A/N: A new story, and this time they're in high school universe, which is totally made up! 16/17 year olds perhaps, whichever you imagine. I WILL eventually work on October 31st again, but this fic is my passion for now :)
~Writer42
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The locker room smelt like sweat and that was all it smelt like, a common outcome after a boisterous training session of cricket between a bunch of rowdy boys.
One of those boys, a particular Jonathan, sighed with boredom yet again, strolling to the front area of the locker like he had all the time in the world. His walk exuded confidence, while his clothes were slung ungracefully around his shoulder.
As he made his way to his usual spot on the bench-island in front of the lockers, some of the other boys scooted to the side to make space for him. He acknowledged them with a smirk and a slightly failed attempt at winking, like he had some eye attack.
Sitting down, he stared at his sport uniform for a bit, contemplating the crest of the school logo with a rose and a lion. His fingers ran across the colourful emblem, and he quite liked it, unlike most of the other boys. They found it too girly for a boys' school uniform. The lion, he agreed, looked like a sewing accident, but the rose was beautiful. It was a small, meticulous reddish flower to the right of the lion, catching his eye every time he looked down at his shirt.
The other boys tried not to stare at him while he was in his rose admiring world, but it was little hard. Lots of the other boys were always in awe with Jonny, trying to imitate his every move and gain his approval by doing anything they could for him. He'd practically ask them to tie his shoes, get his books and hide a rotten apple in the locker of some kid he didn't like, and they would do every single thing.
For most of the boys at Derwent-Leighton School, Jonny was some kind of superhero who did marvellous things and charmed everyone with his outgoing ways. He was highly popular amongst the students and teachers alike, more so because his family had funded many projects for the school, rendering him practically immune to any demerits. Of course, there were the students in the lower social groups would absolutely hated him for his show-offy personality, but he couldn't care less about them.
Although he had never directly done anything rude to those boys, a couple of them might have held grudges from some bad encounters, simply because they were at the wrong place at the wrong time.
Besides those odd boys, he was popular with everyone else, like his fellow team-mates looking towards his direction now. They were careful as directly making eye contact would be a mistake, Jonny would boldly stare back with his piercing emerald eyes and possibly scare them to death.
"Ahem, Jonathan. I'm sure that emblem looks stupendous but we'd everyone's attention about the game tomorrow. And today might be a good time to have it." his sport teacher, Mr. Blackman, pointedly directed straight at him, shooting daggers from across the locker room.
Jonny didn't say anything, but the corner of his mouth twitched and he sat up in an effort to look interested.
"Well boys, I'm sure you know by now that tomorrow we'll be the first round of the cricket season against a nearby school as part of our interschool program, and I'm here to tell you who we'll be up against tomorrow. Our valiant opponents for tomorrow's game will be," he visibly hesitated, "...Devonlea Grammar."
There was instant uproar, sheer anger radiating from the body of each and every boy in the room. The whole team had turned into anger transmission towers. Jonny couldn't believe it.
Devonlea Grammar was the most hated rival of DLS. The schoolboys that they were all eager to rip to shreds and wipe off the blood afterwards. It was an unwritten rule, that the boys from the two schools were like sodium and water, each time they meet up it caused a violent explosion. By enrolling into DLS you were unknowingly signing the oath to hate Devonlea in its entirety, your heart had to go cold at the very mention of Devonlea Grammar. Some of the poor boys in the younger forms had friendships from previous schools that they had to publicly sever completely because they transferred to Devonlea. No one knew as exactly how this venomous rivalry started, but everyone was intent on continuing the tradition.
"Those low-lives."
"What a sad lot, surely it's unfair competition for them?"
"They'll be crushed to bits, hands down."
All the boys wore looks of contempt on their feature, but no one looked as scornful as Jonny. He looked positively bored, but anger tinted his features a slight red.
"We'll grind them to pulp yeah?" he fired the other boys up, "They're just buzzing flies, do you no harm and annoying as hell." Cheers of agreement came from everyone, perhaps to make themselves seem like loyal followers in Jonny's eyes.
Rumours of the disservice between the two schools often flew.
"Did you hear? The Devonlea kids egged the back garden yesterday after the cleaners went home."
"We might have accidentally kicked some footballs through their art room window, it was open okay? Knocked over some paint next to some papier-mâché art thing, what a shame."
"A group of them tried to steal my mate's bag yesterday, their names were Paul and Chris, pretty sure. Slogged Chris straight in the stomach, he fell to the ground and his yellow curly sad excuse for hair turned brown from the mud." All the other boys laughed at hearing this story of embarrassing defeat for Devonlea, clapping and patting the boy on the back.
One boy was switching back and forth between giving the loudest slaps to the boy's back and staring out to the distance, almost distracted. That boy was Jonny.
Jonny had a deep secret, one that broke Derwent-Leighton's honour code to an unforgivable degree. His deep secret was the reason that his heart was currently a little pained, a dull ache that was not an unfamiliar symptom of guilt.
That secret was the reason that every time, at the local football field where they all played against each other every weekend in a bitter rivalry, when he tried to sink the self-esteem of the popular, jocks-type clique of Devonlea boys as much as possible, his heart would call out to him, asking himself about what on earth he was doing trying to degrade someone who taken over it.
He never would admit it to anyone in his school, they would slaughter him. Not for going completely and utterly mad for a boy, no. Many DLS schoolboys still showed lots of hate towards other schoolboys that swung both ways, or weren't straight at all, but heck, lots of the boys at school had probably experimented with each other at some point and were too chicken to admit. Girls were mainly sought after, but boys together wasn't so uncommon either. But in all this, no one, not a single person had had a romantic interest with anyone from Devonlea as far as Jonny knew of.
That would be considered a sin.
And that is exactly where Jonny's dilemma lay. He would never call it a problem.
Jonny did not only have a vague romantic interest, or one-time fling with a Devonlea Grammar boy. He had developed a very hidden but steady few-week relationship with one. He had clumsily opened up his heart for a day, after a sunny cricket game where he had started to view a certain member of the opposition team in a different light. He would never regret it. The other boy was perfect.
Still, he cursed Fate for putting him in such a precarious situation with such consequences for his social position.
His heart had not just chosen any boy from the enemy school. Not just a cute, but mostly ignored, nerd sitting on the bench doing his studies after school, though Jonny had to admit he had a liking for boys like that.
His heart had chosen Christopher Martin, coincidentally most popular boy of Devonlea Grammar. The Christopher Martin, the boy who garnered the most hate from DLS. He could just shoot himself in the heart sometimes.
The other boys were still rambling on and on about the run-ins that they had had with Chris and Paul, which Jonny was pretty sure was his Chris. His brain told him to nod along, his heart told him to shake his head in disapproval.
He did neither.
Jonny gave a mocking salute to Mr. Blackman, grabbed his belongings, slung his bag carelessly around himself and walked out the locker room door. The other boys didn't pay his much mind surprisingly, they were too engrossed plotting to get back at Chris and smash the other team tomorrow. For the first time in awhile, Jonny was not in the spotlight, instead Chris had managed to permeate their minds. Chris was on Jonny's mind too, just not in the same way.
