Wild Horses

1997 and 1999 - Background

A/n Hey! Thanks for reading. This is some OC background buidling. Bucciarati appears after this.

"HEY FUCK OFF YOU FUCKIN SHIT HEAD!"
Fugo grabbed the older boy's shoulder from behind, turned him around, and smashed his face in with one swift punch. He picked the bent glasses up from the ground.

"That guy's a piece of garbage," Fugo said to the girl as he handed her glasses back to her. "Is it your first day? I'm Pannacotta Fugo."

"Lira," the girl introduced herself as she eyed the small blonde boy who had just saved her from the school bully. "Yea, I'm a freshman... but aren't you, too?"

"I'm a senior," Fugo laughed, "but yea, I'm 12."

"Holy, wow! I'm two years older than you and you're already graduating this year? Are you a genius or something?"

"Yea, Einstein, obviously," he rolled his eyes. Lira gawped at his sudden rudeness, which Fugo saw. "Sorry," he apologized, "I'm also kind of an asshole, too."

"No worries," Lira said sheepishly. "Thanks for getting my glasses back from that jerk..." She paused as they stared at each other for several seconds. "Well, I better get to class. See you around, Fugo. Thanks again!"

Fugo watched Lira scurry into the school building and wondered if maybe his anger could be channeled for good causes more often. His stress had been building up to the point of small outbursts, but he had managed to stave off anything serious so far. The worst thing he had ever done was almost stab his father, but nobody knew about that, so did it even count? He would be done with high school soon enough. Maybe then his parents would get off his back about studying and being perfect all the time. College was where people went to be free of their parents, right? Things would be different then.

A week passed, and Lira saw flyers for the math club. "I'm pretty good at geometry and algebra," she thought. "Maybe if I get really good at math, I can go to college some day and get out of this hell life... be an accountant or rocket scientist or something!" 

She stayed after school that day to join the math club. She immediately spotted Fugo in the small group of math nerds who welcomed her.

"Fugo! What are you doing here?"

"I'm captain of the math club," he laughed. "My parents made me do it," he rolled his eyes as they both giggled.

Lira sat in on the recruitment meeting as the veteran math nerds talked about math tournaments and what it was like being in the club. Lira was excited to join. Any kind of upwardly-mobile after-school activity that would keep her out of the house excited her. That was, until the math teacher got into the nitty gritty of it.

"So, as you all can imagine, traveling from tournament to tournament and affording all the new computer technology and calculators is pretty expensive," the teacher said. "That's why the yearly fee for math club is a solid $200 for anyone that joins. It will cover th..."

The teacher droned on, but Lira tuned out at the mention of $200. Her mouth both went dry and started to turn sour with the taste of nausea. She felt her face flush as she stared down at the desk she was sitting at, her palms spread out over the smudged wood. She stood up and quickly ran out the door before the tears started leaking from her eyes. Once outside, she let herself fall into the grass. And the tears came. She crawled between some bushes to curl up and hide from anyone who might walk by. How embarrassing would it be to get caught crying at school? She wanted to shrink and disappear.

"Lira?" a familiar voice called out. "Lira, are you out here? You forgot your backpack," Fugo shouted.

"Shit," she thought. "Hey Fugo," she said as she crawled out of the bushes while wiping tears from her cheeks. "Um... thanks," she said and took her backpack.