what's stopping you?

the new boy(s?)

𝖙𝖗𝖎𝖌𝖌𝖊𝖗 𝖜𝖆𝖗𝖓𝖎𝖓𝖌𝖘 𝖎𝖓 𝖔𝖕𝖊𝖓𝖎𝖓𝖌 𝖆𝖚𝖙𝖍𝖔𝖗'𝖘 𝖓𝖔𝖙𝖊

𐐪𐑂 ♡

wilbur looks up as the door to the classroom slowly pushes open, an unfamiliar blond boy leaning into the room. he's wearing jeans and a hoodie, so he's clearly a sixth former, and he just assumes that the stranger must be in year twelve.

miss rose pauses her teaching, looking over at the door. she smiles kindly, gesturing the stranger in with a quick hand wave, saying, "come in, you can sit anywhere."

the blond boy nods once, entering the room. he seems to glance quickly around the room, trying to work out where to sit. their class is relatively small, since english language isn't the most popular option at their school, and there are many options for where he could choose to sit.

for some reason, he decides on the front row, sitting on the right side of the room, leaving two seats between him and wilbur. the tables are organised in sets of two, beside each other to create four seats on each row, doubled on the opposite side of the classroom.

wilbur is sitting with his back up against the wall, sitting sideways so he could watch miss rose teach, and he's thankful for his seat and position choice now, as it gives him a perfect view of the new student.

miss rose continues with her lesson on language diversity and wilbur listens half-heartedly as he keeps half of his attention on the blond.

as soon as he'd sat down he had a book out, and he sits leaning over it as he quickly jots notes, his posture generally seeming poor as he arches over the page. he is biting at his lip, and wilbur can't tell if it's because he's concentrating or anxious - since the blond seems to be both of those things.

the brunette pulls his phone out of his pocket under the table, hiding it in his lap and glancing discreetly down at it as he navigates his way quickly to snapchat, opening their group chat and letting the other boys know that there's a new student. they start to reply immediately, but wilbur ignores the responses and pockets his phone as his teacher glances over with a knowing look.

"alright, in partners or small groups, or alone if you'd prefer, have a look at the script and make notes on how the two speakers' dialect varies in relation to where they're from."

unsurprisingly, the noise in the classroom gradually creeps up until the students are talking at an average volume. it's surprisingly loud, considering there are so few people, and wilbur notices how the new boy doesn't even look up from his paper.

instead of turning around to join the pair that he'd gotten used to working with throughout year twelve, wilbur moves into the next seat, so there's only one more dividing him and the unfamiliar boy. the movement, as expected, prompts the new boy to glance up just slightly, and he immediately makes eye contact with the brunette, who smiles kindly. "hi."

seeming a little startled by wilbur's sudden greeting, he awkwardly replies, "uhm, hey."

the brunette feels his eyes widen in surprise, an uncontrollably excited smile tugging at his features. "you're american?"