Chapter 1: Leo gets beat
Leo hesitantly poked at a sore spot that was quickly bruising into a motley purple and yellow mess on his jaw. It was so large that it took up the whole lower side of his face below his ear, and every heart beat sent a noticeable pulse through it. It was painful, but not nearly enough to keep him from scowling darkly at the gray tile on the floor like it had personally given it to him.
The gray tile floor was made darker by the dimmed lights of the cool, long hallway lined with false wooden doors on both sides that muffled the sound of activity going on in each classroom. Leo sat alone outside the largest door in the hall, kicking at the wooden legs of his unforgivingly stiff chair, and avoided looking at the mockingly empty chairs across from him. He glanced down the hall when one of the classrooms erupted into muffled laughter behind a closed door, and then applauded loud enough for him to hear cheers echo mockingly at him.
He looked with dismay down at the backpack laying innocently on the white tile by his chair before he hunched down and sank as deep into his blue hoodie as possible. The classroom laughed again, and Leo covered his ears and slid back in his chair with a groan.
"You had to do it, didn't you?" He darkly muttered to himself as he wearily rubbed his dark eyes in exasperation. "You literally could not help yourself, you just had to jump in the middle of something that was none of your business whatsoever. You could have let it go, could have gone to the library and met up with Riley like you were supposed to but nooo forget rehearsing, let's be stupid and play hero!"
He smacked his hand over his face and left it there. He took a deep breath and held it for a moment, mentally considering the possibility of just running down the hall to his class, never mind the office visit, then exhaled and slumped deeper into his chair. What was the point? He was screwed either way.
The door next to his chair opened and flooded the hall with artificially white light. With a deep sigh he heaved himself out of the stupidly stiff chair and grabbed his bag off the floor. Without looking up or saying a word, he dragged his feet into the office and dropped into one of the overly familiar obnoxious yellow cushioned chairs in front the white plastic desk next to a hatefully sunny window overlooking the back field. There wasn't even enough justice in the world for it to be cloudy.
He glanced up when a portly yellow monstrosity of a woman came from behind him and plopped primly behind the desk without so much as glancing at him. She plucked up a pair of pink glasses hung by white beads around strung around her neck from her oversized chest and perched them on her nose. She skimmed over something on the screen of the giant hulking dinosaur of a computer and her placid expression soured like curdled milk. She pursed her lips with an exaggeratedly disappointed sigh before she finally turned her head to look over the rim of her glasses at Leo.
"Mr. Hamato, do you like to visit this office?" She drawled.
Leo tried to keep his expression pleasant, but the corner of his lip begged to twitch up into a sneer.
"Of course not, Ms. Maggie."
"Really? Then tell me why is it you're sitting in front of me for the third time in two weeks for starting a fight in the middle of the cafeteria! Mr. Hamato I believed that during our previous visit you promised that you were not going to involve yourself in anymore such tom foolery! You are more than aware of the consequences of such actions, yet you seem extremely determined that you will not only involve yourself in such, but start it time and time again! Dare I ask what your excuse is this time?"
Leo fisted his hands into his backpack and stated bluntly. "I didn't start the fight. This is the millionth time I've said that I never start the fights, it's either me defending myself or me trying to help when Flame picks on the weaker kids. I never throw the first punch but no one ever seems to remember that! If you would just-"
Ms. Maggie exhaled knowingly and turned back to the computer. "Mr. Hamato, you've used that excuse over and over again but as with every time there is no proof of Mr. Flame ever doing such a thing. Meanwhile, I have several testimonies of teachers stating that the when they witnessed these fights it was you 'throwing the first punch' as you called it. Mr. Flame is a model student, these…arguments only seem to occur when your temperament is added to the mix." She sighed and began typing on the computer.
Leo inhaled to make a scathing retort to that piece of slander; it was ridiculous enough that Flame was getting away with murder again, but for Leo to be dragged down in his place? It was almost more then he could stand.
He bit his tongue and released the breath slowly. The situation was bad enough; he didn't have to make it worse by proving the Ogre right. He sat further back in his seat and tried his best to look calm.
"If that is what everyone has decided. Can I have my detention slip and go now? I've already missed giving my part in my foreign language presentation, I'd rather not miss handing in my English essay too. If you don't mind of course. Ma'am." He could be polite if he wanted to, dammit. He should've known better then to hope anything would change. He stood and swung the backpack on his shoulder.
Ms. Maggie reached out to his side of the desk and tapped it twice before pointing at him.
"I'm afraid that I not only mind, but am going to have to skip giving you detention this time Mr. Hamato."
He looked up in confusion. "…What do you mean?"
She didn't look away from her computer, but she did purse her lips and gave the keyboard one last stab before spinning away towards the printer behind her. The machine grinded loudly and started up, painstakingly printing out what looked like a form of some sort. Ms. Maggie, the Pink Ogre of the Knights School of Manhattan, plucked it up and shook it out like an old photograph before signing it. She stood up and held it out expectantly.
"I'm afraid I'm going to have to suspend you."