Benji's POV.
It started off as an annoying itch on the back of his neck.
Well, not necessarily an itch. When Benji really thought about it, it felt like the tingling sensation that he got whenever someone gently blew on the back of his neck, combined with the unsettling feeling he got whenever someone stared at him for prolonged periods of time.
Whatever it was, he hated it.
"Oi, Krol!" Coach shouted from across the field, waving a clipboard at the confused boy. "You're late! Go change, before I take off even more participation points from your grade, boy!" With a sigh and roll of the eyes, Benji began slowly jogging towards the locker rooms.
It's not like Coach would actually fail Benji. He just liked to make empty threats. Benji had been his favorite student ever since he'd tried for football, and ever since he qualified for the team, he'd been Coach's star player. If he failed PE, he failed at any chance at a scholarship... which meant that Coach would never be recognized as the "man who brought up Benji Krol's football career" and dumb shit like that.
Bottom line? It's wouldn't be that big of a deal if Benji was a few minutes late.
Sighing, Benji pulled out his phone as he sauntered towards the locker rooms, scrolling through Instagram lazily as he tried desperately to waste time. His eyebrows furrowed when he saw a new post by the school Instagram - that stupid high school 'drama alert' Instagram - and realized it was a new video of the same spanish boy that had been videotaped going on a date with his boyfriend.
It showed a slightly shaky video of the small, brown-haired boy sitting next to an older blonde girl, his head drooped down on the crook of her neck as his shoulders visibly shook. Benji's heart tightened when the video showed the image of the girl lifting up his bruised face to try and clean off the blood that dripped down from his nose to his chin. Disgusted, Benji clenched his phone tightly and lowered it.
Who would do that to someone? Who would do that to him?
Benji had seen the small boy before, in English. He seemed to really struggle in it, and although Benji really wanted to go help him out with his work, his tablemates had always refused he go. Of course, Benji knew he was always at the liberty just get up and sit by him - it's not like anyone was really stopping him: and, knowing this, Benji felt guilty every time he saw the boy.
If the video of the crying boy got Benji mad, the caption got Benji mad mad. It said: homosexuals are not🙅♂️❌allowed in our school. get out of our school before we make u, spanish faggot. @MHSnohomo02
Homosexuals weren't allowed? Benji scoffed. He'd met at least four outed ones, excluding his other closeted friends. For example: the most popular girl in school, Hannah, was pansexual. Their linebacker, Liam, was gay. The new boy, who transferred from California, was transgender. Hell, even their teacher was an outed gay man, married and prideful. Whoever ran this account was a dumbass.
The username at the end of the caption led to a page with no content, but, whoever whoever owned it was live streaming.
When Benji first joined, he immediately recognized that it was a view of the small spanish boy, who was quickly walking into the bathrooms outside of the locker rooms.
What?
Benji, confused, looked up from his phone and towards the bathroom, where he caught a glimpse of the spanish boy slipping in through the door. Benji went to quickly follow him, but quickly came to a halt when he realized that a group of four different boys had the same idea.
The bad feeling itched its way back up, this time so profound that the hairs on the back of Benji's neck stood up in discomfort. Winching and rubbing it, Benji looked back down at his phone. Whoever was streaming had quite an audience - about two-hundred people (a quarter of the school) and was definitely part of the group that had just followed the spanish boy into the bathroom.
Benji didn't know what came over him, or why he felt the need to follow them in.
He just knew there was something wrong.
...
Jorge's POV:
Jorge didn't expect a thing.
All he had done was stroll into the bathroom, check to see if there was anyone else in the stalls, and begin to change in one.
He didn't expect to hear the terrifying slam of the bathroom door slam open. He didn't expect to see the group that had beaten him up for being gay, banging on the bathroom stall doors as they hollered homophobic slurs. He didn't expect them to break open the door of the flimsy bathroom stall and point a camera at his half-naked body, sneering insults and grabbing him by the hair as they dragged him up against the wall.
He didn't expect any of it.
Panicked, he tried to cover the bruise that was now fully exposed to the boys, but one of them grabbed his wrists and yanked Jorge towards him so hard Jorge felt his bones pop... painfully. Another boy grabbed his hair and yanked it back, fully exposing Jorge's neck, and the dark purple bruise that prominently stood out against his pale skin was undoubtedly caught by the camera that a platinum-blond haired boy pointed at him. A fourth boy stood to the side, clearly uncomfortable as he watched the smaller boy cry desperately for help. As one of them grabbed Jorge's neck and pressed down harshly on the bruise, Jorge let out a strangled yelp and began to cry and claw at the hands that were pushing him down.
"Trying to call for your boyfriend, Jorge?" a boy threateningly whispered in his ear when Jorge tried to reach for his phone. Quickly, it was snatched out of his pocket, and Jorge gasped as the boy threw it against the wall.
The screen shattered as soon as it touched the ground, but nobody seemed to pay attention to the ruined phone.
"Chill out, Jayden!" the uncomfortable boy hissed when one of them banged Jorge's head against a sharp corner of the stall and promptly cut open his eyebrow. "This is way too much! Stop it!" Nobody seemed to pay attention to the desperate boy, though, because none of them acknowledged either the beaten or guilty boy's pleas.
Thankfully, a particularly annoyed football player was able to hear him as he slammed open the doors and rushed to where the commotion was.
"Hey! What the hell do you think you're doing?" Benji shouted over the ruckus, which quickly died down as the group realized that it wasn't one of them who'd shouted it. The boy who was livestreaming quickly clicked it off, shoving it into his pocket before Benji could realize it was him. "I said, what the hell are you doing?"
