5. hit or miss

CHAPTER FIVE

HIT OR MISS

—

"High schoolers are so stupid, it hurts."

Eden laughed, shaking her head as she continued to grade her papers, occassionally peering into Dmitri's own papers, probably to check if he was grading them correctly. "D, you were a high schooler not long ago."

"And I was fucking stupid not long ago."

"You still are."

Rolling his eyes, Dmitri sighed, adjusting the reading glasses on his face. What the fuck does this answer even mean? Jesus fuck, what are these students on?

This was common for the two of them— Eden would come home with stacks of papers waiting to be graded, beg Dmitri to help her grade them because apparently, according to her, that was the worst part of being a teacher. And when he would refuse, she would bait him by promising to be nice to Juno for once.

Of course, he always gave in.

"The fact that these kids don't know how to spell definitely astounds me," Eden muttered after a few minutes, her hair up in a small ponytail on the top of her head, white face mask covering her skin, a complete contrast from her actual skin tone. "That and necessary. How is it possible?"

Dmitri sighed, circling a giant seventy two on the top of the page he was correcting. "I mean... I still spell necessary wrong all the fucking time. Besides, not all of them can help it. Some kids have learning disorders and shit, right? Dyslexia, ADHD, all that. Can't blame them for not doing well in class," he defended, pointing his red pen in Eden's direction, nearly stabbing her fucking eye out.

A dissatisfied hum left her mouth as she set another paper down, the bright red thirty three glaringly obvious, too obvious for Dmitri to ignore.

"E, what the fuck?" Dmitri questioned with an incredulous laugh. "Why on earth are you giving out fucking thirties to students?"

Huffing, Eden flopped back onto Dmitri's bed, staring up at the broken fan which made a ticking sound every time it finished one revolution. "My students are the fuckin' worst, D. Don't get me wrong, I love my job, and I love to teach them. And I know damn well that I'm a good teacher. But—" Eden sighed, and Dmitri just knew that there was something else that was bothering her, something that she wasn't telling him. The obvious discomfort in her tone was enough for him to know.

"What is it?"

"It's always the rich, white, mentally stable kids with all the fuckin' resources and privileges in the world who just don't bother to try. I overheard one kid tell someone else that my body was too distracting for them to concentrate on what I'm sayin'."

Dmitri stopped. He stopped everything, pen tightening in his grasp. "What?"

Eden just shrugged. What the fuck? "It's not the comments that bother me. Well, they do, but— it's that they literally just make those comments without a fuckin' care in the world. I'm an English teacher, for fucks sake. I teach them to be good people, and this is the shit that they do.

"And I mean, I can't even tell any of the teachers at the school, 'cause they're all stupid fuckin' men. The women get treated like shit in school, and like— it's worse 'cause I'm not white, and the school's management is fuckin' trash," she finished, tossing her pen at Dmitri, probably expecting him to catch it, if the disappointed sigh that she let out after it rolled away was anything to go by.

"That's so fucked up, E, what the heck?" Dmitri shook his head, dropping his pen onto the bed, red ink staining the plain grey sheets. What could he even say to that? "And you just... ignore it?"

"Either that or I lose my job."

God, the school was the fucking worst.

Letting out a small laugh, Eden reached over and pinched his cheek, patting it softly. "Don't look so sad, D, it's not so bad," she teased, returning her attention to the papers in front of her. "Just really fuckin' gross that these are literal highschoolers, and they're sexualizing a twenty five year old woman's body, but like— oh well, I guess. Men are trash."

"Men are trash," Dmitri agreed, pursing his lips to prevent himself from saying anything else, from making Eden feel worse, when clearly, she didn't want to talk about it anymore.

A few minutes passed, with Eden double-checking the papers in her stack, and Dmitri finishing up with his own stack of papers, occassionally reaching out to gently scratch the top of Juno's head, between her ears.

Just as he was about to arrange all the papers in alphabetical order, a loud ping was heard from his phone. And then another. Who's texting me?

Apparently, Eden had the same thought, and she nudged his leg with her socked foot. "Who the fuck is textin' you? It's like— past ten, on a Wednesday. You don't know anyone."

"I know people!"

Eden snorted. "Yeah, Trinh and me."

Huffing, Dmitri hastily typed in his pin, Eden's birthday, opening his messaging app, only to reveal two messages from an unknown number.

