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One: Greetings & Glares
Who would've known KingsMount, one of two popular and well known schools, would merge campuses with their neighbouring school? The idea pissed all of the KingsMount students off. Everybody around the area knew about the not-so-subtle rivalry between KingsMount and KnightsBridge, and if they didn't, they were either new or living under a rock. Students hated students, teachers hated teachers.
The only ones who got along were both their principals, which in the student's opinion, was totally unreasonable.
"This is total crap!" A boy howled from the kitchen where he'd been opening the letter sent to each student about the change. This boy, was Leon Guerra Perez.
"What's crap? Your haircut?" Lucas—one of Leon's younger brothers—commented, walking in and filling up his cup with instant hot chocolate and shrugging at his older brother's glare. Leon's fingers still brushed his hair, combing through it self-consciously.
"Fuck off, Luca. They decided to merge KingsMount and KnightsBridge onto one campus." He complained, and even his brother's eyebrows shot up; he knew about the rivalry between the schools.
Which wouldn't be a surprise, seeming that Leon spoke and ranted about it every chance he'd got.
"I think it's a great idea," The voice of Leon's mother chirped as she and his father entered the kitchen with another of his brothers, Elias, in her arms. "They need to do something about this rivalry. It's so childish!"
"Yeah, what your mother said." Leon's father blindly agreed, heading into the living room to watch the soccer game. Leon's father had always been somewhat present in his life—if lazing about all day on the couch watching sports counted as raising children.
Leon didn't know why his father wouldn't just move out. His father was practically living under the roof rent free, considering the fact his mother did all the working and earning money.
Leon wanted, no, needed his mother to let his father go, but he knew it wasn't easy to get over a high school sweetheart whom she was still very much hopelessly in love with.
The rivalry between KingsMount and KnightsBridge may seem ridiculous to the people on the outside, but every student and teacher knew that they were too far gone to make amends.
Did they really think that merging the campuses would magically mend the relationship between the two schools? That's simply naive thinking, anyone would tell them that.
"If they really wanted to scrap the rivalry, they'd move the schools further apart." Lucas shrugged, and Leon mentally thanked the world for Lucas' intelligence.
"Oh, don't be ridiculous," Leon's mother—Lucia—huffed at her younger son as she put Eli on the floor, letting him walk about freely, "The only way to fix things is by straightening them out. Never run away from your problems, okay?"
~~~
Leon woke up to a weight dipping on his mattress and little giggles, then gasped as Eli jumped right onto his chest with a cheeky grin.
Eli was one of the few people in Leon's mental list of people who could wake him up without him having a fit. Nonetheless, he groaned at the light shining through the white blinds of his window; he was definitely not a morning person.
"Leo, wake up! Ma said it's time for school." Eli told him, then squealed when Leon moved his hands to tickled him.
"Hey, little guy," He smiled, tousling his youngest brother's brunette curls that reached just under his ears. "Don't you have school too?"
"Oh, I do, see you later!" Eli gasped, running straight for the door and disappearing down the stairs. Leon sighed and after a few painfully long seconds of stalling, reluctantly got out of bed. School was the last thing he was looking forward to now. The red uniform of KnightsBridge mixed with his blue one all in the same place flooded his mind, and he hated it.
Staying at home was another option, but Leon crushed that option as soon as he remembered he had basketball practice after school that day. He knew it was bound to happen sooner or later, grimacing at the thought of training with his rivals.
"Hey, Ma." Leon greeted his mother who was in the kitchen cooking up some breakfast. She smiled warmly at him, shutting off the stove and turning to her son with a proud grin.
"My boy looks so smart in his uniform," Leon's mother squealed excitedly, resulting in Leon huffing in innocent annoyance. It wasn't like it was anything new; he'd worn this same uniform for almost five months now.
"And here I thought I wouldn't have to wear uniform anymore after moving here," Leon rolled his eyes as his mother fixed his blazer and straightened out his tie. "Guess school isn't as promising as in the movies."
Leon and his family had moved from Mexico to England, where Leon had lived most of his life. He attended a regular British school, with regular British friends. He grew up in a small town in London; a town known for being "ghetto", till his mother thought it would be better to move to America.
Even after the move, Leon's Mexican ethnicity didn't didn't tone down any of the criticism and name calling, but the boy didn't care.
"It could be! In most the movies, the main character falls in love with a popular jock..." Lucia wiggled her eyebrows suggestively at her son, who stared at her in disbelief.
"What are you implying?" Leon narrowed his eyes playfully at his mother; she only grinned in return.
Lucas suddenly emerged from the living room with an empty carton of apple juice in his hands, suspiciously eyeing his mother and brother.
"Oh! Drop your brother off at school, will you? I have to make a quick run at work, it's an emergency for all I know," Lucia tapped Leon's cheek and quickly trampled up the stairs.
The sound of cardboard coming in contact with a plastic bag came next as Luca threw the juice box in the bin and picked up his bag.
"I'm not sitting in the backseat this time." Luca told him, earning an eye roll from Leon. Leon's passenger seat was usually off limits, but he'd found that saying no to Luca was pointless.
The two boys entered the car, buckling themselves in before Leon hit the road.
"How do you like Year 6?" Leon asked Luca as the car came to a halt when they'd reached a red light. Luca clicked his tongue.
"You mean 'fifth grade'?"
"Answer the damn question."
Luca huffed with a shrug. "It's okay. Still prefer my school back in the UK, though."
Leon nodded his head in agreement. His own school wasn't bad. Just a regular stereotypical school, really. It was sort of boring how normal his school was, and certainly preferred the education in the UK.
