As usual, like clockwork, Frank woke up early, trudging in to school in the early hours of the morning. It had become a routine over the past few weeks. The only problem was that he was so tired everyday. It didn't help that he normally fell asleep around one o'clock in the morning. In his defence, it wasn't his fault that they'd made TV programmes to be so addicting that he just had to stay up all night binge watching it.
Regardless the exhaustion, he entered the classroom, though this time, Gerard had beaten Frank to it. He was there first. It startled Frank and he stopped in his tracks, stepping back silently.
It seemed Gerard hadn't noticed Frank was stood there, and under his breath, he continued to sing.
A smile plastered itself across Frank's face because he recognised the song. If he was correct, Gerard was singing That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore by The Smiths -one of his favourite bands.
Even though his voice was barely audible, Frank could hear the raw emotion he put in to it.
To make his presence known, Frank cleared his throat. But he didn't want to; he wanted to listen.
However, to his delight, Gerard didn't acknowledge it. The pencil scratched across the page he was scribbling on, slightly muffling the sound of his singing. With his other hand his fingers were threaded through his hair, fingertips only just reaching the teal roots. A frown was clear and Frank supposed he was exhausted too.
Reluctantly, he tried again. "Hi."
This time, Gerard immediately quit singing, lips parted as he shot a weak glare at Frank, who shuffled back a bit, worried he'd be a disturbance. But Gerard's scowl quickly morphed in to an apologetic gaze. "I'm sorry."
"What for?" Frank offered a smile, brushing it off. He discarded his bag, gathered the supplies he needed, then set it all up on a table closest to the teacher's desk. Hesitantly, when Gerard didn't speak first, he added in a murmur, "I like your singing."
"You heard?" Gerard bit his lip, glancing at Frank as he drummed his fingers anxiously. Memories flooded back to him, and he was nervous Frank would react the same way they had. No one had ever liked his singing -as far as he was aware.
"Don't worry; you're very good at it."
"Really?" He grinned, unable to keep a straight face because hearing that cheered him up considerably.
"Really." Frank paused; looking down for a moment, then back up in to Gerard's eyes, which were cast to the side. "Hasn't anyone told you that before?"
"Uhm," Gerard took a deep breath, "No."
"Well, I'm telling you now."
"Thank you." Gerard grinned shyly, turning his attention back to his sketch as he ran his fingers through his hair to push it back from his face.
Even though Gerard was looking down, Frank sneaked a glance at him with a small smile on his face –that was until he noticed a faint bruise by Gerard's temple. It was a swirl of yellow, blue and purple that was hidden mostly by his hair, but a part of it trailed to the corner of his eye before it faded.
Honestly, Frank was really curious and wanted to poke the problem with a stick. However, he refrained because it would be a huge invasion of Gerard's privacy -no matter the cause. For all he knew, Gerard could have banged his head like Frank had.
Sighing deeply, Frank just sat and stared.
Eventually, Gerard caught on and raised his head, furrowing his brows at Frank, who had his head resting in his hand, staring seemingly blankly at him. It was freaking him out.
"Frank?" Gerard waved a hand to grab his attention.
Snapping back to reality, Frank blinked, shaking his head. "Sorry, what?"
"Are you okay?" he chuckled.
"Yeah, yeah, just tired." He lied, almost yawning for effect.
"Late night?"
Frank laughed dryly. "I was literally just watching TV. It's not like I was partying."
"That not your kind of thing?" Gerard asked, beginning to prepare the work for the students he had first lesson.
Frank shook his head.
"Me neither. I hate loud music."
A smile tugged at Frank's lips. "Me too."
-
Luckily after that riot of a class, Gerard had a pretty straight forward day. He'd survived a double lesson with obnoxious teenagers that had acted like they knew everything already. Next, he'd planned future tests during the lessons he was free. Though another teacher had had a class next door and he'd had to endure all of the noise and chatter, disrupting his concentration. In addition, Mr Wright had been badgering him on and off too.
Due to lack of motivation, Gerard had just ended up glaring at the computer screen for one hundred minutes, fingers threaded through his hair with his fingernails digging in to his scalp.
Suddenly, the bell rang, assaulting Gerard's ears, and students flooded out of 169b for lunch. Just as they exited, Frank entered.
"Hey." Frank dumped his bag.
"Hiya." Gerard couldn't even muster up the energy to answer him properly. He just felt so drained. Today was an unnecessarily bad day.
