Phil navigates through the halls, trying to find his way to his first class, Chemistry. Glancing into a classroom as he passes it, he sees lab tables and science instruments cluttering the cabinets. Ok, so I'm in the science wing, Phil thinks with relief. Pulling out his phone, he presses the lock button to view his screensaver. It was a picture of his schedule so that he could see it easily during the first weeks of school before he had his schedule memorized, which was a handy tip he'd picked up a couple years ago.
Phil continues walking down the hallway until he reaches classroom 154. He takes a breath before he goes in, and then passes through the doorway. The classroom is about halfway full, only a few kids scattered at some desks with the rest standing in small groups and talking to each other. A bout of laughter resonates from one group in the corner, and Phil suddenly feels very overwhelmed. However, he steels himself and, taking Dan's approach, Phil makes his way to the empty desk in the corner of the room. He sets his bag on the floor and slides into the chair.
"Um, hi, is anyone sitting here?" Phil looks up from his seat to see a girl, with light blonde hair and light blue eyes, standing over him. "Oh! Er, no, go ahead," Phil replies with a small smile. "Cool, thanks!" She pulls out the chair next to Phil and drops into the seat. "I'm Peyton, by the way. You're Phil, right?" "Um, yeah, how did you know?" He asks confusedly. "Oh, everyone's talking about a gorgeous new football player who looked at me with his adorable blue eyes!" Peyton fawns dramatically, obviously quoting someone she overheard on the way to the class. Phil laughs, and they settle into an easy conversation about the day so far.
A minute later, the bell rings shrilly and the teacher walks into the room. "Alright, alright, class, take your seats!" He calls, setting papers on his desk. Once everyone scrambles into seats next to their friends, the teacher stands back up front. "I'm Mr. O'Brien, your chemistry teacher this year," he says with a smile. "Now, first order of business.."
The class passes slowly, as Mr. O'Brien goes through the syllabus, lab safety procedures, where everything is in the classroom, and other typical first day things. The only thing that makes the dull class a bit better are Phil and Peyton's funny remarks they whisper to each other.
"Alright, thank you for paying such good attention the entire period. I know it was boring, but these rules are especially important in a chemistry classroom! Remember to sign your papers for tomorrow, and you have a minute to pack up and chat with your friends," Mr. O'Brien finishes up the class.
The students all begin to gather their things and cluster around the doorway. Phil reaches down to grab his backpack and stands, as Peyton picks up her bag and faces Phil. "So.. how many times do I have to flirt with you before you ask for my number?" She asks with a coy smile. "But don't mention that 'we have chemistry together', that's so cliche," she rolls her eyes and smiles again. "Wait, what? That-that was flirting?" Phil asks in surprise. "Um, yeah," Peyton says with a little frown, clearly offended. Phil immediately regrets what he said. "Oh! No, no, no, don't take that the wrong way. It's just, I have a hard time recognizing when people are flirting with me," he explains, his cheeks heating up. "Ah, ok." She brushes a strand of hair from her face, relieved that it was Phil's fault he didn't pick up on her hinting, not her flawed flirting abilities. "So, does this mean you still want my number?" Peyton asks expectantly.
"Well, no," he says. "It's just, you're not really my type," he says with a little grin. The bell rings, and students start to file out the door, along with the teacher. However, Peyton doesn't follow. "What, pretty, funny, girls aren't your type?" She snaps. Phil can see she's trying to cover her humiliation with anger. "Um, not exactly." Phil looks around to make sure everyone has left the room before looking back to Peyton. "See, more like girls in general aren't really my type." Peyton looks puzzled for a moment again, before the realization hits her. "Oh! Oh, god, I'm sorry for hitting on you then," she says, blushing. "..and yelling at you." She apologizes with a wince. "No, it's ok, it's flattering really," Phil reassures her. "And don't worry about it, I'm sure I'd be mad if someone told me I wasn't his type. But.. can you keep this quiet for a little while? I'm the new kid, and I don't want anyone finding out until I'm ready for people to know," he says.
"Yeah, of course!" Peyton responds. "Thanks for telling me, though, I know you didn't plan to," she says awkwardly with a little smile. "It's no big deal, I just thought you should know so you didn't feel bad," he says, starting to walk to the door. Peyton follows, they say their goodbyes, and both turn separate ways off to each their next class.
