Will Graham closed his locker then looked up and down the hall, but he was nowhere in sight. Classes had just finished for the day, and usually he would meet up with a friend afterwards. But he wasn't there today. At least Will had an idea of where he might be.
Will slung his bag over his shoulder and began to walk in the direction of the cafeteria, keeping his head down, and avoiding contact with other students. It wasn't that he was afraid of them, he just didn't want to have to interact with them. Getting involved just caused problems, as if he didn't have enough of those already.
The cafeteria wasn't far from his locker, so it barely took a minute to get there. When he opened the doors, Will saw him right away and smiled.
He walked over to the table where his friend was sitting with his black earbuds in his ears and his laptop open, facing away from Will. His hair was slicked back and, as per usual, he was dressed much more professionally than anyone else in the school. Will approached him slowly and quietly, a smile growing on his face.
In one swift movement, Will plucked the earbuds from his ears and wrapped his arms around the other's neck.
"Hello," Will said, nuzzling into the crook of his neck, smiling into the other student's warm skin.
"Is class out already, or are you skipping?" His friend said in a strong Lithuanian accent.
"You missed the bell again, Hannibal."
"I was hard at work," Hannibal said, turning to face the other student.
Will unwrapped his arms from Hannibal and sat down on the bench, facing him. The other student put a hand on Will's thigh as he set his earbuds aside and closed his laptop.
Hannibal was a year older than Will, in twelfth grade, so every other week during last period he had a spare. Most of the time he spent it in the cafeteria, waiting for Will to finish his classes so that they could speak after school, other times he went to the library, but he never went home. Will assumed it was just because he had a lot of work to do, and it was hard to get done where he lived. Both of his parents had died while he was still in Lithuania, and he was now living with his aunt and uncle with Will in Baltimore. He didn't like it there, Will knew, so he'd take any excuse to stay at school.
"How was your day?" Hannibal asked, turning his full attention to the younger student.
"You first."
Hannibal smiled, "English is always good. I'm getting better every day."
"You're better than most of the people here," Will commented.
"When people know a language too well they get lazy. We got an assignment, a book report, that's what I was working on."
"Must've been working pretty hard to miss the bell," Will said. Although it was unspoken, Will knew that Hannibal always put his work before anything else.
"I think it was the music. Too loud."
"How about the rest of your day?"
"Not much," Hannibal said, beginning to draw soft circles with his finger on Will's thigh, "Psychology was more of the same, and more textbook questions for Biochemistry. Now your turn."
"IAPS was... fine."
"What are you learning?"
"We just started on Sociology."
"You'll enjoy that, I think," Hannibal smiled. That class wasn't one that Will really loved to talk about with Hannibal. Since it was Psychology, Anthropology, and Sociology, it was something that Hannibal was really good at, and Will was worried he'd sound like an idiot if he tried to talk to Hannibal about it.