It was quiet for a moment, the only noise coming from Jorge, whose tiny whimpers could be heard through his muffled shuffles as he tried desperately to rid himself of the intrusive hands that wrapped around him.
"Get out," one of the boys sneered as he tightened his hands around Jorge's hair, keeping him from moving any more. Benji's eyes widened when he saw Jorge's mouth open in a silent scream, his tears now mixing with the trickling blood from the cut on his eyebrow.
"Let go of him! What are you doing, what... why... just... just let go of him, Jesus..." Benji stuttered, quickly moving to try and help the beaten boy up - but, someone moved forward to stop him.
With a challenging look in his eyes, the boy with platinum bleached hair mumbled, "I wouldn't do that, if I were you."
Benji looked at him in disbelief. "Seriously? You too, Liam?"
"Shut up and walk away, Ben," Liam snapped, shoving him out of the stall and slamming the door behind him. Benji stood there in shock for a moment as silence encompassed the bathroom. "Get out, Benji!"
Benji suddenly surged forward, knocking open the door and immediately lunging for Liam, who slammed against the wall when Benji came in contact with him.
"I'm. Not. Fucking. Leaving," Benji hissed, his hands pinning Liam's shoulders against the wall as he threateningly glared at the rest of the group. "All of you, get out." "I said get out, mother fuckers." The silence fell over them like a suffocating blanket of darkness, and one by one, they released their painful grips on Jorge and lurked out of the bathroom, sparing no glance towards their entrapped friend. Liam stayed quiet as they left, eventually meeting Benji's eyes as he let go of his shoulders and hunched down next to the bleeding boy.
"You too. Get out," Benji angrily said, softly touching the boy's leg as he watched him curl up in a tight ball and let out a loud sob.
"I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry... I never meant for this to happen, I was just... I was just trying too..." Liam began to whimper, but Benji was having none of it.
"Get the fuck out, Liam, before I make you get out."
Sparing the two an immensely guilty look, Liam slumped his shoulders and quickly walked out of the bathroom in shame, leaving Jorge and Benji in silence.
Soft sobs shook the smaller boy as he wrapped his arms tighter around himself, desperately trying to cover himself as Benji lowered himself to his level.
"Shh... it's ok..." Benji shushed, desperately trying to calm the hyperventilating boy. Slowly, desperately, Benji reached out and gently touched Jorge's bare shoulder, trying his best to be comforting. "Please, I just... I need to help you. Your head's bleeding, a lot, and I've cleaned up cuts like this before, so..." Benji whispered, trying not to scare the terrified boy as he moved closer. "I need you to stand up for me, ok?" All Benji got as a response was Jorge's muffled cries as he aggressively shook his head no, brown locks shaking back and forth with forceful movements.
Sighing, Benji crouched close beside the boy. "I'll help you." Despite Jorge's protests, Benji shifted off his jacket and covered Jorge's exposed back with it, wrapped his arms around him, and slowly forced Jorge to stand.
Jorge laid most of his weight on Benji, but he didn't mind. They both limped to the sink, where Benji propped Jorge up on. As soon as they were detached from each other, Benji lunged for a wad of paper towels and wet them with freezing water, handing one to Jorge as he made a second one. Jorge winced as Benji helped him press the cold water against the cut on his forehead.
Benji found his fingers lingering on the smaller boy's ones as they both pressed down on the towel, but upon seeing Jorge's eyes shifting up at his in confusion, Benji quickly let go and began to work at cleaning of Jorge's tearful face. He frowned when he noticed a bruise, and upon looking down at the towel, Benji realized that the boy had been wearing makeup from the evident use of fair-colored foundation.
"Why do you have an old bruise?" Benji asked, gently continuing to clean off his face as Jorge avoided his eyes. Instead of answering, Jorge instead pressed the towel harder into his cut, focusing on the stinging sensation rather than the cute boy in front of him. With a sigh, Benji put down his towel, large palms gripping the edges of the sink as he spoke. "You don't have to answer me every time I ask something, but... you know... but it'd be nice if I knew your name." After a few seconds of silence, Benji dishearteningly gave up and began rinsing a new towel to clean the spanish boy's face with.
"Jorge," Jorge mumbled quietly, after a few moments of contemplation. Benji's eyes snapped up to the smaller boy's, who stared at him intently. "I'm Jorge."
"Jorge," Benji mumbled, feeling his heart lurch a little bit when Jorge's brown locks fell into his tearful eyes. "I'm sorry." His soft spoken words made the younger boy cry once again, overwhelming sadness and sorrow for himself taking over as he clutched the edge of the sink. Slowly, gently, Benji pulled him into a tight hug as Jorge began to cling onto the older boy's shirt as he sobbed on his chest.
"I'm so sorry, Jorge... I'm so sorry."
...
Sorry for the long wait. I've been studying for summer school, but i just finished, so uploads will be more frequent. The late update was partly because of that and partly because... I just really hate this chapter :/ I honestly wanted to make their first time meeting each other different, but the plot that i've laid out for this story is best followed through this one. sorry if i disappointed anyone. i get it. im probably going to re-write this book when im finished with it, so it's refined... so it's fine, for now.
PLEASE POINT OUT MISTAKE/CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM.
Also tell me what you want next in the story, so I can incorporate some of your ideas into mine :)
the next chapter will be 100x better, I promise.
as always, love you xx