Dan's first classes pass by uneventfully. His friend Lucas was in his first period, and his other friend Nathan was in his second period class. Then third period rolls around. Dan, again, beelines straight to the desk in the back corner, which, thankfully, was empty. He settles in to the chair, ignoring everyone standing around him, and places his bag on the floor. "Hey, Howell," A voice growls from above him. Dan looks up, straight into the eyes of the biggest linebacker on the football team, Aaron. Dan gulps. "Hey, Aaron, how was your summer?" He says weakly. "What do you care? I'm trying to tell you you're in my seat. So get. the hell. out of it," Aaron snarls. "I didn't see your stuff here," Dan retaliates calmly, but his voice shakes, giving away his false sense of bravery. "So I sat down. This is my seat now." He couldn't believe what he was doing! Do you have a death wish?! Just get out of the fucking chair! His brain thought violently. But a small, defiant part of himself wouldn't let him do it. Sometime during the summer, he must've vowed not to have a repeat of the year before, and Dan just couldn't let himself give in so easy.
Aaron's face reddens (he never had a good temper), and Dan hurriedly begins to rethink standing up for himself. But then, "Hey! What's up guys?" Lucas comes to the rescue. Aaron rounds on him. "You're little friend is in my seat." "I don't see you sitting in it," Lucas replies. Just as Dan starts planning Lucas' funeral, the bell rings and a thin woman floats into the room. "Class, class! Take your seats!" She calls to the group of students. Aaron grunts. "You got lucky this time, Howell," he sneers. Lucas slips into the chair next to Dan while Aaron shuffles across the room to join two of his teammates at a table.
"Thanks, bro," Dan whispers to Lucas. With brown, curly hair and freckles dotting his cheeks, Lucas was an outgoing and hilarious guy, so Dan wasn't very surprised when Lucas defended him. On the other hand, he was surprised because Lucas tried to keep everything light-hearted and hated confrontation. "No problem, dude. This is the year for change - we're not gonna repeat last year," he voices Dan's private resolution. "I'm really sorry I didn't have the guts to stand up for you last year, and I promise not to let you go through that shit again." Dan nods gratefully, a bit embarrassed if he was being honest, but still completely thankful to have a friend like Lucas.
However, they still hurry very quickly out of the room at the end of class - although they'd agreed to not let the football players push Dan around again, why wait around for the trouble to walk right up to them? Of course, this was the only reason for Dan's haste. Definitely not to see the beautiful boy he had met earlier that morning and get to know him better at lunch...
Lucas chats to Dan about how he got to see his favorite band in concert over the summer, and convinces him to look the band up after school and listen to their music. Their conversation is cut short, sadly, when Dan has to turn a hallway to reach his locker. "See ya, Luke," Dan calls over his shoulder. "I'll meet you at lunch!" Lucas shouts after him, much to the surrounding students' dismay as the noise cuts through the air.
Dan makes his way to his locker and swiftly unlocks it, then deposits his books at the bottom and swaps them out for materials he needed for the afternoon, glancing over his shoulder every so often to see if he could spot that black mop of hair above the crowd.
But it never comes.
The seconds tick by as Dan waits, rearranging his locker's contents to pass the time. Soon the school's fight song plays over the loudspeakers, signaling one minute until the bell rings, and Dan finally closes his locker and heads to the cafeteria. He slips inside the door just a few moments before the bell rings, scans the room for his friends, and slides into a table on the edge of the large room next to Lucas. "Hey, guys," Dan greets his friends sitting at the table - Nathan and Lucas, of course, and two others Dan hadn't seen yet today, Emmett and Ben. Dan's friends greet him, and Emmett and Ben share their schedules with Dan to see if they had any classes together later that afternoon (none with Ben, Spanish 8th hour with Emmett).
Then Dan glances up at the cafeteria entrance to see Phil, Andrew, and Jack, another football player, walk through the door. The lunch monitor strides over to see why the trio was late, and Andrew says something Dan can't hear because he is out of range. The monitor nods, and the three continue walking across the room to sit at the designated 'football team' table. Dan felt a small surge of anger - the team even had the teachers wrapped around their finger! But Dan's anger dissolves instantly as Phil looks his way.
