enchantments to my glasses by soaking them in the kun- it should help with mirror magic."

"Wow. That's really advanced," he says, his voice full of admiration. "My work for today is all about Lab Safety and Understanding the Lab Instruments." 

He sits down next to Tomonori and brushes his knee against Tomonori's leg.

Tomonori moves over slightly so the no-longer-crying boy won't bump into him by accident again.

"That makes sense. I should do that too, I just also want to spend my time thinking about the problem. I don't want to make a mistake in my first lab. Have you ever used a lab before?"

"Oh, we had some at the enclave but they were terrifying. I was so scared I was going to blow myself up. I'm not good at things like this like you."

"I'm sure you're good at something. Everyone is good at something. What do you like to do?"

Embarrassed, awkward, like he was too shy to admit this to anyone else but was opening up to Tomonori: "I like drawing."

"I can show you how to use everything, and you draw what I'm going to work on. Why don't you sketch the steps as I go? Just draw what you see."

Tomonori works on finding out how to use everything. He's worked alongside an alchemist before, although this is his first time doing it without supervision...he thinks he can figure it out, though. He backtracks a few times when he realizes he might be going about something the wrong way. Some of the other students look his way but he ignores them, continuing to narrate what he's doing.

This is a much more pleasant way to do classwork.

Nie Huaisang draws what he sees, touches Tomonori on the arm and the shoulder, regularly compliments him on how deftly he moves and how smart he is to be able to remember the difference between those two identical-looking chemicals, gazes at him admiringly, and occasionally mentions that he'd love to keep doing this, he's learning so much, but he really needs to focus on his own work or he's going to fall behind.

Tomonori is starting to think maybe this guy just touches people very casually. He can't really understand what would make a person like that but it's not interfering with his work right now.

Also being complicated this much for perfectly normal skills that everyone in Intro to Lab will have is probably going to over-inflate his ego, so he should do something about that. Maybe he'll ask the void for a history book on very accomplished alchemists as a standard to hold himself to.

"Oh, okay. You don't have to keep drawing for me."

"But I'm learning so much more this way!" He reaches up to flirtatiously tuck his hair behind his ears, belatedly realizes he's bald, and switches to fluttering his eyelashes.

What a confusing person.

"Are you okay?"

This is a stupid question to ask of someone who was wailing loudly during Orientation, but Tomonori can't think of a better one to ask what he means.

Excellent. An opening. 

He looks down at the table and bites his lip nervously. "I like talking to you."

"I like talking to you too."

"But I have to go off and do my own work and not talk to you at all!"

Come on, idiot, get a hint. 

"Okay. Do you want me to help you with your assignments?"

"Oh-- if you want to-- I don't want to bother you-- I just don't know--"

"It seems like you're very good at drawing and not so much at understanding alchemy, because you're creative but not rigorous."

At least, Tomonori hears he is supposed to be good at drawing. He should have someone look at the drawings and tell him whether they're better than average. They seem nice enough.

Nie Huaisang looks like the most water-logged, the most broken-winged, and the tiniest of baby birds. 

"I am t-- trying," he blatantly lies. 

"I can help you with your work. I just think you should do what you're good at? You should draw so you can understand alchemy better, I think it could help you. You don't have to be smart to learn. Can I see your assignment?"

A little bit sniffly, Nie Huaisang hands his assignment over to Tomonori. "Yeah, I'm not smart like you."

(He kind of wishes he was a girl and had breasts, because then he could lean over and give Tomonori a view of his cleavage, which would be much more effective than giving him a view of his flat chest. But if he was a girl he'd be flirting with girls and he's pretty sure that girls are way less easy than boys, so probably it works out to his advantage.) 

"Oh, okay. You just need to condense salt of the sages. I can work on this while you draw the steps- that way, you can make this one on your own. Let me just start mine first- I need supplies. Come with me."

And Tomonori will retrieve supplies.

Nie Huaisang follows him to retrieve the supplies and then sets to work drawing. 

Ears full of Nie Huaisang's fulsome gratitude, Tomonori might fail to notice that he's winding up doing rather more of Nie Huaisang's work than he actually intended to.

