"So then I said, 'My totally awesome and powerful rocket punch beats your stupid move', and then he said-"
"Peter! Would you please knock it off?! I don't care about your imaginary robot fights with your annoying little friends!" Arthur snapped, tightening his hold on Peter's hand and pulling him back to the curb when his younger brother tried to keep walking across the street.
Peter scrunched his face up, keeping his head tilted down and away from his older sibling. "You're a jerk. Why couldn't Alistair take me to school? He's a lot more fun than you are, and he'd let me ride on his motorcycle with him, too...," he muttered sourly, kicking at Arthur's shin.
"Mother wouldn't let you on Alistair's motorcycle, and you know it. Besides, Alistair was having fun with his friends last night, and he wasn't feeling up to doing much at all this morning," Arthur replied haughtily, punching the crosswalk button repeatedly with his thumb. "I'm not having a brilliant morning either, so belt up, Peter."
As the two brothers continued on their way to school, Arthur let out a muttered curse.
"Oooh, I'm telling Mum," Peter snickered, sticking out his tongue.
"Like you didn't already know that word, you brat...," Arthur hissed, glancing around like he wanted to find something to hide behind. "Just shut up, and walk faster."
Struggling to keep pace with his elder brother's abrupt speed-walking, Peter whined, "What? Why?"
"Just listen to me for once, would you-"
"'Allo, Arthur~" a lilting, French voice greeted.
Pausing for a brief moment, Arthur swallowed hard, his Adam's apple bobbing rigidly, before he continued to pull Peter along down the street.
Francis Bonnefoy frowned, trotting after Arthur with his hands in his coat pockets. "Hey, I'm talking to you!" he called out in a complaining voice, catching up easily to the two brothers.
"Well, since I'm not listening, why don't you try chatting up that wall over there? I'm sure it wouldn't mind lending a sympathetic ear," Arthur uttered over his shoulder, not turning around to properly face the wavy haired blonde.
Peter glanced behind them at the other teen, then up at his brother with a worried expression. "Arthur, who is this guy, anyway?" he mumbled in a hushed tone.
Growling, Arthur tersely replied, "Nobody. He's nobody, and you shouldn't ever talk to him, Peter."
"That's a bit harsh, don't you think? I used to be somebody to you," Francis muttered, saying that last part under his breath and mostly to himself. "And I'm Francis, by the way," he added, addressing Peter this time, "Doesn't your wonderful brother ever speak of me?"
"Yeah, he does, actually - and it's never anything good!" Peter sneered, coming to the defense of his older brother, sticking out his tongue at Francis.
Arthur blinked in surprise at his little brother's words, unused to such behavior from the nine-year-old. Usually, the youngest Kirkland sibling was more than happy to complain about his rotten jerk of a brother, Arthur, to anyone who would listen. But family counted for a lot among the Kirklands; they didn't have much, but they had each other. So, even though they ragged on each other all the time, and they all seemed like they couldn't stand one another, they were fiercely protective of the one thing they would always have: Family.
Francis was seething at being told off by someone who was nine years his junior, and looked like he was about to bite out a retort, but he suddenly backed off when his phone started to beep incessantly.
Arthur took this opportunity to run off with Peter, not looking back as several cars honked at them when they bolted out into the street to get across. As they hurried to make up for the time that they had lost with the unexpected confrontation, Arthur hesitantly said, "You didn't have to do that, you know. I had the situation all sussed out myself."
"Yeah, well...You may be a jerk, but you're still my brother," Peter grumbled out, hiding the red tinge on his face by looking at everything but Arthur. "Just know that you owe me now, got it?" he added, trying to sound tough and demanding.
Arthur smirked, knocking Peter's favorite sailor hat cock-eyed on his head. "I'll be sure to keep that in mind when I go into work this evening. Maybe there'll be more of those weird Japanese manga you like so much, hm? The one with the colorful robots...right?" he hummed, slowing down their pace when the chain-link fence of Peter's Elementary school came into view.
"Alright!"
Alfred's day was very quickly going to hell.
He forgot to tie one of his shoelaces before they left the house, so he tripped when he got out of their mother's van. That got him a good laugh from a roaming pack of football jocks, and he knew he'd be hearing about that stupid slip-up later on in the day from all his favorite people.
