just a school project || a hs phan au

Chapter 1

Straight A's. Button up shirts. Drama club. Brilliant.

Those four phrases had one thing in common. They all summed up Dan Howell rather well.

One night stands. Piercings. Drinking. Bad boy.
Those four phrases have something in common as well. But, that thing is very different. Because those two people were very different.

In other words, Philip Michael Lester was very different from one Daniel James Howell.

There were seldom similarities. Phil liked drinking and sex. Dan liked maintaining a high GPA and avoiding people like Phil.

Which is why, neither of them had thought their lives would end up crossing.

-

Especially for students like Phil Lester, the first day of school is always the worst. And though he was usually caught cutting class, the first day was always an exception. He liked learning about who his teachers were to find out how to pester them the most the first day. Plus, first days were the one day people didn't mind being skipped. If everyone else was doing it, Phil Lester was barely breaking a rule doing so.
And Phil Lester, above all, usually lived to break down every rule he could without getting in too much trouble.

Rumor had it that Phil had been caught by police before. For underaged drinking, for drugs, for several things. People even thought he got in trouble for fucking a girl in his car in the middle of the school parking lot. And the fact that Phil just grinned and winked whenever asked about any of the rumors only increased the confusion everyone had about the boy.

Dan Howell was a different story on the first day of school. He'd wake up early, like usual. He'd get himself ready, put on clothes, and put on a smile to show he was having fun. School wasn't particularly entertaining to him, but it was always his priority. School work mattered more than most things to him.

Up until the first class is over, Dan only has a thought about Phil once. Once he's entered the building, rushing to get to his first class, he almost bumps into Phil. Phil's leaned up on a locker, chatting up some girl with dyed blonde hair that she's twirling around her finger and giggling unnecessarily loudly. It wasn't too uncommon, either. It was a well known fact that that probably about half the school wanted Phil Lester. With a leather jacket and killer smile he was known for all around the school, both girls and boys found him hard to resist.
Dan Howell, was not the same. Dan's only thought the second he saw Phil was to get away with him, because he had absolutely no intention of saying a word to a boy like Phil.
Phil barely noticed Dan either. The brunet walked past just as quickly as he had came, not batting an eyelash towards Phil. And Phil had absolutely no reason to pay attention to anyone who didn't bother paying attention to him because he had all the attention a boy could possibly need at this point.

Needless to say, the blonde girl and Phil are both late to their next class. And Phil Lester could not care any less.
-
The next class, Dan only hates a bit more. He's fine at first, taking a seat in the corner near the back. Only because he knows the teacher will end up sitting the kids that misbehave in the front, and he doesn't want to be near them when they are. He wants to be silent and concentrate. Because that's what Dan Howell likes to do. He likes to learn everything, and do everything he's told.

And so, for the next while, Dan listens to the teacher drone on about how the classroom is going to work for the rest of the year. He knows he's probably the only person in the classroom listening, but he's fine with being the only person in the classroom learning.

For most of the class, half the kids are still tired from waking up and sleeping. The only voice is the teacher talking about rules. And of course, like every silence that has ever happened, it was eventually broken as quick as made.