silentscout | Another college AU PSL

['It will be fun', they had said. 'You'll get to stay with Tuuri,' they had said. 'You can pick anything you want to study,' they had said. And somehow, somehow, Lalli had fallen for all of their trickery. He had signed up for college, practiced just enough English that he felt confident in mono-syllabic answers to questions, and had taken that two-hour car ride with Tuuri from their hometown to the place they would be studying for the next year.

It's nothing like Lalli has been promised though. For starters, he doesn't get to live with Tuuri. She's a sophmore and has the option of co-ed living, but as a freshman Lalli has to live in these tiny dorms and share a space with a stranger. 'Next year,' Tuuri had promised hastily when that particular bombshell had dropped, 'and you can come stay at my apartment whenever you want.' It doesn't fully fix the problem though, and it leaves Lalli feeling annoyed.

Then there's the matter of 'general education requirements'. Even though Lalli had picked botany as a major, he suddenly has to take English and math and art too? What's all of this nonsense?!

Suffice to say, Lalli is not having fun. He's slightly on the older side for an incoming freshman- 19, turning 20 next April- but still within the age range of everyone here. He logically knows he should be making friends and having fun and building his future. But he's just...not. He's never been good at any of that. He's different, he's always known he's different, and being hundreds of miles away from home just makes him more aware of how different he is.

It's early October when Lalli, on one Thursday evening, wanders over to the Engineering building. He had been to Tuuri's apartment first, but Tuuri hadn't been home and her roommate wasn't thrilled to host Lalli without Tuuri around to 'manage him'. So, of course, that meant going looking for her again. It's lucky he thought to wear his hoodie today, it will keep him warm while he walks around in the cold fall air.

He doesn't find her in her usual lab, though. What he finds instead is a partially-built computer and nobody else around. Curiosity piqued, Lalli goes over to investigate. Engineering projects usually aren't just a computer, or so he's noticed, is this the start of something else? Maybe if he just flips this switch here the screen will wake up and he can see what it is-

Oh. Oh that's a pop. And a sizzle. Lalli quickly pulls his hand away and looks around frantically, trying to see if anyone else saw him break this sensitive equipment.

There is now a small trail of smoke coming from it too. Hm.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

refate

[ sometimes, you're too gifted for your own good.

this is kon's predicament, on the younger side of freshman - about to turn 17 and having already been in classes for a semester - but overall fine with his situation. he's used to it. used to having to advance levels and grades, of having to move schools due to it, of not really forming any lasting bonds with his age group and trending towards a little older in person, while the online groups are a wide range of ages.

but this school's alright. the engineering program engages him and lets him let loose, where the compsci lets him take everything he builds and give it an internal structure.

he's half-paying attention to the lab, lounging all the way back in his chair with his feet propped up near the keyboard. makes it hard for him to be spotted as he dicks around on his table designing the next battle bot for the robotics club when he hears the pop. the sizzle. sees the smoke.

kon puts his feet down and leans forward over a desk behind this new stranger. not his project, not his problem, but he's always curious. ]

What'd you just break?

From:

silentscout

[He almost misses Kon for how he's sitting in the back there, but then Kon sits up and speaks up and oh there's that guy over there. A witness. Someone to get Lalli into trouble.

Lalli doesn't have his hood up at the moment, so it's easy to see his full face when he whips around to look at Kon. And really, it should be familiar-ish to Kon if he's spent a semester in the engineering department. Even though they're cousins, Lalli and Tuuri have identical twin fathers and look like they could be siblings. The hair and eye color is identical, and while Lalli is a lot slimmer than Tuuri is, the angular cheeks are still present on both of them. The relation is practically impossible to miss if you know one or the other.

But in his panic to not get in trouble, Lalli takes a step away from the computer he just broke.]

Nothing!

[And then he shuffles a few more steps away. As if putting distance between it and himself will absolve him of any guilt.]

From:

refate

[ putting his chin in his hand, his elbow on the desk, kon looks at lalli.

looks at the smoking computer.

looks back at lalli, even as he shuffles.

but some niggling thought prods him in the back of his mind, before he realizes the familiarity there. while he and tuuri aren't close, exactly, they're both nerds in the same labs more often than not and she's a friendly person. he knows her enough to be able to see the resemblance quickly, one eye squinting briefly as he takes in the pale hair, the skin, the eyes - the obvious blood relation here. ]

Sure, nothing. [ he comes around the desk after straightening up, reaching into his pocket to retrieve a round sucker and unwrap it. ] I can probably fix it before the person it belongs to comes back. Are you here for your... sister? Cousin?

[ beat ] Your Tuuri.