When he slipped into the nearest bathroom to spit out his gum and freshen up a bit, Alfred stepped into a questionable puddle on the tile floor. And, as he dug around in his backpack for his deodorant, he realized that he had grabbed the wrong papers for one of his classes; his World History homework was due today, but he had accidentally taken his Chemistry paper - which wasn't due for a whole week yet.
So, by the time Alfred walked into Principal Beilschmidt's office to check in for the first day of his punishment, he wasn't in the best of moods.
Looking up from his paperwork - since he was rather old-fashioned, and personally hated and didn't trust computers - Adalhard mused, "Ah, Alfred...It's good to see that at least one of you can arrive on time."
Alfred let out a frustrated groan. "He's not here yet?"
"No, but I'm not too surprised; Mr. Braginski's track record isn't very good," Principal Beilschmidt commented, scribbling something down on a form. "Morning classes don't start up for about ten minutes, so why don't you take a seat while we wait to see if Mr. Braginski decides to show up in a reasonable time-frame."
Alfred huffed, but slouched down into one of the chairs nonetheless.
"Sit properly, Mr. Jones, or you'll be standing," Adalhard rumbled, not even looking up from his work.
Alfred shot up straight in his seat, his blue eyes wide. Okay...That was creepy...He wasn't even looking!
After an awkward five minutes of silence passed in the room, the Principal scratching away with his pen and Alfred thumbing through some stupid apps on his phone, Mr. Beilschmidt cleared his throat and spoke up once again, "You share several classes with Mr. Braginski, correct?" He sounded like he already knew, but he wanted to give Alfred a chance to figure out where he was going with this.
"Yeah...," Alfred replied, glancing up from his phone warily. Unfortunately..., he added to himself.
"Good. I'll be counting on you to try and get him more involved with his classes," Adalhard stated, catching Alfred's gaze and holding it. "He's smarter than most people - even himself - give him credit for, but if he just tried in his classes, I think it would really help him. That's why I want you sitting next to him in the classes you share for the coming year," he said, his sharp blue eyes drifting back to his work.
"But why?! I thought I was only supposed to tutor him!" Alfred complained, crossing his arms petulantly. He wanted as little to do with Braginski as possible throughout this whole ordeal, and this forced seating arrangement was throwing a serious wrench in his plans.
The Principal sighed, and was about to answer, but stopped before he could say anything when he spotted Ivan lingering in the doorway of his office. "You're late again, Mr. Braginski," he observed in a tired voice, gesturing for the teenager to fully enter his office.
"I, uh...I overslept; got a late start," Ivan said, sounding a bit out of breath. His chubby cheeks were flushed a dusty red, and a rivulet of sweat ran down the side of his face.
"Are you sick, Ivan?" Mr. Beilschmidt asked, eyeing the Russian carefully. "Do you need to go to the nurse's office?"
Ivan shook his head furiously, which flung beads of sweat from his flushed face, as he tugged at the hem of his baggy black shirt. "No, I'm fine! It's just...hot out, yes? Just hot, not sick," he replied quickly, seeming to scramble for a believable explanation.
His mouth a thin line, Principal Beilschmidt raised an eyebrow at the response he received, but didn't say anything further on the matter. "Hmph, well...Morning classes will be starting up soon, so you'd both better get ready for them. I'll be seeing the both of you again for your detention after school, am I clear?" Adalhard said, dismissing the two students from his office.
"Yes-sir, yes-sir!" Alfred chirped, giving the man a salute before skedaddling out of the room.
Ivan left the room with a quiet acknowledgement of what the Principal said, trudging back out into the hall as school officially started up.
Principal Beilschmidt shook his head silently, shuffling some papers on his desk as he got back to his own work. Those two aren't going to make this easy, are they?
"Jones, hold up!" Ivan called to Alfred as the other boy started off down the hall.
"Hm?" Alfred hummed questioningly, coming to a stop and turning around to face the larger teenager. His day may have gotten off to a bad start, but Alfred was nothing if not incessantly optimistic, so he almost always bounced back quickly.
"You, uh, you have Math before I do...right?" Ivan asked distractedly, shifting uncomfortably in the congested hallway.
"Yeah...Why?" Alfred asked cautiously, eyeing the other warily.
Ivan scowled at the look he was getting from the sandy blonde. "In case you forgot, genius, I have to lend you my text book," he sneered, really not in the mood for the other's bullshit. He was tired, and sore, and just didn't feel like dealing with the world anymore.