But before he could even begin to read them, his screen was covered by a call from the same unknown number, his ringtone loud enough to scare Juno and make her jump into his arms. God, I love her.

"E. The person's calling me," he whispered to Eden, holding up his phone and showing her the screen. "Do you recognise the number?"

Eden rolled her eyes, taking his phone out of his hands and looking at the number up close. "Nah, I dunno who it is. Same area code, though, so—" She stopped talking for a second, watching the phone stop ringing. "Oops. Well, you don't have to bother about that anymore."

Juno was starting to get sleepy, Dmitri noticed, so he just stroked her head once before leaving to the kitchen to get her some food before she could fall asleep.

She was the literal fucking cutest cat Dmitri had ever seen, and that wasn't even an exaggeration. After finding her outside their house, purring on their front porch, Dmitri had pleaded with Eden to take her in.

Only after he took her to the vet, did he realise two things: the first was she was an indoor cat, and the second was that she was completely blind.

That just made him love her even more.

"They're callin' again!" Eden's voice called out from his bedroom, and typically, Dmitri would have chastised her for being so fucking loud around Juno, but she was definitely used to both of them being loud as fuck by now. "Oy, should I pick up the call?"

That was enough to make Dmitri snap out of his thoughts, and he sped back into his room, eyes falling on Eden who was just staring at the ringing phone with a bored expression on her face. And for a moment, the ringing stopped, only to start back up again, somehow louder this time.

"If you don't pick up, I will," Eden stated, taking the bowl of food from Dmitri and placing it on the ground, next to Juno.

"I'll just block the number," Dmitri decided, ignoring the eyeroll that she threw his way. "The last time someone called me this much, it was one of the students I taught, it was a prank call or some shit."

"Well, it can't be your students anymore, so if you don't pick up the fuckin' call, I'll—"

Letting out a frustrated sigh, Dmitri reached out for his phone and pressed the little green icon, putting the call on speaker.

"Dmitri? Is that you?"

"Who is this?"

There was a short pause, the only sound coming from the phone being the soft crackles of static that never failed to make Dmitri anxious.

Finally, they spoke, "You haven't been picking up my calls."

"Who the fuck—"

"It's your mother, Dmitri," the voice said, and suddenly, everything made so much less sense than it did before he heard those words.

Eden's eyes narrowed as she glanced down at the phone, and then back up at Dmitri, before muttering, "Not this fuckin' bitch again."

Grabbing the phone from the bed, Dmitri shot Eden an alarmed look, one that he hoped was conveying the message of shut the fuck up, before he left the room, making his way into the kitchen.

"Mom? What do you want?" he asked, not a trace of emotion in his voice. At least he hoped that there was no trace of emotion in his voice.

Half a beat later, his mom replied with a cold, "Why aren't you picking up my calls, Dmitri? I could be in danger, your father could be in danger! Someone could have died, and you wouldn't have picked up your phone. It would have been your fault, then."

Oh my god. "Well, you're not dead. Clearly."

An exasperated sigh echoed through the speakers, before his mom's voice came through again, brittle and nasally. "Your father could be—" She started, but Dmitri was quick to interrupt her before she could continue on her spiel of nonsensical paranoia and guilt-tripping.

"Holy fuck, Dad isn't dead, Mom. He's probably right next to you," he interrupted. "What is it? Why are you calling?"

Another sigh, one that was filled with disappointment was heard, after which she said, "Your father and I want to talk to you."

This was odd. Very odd. After all, it had been nearly three years since he had actually spoken to his parents. Sure, he had seen them around in grocery stores, malls— that part was inevitable when he had moved back into the same state, the same city he had wanted to leave for so long. But he had never stopped to talk to them, and they had never stopped to talk to him.

It had just become a silent but mutual understanding that they wouldn't be speaking to each other from the moment he left for college.

Coming out to your parents was always either a hit or a miss. For him, it was a miss. A miss that was so far off that it wasn't even in the hit or miss area.

"What do you want to talk about?"

His mom said something in the background to someone, something that sounded like, "Should I tell him now?" and some more whispers later, a muffled, "Okay!" was heard.

"What the fuck is it?" Dmitri exhaled quietly, leaning against the marble kitchen counters. "Maybe you can save us both the torture of having to see each other, and you can tell me what you want to say."

