Garen left the classroom at the sound of laughing around the corner. He stepped around the corner and saw Darius and a group of his thugs harassing a girl in the hallway.
"Dammit, Darius, knock it off, would you?" Garen sighed loudly and stepped in between Darius and the girl.
"What are you going to do about it, punk?" Darius growled, glaring at him.
Garen crossed his arms and glared right back. He was not going to be intimidated by Darius like everyone else was. He was the only one that would stand up to him because everyone else was too afraid. It didn't matter to Garen if he was the best basketball player or best wrestler, he was not going to stand idly by while he harassed someone.
"Yeah, that's what I thought, you're too much of a coward." Darius laughed loudly. "Come on, let's leave these two losers."
Garen glared at Darius as he left and rounded the corner with his little gang. He huffed loudly and turned to the girl behind him. "Are you alright?" He asked, helping her up from the ground.
"Y-Yeah… I'm fine." She reassured, brushing off her skirt.
"Why was he harassing you anyways?" Garen asked, kneeling down and picking up all her scattered books.
"I accidently bumped into him." The girl stated simply.
"That sounds about right." Garen sighed and stood up, handing the girl her books.
"Thank you so much for the help." She smiled up at him, standing on her tippy toes and kissing his cheek and turning on her heel to leave.
"N-No problem." He replied, turning bright red as she skipped down the hallway happily.
Garen was standing in the hall smiling to himself as his cellphone rang. "Hello?" He answered it.
"Garen, where the hell are you? You're going to be late for practice!" It was Jarvan.
"Oh, shit, I completely forgot." Garen's eyes widened, the whole situation with Darius and that girl had completely distracted him.
"Get your ass over here!" Jarvan told him and hung up.
Garen stuffed his phone in his pocket and ran down the stairs. The coach was going to be pissed at him if he was late again. He always stayed after class to help Morgana with her Calculus homework. Although Garen didn't want to admit it, he excelled in school, especially math. It was something not a lot of people knew about him because he always hung around with the jock crowd since he was on the football team. A lot to people assumed he was another unintelligent muscle guy that played football, and he let them because he didn't care enough to tell them otherwise.
Garen pushed open the door and stepped outside, the chilly fall air sending a shiver down his spine. He pulled his blue scarf out of his backpack and wrapped it around his neck before heading to the football field. He would have run there, but he had some shred of dignity. So instead, he walked at a brisk pace, letting the scarf blow in the wind behind him.
Garen arrived at the field about ten minutes late. His teammates had already started drills as he walked up, hoping to sneak by the coach and slip into the locker rooms.
"CROWNGUARD." The coach bellowed across the field, making Garen nearly jump out of his skin. Garen gulped and looked over to him slowly. The coach had a very angry expression on his face and signaled for Garen to come over to him. "Did I tell you all to stop?" He yelled, looking back at all the players on the field, causing them all to very hurriedly continued their drills.
"What do you think you're doing, Crownguard?" The coach asked angrily as Garen approached.
"Going to change into my uniform?" Garen replied like a smart-ass.
"Funny." The coach's face showed he was not amused with his response. "Why are you late again?"
"I was helping a friend with her homework." Garen answered honestly, averting his attention to the scarf around his neck.
"Homework? Why are you wasting your time helping someone else? You need to be here for practice." The coach told him sternly, glaring at Garen.
"Well… I'm sorry, she needed help." Garen rubbed the back of his head, still not making eye contact.
"Just get into your uniform, you're going to be doing stairs for the entirety of practice." The coach dismissed him.
"B-But! I need to be practicing with the team to go over plays!" Garen exclaimed, looking at the coach now.
"You should have thought about that before you were late again." The coach shrugged and crossed his arms.
Garen sighed loudly and walked towards the locker room, his head hung in shame. Not only were stairs the worst, doing them alone let the entire team know you were in trouble. While Garen was extraordinary when it came to physical attributes, cardio, and overall strength, stairs was always a tough exercise, even for him.
