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Leighton Academy

Chapter One by xCharleex

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Leighton Academy is a pre-eminent establishment for the education—BLAH! BLAH! What crap! But, crummy education beats rotting in a cell. And Leighton had another perk too—I'd never admit it—but there sure was something about Jesse Andersen...

[JxJ] [Sex, Violence, Death] [Language]

Whatup. Had some great early reaction to the prologue—very short and merely a taste of the story to come – I hope you guys will stay with it through the end. Thanks heaps to my old readers for coming back from Destiny etc, and I hope you find Leighton just as good! As is tradition, and as thanks for my reviewers, here are my responses. And feel free to ask questions, make insinuations and generally say whatever comes to mind haha, it's one of the best things about reading along with the story, IMHO :)

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Review Responses

Chrisandersenyuki: don't sweat, all will be revealed about Jaden's crime. It wasn't too serious, because as we know, Jaden is just a sad and misunderstood guy haha. Buried deep inside he has a heart of chocolate gold.

PrincessAnime0: well you are gonna have to read this chapter then haha. :)

Luving Randomness: welcome back! So glad to have a return reader :D Haha yesh Jaden's had a harsh life. Poor guy. Oh well haha.

ILuvJadenandJesse: Bwahha, thankyou very much. I hope you enjoy it, it's quite a lot different from Destiny, particularly the shift in perspective (third to first is freakin me out) but it just seemed more appropriate, so I hope it continues to work :P Guess we'll see haha.

Oak-chan: Thanks :) I hope you enjoy this one even more :D

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Chapter One: Prince – Jaden Yuki

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"Hey," one hand clutched his towel in place around his waist, the other was extended in front of him. He had a sort of half-smile on his face, lighting up those striking eyes, "It's Jesse."

I took his outstretched hand and shook it slowly, trying all the while to drag my eyes away from the emerald stare. Somehow I found a way to mumble my name at him, flicking my eyes around the—our—room, trying to avoid being caught again in his gaze.

I was sort of surprised, I have to admit. I'd been expecting typical in-your-face-rich kind of style—like Shepherd's office (and the rest of Leighton I'd seen) had been. Instead, the—our—room was furnished like some kind of ultra-modern apartment. The floor was tiled in stark white where we stood, which reflected the shine from the steel hanging lights above. The tiles continued behind Jesse to form an open broad study, where a pair of desks sat, computers humming upon them. To the left of Jesse, and just beyond I saw granite black of a kitchen bench-top. The cabinets were all white and shiny like some kind of embossed plastic—it reminded me of Japan, don't have a clue why though. Beyond the kitchen the tiles ended abruptly to be replaced with the thick fluffy white carpet of the lounge—it would be stained beyond recognition in a matter of days, I could just tell. A pair of white leather couches faced the large plasma screen TV, which apparently completed the school's idea of a lounge. I spied a pair of sliding glass doors right at the back of the room, leading to what I presumed was a balcony. It was too dark to see out.

Jesse walked me through the whole apartment without saying a whole lot. It took all of 6 seconds til we stood in the centre of the lounge. There were only two doors leading from here; mine and Jesse's rooms. Emphasis on the plural there; no way would I have shared a room with emerald eyes...particularly with his loose attitude when it came to clothing. Fortunately, because Leighton was a total waste of time and money, each room also had an ensuite. No bathroom sharing either...maybe I could get through the whole year without ever seeing my room-mate again. I thought about that for a bit, while emerald eyes told me something about something.

"Uhh? Jaden?"

OK. I have a listening problem. So sue me. He probably just thought I was slow, or something. Stupid rich kid.

"I'm kinda tired," I said, effecting the fakest yawn in the history of fake yawning, and then I walked towards the nearest bedroom door and opened it as I stepped inside. It was filled with all of Jesse's crap.

"That's my room. Yours is the other one."

"Good thing you're here," I said dryly, still looking into Jesse's room, "Might not have figured that out on my ow—IS THAT A CAT!"

I heard him suppress a laugh at my outburst. He didn't bother answering, it was definitely a cat—a small, slightly short, kind of bluish-purple cat with piercing ice blue eyes—apparently everyone at this academy had freakishly light, piercing eyes. Oh joy.

I wondered if maybe it was too late to go back to jail.

"Her name's Ruby," Jesse explained.

