Life has been a rut for Mark. Wake up at 7AM, be at school by 8AM, go to class, go home, do homework, shower, sleep, repeat. He's tried to get out of it many times; he even dyed his hair a bright red. But after 3 years, the gods have finally answered his prayers and blessed him with a new classmate. A new person to talk to and possibly a new friend to make! Only problem is, it's been a month and nothing's different.
Mark was quietly playing with his pencil between his fingers as Mr. Clutch lectured about the Pythagorean Theorem. He didn't want to know about the three sides of a triangle, he wanted to know more about the silent green-haired man at the back of the room. He turned around in his seat to look at him.
There was a soft knock on the door and Ms. Lemons paused to look out the window of the door. A man Mark's height with green hair walked into the room.
"Uh, hi. I'm Sean, the new student. Are you Ms. Lemons and is this Science class?" He asked in his Irish accent.
"Ah, yes, I was expecting you." She smiled and turned him around to look at the class, "Class, this is our new classmate Sean McLoughlin."
Everyone gave him a bored "Hi, Sean." Half of them waving weakly.
Ms. Lemons smiles again and turns her attention back to him, "Sean, you can sit wherever you like. There are no assigned seats."
"Thank you."
He avoided eye contact with everyone and went straight to the back row. The teacher continued where she left off and he was already taking notes in his journal.
Not a single word from him after that. Not even when he was insulted and shoved into the lockers by Jake. The times Mark thought about approaching him, he didn't look like he wanted to talk to anyone. He figured it was because he was in a new place and he was stressed out but his body language or facial expression never changed so he just never said anything.
Once the bell finally rang to signal the end of class, he pretended to try and get his stuff together as if it was truly a hassle just so he could walk with him to his next class. Once he felt that he stalled enough time and half the class was out of the room, he stood up and walked alongside the bothered-looking introvert. 'He probably just needs a friend.'He thought.
"Hey, Sean, right?" He started happily.
He received an emotionless, quick, glance. He took that as his way of saying 'hello' back.
"I'm Mark, I noticed that you were having a little trouble getting used to the school and thought I'd show you that it's not nearly as bad as you might think. We could do something together at lunch or recess if you'd like-" Sean opened his locker to switch out books and continued to his next class "- You could even come to my place tonight, I can help you with whatever homework you have and we can go see a movie or something-"
"Look," He stopped both of them in their tracks and finally made eye contact with him, "I get you're trying to be nice and friendly but I don't do the whole "friend" thing. I'm not into it, so please stop trying and leave me alone."
He disappeared into his Literature classroom and the door closed on Mark. He stood there for a few seconds before he finally went to his locker. 'How can somebody simply not "do the whole "friend" thing"?' Switching out books, he approached his own Literature class. He took the occasional note, while thinking about Sean in between. 'He says he doesn't do the whole "friend thing" but his eyes said something else.'
"Mark!" Mrs. Kramer called startling him out of his thoughts, "In Chapter 25 of "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer", Huck Finn says he'll spend his fortune on things he enjoys. What does Tom say he'll spend it on?"
It took him a minute to clear his thoughts of green hair. "Uh…" He remembers never finishing the book and even wondered if he got that far to begin with. "Um… He… Wants to spend it on… food…?"
"Wrong! He said he would save it for his future marriage. This is something all of you should learn from. If you find yourself with a lot of money, save it for the important things in life otherwise you won't have what you need."
Mark slumped in his chair a little bit in mild embarrassment. Then felt a tap on his shoulder.
He turned around, "Didn't read it either, huh?" Bob asked quietly.
"I thought I did. I guess I was remembering a different book."
"Don't worry, I don't think anyone did."
He chuckled, feeling a little better, and turned his attention back to the front of the classroom. A folded piece of paper on his desk caught his attention. 'I don't remember folding anything.' He opened it to see poor handwriting saying,
Saw you talking to Sean earlier. Don't bother he's not friendly. I tried, too, and
he was a little harsher with me than he was with you. He's not worth it.
