On the Fritz

Chapter 1 - Part 1 // Rafael

Somebody with a surname beginning with Q needed to enrol in all of Rafael Peretz's classes or he had convinced himself he was dropping out.

It didn't have to be Q. He'd take a surname beginning with Ra-, Pr-, Pi-, anything that slotted in alphabetically between the surnames Peretz and Reiter. Better yet, he'd take teachers that didn't insist on arranging their students like chess pieces. Even better still, he'd have a gravestone reading Fritz Reiter with that six-foot body six foot below it.

But that was a pipe dream. Fritz was unkillable, and Rafael would know, because he'd been trying.

The evidence of Rafael's latest attempt at murder lay in the meat of Fritz's outer thigh, exactly where Rafael was digging his pencil in. It was a standard example of how they would indulge in concealed fights during class, and as per, Fritz was gritting his teeth and bearing it. Rafael knew he was feeling it - he brought his knee up hard through Fritz's upper leg two days ago, just so he could be dead certain he'd be feeling it.

"I'll snap it," Fritz whispered, keeping his gaze directed to the front of their history class.

"I'll snap you," Rafael hissed back.

Fritz reached below the desk to snatch Rafael's wrist into a concrete grip, before ripping the pencil from his stubborn fingers. Without his eyes leaving the whiteboard, he let go of his wrist and cracked the pencil in two, letting the pieces fall to the classroom carpet.

Rafael reached into his pencil case to pull out his least favourite ballpoint, but before he could lodge it into his leg, Fritz elbowed him so hard in his bruised ribs Rafael gasped for breath like a fish out of water.

"Oh," Fritz said casually, "that hurt, did it?"

Leaning his forearms on the desk in an attempt to regain his God-given right to breathe, Rafael bit down hard on his tongue.

Fritz had won. Regrettably, Fritz usually did.

Rafael's last endeavour at fatally injuring Fritz had taken place behind the sports shed after school last week. It had all become a bizarre sort of routine - whereas Rafael's relationship with his collection of other bullies was a spontaneous burst of passion that came out whenever it was most convenient, him and Fritz were perpetually on a schedule.

Their routine had fights planned for Friday afternoons, though this information was anything but public and they both fought hard to keep it a secret. They never gave black eyes, and they never did it anywhere they'd get caught. Fritz was adored by the entire school, and Rafael didn't want to brand himself as the guy who often tried to strangle him.

Still, maybe "fight" was the wrong word. If anything, it was weirdly more like a weekly catch up.

Every Friday, Rafael would turn his built-up irritation from the past seven days into some sort of insult. Usually, it was something about how Fritz looked homeless (false) or that his sister was a promiscuous bitch (true) or that he smoked so much weed, he no longer had a single brain cell left (debatable). Fritz was far too self-assured for this, and he'd just give Rafael an amused laugh, do something violent, and call him a virgin. Satisfied, Fritz would then leave Rafael to fight his way up from the grass, and they'd both go their separate ways and and enjoy their weekends.

In all honesty, their last encounter hadn't been too bad compared to other times they'd gotten physical. Rafael had spat out something about Fritz being the human equivalent of a sexually transmitted disease, Fritz had shrugged, and he'd said back, "At least I'm having sex."

After this uncreative yet fair comeback, Fritz got Rafael onto the damp grass with one good shove. He'd told Rafael to have a nice weekend before he finished him off with a solid kick to the ribs, which Rafael was still paying for.