𝚃𝚑𝚎 𝚆𝚘𝚛𝚕𝚍 𝙸𝚜 𝚄𝚐𝚕𝚢 (Frerard)

Chapter 1: How He Saved Me and Changed My Life

[Frank]

He was the one who saved my ass back in sixth grade. I was new to the school, along with everyone else. However, I had just moved to the area several months ago before school had started, so I was extra new to everyone. It was the first day of sixth grade. A group of tall and bulky-looking sixth-grade boys had spotted my embarrassing new haircut, which my mom forced me to get the day before. Already my confidence was set below zero. Back then, I deeply regretted not putting my hood over my head to hide my ugliness. But after meeting him, I'm beyond grateful I kept my hood off. Who knows, we may never have met.

Of course, the group of boys picked me out very easily. I'm too short for a boy. I had a terrible haircut, I was socially awkward, and was considered as "an eyeliner creep who sits in the back and never talks." One of the boys—who I later found out was named Bob—bumped into me forcefully, and I stumbled back, entirely unprepared for what just happened.

"Hey, watch where you're goin' shorty! You almost messed up my hair!" Bob's hair was completely fine. "Heh, no wonder why you messed it up, you got a– what even is that? Did you cut your own hair or somethin'? Maybe you forgot to use a mirror?" Bob snorted. His friends started to snicker as well.

"Hey, maybe we can fix it!" One of the other boys offered, tauntingly. His name was Daniel. In less than a second, I was grabbed by my hair and yanked forward. Then, I felt several other hands starting to do the same. Everything escalated so quickly I didn't even have time to think or react rationally. My hands went to my head instinctively, and I tried to pull away. This only caused the pain to become sharper and I screamed.

"OW! Stop! Please stop! Ow! What– what did I do! Stop! Stop it!" I yelled. Between all the yanking, I saw glimpses of the crowded, noisy hallway around me. Other kids passed by, keeping their distance the best they could from the violent boys I was surrounded by. Some glanced at me, their expressions were a mixture of sympathy and fear.

I barely noticed when their grasps began to fade. Little by little, I could see more of the hallway around me. What felt like an eternity of yanking, was probably was less than half a minute. Even after the taunting laughter died away, I found myself still clutching my head, half bent over my knees and my eyes still squinting.

After several long seconds, I began to wonder what caused the boys to leave so unexpectedly, and I looked up, still clutching my head. Standing in front of me was a boy with greasy, black hair. The moment I saw him, I knew I liked him. A lot. Despite his messy appearance, his face held this charismatic personality that I was definitely into. To this day, I still cannot explain why I was so drawn to him. His face was pale and his eyes wore even more eyeliner and eyeshadow than me. He looked at me with worried eyes as he studied my entire frame. By his side, there was a short-haired girl with russet-colored hair. I noticed that she was pretty muscular for her age, but she was of average height. Just behind them was a boy with wild, frizzy hair. He was standing awkwardly, one hand clasped over his elbow as the other hand fidgeted with his jeans. He looked to me for a moment and half-smiled then went back to looking frantically around the hall. I guessed that he was most likely making sure the bullies had really left. Realizing that my hands were still on my head, I dropped them and tucked them safely in my kangaroo pocket.

"H– hey, you alright?" I looked up. It was the black-haired boy. When I didn't reply, he continued. "Uh, I'm Gerard. This is Steph, and that's Ray. We saw how everything happened. She helped me chase them away," Gerard gestured to Steph, who smiled at me friendly.

Just like that, Gerard and I quickly got to know each other. I became a part of their group. If it hadn't been for the three of them, I probably never would have survived middle school. After my incident, I noticed that Gerard never helped any of the other kids who got in the way of the bullies. Instead, he would sort of shrink away behind Steph. This shocked me because after that day, I just assumed he was like Steph, who always stood up for victims.