Chapter 24: Chapter Twenty Three

Victor came in to school that day, about halfway into registration, only around ten minutes after Arran. I wouldn't have noticed if I hadn't turned to see him sit down. He was looking at me.

He smiled. I remembered to smile back.

When I was back to normal I had a feeling future Elliot would be bothered if I destroyed my fictional chances with a guy like Victor despite their impossibility. I'd probably beat myself over it.

His eyes sparkled, a handsome smirk to his lips, he glanced behind me and saw Arran, blinked and sat down slowly, ignoring Emma as she reached over to play with his hair from behind.

He did look back at the class planner in front of him on the table nearly immediately after but leaned over to the kid at the desk beside him and spoke to him and periodically looked over at Arran for the last fifteen minutes of the class.

When it came to getting to our next class, mine was IT, he stopped me on the way out.

"Elliot, your desk was clean today, guess they learned their lesson..." He grinned at me.

"Ah... yeah, I suppose they did." I didn't bother correcting him because I didn't care enough to. I just smiled, hopefully warmly, and kept moving.

He put a hand out in front of me and I felt someone stop beside me, felt it because of all the people in the room the only one I was somehow very aware of was Arran, his presence felt like something tingly behind me.

"Are you okay?" He gestured to the split lip, and then looked over my shoulder behind me.

I looked him over for a second, appreciating the attractive jawline and blue eyes and nice lips and shoulders.

It wasn't like I didn't find him handsome anymore, I still had eyes and the attraction remained well and intact, but there was some kind of emotional bond I had with him, however one sided it was, that was curiously missing, jarringly so.

"Yes." I nodded. "Just those guys... you know, pranks..." I smiled, the awkward flustery kind that used to feel natural to me.

He shook his head and clicked his tongue. "Honestly? I thought with the suspensions and all they would learn their lesson. You want me to have a word with them?"

I shook my head slowly.

He didn't look at me though and just blinked back at the figure behind me. "Hello."

"Hello." He rumbled a reply, and I turned to look at him.

Arran smiled like a tiger sometimes, something terribly intimidating in his eyes as his lips curved and he looked down on you, he did not change this for Victor.

Victor stared back at him. "So you're new? You guys are friends?" There was a weird lilt to his voice, maybe a little chillier in tone than normal.

"What?" I mumbled.

"Friends?" Came Arran's silky smooth reply. "I'm trying to get past. You two idiots are in the way."

Victor blinked, long and slow.

Even I felt marginally surprised.

Victor was a class favourite, really a school favourite, the year sevens all posted his pictures around every year and made little mouse noises when he walked past them on the school grounds or in the hallways.

Even the worst students in class begrudgingly seemed to respect him, although I was never exactly sure why.

I moved out of the way after a moment, but Victor stayed there, turning to give a look I couldn't see to the last person leaving the class, ironically Tariq, one of the bullies, who hurried out without even giving a look back.

"Is that really the way you want to start your year here? By making enemies?" He folded his arms.

"Victor..." I channelled my former self and pushed him a little toward the door.

He shrugged me off of him and even gave me a look that was surprisingly sharp.

"Making enemies is a two person job. I have to offend you and you have to be offended. That's an outcome up to you." He replied, staying close to me.

Victor coughed out a breath, stood very still and stared at him, and then looked at me. "Stay away from this guy, okay?" He shook his head, moving out of the way for him.

Arran just barely smiled at him, one that didn't reach his eyes, as he moved past slowly. "I sit behind him. Maybe he can stay away if he sits on your lap."

"You could move." He bit back at him as he reached the doorway.

"But I won't." He replied and didn't bother to look back as he left.

Victor seemed genuinely disturbed by him, something very irritable in his features and his expression, so much so that for a moment I wondered if they had met before, but it was an exchange made up of all of the annoyance and none of the familiarity.

"Are you okay? You seem upset..." I frowned at him.

He immediately turned and smiled at me. It might have been a late realisation but it was the first time I noticed how fake those beaming, sparkling smiles were.

"Nah..." He put a hand on my shoulder. "Is he messing with you too?"

I shrugged lightly and played the part, looking down. "A little bit."

He sighed, but it almost sounded relieved. "If he bothers you again let me know. I'll protect you. Buddies, right?"

I nodded and smiled at him, accepting the fist bump.

My knuckles felt weird as I moved away from him, with him leaving first, eyes glancing back down the hall where Arran must have left down.

I left and hurried down the hallway to catch up with him, glancing back to see Victor look back to see just as I was turning a corner. I sighed in annoyance and looked up at him.

"Try to be nice to that guy, everyone loves him, they'll make life hard for you."

He looked down at me from the side, was silent for a moment and then eventually scoffed and looked forwards again. "You have terrible taste."

He told me this smoothly and without judgement and continued moving down the hall in long calm strides and yet the moment the words sunk in I felt my heart thump loudly, twice in fast succession, in my chest as I faltered beside him.

