The new guy was one of those 'too cool for school' punks, totally cliché, leather clad, and fucking adorable – but would he ever go for a guy like Gerard Way? Probably not, like, he probably wouldn't even go for a guy, and it wasn't worth the rejection to find out, so Gerard just low-key admired him from afar with the rest of the girls.

Now, Mikey Way on the other hand, thought otherwise. He encouraged Gerard to go for it – talk to the guy, get to know him, and if nothing else at least he'd know him on a friend level. But Gerard argued that someone like that would probably just laugh at someone like him and never even give him a second thought, and that was pretty much the end of that conversation.

The guy's name was Frank Iero, and from what Gerard saw, he kind of only ever hung out with Ray Toro – the local badass notorious for playing guitar like a god. The two of them were too intimidating to fuck with, that went without saying for the entire student body and probably even the rest of the school systems in the area – and maybe the latter part of that was just a theory Gerard had, but he'd totally believe it.

So when Frank nodded at Gerard in the hallway with a cute little smile on his face, Gerard blushed like mad for five minutes straight, and Mikey noticed. And pointed it out. Loudly.

"Dude, why are you red?" Mikey laughed. Oh the trials and tribulations of having lockers right beside one another. Normally, that'd be bonus to this school, but not today, not right now, not when Gerard's face is beet red after his crush smiled and nodded at him. "Are you blushing?"

Gerard tried to play it off and busied himself with exchanging books.

"No, no way." He shrugged, not glancing back up at Mikey yet.

Mikey closed his own locker and faced Gerard – he wasn't convinced.

"What did he do this time?" Mikey asked. Really, he was just guessing, but Gerard clumsily knocking a pen out of his locker was enough to indicate that Mikey was right.

"Nothing – who are we talking about?" Gerard asked, picking up the pen and placing it back in the locker, careful to avoid eye contact with Mikey the whole time. He tried to keep his expression as neutral as possible.

The bell rang and kids walked past them in a hurry. Gerard silently thanked the higher power for getting him out of this situation before it got any more embarrassing.

Mikey sighed overdramatically and started to back away. "You suck at lying, y'know. If you don't talk to Frank, I'm gonna talk to him for you."

"Talk to me about what?" Frank's voice cut in.

Mikey's attention turned to behind Gerard, and Gerard spun around wide eyed, because holy shit. He fucking heard.

Frank stood there innocently and cutely – so fucking cutely. Gerard wanted to sink through the floor and never be seen again. Fuck. Ray could obviously see that he and Frank had just interrupted something, be it Mikey's expression which was somewhere between startled and ready to bust out laughing or his brother looking like a mortified lobster at that point, so he smartly kept walking and waved at Frank.

It felt like a couple of centuries passed in the span of a couple of seconds, and Gerard kind of forgot someone had to answer Frank, and out of the corner of his eye he could see that Mikey was still backing up slowly, falling in behind Ray.

Shit.

"I gotta get to class, sorry." Mikey said, even though he was so not sorry and they both knew it.

Fuck.

Frank looked at Gerard expectantly. The hallway was just a few kids away from being empty and he wasn't sure if that thudding sound was foot steps or his heart beating right out of his chest.

"You okay?" Frank asked casually.

All Gerard could manage was a nod.

Frank smiled softly, "We probably shouldn't be late to class."

"No, yeah. Right." Gerard said, which was just super fucking eloquent.

Okay – inhale, exhale. It wasn't that hard, but Gerard was having difficulty.

"I have math next. You?" Frank asked, slowly starting towards the direction of his next class just like the other guys did, meanwhile Gerard had stayed put and it made him feel self conscious. He told himself to move – do something, don't just stand there.

"Math." Gerard replied. As if this couldn't get more awkward, they were now going the same way. Gerard started to follow Frank.

"Oh, your locker." Frank said.

Gerard looked back at his locker door hanging ajar. Brilliant, that was fucking brilliant. Gerard's face was reaching new shades of red and his heart was probably beating so fast he was about to suffer from cardiac arrest, that is, if he wasn't already – oh, and not to mention what Frank probably thought of him now. How's that for an actual first impression? Death looked sweet.

So, yeah. It wasn't a good first impression, and Gerard couldn't stop thinking about it for the rest of the day. And night. And the memory came right back the next morning. He contemplated faking sick the next day but ended up going to school anyway, it's not like it could've possibly been worse than yesterday, right?

Gerard regretted everything the second he stepped onto school property – but maybe there wasn't a reason to. It left Gerard questioning every embarrassing thing that happened the day prior when Frank said hi to him. He said hi to him.

And he sat at the same table at lunch. Gerard tried to think of it as a way to redeem himself, and surprisingly, it just might've worked for once – because as it turned out, they were into the same bands and comics, and Frank was genuinely nice to Gerard.

After the initial panic upon first seeing him, and then the overwhelming sensation of butterflies the size of bats when they first started talking, it felt good to be around Frank. He was sweet and kind, totally unlike the punk vibe he gave off, and Gerard fell hard and fast for him.

Now if only Gerard knew how Frank felt about him.