Dan and Phil's eyes meet, and Phil offers him a small wave, along with his adorable smile, from across the room as he sits down. Dan gives a little wave back, transfixed by Phil's glinting, carefree grin. "Who are you waving at?" Nathan questions him, following Dan's gaze. However, Phil had already sat down, so Nathan looked straight past Phil to find someone looking their way. Dan mumbles an unconvincing "nobody" in responds to Nathan's question, but his friends don't let the conversation drop. "Ooh!" Ben exclaims mischievously. "Does Danny boy have a special someone?" The rest of his friends snicker as they tease him playfully. Dan laughs and brushes off their immature giggles, but Ben's words stay in the back of his mind for the rest of the day.
A couple hours later, Phil walks into Mr. Thompson's room right before 7th period starts, his eyes immediately scanning the room in search of Dan. When Phil doesn't find him, he walks over to the seat he had taken that morning.
"Hey, Phil," he hears a couple moments later, and Phil looks up to see Dan sliding in the corner seat on Phil's right, where he had also sat during homeroom. "Hey!" Phil responds. "Where did you come from?" Dan struggles to keep a straight face, and then, "Well, you see, Phil, when a man and a woman love each other very much.." Phil rolls his eyes and shoves Dan playfully. "Oh, shut up! You know what I meant. I just got here like 10 seconds ago so I wondered if our classes were near each other." "I came from Chemistry, with O'Brien," Dan says. "Oh, I have him first period. Anyway, yeah, I just came from Health which is right near there. Maybe we can walk together after 6th," Phil suggests. "Yeah, sure." Dan smiles.
The bell rings and Mr. Thompson walks into the room. "Hello, everyone! Take a seat, take a seat..."
When class is almost over (filled with another boring syllabus, setting up the Google Classroom, and more), Dan and Phil begin to pack up. Phil leans down, takes his phone out of his bag and places it on the desk, then leans back down to put his books inside it. Bzz bzz. His phone vibrates above him. "Ooh, you got a snapchat from Andrew," Dan reads off the screen. "Did I?" Phil sits back up and picks the phone off his desk. He looks at it for a couple moments more, then turns back to Dan. "Hey, do you have a snapchat?" "Oh, er- yeah, hold on." Dan pulls out his phone and fiddles with it for a moment more, then holds out his snapcode for Phil to scan. "'danisnotonfire?'" Phil quotes. "Hey, you can't judge! Your username is 'AmazingPhil', real creative," Dan teases him. Phil just laughs, then grins and says, "I'll snap you later, yeah?" Dan nods, smiling.
"Cool, I'll see you after school!" Phil says, slinging his backpack over his shoulder while standing up. "See you," Dan replies before continuing to stuff items into his bag. Phil walks out of the room and Dan watches him leave before standing up and heading to his last class of the day.
After 8th period, the two meet up again at their lockers. "Sup, Daniel," Phil says as arrives. Dan turns away from his open locker to glance at Phil. "First, don't call me that," he says with mock sincerity. "Second, hey!" Dan brightens. "So how was your first day at Oakleaf High School?" he asks dramatically. Phil laughs. "Eh, it was okay." "Alright, fair enough." Dan goes on to rant about how he hates his 8th period Spanish class and Phil jumps in with how much he hates his gym teacher. About a minute later, the two shut their lockers. "Alright, I got to go - football practice,'" Phil says with a sigh. "On the first day of school?" Dan asks incredulously. "Yep, literally every day after school." "Wow, fun. Well, I should get going too." "Why, do you take a bus?" Phil asks. "No, I drive, but I have to dedicate at least five hours a day on the internet, so I better get home soon." Phil laughs, and they say goodbye once more before leaving the school.
A/N: Hey guys! So sorry it took like 3 weeks to get another chapter up, but I hope the length of this one makes up for it :/. I'm just really busy - between around 7 hours of school, about 7 hours of sleep, then homework and other shit, that only leaves like 5 hours a day for the internet, and it's hard to fit time to write into that busy schedule. Lol sorry, but seriously, sorry for the delay. I'm working on another fic that should be up by next weekend, feel free to yell at me if it isn't. Sidenote: just a reminder, all of my work is purely fictional. any similarity to reality is just a coincidence, although I am basing this fic off my own high school experience. Anyway, hope you enjoyed this update. If you did, follow/favorite, and don't forget to leave me a review telling me what you think! xoxo, ~lily