I spun around my chair while I stared off into the mineral fiber ceiling. The bright lights off to the sides of my vision made it hard to keep my eyes completely open, but it didn't matter, as long as my imagination could go wild, nothing mattered. Manga panels manifested in my vision as I thought about a new story. A perfect cyberpunk city, layers upon layers of building, skyscrapers that reached the sky, flying vehicles and drones to watch the population. Our protagonist was just a normal citizen who went about his day-to-day life. Until, at a bar after a long night of drinking, a mysterious man approached him, and began telling him stories about the underground world. A city just like theirs, but with no rules and laws, that lied deep beyond the base layer of his city. The only way to get in, a secret entrance that lied behind a closed gate in the government's basement, he needed the protagonist, he needed him because the underground city was-
My scenario had been rudely interrupted by my Calculus III teacher walking in.
I accomodated myself into a normal position on my chair, face facing the front, legs spread out, but not too much, pen in one hand, notebook on my table, everything I've always been told to do. I acted focused, I cared about this class, so I wanted to have a good relation with the teacher. The classroom was a rather small one, there were two classrooms for Calculus III students. The engineers got an entire lecture hall, while people who chose it as general education received a smaller room, the size of a high school one. We were divided into tables of two, we were all supposed to have a partner, but it seems only an uneven amount of students had arrived, so there was no one sat next to me, which was good because-
A student opened the door, he was a white wolf, a really white one, the color of his fur combined with the luminescence almost made him look like a white dwarf star.
The wolf leaned back against the door drame, he had a calm look on his face, like he didn't care about the fact he was late by a minute. "I'm sorry for being late, professor. May I come in?"
The teacher checked his wristwatch and shrugged. "Sure, but make sure to arrive on time on the following classes, please? I was about to start, but you interrupted me."
He leaned off the door frame and quickly scanned the room. I was doomed, he was gonna sit next to me. I really hate it when people come close to me, their prescence alone feels like a wall that's pushing me against another, like one out of a Jigsaw movie trap.
He began approaching my spot, he threw his bag to the side of the chair next to me. "Do you mind if I sit here?"
If I was, just even a little bit courageous, I'd have said no. "Y-Yeah, sure." I really dislike myself.
"You have a stutter" he said as he sat down.
No shit Sherlock. I am aware of it. I felt uneased at his comment, no one had pointed it out before. Maybe he was just blunt? So he's sort of like me, but atleast I know not to be blunt around others, especially people I've just met. I began examining his appearance, his clothes seemed carelessly worn, he had an expensive leather jacket on top of a button-up shirt, would've looked cool if the shirt wasn't so wrinkled, should I gift him a clothes iron, would he get the message? Would he even know what to do with it? Cause right now, he doesn't seem to know what an iron is. His pants were simple average jeans, and his shoes were those bizarre looking paw-shaped shoes.
The teacher began explaining the concept of a gradient vector. It's like a topographical map, a single point on a hillside. The gradient is an arrow I can place on that exact point, and it will do two things. The arrow will point directly uphill, in the steepest path. And the length of the arrow indicates the steeper the hill is in that direction. Simple enough.
I looked to my left, the wolf wasn't even bothered to take notes, he was solving improper integrals in the margins of his notebook, quite the contrast from my silly sketches in my margins. He glanced at his side and noticed I was looking at him, I quickly looked back to the front, but it was too late, I had caught his attention. He tapped my shoulder.
"Are you actually paying attention? This is such a simple subject. You seem like you'd be able to learn all this in less than a minute." I simply nodded along, and continued taking notes, something about him made me really uncomfortable, but that was just from the judgemental side of my brain, he didn't have the friendly aura that red panda had... what was his name... Ilhan? Something like that. The panda felt like the antithesis of this wolf.
"You're quiet. What's your name?" He discretely reached his paw out to shake mine. "My name is Vain, quite fitting, innit?"
"N-... Tao, I'm Tao." I reluctantly shook his hand, I could feel his eyes on me, I avoided eye contact, he was clearly displeased by that.
"What's your major?" The wolf rest his chin on his paw as he looked at me.
"Art." I said in a dry tone, he had already pointed out my stutter, I didn't wanna risk it.
"Ha! An art major? In Calculus? Come on. Don't make me laugh. Tell me your real major."
"B-Bachelor. Of. A-, Fine arts." His gaze was making me so nervous, my ears had flattened and my tail tucked in. Not only that, it seemed like was intentionally making me stutter, I need a break so bad. Is it too early into the semester to use my diagnosed privileges?