Of course he knew how I felt about him. I'd nearly forgotten. He read my diary. How much of it did he read? I'd never found out, I assumed not everything, I'd blabbered quite a bit, sometimes going off onto tangents about my subjects, my family. In any case it was enough to make a shade of redness creep into my face.

"I don't. He's attractive." I replied back.

He didn't reply for a long time after that, and I nearly walked in the complete wrong direction when I realised we weren't heading to the same class, but eventually he stopped to look down at me.

I got a strange feeling in my stomach when he looked at me that I couldn't put a label on.

He stepped in, moving close to me all of a sudden, and my heart thumped in my chest out of surprise. I looked up at him, a hand automatically raising, fingertips just barely grazing his shirt. "You-"

"Then ask him out."

"He's straight, you know that..." I replied, puzzled.

He definitely knew that, I mentioned his girlfriend in the diary, he'd read out a passage refencing her right back to me. And even if he wasn't I still wasn't in his league.

"If you say so." He replied with a silken tone as he exited through the automatic double glass doors.

~⌣︵⌣︵⌣︵⌣︵⌣︵⌣~

IT was the only class with some kind of barrier, some of the desks even having actual felt boards between them for those doing exams on them, and there had been less of those lot in the class in the past as well.

As it was about four of the most familiar faces, Patrick, Adam, Nick and Tariq, were still there huddled together laughing between each other.

I didn't have to look at them though, in fact looking required leaning slightly to look past the blue felt board.

Patrick hadn't even looked in my direction much recently. He still glared if he saw me and looked pissed all the time but I couldn't help but wonder what exactly was going through his head. Maybe they'd found a new target? Patrick certainly seemed to be busy with something.

I tapped my pen on the table slowly, turning it in between my fingers, lazily staring at the screen, scrolling with my left hand.

I could hear them playing a video just around the corner, maybe a metre away.

Mrs Shaw, the IT teacher, put me in a corner on purpose, most of the other desks weren't as well hidden as mine. Although I never really understood if she did so to keep the other boys from being distracted by me or to protect me. Somehow a lot of the teachers never really understood that I was being hurt by them, not just mocked.

I scrolled down the webpage a little further, leaning forwards as I found something interesting.

Haley Norway.

It had never really occurred to me just how well and how little I knew the guys that bullied me over the years. In a flash one month of jabs and jokes at my expense had turned into a year, a year of more aggressive jokes and punches and shoves had turned into three and then four.

It was a long time to not even know the name of Pierson's girlfriend. I only knew in the back of my head that he had one and only just, if I'd seen the two together I didn't remember it.

These days my head felt so clear that it almost felt like a superpower. It only took a little searching online to figure out what her name was.

Haley Norway. She was pretty, I liked whatever she was doing with her hair to make it curly, slightly chubby I guess, freckles... Honestly she looked a little too nice to be dating someone like him but people could surprise you.

They were linked on a site called Kaoway which the majority of people in our school used. I'd never signed up because I knew I wouldn't get anything out of it. There was a calling and group texting function too, with widget games the moderators could install, that kind of thing.

While lacking the actual function to state people were dating those dating would make it public by linking their profiles, which allowed their significant others to post on their pages.

She didn't attend the same school, and further digging saw that they had met at a horse riding camp, which wasn't what I expected.

I wondered if he was embarrassed of her. Linked up but didn't actually post it as an update on his page, didn't post pictures together with her and didn't mention her anywhere, but on Haley's page the first thing I saw was her holding hands with him, the photo taken from above, accompanied by a little poem she had written.

I clicked to message her and it asked me to log in, I nearly forgot I didn't even have an account with Kaoway.

I hummed and filled in my email address an a random date of birth and then frowned for a while.

What should my name be?

I leaned sideways to look over at the raucous laughter coming from the group.

In fact the only one to notice me looking was Adam, who smiled at me, took the phone from his friend and pulled up something, faced the screen toward me and made a shovelling motion toward his mouth.

The video was of me, my lip bleeding and my face slightly red and swollen as he forced my mouth shut over the gravel.

I blinked at it. I hadn't realised he'd taken a video, not a long one, but up closer enough.

I looked back at Adam and smiled back at him.

I saw his smile relax slightly, eyebrow raise as he stared at me, and I pulled back behind the barrier.

He was the one that was obsessed with that game they were all playing on their phones occasionally, kept leaning over to tell people to 'take part in the war' and not forget to use up their fights, that he'd donated troops.

I checked his page. Impala's Regime.  He even had his username in his bio.

golemfücker8900

That username, surprisingly, was available.

I fleshed out the profile a bit more and then added Haley as a friend and sent her a message.

Me:   hey

Me:   youre crazy cute

Me:   love the poetry...

[A/N]  Okay! This is the second update, and now sleep! Tomorrow He's Just a Skater Boy.... Warm thank you's to the WPC and my supporters on patreon. Serving my Master has a nearly finished chapter that will be posted soon as well. Goodnight!  ᶻ 𝗓 𐰁 . . . (:˒[￣]