feelings | cranksepticeye

4 - friends

english went by pretty quickly. seán had spent most of it looking back at ethan, as the teacher had put ethan next to some random kid at the back of the classroom, and he couldn't help but feel bad for him. as soon as the lesson ended he stood outside of the door and waited for him to come out, asking him how the lesson was.

"um..it was ok..the kid i sit next to is weird though. he kept chanting things underneath his breath.." seán nodded and watched as that exact kid left the classroom, stared at the two of them, and walked down the hallway.

"yeah, he's a bit strange..anyway it's our break now, so since you're new and don't really have anywhere to go, do you want to stick with me and my friends?" ethan looked around nervously, lifting down his hood to fix his hair. he's got really nice hair.

"i don't want to get in the way..i don't want to bother you or your friends..i don't think one of them likes me very much."

"mark? he's like that with everyone. he just gets a bit jealous, i'm sure once he gets to know you he'll think you're great! and i've checked with them, they said it's fine." ethan began to bite on the nail of his thumb, which seán guessed was a nervous thing.

"um..o-ok. thank you." ethan replied awkwardly.

"it's no problem, really."

"so..where are your friends?"

time skip

"everyone, this is ethan. he's new here. ethan, this is bob, wade, tyler, mark and felix. and you already know me." the boys were sat at the cafeteria table they were always sat at. but this time, with a new addition. everyone said hi to ethan as soon as they were introduced to him, including mark, who seemed to have cheered up from earlier. ethan waved to them all, probably feeling too shy to speak. he was barely looking at any of them.

"he's a bit shy, so go easy on him." seán explained, to which everybody nodded. seán finally sat down in the middle of his boyfriend felix, and the new kid. mark, bob, wade and tyler were sat on the opposite side of the table.

"so what do you think of the school so far?" wade asked ethan, making him look up from the floor. ethan was playing with the strings of his hoodie and was struggling to process wades question, but he did after a few seconds.

"it's..different." was all he said. the boys could instantly tell he wasn't a very talkative person.

"different? how so?" wade continued.

"it's bigger than my old school..much more students.."

"where are you even from anyways?" tyler asked. seán already knew that ethan was from maine, but they obviously had no clue.

"maine."

"never even heard of it." tyler replied.

"so why did you move here?" felix asked. it was the first time he had spoken to this new boy. seán could see the uncomfortable expression on ethan's face when he received the question, and he noticed that he looked a lot more anxious than before.

"i..uh..my, uh..i-"

"his mom decided it would be a good idea." seán jumped in to save ethan from explaining his sad reasoning again. he wasn't too happy with telling seán, he doubted he would be ok with telling an entire group of people. ethan looked at seán and smiled.

"yeah." ethan agreed, looking down at the floor and playing with the strings of his hoodie after mouthing the word 'thanks' to seán.

for the rest of that break, seán and his friends asked ethan different questions, some seán already knew the answer to, some he did not. ethan had seemed to come out of his shell by the tiniest bit, but mostly around seán than anybody else. most likely because he had talked to him more than the others.

the dreadful sound of the bell echoed throughout the halls and the corridors of the school. there were groans from the students in the cafeteria who didn't want to have to go to their next lesson, which for seán, his friends and ethan, was math.

"math..so exciting." mark said before swinging his bag over his shoulder and making his way towards the classroom, oddly without everyone else. seán really disliked the way mark was acting. it wasn't giving off a good first impression.

"you've got maths next, right?" seán asked ethan. the boy nodded after checking his timetable. bob, wade and tyler ended up walking to maths together their own way whilst seán, felix and ethan were left on their own to make their way up to maths.

"you still alright to come to my house after school today?" felix asked seán. ethan tried to block out their conversation incase he heard something they didn't want him to hear.

"yeah, my mom says it's fine." felix smiled down at his secret boyfriend. they couldn't afford to tell anybody other than the people in their friendship group, who had been able to keep it a secret since they had found out. if they did, they would probably lose any respect the pair had.

"you might want to take that hood down. the maths teacher is a little bit of a bitch and has a thing about hoods being up in class." seán explained, felix nodding along.

"why?" the other boys shrugged.

"we don't know. she just always has." ethan nodded, clearly not wanting to take down the hood. seán guessed that it was a comfort thing, which he understood. the three boys finally reached their maths class and started to line up outside.

ethan grabbed his hood and slowly pulled it down. he felt exposed. everywhere he went he was wearing a hoodie, and everywhere he went the hood was always up. it made him feel a lot safer and a little less anxious. with it, he was hidden a little bit, so people couldn't stare at his face. he was incredibly insecure and didn't like it when people stared at him, due to the fact that he had acne.

he looked around to check if anybody was staring at him. they weren't, so he let out a sigh of relief. he stood silently whilst felix and seán had a conversation in front of him, until suddenly he felt someone pushing into him, causing the new boy to push into the people in front of him. he instantly apologised, feeling terrible for what he'd done.

"no, no, it's fine. if anyone has to apologise, it should be that dickhead over there." seán pointed to a boy with dark, brown hair. he was laughing hysterically with his friends and pointing at the people in the line in front of him.

"of course it was greg.." felix muttered under his breath.

"who's greg?.." ethan asked, his interest peaked.

"probably the biggest fuckwad in the entire school. and unfortunately, it makes him the most popular." as already mentioned, seán and his friends were pretty popular, and were liked by a lot of people, but they were popular for good reasons. greg was notorious for bullying, making racist, sexist and homophobic comments, misbehaving in class, blackmail, even stealing things off other students. he was famous across the entire school for it. and unfortunately, he and his group of ignorant friends were much more popular than seán and his group of friends.

"he likes to do a thing where he pushes his friends in lines so that they push into everybody else. they think it's hilarious, even though last year one kid broke his arm because of it." seán explained, making ethan's heart race even faster. he was praying that this greg wouldn't bother him. he was praying that he would just not notice him because the last thing he wanted was to be bullied on the first day at his new school.

suddenly, the line began to move, indicating that the lesson was beginning.

"you'll probably sit next to me because there's a spare seat." seán told ethan. he nodded. that made him feel a little bit better. they entered the room and mostly everyone followed the same protocol as they did in chemistry. seán explained to the teacher that ethan was new and, like seán had guessed, ethan was told to sit next to buddy, and that would be his permanent seat.

the two sat down and opened their books. they began writing down the date and the title that was on the board, but ethan was distracted when he looked over and saw who else was sitting on their table.