"It needs to be said in person, Dmitri," his mom said in that voice of hers, the one that she always used to use when she chastised him for spending too much time with boys who acted "too feminine" for her taste.

Tariq was the opposite of feminine, but somehow, she hated him, too. And that was when Dmitri had realised that it wasn't just boys who were "too feminine". It was boys in general.

"Uh— can I get back to you on that?" Dmitri asked, mentally cursing himself for letting his hesitance seep through his shaky voice.

Another displeased, mildly frustrated sigh later, his mom just answered with a grunt. "No, it's not a question. Come to the house on Friday, Dmitri."

And with that, she ended the call. Oh god.

Head suddenly ten times heavier on his shoulders, Dmitri made his way back into his room, the sight of Eden cooing hushed words of encouragement to Juno lifting the weight a little. Just a little.

"So? What did the bi—" Then, she looked at Dmitri, scanning him up and down. Finally, she said, "Didn't go well?"

Dmitri just shrugged wordlessly, flopping down onto his bed with a groan, momentarily thankful that Eden had cleared it of the papers which were now in a neat stack on the desk near his bed.

"They want me to see them in two days. Two days, E."

Frowning, Eden patted the spot next to her, stifling a laugh when he slithered up to her and pressed his cheek into his pillow. "Two days means... Friday?"

"Mhm."

Eden hummed to herself, patting Dmitri's shoulder this time as she squeezed it gently. "I can come with you. If you want, I mean. Even though I haven't met the fuckers before, I don't think you should have to deal with them alone," she justified, leaning down to drum her fingers against the ground, something that Dmitri had come up with to warn Juno before picking her up.

"I mean— you don't have to," Dmitri reminded. "School's busy, and like—"

Shoving Dmitri's shoulder, Eden shook her head. Hmph. "Shut the fuck up, whore. Us queers gotta stick together, right? I'll come with you."

Dmitri just smiled softly, letting his eyes flutter shut for a second as he yawned. "Damn, it's late as fuck," he pointed out, rolling over such that he was on his back. Juno made her way onto his stomach, curling up into a tiny ball of black fur. I'm going to cry.

"You goin' to bed now?" Eden flicked his forehead, gesturing to his glasses. "Gimme your glasses, I'll leave them back."

Eden was genuinely one of the best things to ever happen to him.

"Probably won't fall asleep," he muttered, doing as Eden said, motions lethargic and slow. "Stupid fuckin' brain. Hates me."

Letting out a small breath, Eden simply leaned over and switched off the lamp on the desk, complete darkness filling up every corner of the room. Then, she picked Juno up from where she was laying on Dmitri's body and placed her down on her own little bed, stroking her for a second.

"What're you doing?" Dmitri slurred, mind shutting down but eyes staying open. "E. What the fuck are you doing?"

"You sleep better when someone's with you," she said in a hushed voice, wrapping an arm around Dmitri's body and pulling him closer to her body. "Close your eyes. Get some sleep tonight."

"I fuckin' hate you," Dmitri said back, voice just as soft. "You hate sharing beds with people."

Eden patted his face, her eyes shut now. "Guess you're an exception." Fuck. He was literally about to burst into tears, then and there. "Try to close your eyes, yeah? Shut off your brain for a minute. Everything will be okay."

There were only three people in the world who understood Dmitri, or at least tried to understand— right from his crippling depression, all the way down to his fucked up brain that didn't let him sleep. One of them was dead. The other wasn't in his life anymore.

There was no way he could have ever been more thankful for Eden, than at that moment.

"E?"

A hum.

"My mind is an absolute mess right now. And most of the time. I'm... really grateful for you for sticking around, despite everything that has happened and probably will happen. Thank you."

Mumbling out a reply, a small, "You're my best friend. Of course," Eden affirmed, falling asleep with her arm still slung around his body, and her nose buried in his neck.

And while Dmitri didn't fall asleep until two in the morning, at least he wasn't alone.

At least there was that.

—

+2602

AN: listen. i kno that it's been majority angst.

i'm sorry (or am i?) to say that the angst will continue for a bit👍

so😌 thank u all for reading !!!! i hope u have/had a good day today🥺 lmk how ur day has been if u want !!🥰