Tea Shops and Tragedies

A Full View of the World As You Fall

The headmaster's office was dreadfully cold. Even with his thick hoodie he had to dig out from the back of his closet this morning, Kiyotaka shivered viciously. He couldn't tell if the room was actually cold or it was due to the fact he hadn't eaten since dinner that night. His eyes were bloodshot and constantly on the verge of closing as he hadn't slept a wink. He tried, laying in bed and staring up at the ceiling for hours. His mind ran each event from that day in painful detail every time he would try to drift off. Haunting him with soft whispers of his mistakes.

Leon sat slouched in the wooden chair beside the trembling Kiyotaka, who for the first time in his life was not sitting completely straight. The wounds on Leon's face had been treated with patches and bandaids, and his nose had been splinted. His eye wasn't as puffy, but a dark purple bruise had begun to spread across it. He had a constant frown displayed, as if showing his displeasure would make Kiyotaka feel worse than he already did.

He finally glanced over at the raven-haired boy, noticing his outfit.

"What's with the getup? You get tired of wearing that stuffy old thing?"

His smirk was nothing but condescending, the corner of his lips drawing up in a crooked smile, a dry laugh dripping with sarcasm and spite.

Kiyotaka's fingers dug into the sweatpants that hung loosely and pooled around his ankles, his vacant stare never leaving it's spot on the headmaster's desk as he spoke,

"I would be wearing my uniform, if some degenerate hadn't desecrated them last night. Unlike you, I have pride in what I wear."

His dull eyes slid over to stare blankly at Leon,

"But you wouldn't know anything about that. Would you, Leon?"

A satisfying flash of anger shot over Leon's face. His arms crossed tighter over his chest as he puffed it out,

"You little fucker, you wanna throw down or some shit!"

Leon's voice cracked as he spoke, rising in volume and leaning toward Kiyotaka,

"Oh please, Leon, did you already forget the events that occurred last night? I did not think you would be so eager to test your luck again so soon."

Kiyotaka replied as if he was detesting a pet for bad behavior. His tone remained level with each insult, his eyes returning slowly to the same spot, as if to brush off Leon entirely.

The redhead gulped, instinctively raising his hand to brush over his scabbed broken lip.

Like clockwork, the headmaster entered the room, sighing heavily as he walked past the two troubled boys. His long coat swished behind him with the elegance one would expect. He was an older man with a thick dark brown beard speckled with gray and white hairs. Thin wire framed glasses sat on the edge of his nose. All the easier to leer at misbehaving students through. Before he had even pulled his chair out, he was already beginning his speech.

"Now, as I'm sure you know already, I am very disappointed in the both of you. Especially you, Ishimaru. I expected better out of one of the school's best students."

The boy merely nodded slowly once, tensing up as the headmaster addressed him. As if letting the mood settle and his words sink in, he paused, looking slowly from one boy's face to the next and back again before continuing with another heavy sigh.

"But, as I can't say I have heard both sides of the story, Leon, would you mind retelling what happened last night?"

Leon shifted in his seat, suddenly uncomfortable when the headmaster's piercing eyes settled on him.