Garen entered the empty locker room and opened his locker, setting his backpack in there and removing the scarf from around his neck. He wasn't particularly thrilled to be putting his uniform on, so he took his time. Once he was fully changed into his uniform, he sat on the bench and put his hands in his head. He felt very stressed out and he wasn't even sure why. It seemed to be a mixture of things: football, schoolwork, that girl that Darius was harassing, Darius himself. Garen sighed loudly and stood, exiting the locker room and stepping onto the field.
The coach was watching him sternly, pointing to the stairs where the stadium seats were. Garen sighed loudly and began up the stairs slowly at first before turning it into a run. He reached the top with ease and then ran back down. That was it. Up and down. Over and over.
After an hour he stopped at the top for a moment, drenched in sweat. He wiped his brow with the back of his head and looked at his teammates still going over drills. His eyes wondered a moment until he saw him; Darius. He was walking past the field with some of his basketball buddies. Garen squinted a little and noticed Darius was watching him, smirking. Garen grit his teeth and glared back.
"CROWNGUARD." His coach bellowed, making him jump and snapping his attention away from Darius.
Garen started again, running down the stairs. Darius watched him the entire time until he was no longer in sight. Not only did his team know he was being punished, but now Darius knew. Garen grit his teeth again. That guy really ticked him off. He left his jaw slacken again. Gritting his teeth was too much work when he was as exhausted as he was.
Finally practice ended and Garen stood at the bottom of the stairs, covering head to toe in sweat. He was leaned over, his hands on his knees, breathing heavily. Two hours of stairs was too much, even for him. His main focus now was trying not to vomit on the field.
"Hey, nice job, Crownguard," The coach slapped his back, "didn't think you'd be able to do stairs the entire time."
Garen grunted in annoyance, unable to speak be was so tired. Jarvan walked over and pulled his helmet off. He grabbed one of Garen's arms and put it around his shoulder. He half walked, half carried Garen to the locker room and set him on the bench.
"Dude, Garen, you really need to come on time," Jarvan told him, sitting next to him,
"Yeah, thanks," Garen huffed loudly, rolling his eyes and removing his jersey, tossing it on the ground at his feet before removing his shoulder pads and chest pads and setting them on top of the jersey.
"Dude, have you been working out more?" Jarvan asked. "Your abs look even better than last time I saw them."
"Yeah, here and there," Garen admitted, still breathing hard, trying to catch his breath.
"You'll have to show me what you do sometime, but for now, I need to go shower and leave. I'm supposed to meet Shyvana for dinner." Jarvan stood and clapped Garen on the back. "Be on time for practice next time." He laughed and headed to the showers.
Garen laid down on the bench and put one arm over his eyes and let the other hang off the edge and brush against the ground. Not only was he exhausted, but he was also pissed that Darius smirked at him like that. He knew Darius did things to piss him off intentionally, but he couldn't help but get angry. He slowly shut his eyes when his breathing regulated. He didn't care how uncomfortable the bench was, he was so tired it felt like a soft bed. He slowly dozed off.
"Hey, Garen," Someone was shaking him awake.
Garen slowly opened his eyes and blinked a couple of time. "Xin?" He asked groggily and sat up.
"You fell asleep, everyone already left." Xin informed him and opened his locker to get his backpack.
Garen stretched his arms above his head and yawned. "How long was out?"
"I dunno… maybe an hour?" Xin shrugged. "I wasn't really paying attention."
"An hour!? What are you still doing here?" Garen stood up and grabbed a towel.
"I thought I'd let you sleep a little longer," He shrugged again. "You looked exhausted after having to run all those stairs."
"Thanks, Xin," Garen smiled at him, "and yeah, I was super tired."
"Well… have a nice night, Garen," Xin waved at him and left the locker room.
"You too," Garen waved back. He stood there for a second, towel slung over his shoulder, looking around the empty locker room. He wasn't sure if he had ever been in the locker room by himself. He shrugged and walked into the shower room. He was already shirtless so he removed his pants and boxers and turned the water on.
