Self Esteem || Peter Parker

1

The first day that students returned to school after the Avengers had brought everyone back from the snap was busy. It was heaving. Suffocating. The school, which had diminished slightly in the last few years, was full to bursting with students. Minjoon found himself fighting to get through the corridors to his locker. Jay following right behind him as they wove between students with increasing feelings of strange disorientation. New faces they didn't recall were suddenly everywhere, mixing with the old. Students who had disappeared for five years back as if nothing had happened, unchanged. It was way too wacky for Minjoon's head to wrap around. Thoughts on time and stasis and reality making his head hurt.

"Milo!" Jay flicked him on the cheek and he jumped. He turned to his best friend with a blink. "We're going to be late for Ms Jameson", he reminded with a yawn.

"Since when do you care about Ms Jameson?" Minjoon huffed as he shoved his PE kit into the locker. "You always make me late to class".

Jay just smirked at him from where he was leaning against the wall, sharp eyes watching the crowds around them. The corridor was full of chatter, excited voices filling the space as students recognised each other and reunited, or as others shared their anger at their circumstances. Minjoon, or Milo as he went by in school, was already growing sick of it. "Everyone is back from the snap", Jay grinned. "I want to see who they are".

"That's just cause you're a flirt", Ellie greeted with smile. She had shoved his way between a couple of hugging girls to join them as the three teens watched the chaos around them. Minjoon shut his locker and greeted her with a fist bump. "Milo", she stated as they both made explosion sounds as they bumped fists. "Love the hoodie". She was dressed in her usual baggy tshirt over ripped baggy jeans. The jeans themselves held up with a chain like belt from which hung her keys and various key rings she liked. They clinched when she walked but she had learnt to be quite sneaky with them.

The hoodie she had commented on was new. A dark grey with a nebula emblazoned across the chest. It hung loosely on Minjoon's lean frame, a size too big. His own jeans weren't as baggy as Ellie's but they had just as many rips and his own chain belt held various fabric straps all tied on or apart of key rings. They were alot quieter than hers but just as bright. Compared to them, Jay went the extra step. He was wearing a loose black shirt over a grey vest. His skinny jeans containing the same chain belt but his had a pair of sunglasses hanging from it and nothing else. Still, the chain belt marked him as one of their trio. One of them and no one in this school messed with them.

"Thanks, Danny gave it to me". Danny being the English name Daejoon used in public. They didn't have to use English names, but their parents had thought that it would make it easier for them to fit in at school. It didn't but it had stuck. Only close family now called them by their birth names. That had been the way ever since half the world, including their parents, had vanished. No one but Danny called him Minjoon anymore, not even with their parents return. Not that they had returned for long. Just long enough to see that their children were alive and fine by themselves, before moving back to Korea to restart their lives.

"Do you know anyone who might be returning?" Jay asked Ellie as they watched the students begin to head to class. The trio of little delinquent outcasts not moving. Minjoon watched as a few boys from the football team made the mistake of glancing at them. He caught one of their stares and the boy, despite being almost twice his size, hurriedly turned away. Minjoon smirked slightly.

"Not really. There's a few I've heard off", Ellie shrugged. There was a bruise fading on her jaw, half hidden by her mane of wild dark curls. It was a yellow colour in the morning light and at this angle, it seemed darker. She was the tallest out of them, gangly and limber. It was made obvious by her converse, and Jay's docs. His extra height doing nothing to bridge the few inches between them. "What about you?"

"Not really", Jay shrugged. "Some of them are cute though. It's like getting loads of new students at once".

Minjoon swept his gaze over the crowd again and paused. The numbers were settling as people ducked into classrooms, crowds lessening into groups and suffocating hubbub declining. It was the extra space that allowed him to see a very familiar boy dressed in jeans, a shirt and a jumper. Jumper a faded baby blue that looked good on pale skin. His brown hair was swept back and he seemed lost somehow. Head lowered and shoulders weighted with something heavy behind his eyes. Minjoon sort of missed the heavy black glasses but Peter hadn't worn them since he was thirteen. The sight of him now, just as he remembered before the snap, stole the breath out of his lungs. Something warmed in his chest. A years old familiar crush stirring and lifting its head.

"Earth to Milo". Ellie snapped her fingers in front of his face and a few people around them flinched back. Some letting out scandalous gasps, as if she had began spitting swears. She shot them a glare and they horridly moved away.

"Honestly what is with you today?" Jay huffed, leaning over to ruffle Minjoon's hair. "Your head in the clouds or something?"

"Fuck off", he batted the offended hand away, soaring his friend a scowl. "Just through I saw someone I knew". His heart was beating faster and he tried to ignore the redness rising under his freckles.

"Who do you know?" Ellie looked around as if she could magically tell. But the hall was mostly empty now. Peter gone with the crowds and Minjoon felt like he could breathe again.

"No one", he muttered as he shouldered his bag. "Come on. Any later and Ms Jameson will blow as gasket". The slight blush fading from his face now that the boy was gone.

"I would pay to see that", Jay laughed as the three of them moved from the lockers and finally made their way through almost empty halls.

"I'll see you in Art later", Ellie placed a parting hand on each of the boys shoulders before striding away from them towards the stairs. Jay and Minjoon both offered waves as they dragged themselves to English. Not one of Minjoon's favourite subjects but not his worst either.

"Late again!" Ms Jameson's sharp voice, pitched like an owl, greeted them as they sauntered into the room. "Mr Kim! Mr Sand! I am letting you off since it is the first day back but one more late class and you shall be in detention".

"Aww Ms!" Jay slapped a hand to his chest and batted his eyelashes. Strands of long black hair falling out of his bun as he took in the room. "How very kind of you. I am touched, really". Minjoon rolled his eyes at his best friend's usual antics and glanced around for a seat.

The class was full. Students he has never seen before mixing with classmates from the previous year. Those who knew of him pointedly did not make eye contact as he swept his gaze over them, while those who didn't stared back with the blatant bored curiosity any teen showed at drama. There were two chairs standing empty in the room. One at the desk right at the back of the room, half occupied by a blonde boy he dimly recognised from the swim team. The other was at the front of the room. Minjoon headed for the back, enjoying the way the swim boy's eyes widened at the sight of him.

His backpack made a heavy thump as he dumped it on the table. The swim boy flinched. "Move". It was a command that had him shuffling his books and pens into his hands before grabbing his bag. Minjoon slid into the newly occupied seat and kicked his feet up onto the desk with a sigh. Jay taking the seat beside him and reclining with a smirk.

"What are you all looking at?" He cooed at the staring classmates. They turned away, whispers breaking out around them as Ms Jameson tried to begin the class. Minjoon sighed and rested an arm over his eyes. First day back and he was already dreading this year. This was not going to be his year.

Unedited