Leon, Leon (BoyxNB romance)

Chapter 1

I instinctively smile over at the other boys as the door shuts behind me, though out of the group of about five that were there, only two looked up back. I give a small wave towards them, a general sort of gesture meaning ‘Hey, still alive, notice me but not too much.’

And one of them does. But he’s the only one I’ve never seen before.

It isn’t a big secondary school at all – houses all the kids from eleven up in the surrounding twenty miles six hours a day, but that isn’t hard, considering the middle of nowhere that is most of our area. It made the affair easy, and predictable, for most of the time – people knew everyone, inside out and backwards – but relentlessly boring. And it wasn’t as if I was some party-going, thrill seeking adrenaline junkie or something. Xbox and jelly babies and a walk to the beach were all fine as weekend activities by me.

But still, it would be nice to have a change. And I feel like, now, by the way he smiles back, his perfectly white but crooked teeth showing, his skin way too tanned than it has any right to be around this area... He is change. And I’m not sure if that’s a good thing, yet.

“Hey,” I said as I sat down at the corner of the table, dropping my bag to the floor. “How are you guys?”
“Shitty, it’s Monday,” Jake said, his eyes down on his phone. I expected him to elaborate a little, but he just plugged an earphone in and continues tapping at whatever was on his screen. At least there’s no drama, I thought. Small mercies, Cal, small mercies.
“Okay,” I said quietly, trying to give a small laugh as I thought about how to introduce my world to this guy, who was still smiling, a little meekly, but had said nothing so far. “So um... You’re new?”
“Yes, I am new,” he said, playing with his thumbs. “I am called Leon. I am happy to meet you. It is a good day.”
Is he already trying to take the piss out of me? He sounds like he’s trying to role play as Google translate. I know what I said wasn’t exactly finely crafted prose, but still. I hoped he wasn’t always going to be like this.
“Um... okay,” I tried to say with the little confidence I could muster, but instead of laughing, or at least giving a little smirk, he just looked vaguely concerned. “It’s good to meet you too.”
“That gives me happy,” he smiled, with all the innocence in the world. Does he just have issues or something? “I like this place.”
“You won’t for long mate,” one of the boys said, chuckling. “You’ll want to get out, soon enough.”

The conversation carried on like that – mostly hi, and how are you, and the weather and the price of fish, etc. and I mainly provided the fuel, with the other boys chiming in occasionally, and even though we were talking fluently enough, I was still wary of him. He seemed like such an anomaly, a complete elephant in the room, and I had absolutely no idea how to adapt.
“My mother wanted our life here, now. She was young when she lived here. She went to the, the uh... the edge of the sea. She likes the sand and the fish.”
“Me too,” I said, truthfully. The beach had always been my first choice when I needed a place to calm down. “Where are you from?”
“I am French,” he smiled.
“And he’s going to teach us some pick up lines, right? French birds are always the hottest.”
“Nah mate, I love the Spanish,  they know how to party.”
“But what about Russian girls? They’ve got that whole pale skin, blonde thing going on and...”

I could feel both of us zone out of the conversation at about the same time. “Therefore, I am sorry if my English is not very good. Often I forget many words, and I do not know the ways to say many things now.”
“It’s alright,” I said, feeling immensely bad for the jokes I made to myself from earlier. As someone who had stupidly decided to carry on with learning French, in some hope it would make my incredibly bland and uneventful CV come to life a little, I was just about passing and ready to shrivel up and die from the stress. And I had almost a year of things to learn and then forget, still.

I knew it was highly unlikely I could even attempt what he was doing.

“You’re doing really well.”
“Thank you,” he said, revealing the teeth again. He seemed to act differently to the other boys, more gently, as he used a single finger to tuck a curly lock behind his ear, a patch of acne being revealed. He noticed it as he rubbed his face, and put his hair back again so it was mostly hidden.

His mannerisms were weird – like the girls, almost. Not that that was a bad thing, I guess... Maybe it was just the way the French acted. I had no idea, to be honest, though he couldn’t help intimidating me.

“So what lesson do you have first?”
“Um... engineering,” he said. “I think that is the name. It is like... I make the things, and draw, and those things. Jacob, the teacher says that I am with you, yes?”
“Mhm, just follow me and Joe and Ben. We’ll introduce you to the other guys on the team, if you want.”
“Oh, alright,” he said. “You not go?”
“What?”
“To the engineering. You do not study?”
“Oh, no,” I laughed. “I didn’t choose to take it. I’m not very good at drawing or crafting stuff, see.”
He nodded, slowly. “Then what will you study in the place?”
“French, actually. I was stupid enough to take it,” I scratched the back of my head and looked back up at him, a confused expression on his face. “Oh, I didn’t mean it in a bad way. I just mean I’m bad at it, too.”
“It’s not like you’re good at much though, is it?” Ben said, chuckling. "He's a bit of a numpty. A bit of a laugh, sometimes, though, so we keep him around."

It's a joke. Don’t be a baby, I say to the little stabbing feelings in my chest. I block them out by laughing along.
“Suppose not. I’ve always been the dumb one, ain’t it?”

The boys gave me a chuckle, small enough to just show that they agreed and they were moving on in terms of the conversation, back to Leon. It didn’t surprise me; he did seem the type to grab the room’s attention, much more than I could. There was nothing wrong with me, in particular... I was just boring.

They talked for a while about engineering – the course, the teacher, calling the one girl that took it a dyke and that he shouldn’t bother, and that he’d regret it over here eventually because French girls are way hotter (No the Spanish are, no the Russians... etc), and I felt pretty lonely very quickly. The fact that he had chosen it in the first place sort of hurt – I didn’t really expect him to take French, since he probably knows more than the teacher, but still – I had thought for a minute he would be a little more like me. And though I didn’t know what team they were on about – most of our school’s were barely ever full enough, so there wasn’t exactly exclusivity. If you could play one, you could play all – it gave me a sense of him being much more on their side than mine.

And that thought perplexed me. Not only through how weirdly possessive I was being – I guess I craved the idea of something new, a bit of change, more than I thought – but also what I even meant to myself. He was on their side because he was sporty? Not necessarily, I liked running, sometimes. Because he liked engineering? I could never do that shit, I appreciate the people that can.

Because of what I had dreamed he would be, when I first saw him, smiling at me? The way he covered his acne and crossed his legs like he was conscious of me, of my eyes, of my words? What had I even been dreaming of? Change? What does that even mean, really?

I didn’t know, but looking back on it, I knew it was there, buried. He would change and evolve and reveal, in the time we would know each other. And sure enough, I would do the same.