Thank you everyone for being so nice to the first chapter of my first story. I love you all.
~o~O~O~o~
It hadn't taken long for the other students to hear about the stunt Gilbert pulled on Ivan after only being in school a day and it took just a few seconds longer for the rumors to start. If Ivan hadn't been so upset by the possibility of a new bully, he would have found some of the rumors quite funny. They ranged from Ivan employing some fictional mob relatives to do a hit on Gilbert to Gilbert becoming the new Ivan. It had been about a week since the incident and Ivan had come to the conclusion that he had liked it better when nobody spoke about him at all. He hated the rumors not because they weren't completely bullshit, but because they made him feel lonelier because not one of the rumor spreaders even knew him outside of maybe one or two classes. In fact, the closest person Ivan had to a friend was Toris who, Ivan knew, was scared shitless every time Ivan approached him.
He saw every little glance and silent whisper as he walked in the hall as much as he tried to ignore them and he heard every name that the jocks shouted at him as he walked in the hallway. The bullying had started, slowly but surely, it began to pick up speed. The purple eyed man had noticed something the others hadn't, Gilbert never tried to bully him again or even given him a hateful word. He treated Ivan as if that day hadn't happened, as if he were just like everyone else. He didn't know why, but Ivan felt almost happy that for once in his life, someone wasn't treating him as if he had the plague. He enjoyed feeling as if he was just a normal person like everyone else even if he had no idea why everyone had always been so scared of him.
Gilbert always hung out with two people, a Spanish boy, Antonio, and a French one, Francis. However, it seemed Gilbert was reluctant to branch out and make other friends. Ivan had seen Antonio and Francis with other people but never Gilbert. Maybe he was a loner too but he never seemed lonely. He only ever seemed bored or happy. But, then again, Ivan only ever seemed to be creepily happy which was far from the truth. His smile was always plastered on his face, even the very few times he's cried.
After school, while Ivan was walking up the uneven cobblestone path to his house, he passed by the park. Usually, he wouldn't pay any mind to it but today a large group had formed in the black top area. He went over curiously and saw Toris on the outer edge. He came in next to him and for once, no one seemed to notice the large Ivan. He made his way to the center as the group began chanting "fight, fight." He saw a one of the jocks that had began to pick on him, Alfred was his name, and the person he was challenging, a smaller boy with messy white hair.
Ivan suddenly felt sick and didn't want Gilbert to fight and he felt protectiveness over the German boy. The feeling was foreign. After all, why should he, would be, protective over this almost unknown young man? Francis and Antonio were desperately trying to pull Gilbert away among the protests from the other teenagers. All too quickly, the German and American were locked in a heated fist fight as Ivan watched in horror as Alfred punched while Gilbert kicked and clawed. Anger built up and exploded as Ivan watched the German fall to the ground and suffer a very many knee to the face.
The crowd disappeared and all Ivan could see was Alfred and Gilbert as various shades of reds. Gilbert's bloodied face and blackened eyes, Alfred's knee being slammed against the smaller man's face. All Ivan could hear was the pounding of blood in his ears as he approached the two. Alfred noticed him and froze mid jerk. Ivan's anger was almost visible which was made even more terrifying by his plastered smile. Ivan lifted Alfred by his neck and threw him against a tree. His body made very unnatural snapping sounds and he fell to the ground. Ivan turned his attention to Gilbert, whose hair had begun to turn red with the amount of blood. He took a step back, allowing Francis and Antonio, who threw a grateful glance, to come in and tend to their friend. Ivan, whose vision had still not fully turned the correct colors yet, cast his threatening gaze across the crowd who shuttered under his gaze and scampered away like rats from a flashlight.
He watched them all disperse and listened to half of Francis' cell phone call to the paramedics before leaving. He took the scenic road home, trying to calm himself. He didn't need his little sister, who had a thing for knives, thinking that he needed protection and, suffering from the obsession she had with Ivan, would gladly help with the protecting. He tried telling himself the only reason he saved Gilbert was to prove that he was still the strongest and in no way bully material. But he knew, if it were anybody else, Ivan would've just walked away and forgotten about it. He had unfamiliar emotions inside of him and he didn't understand them at all. He couldn't even wrap his mind around having a friend how was he supposed to understand this? He thought about his past vaguely.
Ever since he was little, he had always been an outcast. His mother was a whore who ended up having 3 babies with different nationalities: Ukrainian, Russian, and Belarusian, all born as crack babies. For some reason, Ivan's father, a former K.G.B. agent and a general in the Russian army, stuck around even though he did nothing to help raise Ivan and his sisters or support their mother. And when their mother suddenly died for no apparent reason, the general scooped up the money that was left for the children and vanished. Ivan always tried to forget it but deep down he knew he could never fully trust anyone after that. Not even his sister because he knew they would leave him one day too. No, he thought, Friendship requires trust. After all, who would want to be Ivan's friend?
He came home while his sister's were out shopping. He grabbed a bottle of vodka out of the freezer and went to bed after drinking all of it even though it was hardly 5 p.m. And that night, although Ivan had no idea why, he cried himself to sleep and the smile stayed on his face like a mask.
~o~O~O~o~
Thank you for reading chapter two~ I have another story, Finally Worthy, which is all of this from Gilbert's P.O.V. but I probably won't put out more chapters for it until this story is completely finished.
-CL