"Hello, gege!" Nie Huaisang says as he flops down next to Tomonori. The sparkles in his voice are audible.
Math works regardless of whether Tomonori can imagine it, so he'll just assume there's math involved. It's subtraction, that's simple. Something about it still feels wrong, like he's not understanding something, but Tomonori knows not to follow that niggling urge to completely understand something; he'll get too distracted to do their work and he'll just annoy Nie Huaisang.
He just nods and reads the assignment.
"Thank you goodbye."
He hates it here he hates it he hates himself why. Oh, the table. Nice table. He squeezes Nie Huaisang's hand and wants to just lean into him but they can't because maybe then there will be Zidian.
"I'm sorry. Let's just wait a few minutes and then we can go. I'll look out for mals."
He throws himself into Jiang Cheng's arms. "a-Cheng, I'm scared of the cabinets. There could be so many mals in them and some of them are mimics and I don't know how to tell them apart from the other ones and some of them I'd have to fight and you know I'm no good at fighting, I'm so scared--"
He looks up at Jiang Cheng, his eyes watery.
"Okay."
Tomonori thinks that's incredibly rude but it probably makes it easier to survive? So that means it's the right thing to do. Instead of trying to discuss that further, Tomonori will try to change the topic to the assignment, which is very exciting! The process of making the mold is actually the most interesting, and he can go on about that until Jiang Cheng returns with their supplies.