Frank noticed. "What's up?" He said a little quieter, caught in the middle of staying put and going over to comfort him. Gerard was his teacher, so because of that fact, he stuffed his hands in the pockets of his hoodie, deciding to sit on the edge of a table.
Sighing, Gerard rubbed his eyes, then scratched his fingers through his hair and pushed it back as he looked over at Frank, who offered a small smile. Reluctantly, Gerard returned it, having needed it. "Just. . . It's one of those days, you know?"
Even though he sort of didn't, he nodded anyway to avoid awkwardness. Chewing on his lip ring, Frank gathered shading pencils, picked up his bag and moved in to the middle room to be ready when the lesson started. To his delight, he had art next. For now, because he still had forty minutes of lunch time to waste, he grabbed his food and wandered back through to 169a.
Gerard had his head on the desk, eyes closed, but he still heard Frank's footsteps. He lifted his head, looking at him wearily. "How's your day been?" He picked up his attitude, folding his arms on the desk.
"Alright." Frank shrugged. "I had photography and game development, but maths sucked." He paused for a moment, taking a bite of the oat bar he'd packed. "What about you?"
Gerard groaned, rolling his eyes. "I had to teach art to a bunch of stubborn teenagers. They had to do the subject as part of the curriculum, so most of them obviously didn't want to be there."
"That sucks." He finished the bar, suddenly remembering the news he had. "Oh, I've edited the pictures of Brendon; I just need to print them out. I forgot to say."
"Good, because your main assignment is on kind of a stand still." Gerard frowned, gesturing for Frank to join him. He logged off the computer and Frank logged on, finding the files and then clicking on 'print', using the staff printer instead of the student's one –the difference was it printed in colour.
Frank collected the sheets, grinning at how beautiful they were. Brendon had gone all out in makeup, a shirt, tie and waistcoat with jeans for their 'very professional' photoshoot. There were also other photos for studying facial expressions. Frank flicked through them, coming to the one at the back and his face fell at the amount of emotion it conveyed.
"I like that one most." Gerard pointed to it, admiring Brendon's confidence.
"Me too." He agreed, deciding to draw it first. He printed another copy, gridded it, then copied the grid on to cartridge paper and began sketching.
"What medium are you going to do it in?" Gerard questioned, taking a seat opposite Frank as he marked essays from his other classes. A frown of concentration pursed his lips and his tongue stuck out from the corner of his mouth a little, causing Frank to chuckle quietly to himself.
It dawned on him that he hadn't answered yet. "Uhm, ballpoint pen." He stuttered, brushing hair from his eyes. It was getting down to his shoulders, but he somewhat liked it long. He could hide behind it.
"That might be difficult. Can you handle it?" Gerard glanced up through his lashes, a hint of a smirk gracing his lips.
"It's actually fun to do." Frank felt quite smug because he could shade in pen and capture more tones -as hard as that sounded. Noticing the look Gerard was sending his way, he felt his cheeks heat up, sure he was probably going bright red. But Gerard hastily lowered his gaze and the weird moment was over.
-
Soon enough, the bell rang and Frank gathered the photographs, travelling in to the middle room for the next two lessons of art. He listened to the pounding footsteps of the students as they came bounding in, hyper from lunch. They always came in energized and Frank was almost positive they snorted cocaine to boost their energy. Gerard was going to have one hell of a problem controlling them.
To Frank's surprise, Brendon wandered in, chucking his bags on the floor as he kicked the door shut.
"What're you doing here?" Frank asked, glad to see him. At least he wasn't going to be alone this lesson.
"Mr Way said I could come through here. Makes a change." He shrugged, setting up opposite Frank. "Oh, it's me." He grinned excitedly, snatching a few photos before Frank could whine about it. "You didn't tell me you'd printed these." Brendon examined them, having not seen the final photos yet. He was proud of them to some extent. "These will greatly improve your presentation." He smirked and Frank rolled his eyes.
"Ha, ha." He deadpanned, carefully taking the photos back and sliding them in to a plastic wallet.
"Seriously, though," Brendon raised his eyebrows, "They're really good."
"Is that a compliment to me, or a boast?"
"A compliment." He smiled. "Your photography skills are pretty awesome." He received a shy grin from Frank, who had turned bright red -he both hated and loved compliments, but he never knew how to take them.
[Published 6 May 2019]
[Last edited 15 December 2019]