Vain tilted his head to the side and he raised an ear. "You're not fooling me?"
"No."
"Hm, well if it isn't odd, to see such an, inferior degree take such a prestigious class, I'm guessing it's part of your general education. If you have any doubts you can tell me, it's okay if you signed up for the class on mistake, or if all the other levels were full."
Nothing made me angrier than when people not only invalidated my major, but doubted my intelligence from it, I had to prove myself, prove to Vain that I am smart, and defend my people, the art majors, fight against the stereotype of us being dumb.
The teacher continued talking. I'd stop listening, my mind was fogged up with ways I could prove myself to Vain, a way I could get under his skin, make him realize we are more than just people that like to draw, we are philosophy, we're the embodiment of the human mind, all our projects are the embodiment of not only our imagination, but our souls. What even is Vain's major? What could he be possibly majoring in that makes him think he's superior?
"Okay class, let's do an icebreaker. I want you to turn to your partners. Great, now, discuss the lecture's topic with them, this way you will both exchange ideas and help each other out where the other needs it."
The teacher sat down on his chair, leaning back as he started eating his lunch.
I looked over at Vain, not only with my head, but with my full body, he couldn't scare me anymore. I was determined. I will put him where he belongs.
"So tell me, why are you here? I suppose, it's for the pretty graphs, innit? A pleasant diversion from finger-painting. But, we aren't here to draw, we're here to understand the intricate mechanics of the world around us."
"You don't know me. But anyways, let's s- move onto the iiiicebreaker."
"Hmph" Vain grunted with a cocky smirk as he heard Tao stutter on the second half of his statement. "Fine, shall we start then?"
"A gradient... It's the mathematical will to power. A vector, desperate to climb, to ascend, to reach the highest value. It's the ambition of a function made to manifest. It doesn't suggest, instead it declares. This is the Ubermensch of calculus, scorning the lazy, directionless scalar fields around it. To not follow the gradient is to be mediocre."
"You're anthro- an- anth- an-tro-po-mor-phi-zing a tool. You see ambition in what's nothing, but a p-prediction." I turned notebook and drew a quick, simple mountain.
"A gradient is the answer to a simple question." I pointed to a random point on the mountain. "If I stand here, and spill a drop of water, which way will it roll? The gradient just points the way. It's length is how fast it will roll. There's no 'will' no 'scorn'. It's just physics, you've completely misunderstood the basics and built a philosophy around it." My tail almost wagged the moment I realized I had managed to speak fluently for more than one sentence after another. Must be the effect Vain has on me, the adrenaline has gone so high, it looped back around, making me confident in myself.
Vain scoffs, gesturing dismissively at the drawing. "Saying that, like if you didn't reduce such a profound concept to a parlor trick about water droplets. That's the artistic mind for you, people, content with superficial, pretty demonstrations."
Tao placed his hand on the desk, his slam making a thud sound. "You think this is just pretty?" he asks, his voice gained a rare sharp edge. "THIS is how IIII understand it. You see a jumble of symbols on the board: df/dx. df/dy. Well, I see a landscape. My art isn't a diversion, it's a bridge that connects the abstract notation into an intuitive visual truth. I don't just memorize a formula. I can see the hill, I can visualize the path of steepest ascent because I've spent years training my mind to understand everything you can see. Light, shadow, form, years of training! That mountain isn't a mere parlor trick. It's a mental model you couldn't even begin to comprehend."
Tao saw Vain open his maw, before he could even speak, Tao had gone back to his rant. "You talk about intricacies and whatnots, while your own understanding is vague and incorrect. Yes, I'm an art major, maybe I don't have to deal with such complex concepts all day, but I am here for a reason, I am here because my imagination allows me to model multi-dimensional spaces in my head. It stimulates the spatial reasoning that this entire branch of math is built upon. So while you're delivering a grand monologue about the Ubermensch based on a flawed premise, I've already calculated the gradient, visualized the vector field, and understood its physical meaning. Now tell me. Which approach truly lacks rigor? The one that is clear, correct, and grounded in reality, or the one that is confident, poetic, and wrong?"
Vain was utterly silenced. He looked from Tao's fierce, unblinking eyes to the detailed mountain drawing, his body was completely still in place, his mouth was slightly open from being so spontaneously cut-off by Tao. "Hmph."
He slowly regained his composture. A small smile spreading across his face.