The car stopped in Lucas' school's car park as Luca departed with a wave, leaving Leon to drive himself to school.
The moment Leon stepped foot into the campus, he wanted to leave.
There were too many red uniforms and faces he'd usually try to purposefully avoid seeing, and knowing they're all on one campus didn't help whatsoever.
"Well, fuck me..." Leon huffed in defeat as he got out the car and onto the campus. He narrowed his eyes, looking around at the chaos going on around him. Arguments were everywhere, and definitely no signs of peace anywhere; it was a complete red versus blue battlefield.
"When?" A deep voice sounded from behind Leon, and his body froze. Leon slowly turned around to see Jayce Khan—star player of the KnightsBridge basketball team—with the left corner of his mouth curled up into a smirk. The boy in front of Leon had a head full of dirty blonde curls with subtle streaks of amber in them and beautiful green eyes.
Leon's expression quickly melted into one of annoyance, and Jayce's features turned amused. Leon wanted no more but to rip that smirk off his face.
"What do you want?" Leon snapped, fixing Jayce with a bored glare. Jayce shrugged and just as he parted his lips to speak, the bell rang and cut off his words. The expression on Jayce's face told Leon he was debating whether to say anything at all.
Jayce simply put his hand on Leon's shoulder and smirked, saying, "See you around, Perez. Hopefully not on the court, for your sake."
That made Leon's blood boil. Jayce could pick on Leon all he wanted, he didn't care. But when it came to basketball, something he actually liked and gave a damn about, Jayce knew a single sly comment like that would piss Leon off.
Without another word, Jayce departed from Leon, and he glared in the direction the boy walked away and entered the building in.
"He's hot, not gonna lie."
Leon jumped as the voice of his friend Ales whistled at the sight of Jayce. A scowl planted itself onto his face and Ales shrugged.
Ales had been Leon's friend since he'd moved to America. Leon had just been out helping his mother pack stuff from the moving van when Ales had offered to help them as he was taking his afternoon walk. It wasn't till Leon had actually started school that he was informed Ales had a twin brother—whose name was Alan. The three of them immediately became a trio, and had been ever since.
"What is wrong with you people? Can't a guy get a break?" Leon rolled his eyes and started strolling toward the building, Ales following close behind.
The ground practically rumbled as students sprinted into the building out of nowhere, leaving the two confused as the volume of their surroundings increased. It wasn't till they heard some girl blurt the word 'fight' that the two understood was what was going on.
"A fight, huh?" Ales questioned, leaving Leon in a blinking state.
That spiked Leon's curiosity.
A fight? Between who? He didn't get time to ask before he was being dragged by the wrist into the school building.
It was clearly a KingsMount versus KnightsBridge fight, anyone could tell that much by how the red and blue uniforms were split onto opposite sides. But Ales and Leon still couldn't make out who was fighting who through the screams and crowd of teenage bodies blocking their view. So they squeezed through them, every now and then muttering a meaningless 'sorry' when they received a glare for the shove.
As Leon approached the front of the crowd, his face physically paled at the sight of Alan and Jayce wrestling on the floor. Ales' face twisted up into many emotions before he jumped into the fight, and he didn't look like he knew what he was getting himself into. It seemed as if he acted on instinct, and Leon didn't know whether to trust it. Leon couldn't predict what Ales was trying to do, but he prepared for the worst.
No offence, but Ales was as weak as a house cat. He'd make little to no difference if he decided to start attacking Jayce alongside Alan. Besides, Jayce went to the gym, Ales would die from a single flick of his own finger.
To Leon's—and everybody else's—surprise, Ales didn't jump in to defend his brother. Instead, he yanked Alan off of Jayce, causing gasps and whispers in the hall too suddenly erupt.
Dramatic much. But this was high school; was anything even remotely close to dramatic?
Jayce got up, panting and bringing his wrist up to his mouth to wipe the present blood oozing from the side of his lips. It took Leon a second to realise, Jayce looked more fucked up than Alan, which confused him even more than any scenario as to why this fight started in the first place.
"Son of a bitch... This isn't ove-" Jayce started, but just as he was about to finish his sentence, the sound of a whistle dominated the screams and everybody quickly scrambled away, as well as Ales and Alan. Leon rolled his eyes at the fact they'd basically abandoned and left him for dead.
Turns out, somebody had reported the fight to the principal—Mr. Logan—and everybody knew when the elder man actually bothered to come out of his office, he wasn't fucking around.
"What is going on here?" The principal bellowed, and Leon thought of just walking away. "You, take him to the nurse." The principal pointed at him and Leon tried his best to hide his sour expression.
Just his luck.
Leon hesitantly walked toward Jayce and signalled for Jayce to follow him with his hands, and Leon was relieved to see him obey instead of protest.
~~~
"Call me if you need anything, and Leon, I'll report that you're here to your teacher." The nurse said, before leaving to deal with another injured student.
Jayce's face looked... well, fucked up still, but in Leon's opinion, it always did. He had a band aid on the left corner of his lips and held an ice pack to his cheek, which was currently swollen and a deep, angry purple.
"You can leave, you know?" Jayce broke the silence, shifting on the bed of the clinic.
"Why would I leave? We're best friends aren't we?" Leon sarcastically shrugged. Jayce's face twisted up in confusion at what he'd just said, and Leon mentally face palmed at his stupidness. "I was told to wait here, you were literally there for that, if you don't remember. Shouldn't you be thanking me?"
"Yeah, thanks." Jayce grumbled with fake gratitude and Leon rolled his eyes. According to Leon, Jayce was such a pain. A pain he did not have the energy to deal with.
***
being british is such a flex ;3