Normally I wouldn't have cared—wait—no I didn't have a reason to care. I shouldn't have cared at all. So why did I? I should have told emerald eyes to shove it. I should have strode past him, gone to my room, slammed the door, and told him exactly what I'd do to his cat if it came anywhere near me. But I didn't. I just didn't.

The cat—Ruby—jumped from the bed-side table and stalked closer to me, fixing me with its oddly light eyes. I wondered, fleetingly, if cats could read minds. That would be cool. It would also explain how she made me so nervous.

"She's—uhh..."

Jesse chuckled after my silence, "What's wrong, Jaden? Cat got your tongue?" He seemed to find that funny. Clearly he hadn't heard very many good jokes. Poor kid. I'd have to help him out with that.

The cat reached me and started rubbing all over my legs, purring like a—well like a cat—I guess...

Jesse stepped into the doorway beside me and crouched down to look at Ruby. There was something very wrong about emerald eyes being half naked and down that low while I was standing right next to him. So—spatial awareness was going on my list of things to teach rich boy.

...this guy was going to take some work.

"So how come you're here mid-term?" Jesse asked. Mercifully, he stood and walked into the kitchen behind us, grabbing an unfinished soda from the side. I followed to the granite bench that divided the kitchen from the tiled dining area and the lounge. I sat on one of the bar stools. He stood facing me, inside the kitchen, leaning on the opposite counter, drinking in silence.

"Oh. Want one?"

"No."

He waited.

"Long story," I said finally. Somehow I didn't think the whole 'criminal-needs-a-place-to-chill-for-three-months' thing was going to make my stay here any easier.

"Oh." Jesse said quietly, and sipped his soda.

The silence lengthened.

"So...Jesse—" I really wasn't comfortable with the whole silence thing, "anything fun to do around here?"

He looked at me askance, apparently unsure whether I was kidding. Shit! I took that as a definite 'no' then. He used the hand that was holding up his towel to ruffle his blue hair as he thought about it properly, taking another sip from his soda.

He was answering my question, but I wasn't paying attention. My eyes were fixed on the twining gold threads that wrapped around Jesse's left wrist and halfway up his forearm. The shimmering bracer was incredible to behold. The threads of gold were of varying thickness, some as thick as a finger, others as thin as hair. Together they wrought an intricate pattern that was impossible to follow from tip to tail, but it seemed like the whole armband was a single continuous piece. The gold was so shiny I didn't realize how I possibly could have missed it.

"Wha—?" I interrupted him to point in awed silence at the thing wrapped around his arm. The thing which I was pretty sure was worth enough to feed a few third world countries—not that I was an expert...but still. DAMN!

Jesse looked abashed as he caught the meaning of my silent, slack jawed stare. Figures. He's sweet while walking around in front of a complete stranger half naked, but point out the blaringly obvious golden riches wrapped around his wrist and he gets embarrassed.

"It's called a Thela'dorian" he said quietly, holding the armband more fully under the kitchen light so that the golden metal caught the glare. Normally I'd think he was showing off. But this one time—for the most incredible thing I'd ever seen—I let it slide.

"Sort of stupid, really," he added, "I hate wearing it, but—well you can probably see; can't exactly slip it off..." I noticed then just how tightly wound the thing was around the smallest part of Jesse's wrist. It would be impossible to remove without breaking it. Weird. Why wouldn't you put a catch on a thing like that.

He trailed off, "guess that's the idea though," he laughed bitterly. I didn't get the joke. Then again—this kid's sense of humor was so bad it probably wasn't anything funny at all.

"I don't get it," I said simply.

Jesse put his soda down on the counter behind him and stepped forward so that his waist aligned with the top of the granite bench-top of the kitchen. His gold-wrapped arm grabbed the side of his towel again, and with his other hand he turned down the edge of the right side of the towel. I flinched as he did. I'd figured, even with his loose attitudes towards clothing, the towel would stay firmly wrapped around his waist.

But Jesse had only turned out a couple of inches of towel, revealing in full, his right hip—though it was still a little too low on a guy's body for me to look at with any measure of comfort.

This kid is weird, I decided. Then I noticed the point of this particular exercise, and flinched again. There, on his right hip was a deep scar of knotted white skin, formed into some kind of intricate symbol. It seemed familiar somehow—

Holy crap.

