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Intro to Shop
Tomonori, Jiang Cheng, Nie Huaisang
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"Hello, gege!" Nie Huaisang says as he flops down next to Tomonori. The sparkles in his voice are audible.

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"Hello! How was your morning?"

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"Good! I'm working on altering Song Lan's clothes for Masozi!"

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"Oh, that's nice. Are they very different in size and shape? Masozi seems too thin."

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"I have been assigned to make sure he eats."

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"Oh, good. Are you as good with clothes as you are at drawing?"

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"Not quite, but I bet I'm one of the best in the school. Why, do your clothes need to be tailored?" He looks at Tomonori's clothes. "...They need to be tailored."

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"Do you think so?"

Tomonori looks down at his clothes, but he realizes he doesn't know what he's looking for. He guesses he can see what Nie Huaisang means.

"That would be nice of you."

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"Your shoulder seam is nowhere near your shoulderbone, your pants are way too baggy, and in general you dress like you picked clothes two sizes too large so they would definitely fit."

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"Oh. I didn't pick my clothes, my parents did. You can fix them?"

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"Yeah, but I've got a queue-- I've got to finish Masozi's clothes and make curtains for the nurse."

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"You're doing so much! I didn't know we had a nurse. Did you design Masozi's clothes?"

Tomonori assumes that Nie Huaisang draws everything he thinks up.

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"No, they're Song Lan's, I just needed to alter them so they fit Masozi, all I need for that is thread, a needle, and a seam ripper."

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"You don't design when you alter clothes? How do you know what they'll look like when you finish?"

He tries to imagine his clothes, but smaller. He doesn't think this would help him alter clothes; maybe it's about practice.

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"Well, I measure Masozi, and I measure the clothes, and I take them in a bit?"

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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.

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Nie Huaisang is sparkling at Tomonori and Tomonori is NOT GRATEFUL ENOUGH ABOUT THIS FACT.

Jiang Cheng glares at him.

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Tomonori does not notice! He is excited about the assignment and will happy tell Nie Huaisang what they need to do.

It looks like it's the usual basic knife-making task that freshmen get, but it's still exciting.

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He means what Tomonori needs to do while Nie Huaisang touches him on the arm and tells him how brilliant he is.

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Tomonori will need to drag them over to the supply cabinets before too long, though, at which point he looks around in the hopes of finding someone they can walk with.

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Oh. Jiang Cheng.

"We need backup to go get supplies. Do you think you could ask Jiang Cheng to come with us?"

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"Sure! I bet he'll be way better-behaved today."

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Okay. Tomonori will walk with Nie Huaisang over to Jiang Cheng. They can hold hands if Nie Huaisang wants?

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Eeeeeee handholding. He is SPARKLING at Tomonori now.

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Okay.

Hello Jiang Cheng. Good morning. Could you please, oh gracious, honorable?

"Hello, honorable Jiang Cheng. Could you- graciously could you help us, graciously- Nie Huaisang and I- get supplies today. Uh, from the cabinets?"

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"Why are you being so weird."

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Polite, no whips, just polite-

"Trying to be polite."

Oh no. Oh no oh no it's happening again.

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"Well, stop being so goddamn weird."

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He tugs Tomonori back to the table. 

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"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."

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"Let me handle him, okay? You stay here."

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He heads back to Jiang Cheng's table. "a-Cheng..."

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"What."

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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.

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"You're useless," he says.

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"I know," he says, "I know, a-Cheng, I'm so useless, but I don't want to be useless and devoured by a mal-- please help-- you have Zidian, it's easy for you, all I have is this fan--"

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"Fine. I'll help you once."

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"Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you, a-Cheng, I could never do this without you, thank you so much--"

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"Shut up," he says, shoves Nie Huaisang away, and starts looking through the cabinets.

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He smiles at Tomonori. "See? Handled."

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"...that was amazing. How did you do that?"

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"Natural talent."

Now please don't notice how much I've been operantly conditioning you because that would be very inconvenient. 

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"You're good at so many things! Do you think we should do anything else for him because he's helping you?"

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"Why would I do that?"

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"So that he knows you appreciate him."

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"But he'll do things for me without me having to do that."

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"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.

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Gosh. Has Tomonori realized that he is so incredibly smart and knows so many things about making molds, unlike Nie Huaisang, who is very stupid and incompetent in this field and will probably need Tomonori to do all his homework for him?

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This particularly brand of flattery does not seem to be effective. Tomonori starts trying to explain how to make molds.

It's actually quite simple when you just look at it in the right way!

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Why is Nie Huaisang flattering Tomonori? Why is he touching Tomonori's forearm? Why is TOMONORI trying to EXPLAIN things to Nie Huaisang who doesn't know how to do molds?! Jiang Cheng would do his molds FOR him like a GOOD boyfriend. 

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Oh no he messed up the mold. :( Tomonori help!

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Tomonori will help! He will explain what he's doing, which apparently makes him better at working efficiently.

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Wow! This part looks dangerous. Nie Huaisang is very scared of it. Maybe Tomonori should do it.

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Okay. Tomonori will do it for him, as long as Nie Huaisang seems to be listening to his explanation of how? It's kind of important to understand the material.