Chapter Text
Though the summer heat still hung heavily in the air, the leaves around the small town of Deebeedee had begun to turn red, thus marking a new year of school for its young population. However, that didn’t amount to much. Most of the students had known each other for years at least, if not their entire lives. It was one of those small towns where everyone knew everyone.
So for the incoming freshman class to Deebeedee High, it was not much of a transition. People already had their friends and they had been seeing these friends all summer anyhow. Save, of course, for a few students; outcasts, loners, also known to high schoolers as losers. There were a good handful of them in Deebeedee, more so than the average small town. They remained a complete mystery to the other students until their reappearance in their lives at the start of the year.
Such was the case for Evan Macmillan. Everyone, of course, knew who he was. The son of the impossibly rich and reclusive Archibald Macmillan, an old-money businessman who owned a sprawling forested estate a ways off. And to the students he was more personally known for being a massive dick. He was hostile, cruel, full of himself, and temperamental. While he was on the football team he was known for often being benched for poor sportsmanship. His reputation as an asshole was so solidified that he didn’t really have any friends. So it was the source of minor gossip around the school when he returned from summer vacation with a broken leg.
“Wonder what happened. Football practice?”
“No, my brother’s on the team and he says that he wasn’t there.”
“Maybe he tripped down the stairs or something.”
“Who cares? Now we won’t have to see him on the field anymore.”
After the initial buzz, people quickly lost interest, and anyone who tried to pry further found themself dodging the angry swings of a crutch. Evan Macmillan was quickly forgotten until a few days into the new school year, when he barged into third-period art ten minutes late.
Deebeedee High’s nervous art teacher, Mrs. Reveney, startled at the loud clunk of Evan’s dull leg that marked his arrival. “O-Oh. Hello, um, Mr. Macmillan. Are you…in the right class?”
“Yes,” Evan growled. His glaring blue eyes darted from face to face before he pulled a crumpled piece of paper from his back pocket and handed it to her. “They just fixed my schedule.”
She glanced down at it to confirm, then a weak smile fluttered across Mrs. Reveney’s face. “Alright. Um, why don’t you take that empty seat next to Rin, then?” She gestured toward the stiff and scowling form of Rin Yamaoka who stared daggers at him from her seat.
“Fine,” he muttered. With that Evan hobbled over to the seat amidst a classroom overtaken by silence.
For most, Deebeedee High’s art classes were just an easy A. But for the handful of students who cherished the fifty-five minutes of uninterrupted artistic expression, this was an uncertain predicament. Evan Macmillan in their space had the potential to make this semester unbearable.
And by luck, the most disagreeable and outspoken artist in the class happened to be his new seat partner. Rin Yamaoka had a reputation as well. The teachers knew her to be an excellent if overworking student. The students knew her to be rude, impersonal, and overly defensive. Seating Evan next to her was like seating a match next to a stick of dynamite.
Rin scooched her stool a few inches away as Evan slumped into the seat next to her. When he noticed her glaring at him, his own deepened. “Stop staring at me,” he snapped.
“You first,” she hissed back.
For a moment neither student broke their gaze. The other students in the room seemed to hold their breaths.
Then Evan looked away and down at the paint-flecked table surface below him. “So long as you don’t try to fucking talk to me or whatever,” he murmured, almost more to himself than to her.
A swell of anger flushed Rin’s face but by some miracle she held her tongue. Class resumed as normal, though the energy in the room had definitely shifted. Yes, nothing good could come of this new development.
In this rudimentary and under-funded art class, it was only required for students to at the very least appear as if they were making something. It was those few students who took the class seriously that went the extra mile. And the most over-achieving of the art students was Carmina Mora. Carmina was annoyingly good at art. She made even the uncaring students feel under-achieving with her impossible talent for nearly all mediums of creative expression. Worst of all was that she was extremely encouraging and wanted all of the students to take it as seriously as she.
So it was she who first approached Evan fifteen minutes into the class time, nervously extending an olive branch of a piece of paper and a pencil. Though Evan’s intimidating frame and seething expression made her shiver, she tried to remind herself of her principles as she forced a smile. “H-Hello, Evan. I know you’re, um, new here, but…it’s customary for us to use art class as a space to, um…make art.”
Evan’s expression darkened further. She took a step back. “Um–Y-You don’t have to be skilled! This is a class for all levels. But if you try something, you might like it.”
Suddenly he snatched the paper and pencil out of her hands rather violently. Carmina flinched.
“I know how to draw,” he muttered, then hunched over the paper and began scratching dark, heavy lines into the innocent paper.
Carmina’s shoulders untensed slightly, but she still scurried back to her painting as quickly as would be polite. Art class resumed again, but not without an air of anxiety present for the rest of the period.