Tomonori completely fails to notice that. Trying to avoid letting flattery pump up your ego is very hard when the thing you want most is to live in a wizard tower where people beseech you for help with their petty, irrelevant problems.

He might need Ego Booster/Crying Boy to hold beakers and stir things?

Ego Booster/Crying Boy will definitely do that. Does Tomonori want to tell him about alchemical theory? Nie Huaisang thinks that alchemical theory is fascinating, especially when Tomonori is explaining it. 

Tomonori will explain so much theory! In doing so he will finish two assignments, with quite a bit of time to spare. The first day isn't so bad.

Hopefully Ego B-

oh no he said his name! He said his name and Tomonori completely forgot his name. How can he ask without being rude?

"What was your name? I forgot."

"I'm Nie Huaisang." He looks so sad, like he really wanted Tomonori to care about him and remember his name, and now all his hopes are being crushed.

"Thank you."

Well that was probably terribly rude but now it's done, and so are the assignments.

"Can I see what you drew?"

"Yeah." He spreads them out. They're really good drawings, and there's a sketch of Tomonori that Nie Huaisang is sure to let him see and then embarrassedly hides under a picture of a chemical reaction.

"They look nice."

Probably? They seem like they're precise in the right way, but he's not sure if they're beautiful or whatever else art is supposed to be.

"Maybe next time you can do the condensing steps on your own."

"Maybe," he says, eager and curious and absolutely zero percent intending to do any steps that involve any (a) expenditure of mana or (b) risk of explosions. "Say, you wanted to see Lan Zhan's sword, right?"

!

"It's beautiful," he says instantly.

"I wish I could, but he told me Lan Xichen makes all of Shanghai's decisions and that Lan Xichen wouldn't want me."

"Oh, he just hates talking to people. I can get him to show you the sword."

"Really?"

Tomonori bounces.

Oh no he's so incredibly cute.* Nie Huaisang squeaks about it. 

"Of course. I'll do all the talking and he'll just sit there and say 'Mn.' Maybe do some sword forms."

*Whether Nie Huaisang would have had this emotion if it weren't useful to do so is left as an exercise for the reader.

"Okay. Thank you!"

Tomonori thinks that means Nie Huaisang wants to be friends? Or maybe he just wants a smarter study partner.

"We should study together, that way you can learn more quickly."

Maybe Tomonori can actually pick up on subtext!

"I'd love to."

The next question is a difficult question of strategy. Tomonori obviously would want to look at Nie Huaisang's fans, and it'd be a good excuse to get him alone, especially if Nie Huaisang can't come up with a reason that they should study in his room instead of the library. But if he shows Tomonori the fans right now, he's giving up a major thing he has that Tomonori wants, for not very much reward. And sometimes you can get in a better position by playing hard-to-get. 

Nie Huaisang eventually decides that Tomonori probably has too low self-esteem to figure out that Nie Huaisang is into him unless it's really obvious, so he says, "I have four enchanted fans, too. They fit in my weight allotment. Do you want to come up to my room tonight and see them?"

"That sounds really cool! Does Lan Xichen not make decisions for the enclave, or just not about the fans?"

Was Lan Zhan lying. Why do humans even have that feature.

"I'm pretty sure I'm allowed to let anyone I want" significant pause "look at my fans."

"Okay. After dinner?"

"I can't, I've got to tailor Masozi's clothing so his clothes actually fit. Tomorrow afternoon?"

"Okay, that makes sense."

Fans! Magic fans! He wonders if there are four different enchantments- or if one fan has multiple enchantments...Shanghai must have so many enchanted objects...oh right.

"Thank you."

"I have my shield fan with me." 

He takes it out. It is beautifully decorated with pictures of birds defending their nests. More relevantly for Tomonori's purposes, if he opens it and flutters it in a certain way it will shield him from any mals that happen to be about.

That's so cool!

Tomonori will spend the remaining time staring at Nie Huaisang's fan and speaking out loud as he untangles what the enchantment does.

And Nie Huaisang will continue to touch him on the shoulder and talk admiringly about how Nie Huaisang has no idea how this fan works and Tomonori is so smart.