barriers on the tube line

4. a fate worse than dying

*tw: f slur (i am allowed to say it)

karl pov:

i couldn't stop thinking about the guy i bumped into in the corridor earlier. he was slightly shorter than me and he had brown eyes and brown hair. he walked me to class and he was nonstop talking the whole way. it was cute. as soon as we stepped into class, he fell silent and left my side to go sit next to a blonde girl, who gave me the dirtiest look possible before practically crawling on the boys lap as he sat down.

of course, he was too good to be gay.

i sat down at the back of class and started taking notes for history. we were learning about the history of medicine and i was bored out of my mind.

throughout class, i noticed the blonde girl kept giving me dirty looks. what was her problem? i also noticed how almost every time she gave me a dirty look, she would whisper into another blonde bitch's ear and they would start giggling.

i decided to ignore them and i started picking at my nail polish to distract myself from them.

soon enough, first period was over and i took out my timetable to see that the next lesson was... gym class. i wished the floor could've just opened and swallowed me right there.

i walked at a snail's pace to get to the changing rooms and when i got there, most of the boys had already finished changing.

i pretended not to notice how the chatter in the room died down as i walked in. i watched as boys nudged their friends and whispered to each other about me. one guy was actually brave enough to say something to my face.

'what are you a faggot?' this got the laughter in the room back up.

'so what if i am?' i shot back, immediately the room falling silent again

'come again?' the boy turned back around to face me

'i said,' making direct eye contact, 'so what if i am a faggot?'

for some reason, this got the dude to punch me in the face. i mean, okay? i walked over to a part of the changing rooms that were sort of empty, just with a couple of more quiet kids there and sat waiting for everyone to leave. i could feel the stares of the other boys as i just sat there on my phone, not even bothering to get changed.

they all left, apart from one person. one person who i didn't even notice was there until i got up to make an effort to change. he spoke first.

'hey, i never got your name.' it was the boy from earlier, the one i bumped into who then sat with the blonde girl who kept giving me dirty looks. i smiled at him nonetheless.

'it's karl, what's your name?'

'sapnap.'

'that's a .. weird name?' i said with an awkward laugh.

'yeah, it's mainly a nickname but no one calls me by my real name anymore. my real name is nick but that doesn't really matter.'

'cool. so why didn't you go out with the rest of them? why are you still here?'

'i could ask you the same thing.'

'i don't like gym class and i was scared of getting changed in front of them anyway.'

'we could bunk off together? if that's alright with you anyway'

'honestly, i cant think of anything else i'd rather do right now.'

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