From:

silentscout

[Two bits of information flow into Lalli's mind pretty quickly there. First, that Kon is saying he can fix the computer, which is probably better than Lalli's plan of 'run away and hope not to get caught'. Second, Kon apparently knows Tuuri and can see the resemblance between them, so running away wouldn't help him anyway. Somehow Tuuri would find out about what he did anyway, and then he would be in trouble. Tuuri always lectured him when he messed up.

To answer...one of the questions, he nods. It's not clear what he's nodding to, but one of those things is a yes. After a moment he speaks up, which might clarify his nod a bit:]

...can you really fix it?

[So the nod was to the Tuuri part, yep. That's who he had been looking for.]

From:

refate

[ a pause is held between them, in that moment after the nod, as kon processes which of those statements that lalli is responding to. when he gets the question, he figures that it's the confirmation that it is for tuuri. nods back. ]

Wouldn't be hard for me. Not sure what they were doing over here, exactly, but I at least know how to fix whatever you borked.

[ he moves closer, grabbing a chair to wheel over and drop into. while he's investigating the damages, waving away the smoke, he adds: ]

Tuuri stepped out, I think. She shouldn't be gone for too long if you want to grab a seat and wait for her.

From:

silentscout

'kay.

[For Lalli, 'grab a seat' means hopping up on an adjacent lab table and sitting on the edge of it. He picks one that doesn't have anything on it, thankfully, so he's not breaking any other projects. He's also going to be helpful here, since Kon is the one fixing his mistakes and all. And for all he knows, Lalli might have just broken something Tuuri was working on, and she would absolutely give him an earful for it. So he points to the switch he had flipped, which looks like a standard on/off switch for computer equipment.]

That's what broke.

[Or, well. The circuit board attached to that switch is what broke. one of the connections definitely got fried. But when Kon inspects it he'll see that it's limited to just one of the connections and can be easily soldered back in place, luckily the whole board wasn't fried.]

From:

refate

[ rolling his sucker from one side of his mouth to the other, kon hums an affirmative noise when lalli sits. he doesn't seem to care about where he sits, and instead swivels his chair back and forth, fanning smoke away, peering into where the problems all started. ]

Probably not rigged right. Easy fix. [ that said, he rolls away with practiced ease. he grabs a roll of solder, then says, apropos of nothing: ] Here, catch.

[ and then tosses it underhand at him, so he can have both hands to rummage for the soldering gun to actually make the fix. ] You didn't completely wreck the whole thing, it's just some fiddly bullshit that could've been done better by whoever is doing the project.

From:

silentscout

[Lalli fumbles with the roll of solder for a moment, nearly dropping it, but he does get a grip on it in the end. Then he holds it up and looks at it, squinting slightly in a way that makes it look like he's being judgemental of the roll.]

It's not Tuuri's, right?

[He doesn't think it's Tuuri's project. Tuuri is more thorough with her work, she wouldn't be so sloppy as to leave 'fiddly bullshit' around like that.]

From:

refate

Nah, Tuuri can get distracted sometimes but she's pretty detail-oriented, from what I've seen of her work.

[ once he finds the soldering gun, he lets out an ah ha, going to plug it in and giving it the time to warm up properly so that it's a quicker fix than him staring it down. after that, kon wonders off to his own station to dig out his gloves to make sure he doesn't mishandle something. ]

Probably one of the newbie freshmen. [ gloves on, everything's good to go. one of the gloved hands is offered to lalli for the roll. ]

From:

silentscout

[Oh good, Kon can recognize that Tuuri is a hard worker and gets her stuff right. That wins him points in Lalli's book. He'll even nod approvingly as he hands over the roll of solder, as if his approval is a very important thing for someone to have.

But then he notices the gloves, and he'll scoot over juuuust slightly, so he's a little further away from the busted computer. Like it's going to blow up or something.]

It's dangerous?

[This question is because of the gloves.]

From:

refate

It's a hot thing heating up a bit of metal enough so that it becomes drippy. Sometimes I just solder without them, because it's not really that big of a deal, but for something small like this I'm not going to burn myself for someone else's project.

[

for his own project? sure. it'd be his own fault. not like it'd be a terrible burn if he managed that with a solder, but he sure would judge himself for it. ]

From:

silentscout

Oh. That's the 'PPE' thing Tuuri mentioned.

[He may have been on the receiving end of several lectures into why it's important to keep his eyes and skin protected in certain situations. Not that he listened- it was much easier to do stuff without gloves on- but working with liquid metal seems like a good time to actually listen to Tuuri's lectures.]

...so you would burn yourself on your own project.

[He totally caught the implication at the end there though.]