Vikk's P.O.V.
I sighed and hugged my backpack close, nervous that someone would try to tear it from my back again, for the third time that day. If someone took it too far and threw my backpack or dropped it onto the floor then my laptop could get broken. Again.
I was the new kid at a tiny school, 400 students at most spread across 4 years so everyone knew everyone, except me. They teased me for everything they could find, my height, I was several inches shorter than even the next shortest boy, my accent, I had a thick Sheffield accent and since moving to London people had picked on me for it and my colour. Being in a mostly all white school didn't help me and the teachers didn't seem to care.
My lip started to tremble when I heard yelling behind me, pushing and shoving as some of my biggest bullies made their way towards me, to tease and ridicule me again. I turned away and clung to my bag, already feeling the tears forming in my eyes cause I just didn't want to deal with it anymore!
I jumped when one of them grabbed my arm and he pulled me backwards, pushing me into the wall.
"Where do you think you're going?" He asked, shoving me heavily into the wall and making me fall backwards onto the ground. "You ain't getting out of this."
Several others surrounded me and my automatic response was to cover my head, knowing they would probably start kicking me or even throwing stuff at me, just trying to hurt me. One of them grabbed my arm and started to drag me along the floor, and I started kicking out because his hand was over a very sensitive place on my arm and it hurt.
I was shoved into the janitors closet and tripped backwards, falling over the brooms and mops. I cried out as my head hit a shelf and almost blacked out for a second, but my head shot up when I heard someone else cry out and more cleaning supplies were disrupted as someone fell over beside me.
The door slammed shut, leaving me in the darkness and I heard the other person take a sharp intake of breath, pushing himself into a sitting position. As my eyes adjusted to the dark, with thin slivers of light creeping in under the door, I worked out who was stuck in the closet with me.
It was Lachlan Power, a kid in my year but one that I had hardly ever had contact with in my school year. He was popular, all the girls loved him but he had a record as a heartbreaker, he refused all advances from the girls and ignored all of them.
"What-" Lachlan was confused and he shook the nob of the door, trying to open it. Before he even touched the door I knew it was locked, I had been locked in small rooms before by the bullies but I was wondering how he ended up in here.
"Don't bother." I whispered, rubbing my head. "We'll have to wait for the janitor to open it."
He waded his way through the cleaning supplies and crouched down beside me, making sure that I was okay before sitting down. He opened his phone and turned on his flashlight, shining it at me and making me cover my face with my hand.
"Are you- what's that on your arm?" I lowered my arms and grabbed at my sleeves, stopping him from pulling down my sleeves when he reached for me. "Vikk?" He said fiercely. "Please, I want to help you."
He pleaded with me and I looked away. I knew he was a kind soul, he had helped on one occasion when I was being bullied, pushing all of the bullies away and getting me out of the situation, so I did trust him, but not that much.
"Vikk?" He asked quietly, reaching out and taking my hand. "Please, I'm worried about you." He sounded so sad that I almost completely collapsed, tears flowing from my eyes. He wrapped his arms around me and hugged me tightly, letting me cry into his chest for quite some time.
"It's okay, it's okay." He whispered into my ear, sounding like he was crying himself. When I looked up I saw tears falling from his eyes and he wiped them fiercely, taking my wrist into his hand.
"Can I?" He whispered, referring to pulling down my shirt sleeve. I nodded, crying again.
He gently pulled down the sleeve of my shirt and I saw the shock and sadness in his eyes, the way his eyes scanned my scars and the way his finger gently traced the newer cuts.
"Why do you do this to yourself?" He whispered. "How could someone so beautiful and perfect do this to themselves." He said the last part almost to himself, wrapping me a hug again as I started to break down all over again.
"I'm not beautiful. I'm not perfect." I mumbled, pulling my arm out of his grasp. He tilted my head back by placing one finger under my chin.
"Yes you are. You're everything Vikk, you're amazing and so, so perfect that I don't understand how you don't see that." He used his thumb to wipe my eyes, one of his hands resting gently on my hip.
I hiccupped, still crying, but after quite a while I calmed down enough that I felt able to speak.
"I think I'm okay now Lachlan." I mumbled, but he refused to let me go.
"No you're not." He said. "You don't have to be okay though."
That sentence was what made me break down again, the tears overflowing in my eyes again. I sobbed quietly, Lachlan just hugging me even closer, rocking me back and forth and whispering into my ear that everything was okay.
Eventually I calmed down again and Lachlan pulled away.
"Do you think that's better?" I nodded, breathing deeply.
"Thank you." I whispered and he smiled, leaning in and quickly pecking me on the lips, making me flush red and lower my head so I wasn't looking at him.
"Hey, hey, you can look at me Vikk." I was still red but Lachlan was smiling a little. "Are you okay?" I nodded and smiled a little, touching my lips.
"Yeah." He ran his thumb over my lips and leaned in for another kiss, capturing my lips in the gentle kiss in the dark, making my heart flutter and my face flush bright red all over again.
"Good." I relaxed completely and closed my eyes, leaning into his shoulder and simply waiting for someone to discover that we were locked in the closet. I didn't doubt that it would be awhile, the janitor didn't arrive until 9am so I settled in for a while, comfortable resting up against Lachlan.
He hummed gently and hugged me close. He closed his eyes.
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I yawned and stretched, happy to be out in the sunlight once again. Lachlan stood beside me, cracking his back because of the time he had spent hunched over a little, probably because he had been leaning on me.
We had been let out of the janitors closet by the janitor only half an hour before, when our teachers realized that neither of us were in class and one of the bullies admitted to locking us in there. His admittance led to most of my main bullies being pulled into the principals office, being asked about what the hell had been going on.
Our teachers had given us the morning to hang out in the library, so the principal could ask me to fill in the blanks of stories and so we could relax a little bit.
At one point Lachlan started giggling a little bit, and I asked him why.
"Cause it took us being locked in a literal closet to get out of the metaphorical one." I started laughing, realizing that it was true. I had never really told anyone that I was gay and Lachlan had never told anyone outside of his family that he was bi, so it did take something literal to force us out of the imaginary one.
He took my hand and pulled me over to the pile of beanbags in the corner of the library to relax for a little while. I rested my head on his chest and closed my eyes, smiling as he ran my hand through my hair and pressed light kisses to my head.
"You're such a softie." I mumbled, looking up at me.
"I know." He mumbled back, flicking a page of the book he was holding. "I can be a softie if I want."
"Yeah." I smiled. "I like you when you're a softie." He giggled, poking my nose.
"I think I do too."