'"He's not worth it"? But everyone's worth it and, you know what? Everyone deserves a friend.' He couldn't tell who sent him the note but it didn't matter. They were just unlucky with their attempt, and he was, too, but what that guy didn't have which Mark does is determination.
Once the bell rang, he was the first to leave the room to try and catch up with Sean. Grabbing his lunch bag from his locker and walking into the lunch room, he didn't see any sign of green hair and decided to find a seat now and call him over when he sees him. A few minutes later, Wade and Bob soon found their seats next to him and began to eat and talk. Mark was too trained on the door to focus on their conversation, only taking a bite of his sandwich every now and then. But after about 20 minutes, it was clear that he wasn't going to come in.
"Hey, have either of you seen Sean?" Mark asked his friends.
"I saw him walking down the hall but lost sight of him when he stopped at his locker to put away his book." Wade answered.
"Isn't he in your Literature class?" Bob asked.
"Yeah, real quiet dude. Almost scary. I once asked him for a pencil and he just looked at me a few seconds as though he was trying to decide whether or not to stab me with it. He handed me one and went right back to drawing in his notebook. Not a word. I was too nervous to hand it back to him after class."
"Did… Did you happen to try talking to him at one point?"
"Not after that, no. That was the only time. Why?"
He was going to ask about the note but quickly realized that it was handed to him DURING class. He would have had to be in the same room to give it to him. "Just curious." He grabbed his empty lunch bag and stood up, "I'm going to go see if he got lost on his way or something."
"You sure you want to do that?" Bob pulled out his phone to look at the time, "Lunch is going to end in about 5 minutes. I'm sure he found a spot somewhere in the hallway or something."
"I could at least find him and show him where it is for tomorrow so he can actually sit with us. Wade, why don't you give me his pencil and I'll hand it back to him when I see him."
"Be my guest."
He put the pencil in his pocket and began searching the hallways. He was about to check outside next until the bell rang. He put his lunch bag in the trash and went outside for recess. He sat under the tree he always spent his time at during recess and was about to write another entry in his journal when something green caught his attention. He looked up and saw Sean walking into the building. Taking a mental note of this, he made sure to remember coming outside during lunch tomorrow. When Sean disappeared, Wade and Bob appeared and went to go sit with Mark.
"Sean was eating outside?" Bob asked.
"Looks like it, I'll be sure to check here tomorrow." Mark replied.
"Are you sure you should even approach him?" Wade asked, "It doesn't look like he really wants any friends right now. Maybe he didn't get lost but actively avoided the lunch room."
"I actually talked to him this morning after second period and he told me himself that he doesn't "do the whole "friend" thing.""
"Well then there you go! Straight from his mouth, he doesn't want- wait, you actually had a conversation with him?"
"Well, not really a conversation. I approached him and said 'Hey, I'm Mark,' he looked at me, I started talking to him about coming to my place tonight and seeing a movie and he stops me saying he knows I'm trying to be friendly but he doesn't want it."
"Aaaaaaand you're going to ignore that and keep trying?"
"Not ignore it but play a little safer. Instead of just talking nonsense, I'll try asking him a question to get him talking, too."
"But… He said 'no.'"
"If my second try doesn't get me anywhere, then I'll leave him alone completely, I promise."
Bob covered his face with both hands then sighed. He took that as an 'okay do whatever you want.'
Wade started another topic and as the three of them talked, Mark would glance at the doors waiting for him to come back outside. When he did come back outside, he went straight to the fence to lean on it and put earphones in to cancel out the world. He watched his head bob slightly as he looked at the sky, the trees, and the students scattered around the area. Then they made eye contact. Sean looked away just as quickly and pretended he was more interested in his phone. Mark took that as his signal to try talking to him once more and stood up to do just that but before taking a step forward he saw Jake walk up to him first.
'Oh no.'
"Hey, tough guy." He taunted Sean.
"Hey, Jake, come on-" Mark started walking in their direction to stop what he knew was coming but Bob grabbed his wrist.
Mark looked down at him questioningly and he just shook his head telling him to just leave it be.
He tried to tug his arm back as his way of showing strong disagreement.
"Hey, bitch!"