Alfred's mouth popped open, and an embarrassed flush spread across his face as he rubbed at the back of his neck awkwardly. "Oh, yeah...Sort of forgot about that," he said hesitantly, not looking forward to whatever ripped up excuse for a text book he would be using.
"Do you want the fucking book or not?" Ivan ground out.
Alfred couldn't help shrinking back a little; it didn't matter how much Alfred mentally psyched himself up, Ivan was big and fucking crazy. He gave a quick nod of his head, almost fearing whiplash from the action.
The brief flash of anger Ivan felt quickly fizzled out when Alfred took a fearful step away from him, the usual feeling of triumph not accompanying him at this moment, as it often would when he intimidated someone smaller and weaker than himself. His broad shoulders slumping as he let out a long breath, Ivan made a vague gesture for Alfred to follow him as he thudded off down the hall with tired, heavy steps. He didn't mean to scare people, not all the time, at least. He just got angry - always had a bad temper, a short fuse dipped in gasoline - and people just...got in the way of it. He didn't want to push, didn't want to hit, but nobody would just leave him alone. If they would only leave him alone; stop poking, stop laughing, stop hitting and kicking, and burning, and ripping and tearing - and just...leave him behind.
No one liked him, so why couldn't they pretend that he didn't even exist?
It took Alfred a moment to realize that Ivan was expecting him to follow him, and he scrambled after the other teen with quick steps to make up for the larger teenager's longer strides. Trailing along in Ivan's wake, Alfred noticed that - for once - no one was bumping him around or blatantly pushing him out of their way; usually, a trip through the school's hallways left Alfred with more than just a few unwarranted bruises.
Ivan stopped at his locker, trying to ignore the new additions of graffiti on the metal's surface. He dropped his beat up old backpack to the floor, shifting his weight to his left foot as he fiddled with the dial to get the locker open.
Alfred abruptly stopped in his tracks, just barely avoiding bumping into Ivan. The blonde couldn't help but notice the way Ivan muttered the lock's numbers under his breath, like he was going to forget them if he didn't. He also couldn't ignore the rather hateful comments scrawled on Ivan's locker in red paint, surprised that the school hadn't washed it off.
Ivan let out a frustrated noise when he couldn't get his locker open, slamming a fist into the metal door to release a little of the pent-up anger he felt. The door popped open from the force of the hit, a slight dent left behind from his now bruised hand. "Fucking Gilbert...," he growled, rummaging through his locker for his math book and trying to ignore the stinging throb pulsating from his knuckles.
"As much as I don't like Gilbert, what the hell did he do to you?" Alfred asked, a little disappointed that he didn't see any weapons bloodying up the Russian's locker, like he kind of expected there to be. Seriously, there's nothing in here! Not even, like, a lead pipe or a crowbar...or something! he thought to himself, pouting a bit.
"He only changes the combination to my locker every day, so I can never get into it without forcing the stupid thing open," Ivan replied in a low tone, grabbing the text book he was looking for and shoving it at the sandy blonde next to him.
"And, hey, what's with all this graffiti on your locker, huh? Shouldn't the school be cleaning it up, or something?" Alfred asked, almost dropping the book as it was suddenly thrust into his arms. Huh...This looks like it's never really been used. Well, I guess that's not too surprising, the blonde observed, looking over the surprisingly-well-taken-care-of text book with a raised brow.
The Russian teen shook his head, shrugging his shoulders. "It costs them money to clean it off, and it happens too often for them to keep doing it. So...," Ivan paused, blinking for a brief moment, and like he suddenly snapped out of a trance, continued in a defensive snarl, "So just stop asking questions, alright, Jones?! You've got your damn book, so just leave me alone, will you?"
Alfred jumped at Ivan's abrupt change in tone and moods; he had sounded frustrated before, but now he just seemed geared up and pissed for no real reason. "Jeez, alright! Fucking psychopath...," he grumbled under his breath, stomping off down the hall to get to his math class.
He hadn't gone very far before some jock knocked him into the lockers with a rather neanderthal-like bout of laughter.
This is what I get for trying to make things easier at this school...Seriously, my life..., Alfred thought with a shake of his head, readjusting his glasses and keeping close to the walls to avoid as many potential hostiles as possible.