▎. . . In which seven boys meet in the school counsellor's office every week and are given a group project to work on for the year.
UNDERGOING REWRITING
sidemen...
𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐓𝐇𝐑𝐄𝐄. triggers: cursing, indications of child abuse.
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𝐒𝐈𝐌𝐎𝐍 𝐊𝐍𝐄𝐖 𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐒 routine all too well. The familiar barking out, Minter! Stay behind after class! and the same exact roll of the eyes he'd respond with every time he was wound into this guilt trip.
It was simple arithmetic, this procedure: Simon + any class ever = trouble.
First of all, he'd like to say that this wasn't even his fault. His classmate was acting like a cunt, so it was only right for him to say it out loud! But now, here he was, still stuck in his maths class three minutes after the lunch bell had gone.
Hiking himself up onto the desk, he faced Mr Young with a deadpan expression.
"This is the third time this month, Simon..." the maths professor warned mutedly, raking through a plethora of coloured papers before tapping on his obnoxiously clacky keyboard. He was chewing bubblegum, popping it exaggeratedly between his teeth, and Simon felt the urge to punch his lights out.
He refrained, however, as he always did.
"So?" The blond replied sulkily, posture slumping as he twirled a pencil between his index and thumb. It pinged into the air and landed at the door, the rattle interrupting the overwhelming silence, but Simon knew by now not to retrieve it. Sat here like a fucking dog, he moaned.
Mr Young eyed him, unimpressed, before sighing.
"We're only two weeks into the term, Simon, and you have more bad referrals than any other year group combined."
Simon would be wailing if he didn't see that as an achievement.
At the silence, Mr Young continued.
"I just don't understand you, Simon. You do so well in all of your classes, yet you act as if they're all an inconvenience to you. I know you well enough to understand that you do enjoy school, that you do want to go far, but there are some staff members here..."
Blah, blah, blah. Simon tuned out the bullshit, whistling a whimsical tune and angling his face upwards. The tiles were positioned weirdly, on the verge of coming down. He realised then that he had actually done that back before the summer, after smashing a football directly into the ceiling. He chuckled to himself distractedly.
"...Simon, is everything alright at home?"
That surely brought him out of his daze, honeycomb memory evaporating before his eyes as he snapped his gaze down to the professor and locked his jaw.