The sudden shout kept Mark still as he whipped his head back around. He had yanked Jack's earphones out of his ears, "I'm talking to you!"
"I know you are," Sean replied glaring at him, "I just don't want to have anything to do with you."
He was grabbed by the collar in a flash, "Well too bad, because I want to do a lot of things to you."
He tugged on his arm harder but his large friend only held on tighter.
Sean finally had an expression other than anger and annoyance. Fear. He's shoved against the fence, "If you think you're so tough then why don't you try throwing a punch at me. C'mon, I dare you."
Sean looked flustered. Clearly never having thrown a punch before and debating whether or not he should do it anyway.
"C'mon," He let go then gave a firm shove to his shoulder and continued to do that every few seconds, "I know you can't. Admit it, you're not tough, you're just a fuckin' wannabe. You're just trash."
He and his friends laughed at the last remark. His expression was unreadable and Mark gave one last hard tug almost breaking free but begrudgingly accepted it.
"Right here," Jake pointed to his cheek, "You can't do it can you?"
Sean's hands clenched. Something was happening.
"I knew it, you couldn't do it-" Jake was knocked out cold.
After his body hit the ground, Sean stood there seething and Jake's friends quickly ran back inside to avoid his wrath. Once they had disappeared, Sean took a deep breath and looked down at his hands visibly shaking with alarming intensity. He stuffed them in his pockets and looked around seeing everybody's eyes on him with dropped jaws. Clearly everyone had and were all staring at him or Jake's body with dropped jaws. This was the part where he leaned back against the fence, put his earphones back in and pretended that nothing happened.
Mark gave Bob an angry look. "Told you I should I have intervened." Mark asked.
"What? You KNEW that was going to happen?" Bob replied.
"Not this exact thing but I knew someone was going to get hurt."
His arm was free and Mark debated on whether or not to check on Jake. After few seconds he slowly approached his body and gently shook him. "Hey, Jake, you okay?"
"Do you get it now?!"
Mark jumped at the sudden outburst and looked at Sean.
He watched the doors close behind him, 'What was that?'
His focus was back on Jake he felt his shoulder move from under his hand. "Hey, man, how you feeling?"
With a groan he slowly stood up with Mark's help and rubbed his bruised cheek.
"You want me to take you to the Nurse or something?"
All he got was a glare and a, "Piss off." Then walked into the building. He walked in after him with his friends and grabbed the necessary items for History class from his locker. He closed it just as someone bumped into him. He turned and saw Sean staring back at him.
He looked startled, "Hey, are you okay?"
The response was an annoyed look, "Why are you asking me? Jackass over there was the one who got knocked out because of me."
Before Mark could say anything, Sean shoved him aside and disappeared into the crowd. He sighed and continued to his own class.
Mark sat down in his History class and decided to keep his mind off of Sean for a bit. He'll admit, he was mildly impressed with the amount of strength he had seeing as how thin he was but he was also concerned seeing how the smaller man seemed to have struggled with himself before he threw the punch. Like he was scared to throw the punch and couldn't stop himself.
He never saw Sean again until P.E. the last class of the day. He walked into the locker room to change into his gym clothes and turned a corner just in time to see him remove his shirt.
'Wow, those bruises look really painful.'
He put his gym shirt on and was adjusting it when Mark stepped up to the locker next to his.
"Hey, Sean." A glance in response, "I'm sorry if I was overwhelming you earlier. I was just trying to make you feel more welcome."
"I don't need your help, I'm fine." And with that he went straight to the gym.
Mark bit the inside of his mouth wondering what the best way was to talk to him and if that counted as attempt number two. 'Ah, I'll try again anyway.'
"Good afternoon everyone!" Mr. Allen Called as he walked into the gym. "Today everyone will be paired up for warm-ups instead of going solo. So go find yourselves a partner and if you don't, I'll do it for you."
Everyone had found a partner and were waiting in an appropriate spot in the room. Bob and Wade became a pair which meant Mark could pair up with-
"You're the least annoying," He was suddenly grabbed by the arm by Jake and dragged away