"heehee! Yay!" Nemona hopped up and fist-pupped the air with glee but her expression quickly dropped, "Wait—ah shoot. It would have to be like only a one on one. I promised Director Clavell I would show some transfer students around today... At—One."

Galatea glanced at her wall clock and went pale, "Uh, Nemona... It's 12:50."

Nemona's eyes grew wider, "What?! I've got to run! But I'm holding you to that promise of a battle later! And you should take this afternoon to go make a new friend. I will be checking when I see you next!" The girl bolted out of the dorm room and practically left a trail of dust as she carved her way down the halls towards the director's office. Galatea couldn't hold in her chuckle. At least she wasn't the only one who lost track of time now and then.

Well, I don't have another class until 4... Galatea thought to herself, Guess I could go down to the library and study for a bit. Midterms are coming up. She went over to her bookshelf and flipped through the subjects before settling on mathematics.

Though she hated it, if she wanted to pass her next math test, she would probably have to do a lot of practice problems from the back of the book to make sure she understood it. Galatea took it and exchanged it with her history book from her backpack, and switched from her blue history notebook to her green math notebook.

Galatea made her way down to the school entrance hall and felt a wave of calm wash over her the when her eyes hit the walls upon walls of books. She was not going to be doing any reading today, but there was still something so nice about being around thousands of books. Dozens of students paced the first floor, and were shoulder to shoulder at the computers in the back. Galatea swiftly decided that wasn't where she would set up her studying, and took the semi-circle stairs up to the third floor of the library and settled in a desk that overlooked the lobby and grand oak doors to the Academy.

Luckily, there was only one other student up there at the time. Galatea didn't want to be intrusive by sitting right next to a stranger, but didn't want to sit on the complete opposite side just in case it would be taken as some sort of slight. Galatea made sure to sit with two seats in between them. The perfect distance.

She took out her study materials and put down a list of equations she had to memorize for the next test at the top of her page. Flipping to the practice problems in the textbook, Galatea began running the number drills. She growled now and then, especially when she knew a calculator wouldn't be allowed on this test. The midterm it would probably be allowed for certain sections, but knowing which ones was a roll of the dice. Either way, it would be best to not use her calculator during practice. That wasn't her main problem.

"Now if I carry the three, and then make sure to flip the negative across the equal sign..." The pencil tip snapped as she scratched out another paragraph of mathematics work she wrote, when she found it was incorrect, "Dammit." Galatea mumbled for the tenth time.

"Um..." A voice from two seats down spoke, "sorry, but could you, uh... Keep it down a little?"

Galatea popped her head up from the notebook quickly to see the person and meet their silver gaze behind their circle glasses frames, "Shoot, Sorry. was I talking out loud? Sorry, Sorry! I thought that was in my head. Um, I'll just—go back to my dorm. I don't think I'll be able to stay quiet with how much I'm struggling. I'm sorry."

The other student's expression scrunched a little with a twinge of regret, "No, uh, you don't have to leave but..." They ran their fingers through their red and blue hair before averting their gaze, "... I haven't been around people in a while. It's fine. Um, do you want me to maybe help?"

"Oh no, no, no, sorry, I don't want to cause you any problems." Galatea quickly said while closing her notebook. "I'm sorry again." She began packing up and stood quickly.

The student tried to reach out their hand but recoiled back a little and sunk into their hoodie, "It's not a problem. I'm in the STEM track and am pretty good at math."

"... Are you sure? I don't wanna be like, a burden when you're studying on your own."

They chuckled a little, "Actually I just came out here to try and sit in a place with people to get used to them again. Soo—not a problem."

Galatea slowly sat back down before realizing two seats between wouldn't be helpful, so she slid over so only a single seat was in between, and she pushed her textbook into the open spot. "Mood. That was me last year. It's this problem here. I know how PEMDAS works, but when an equation gets this long, with so many different things going on at once, I get a bit overwhelmed and keep getting it wrong. Are you a new student?" Galatea then hands her notebook over to show her work on the equation.

"No, but I was gone for a year and a half studying abroad in Galar, where I was from. So I just stayed with my family. Being back at a school so large is a little—"

"Overwhelming?"

They looked up and gave a small smile, "Yeah." Looking back at the page in front of them, the other student nodded, "Okay so I see where you're tripping up. You have to multiply everything in the parentheses by this 3 in front of it first before solving what's in them."

"But Parentheses comes before multiplication in PEMDAS!"

"Think about it like this: The 3 is still a part of the parentheses, while what's in the parentheses is addition. And multiplication comes before addition. Like a house. The parentheses are the walls, and what's inside them is the rooms. But the 3 is the door to the house. And you have to walk through the door to get into the house to access the rooms." The student explained, writing it out with little arrows in different directions to show the movement of the equation.

"Ooohh! I get it now! So," Galatea took her notebook back and started to scribble in the next problem, "So like this?"

The other student smiled up to Galatea, "Exactly like that."

A burning grin filled Galatea's cheeks, "Okay, let me do a couple more and could you check them?"

"Sure."

The next hour pass with the notebook between the two of them. Galatea didn't get everything, but the other student was quick to notice and work through the issues with her. The end of their study session was marked with the growling of Galatea's stomach. "Oof, okay I think I gotta run to the cafeteria and grab a lunch. Wanna come a long? I'll pay, since you helped me so much—um... I don't think I got your name..."

"I'm Penny." They said, "And I'm good. I actually ate before coming here, but thanks for the offer."

"Well, Penny, I'm Galatea and I absolutely love your fluffy Eevee backpack. I'll have to buy you a meal sooner or later!" Galatea smiled and remembered what Nemona said before she left earlier today, "Oh, we could exchange numbers to figure out when."

Penny twisted the oversized sleeves of their hoodie, "Really, it's nothing. There's no need to pay me back."

Galatea picked at her index finger with her thumb before sheepishly hanging her head, "Uh... Look. I need more friends and you seem nice, so I thought we could exchange phone numbers to hang out later or something. But if this is like, as far as you wanna be with me and I'm overstepping, just let me know. I absolutely respect if you don't feel like we click or anything and people form their own relationships and I don't wanna force you to be my friend if you don't want to."

Penny was quiet for a few seconds. Galatea's heart dropped to her stomach and she shrunk up. Silence. She overstepped. "Ah, sorry, I put you on the spot—I'll just go." She said with a shrinking voice and shoveling her stuff away into her bag.

"No!" Penny quickly said, "Um. I just—am awkward with people. But you seem nice too. Here, I'll give you my Rotom-phone number." Their Rotom-phone swung out of their bag and Galatea gasped at the eevee phone-case with little ears protruding from the top.

"Oh my gosh, that phone case is so adorable!" Galatea cooed as her own phone flew out and the two Rotom-phones automatically registered one another. The two waved goodbye and Galatea trotted off to the cafeteria.

---

A/N: PENNNNYYYY! MY KIIIINNNN! So did you guys have any subjects you particularly struggle(d) in school?
Me, I always had a complicated relationship with math. Some times I was great at it, and others I just absolutely fell flat. I even was put into a math-help class in middle school. Where my grades ended up soaring. They stayed relatively high until I my senior year of high school where I had-- ugh--- pre-calculus. That was not my friend. And I definitely should've asked for help. But I was soooo done with school that point.

Uh, but my point is, don't be afraid to ask for help from those who offer it when you're struggling! You can really benefit!