He turned the water as cold as it would go and stood under it. The icy water splashed onto him, sending a shiver down his spine. Garen enjoyed cold showers, but he never got used to that initial shock of cold water hitting his body. He closed his eyes and let the water run from his head, off his hair, and run down his body. He sighed loudly, trying to let himself relax under the water's cold touch.
After an abnormally long shower, Garen finally shut the water off and grabbed his towel, drying his hair. Sleeping for an hour on a bench did not do much to make him less tired. He yawned loudly and dried his back, thinking about what he was going to go eat after he got changed because he was starving.
He finished drying himself and wrapped the towel around his waist before leaving the showers. He shivered feeling the cool air touch his skin as he grabbed a new pair of boxers and put them on. The towel dropped from around his waist to the floor as he pulled up a pair of jeans. The weather had been strange the last few days; a lot colder than it normally was in September.
Garen thought he heard footsteps as he pulled the shirt down over his head. In the momentary darkness from the shirt obscuring his vision, Darius had managed to appear. Garen froze, shirt only halfway pulled down as he stared at Darius, more in surprise than anything else.
"What are you doing here?" Garen huffed, pulling his shirt down all the way and turning to pick up the towel that had dropped on the locker room floor.
"Saw the light on, thought I'd check it out," he shrugged.
"Well, you checked it out, now you can leave," Garen retrieved his backpack from his locker before promptly locking it.
"I saw you doing stairs… someone get in trouble?" Darius was smirking in his usual cocksure way.
"Fuck off, Darius," Garen growled in response.
"Quite the mouth on you, huh?" Darius grinned devilishly.
"Why are you really here?" Garen turned around and glared at him, annoyed that he wouldn't leave. He expected it had to do with the girl in the hallway from earlier.
"Like I said, I saw the light on and came to check it out," He took a step closer, the grin never leaving his face.
Gare huffed loudly, figuring he was going to have to fight Darius. The last thing he needed was to suffer any injuries that would take him out of football practice. If he couldn't play in the next game, his team would surely lose. "Can we just not?" He glared continued to glare at him.
"Not what, Garen?" Darius took yet another step closer.
"God damn it, Darius," he grumbled and dropped his backpack to the floor, watching him with cautious eyes. This was the absolute last thing he needed. "What? Did I hurt your pride or something?"
They were face to face now; eye to eye. Darius was just a little bit taller, but it wasn't noticeable unless you examined their height. His green eyes staring into Garen's blue ones.
"What the hell-" But Garen was cut off when Darius closed the gap and pressed their lips together. Garen was stunned momentarily; eyes wide, muscles tense, heart slamming against his ribcage.
It was a second or two before Garen regained his sense and shoved Darius… hard. "What the hell?!" Garen shouted angrily, breathing hard, heart still pounding in his chest. His blue eyes were still wide and his face showed a more frightened expression than actually angry. Darius stood a few feet away, arms crossed and a cocky smirk on his face.
An awkward silence fell over the locker room. Both Garen and Darius stood there watching each other, neither of them moving for a few moments. "I'll see you around, Garen." Darius continued smirking as he turned and heading to the locker room door.
"Like hell you will," Garen growled, finally finding his voice again and trying to wipe the taste of Darius' lips off his own.
"Oh, I will," Darius looked back and gave a somewhat sinister grin before unlocking the door and leaving Garen alone in the locker room.
Garen stood there a second, finally processing everything that happened. He put his head in his hands and took a deep breath. It appeared his heart didn't want to stop hammering inside his chest. He pulled on a sweatshirt and threw his bag over his shoulder, leaving the locker room as quickly as he could.
A cool blast of air sent a shiver down his spine as he stepped outside. Retrieving his scarf, once again, from his backpack, he wrapped it around his neck. He buried his face into the blue scarf as he walked. Why on earth would Darius kiss him? And, what's more, why had he enjoyed it so much? He could feel what felt like a permanent blush on his face as he walked, the wind tugging the blue scarf around his neck as he went.