I realized that the symbol had been deeply carved into Jesse's flesh repeatedly until it had scarred—I shuddered to think how much that'd hurt. But the reason it looked so familiar to me, was because it had been repeated subtly on his golden bracer as well. The thinner gossamers of gold repeated and wound the pattern endlessly around thicker repetitions. Layered upon one another to form the single solid piece, I couldn't imagine the amount of work that had gone into creating Jesse's arm-band. This kid wasn't weird—he was...something else...

"It's the royal crest of my family," he explained, as if that somehow made it okay that someone had strapped gold around his wrist and carved symbols into his hip. "Thela'dorian means 'promise band'. I got it two years ago—the same time I got this," he indicated his scar, "not that I wanted either...but—"

Something hit me then. "You're royalty!"

Jesse blinked and nodded, "don't get excited," he laughed darkly, "I'm prince of a tiny country that most people have never heard of. Rich enough to be able to afford to waste all this gold though, unfortunately," he held up his armband and sniffed in sinister amusement.

I was right. Jesse had the worst sense of humor EVER. Though with the whole royalty thing, plus the scarred hip, a golden promise band, not mention the weird cat—all that'd probably be enough to ruin anyone's comedic side.

Poor stupid rich kid.

"Uhh—not for nothing," I said slowly, not entirely sure why I was bothering, "but—if you don't like the gold and the...other stuff—why'd you do it?"

Jesse's emerald eyes seemed to glint with some kind of amusement. His mouth curved into a hard line. "Would you believe nobody's ever asked what it is I want?" he barked a harsh laugh—again I had to remind myself that he wasn't operating under normal humor laws—"All my so-called 'friends'. My family."

"So—why didn't you just say no? I mean—how'd they get that gold thing on in the first place?"

"I don't know." He gritted his teeth, remembering, "I was unconscious , mostly. When I woke up I had this thing and a bunch of burns underneath it. Apparently they thread the whole thing around the arm as one piece—I never paid much attention to the how's, Jaden. I just had to deal with it."

I thought I had it tough. At least my mum had liked me while she'd been alive. Rich kid's parents tortured him, apparently.

"As for why I didn't 'say no'—" Jesse grimaced, talking low and angrily, "you've never met my father—so you wouldn't understand."

Silence.

Epic Silence.

Painful, unflinching, unending silence.

From Jesse's bedroom, Ruby meowed quietly. The fact that we could hear her was just a testament to the incredible awkwardness between us now. Emerald eyes was staring at the granite bench-top—he was leaning back against the far counter again, knotted white scar hidden securely under his towel once more, while his golden arm was obscured halfway behind his back, clinching his towel at the waist.

Who'd have thought it? Spoiled rich kid, wasn't so spoiled after-all. Surprisingly, I didn't envy Jesse one bit—I wondered if everyone at Leighton would be as messed up as emerald eyes was. Heck, maybe my story, my status as a potential criminal, wouldn't even stand out amongst all the crazy crap going on here.

Then again, maybe it was just Jesse. Maybe he was just totally alone with his weird life with nobody else who'd ever been able to relate to the low blows he'd received. Maybe that was why we'd somehow ended up sharing a room—the two most messed up people at the Academy—maybe that was why, for some inscrutable reason, I wanted to know more about him...to talk to him...to be around him. Maybe that was the reason I couldn't stop myself from glancing every few seconds at the strong line of his jaw, or the almond shape of his eyes, the dark brush of his lashes, the—holy shit what is wrong with me?

Maybe I was just a freakin' fruit. Maybe I was just thinking too much about him. Maybe I was actually drunk. Maybe I was hallucinating, and was still in jail—

I faintly hoped the last one was true.

"So—I'm gonna—go," I said lamely, trailing off as I hauled myself off the bar stool and quickly crossed the gap of the dining space and the lounge to my room.

Without pausing to flick on the lights, or survey my new home for the next few months, I hurled myself onto the bed, pulled off my clothes and crawled under the sheets. It was without a doubt the plushest, warmest, most comfortable thing I'd ever slept in, near or around. It was as soft as—

Nah.

Too tired for simile. I closed my eyes, and let myself drift.

All through the night I was followed by a bald man who was a shepherd, and his flock of green-eyed sheep. But these sheep refused to grow their coats out past their hind legs—and they all had a single golden leg, except for one, who the other sheep ignored, and the shepherd kept trying to lead off cliffs, and into rivers.

If I'd been on drugs, I would have stopped taking them...

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