Chapter Text
If there is one thing that Illi desperately does not want to be doing on the first day back at school, it is sitting for two hours in detention with the guy who punched her in the stomach and gave her a bloody nose. They shouldn’t even be here, and neither should Ray and Mikey – it was all the new guy’s fault. This is totally unfair. And to think that when Illi first saw him this morning, they were so excited to see another punk kid joining their ranks in this catholic school hell, with his spiky black hair and his earphones blasting heavy metal. Turns out he's just a jerk.
Illi tried to get Mikey to talk to him when they found out that they would be in the same class, a year under Ray and them, but Mikey said that the boy sat alone in the back of the class and was wearing a ‘if you dare to even glance at me, I will kill you’ look on his face. His words. So obviously, being the antisocial case of a brother that he is, he didn’t even try. Whatever. It was probably for the best, come to think of it now. But at the time, Illi resolved to get it done herself – finding a cool kid in this stuck-up place is simply too rare, too precious of an opportunity to waste. At the end of the day, they met up with Mikey and tried to find the boy. He was at his locker, headphones in, and didn’t seem to notice them standing there trying to grasp his attention. As a result, when he closed his locker, he walked headfirst into Illi, dropped all the stuff he was carrying, slipped on a paper and fell.
“Holy shit, are you alright?” Illi asked. The boy’s headphones having slipped out of his ears, he finally heard them. But mostly, he heard the people behind them sniggering at him. His face burned up, and he frowned at Illi as he stood up.
“Watch where you’re going, freak.”
“Excuse me?” It had been a while since anyone called them that – since they had changed schools two years ago, in fact. Admittedly, it might’ve set them off a bit more than they’d like to admit.
“I said, watch where you’re going, freak. You made me drop all my shit.”
“Freak? How original. Look in the mirror much, box-dye?”
“Oh, it is on.”
“Bring it.”
Having never been in a fight before, Illi didn’t actually expect him to punch them in the stomach, and judging by the look on his face, he hadn’t expected to be shoved to the ground in response. They rolled around on the ground for a moment, and Mikey was desperately trying to pull the boy off his sibling until he elbowed him in the face, and then Mikey was just trying to get him back. In the end it was Ray, on his way out of the school, who saw them and made his way through the circle of onlookers to pry them off each other. He managed to restrain them while only sustaining a few minor injuries, but when the teachers came, they did not buy his story and sent all of them to detention regardless.
So here they are, uniforms already stained with blood on their first day, stewing in the stale air of the detention classroom. September sunlight streams through the windows. The teacher that is meant to be supervising them went to get a coffee, so they’re taking the opportunity to stop pretending they’re working for these few minutes. (Well, some of them, at least. Mikey has long abandoned all pretence of focus and has been napping for the past twenty minutes.) The only sound is the agonisingly slow ticking of the clock. It’s about 5pm and Illi wants nothing more than to go home and rip the thick uniform off their body. The tie is starting to feel like it’s strangling them. But no, they’re all stuck here because idiot in the back of the classroom decided to be a dick to all of them when they were just trying to be nice. The boy’s name is Frank, but referring to him by his name will humanise him, which is why Illi has decided to keep calling him ‘the idiot’, or any other insult of the same repertoire. And then, then he has the absolute nerve to try to speak to them.
“You the one who scribbled all over this?” He asks, pointing to their messenger bag covered in various drawings of monsters and band logos.
“I’m not talking to you.”
“Jeez, I was just trying to be nice.”
“Well, so was I, and look where that got us.”
“Alright fine, I’m sorry that I started the fight, there.”
Illi squints in his direction. He first tries to smile, but when they don’t relent, he sticks his tongue out at them, and they turn away with a huff. “Apology not accepted.”
“Don’t listen to them.” Ray chimes in. “There’s no need to keep this feud going on any longer, it’s stupid. You’re sorry, they’re sorry, we’re all sorry.”
“They? Who is they?”
Illi stares at him with the fury of a thousand suns. “Me, jackass! Who the fuck else could Ray have been talking about?”
“Illi is just like, not really a boy, so we just say they.” Ray explains.
“Wait, so you’re not a girl?”
Illi tries to establish whether or not he’s joking, but he really does look serious. It shocks them a bit. They’ve been called a girl many times, but no one has ever actually thought they were one. Also, who punches a girl? And did he seriously not notice the uniform? Confusion sweeps through their chest, making them red in the face. Not knowing how to react, Illi decides the best course of action is to storm out before they can have an impulsive reaction, like punch him again. “You’re unbelievable!” They say as they get up, fuming. On the way out, they run into the teacher, Mrs. Boonchuy, who very sternly tells them that they should come back right this instant but makes no actual effort to go after them.
Halfway down their third corridor, something strange starts happening. The neon lights, which are supposed to be motion activated, don’t turn on when Illi walks through. A chilly breeze sweeps past them. Thinking they heard someone talking further down the corridor, Illi walks further in. They call out but no one answers, except a classroom door that slams shut, making them jump. They’re already thinking of leaving when a strange fog starts seeping over the ground, covering everything, but it’s when they see a fuzzy shadow in the distance, its large glowing eyes slowly turning to them, that they run full speed back to detention.
Mrs. Boonchuy is absolutely livid when they bang open the classroom door, but before she can say anything, Illi is already babbling away. “I’m sorry I’m so sorry Miss I didn’t mean to storm in – or out – but there’s a thing, I’m pretty sure there’s a thing in the school and it was coming towards here I swear I’m not lying-”
“Calm down, alright? What are you talking about?”
“I just went to get some air, and I saw, well, I dunno what exactly, but there was something in the school, I didn’t see much, but it was a big shadow of sorts, and it wasn’t a person because when I called it it didn’t answer.”
“Right. So there’s a monster in the school?”
Illi notices the stares of their fellow detentionees, ranging from worried to confused to amused, and suddenly feels very ridiculous. “I mean, probably not, but there was someone there that I don’t think is supposed to be there.”
Mrs. Boonchuy considers this for a moment, taking in the clear stress on Illi’s face. “Alright. I’ll go check it out. But if you’re lying about this, you will be in big trouble. Now sit back down and be quiet.”
Illi nods and does what they’re told, ignoring the idiot’s staring following them as they sit down, though their embarrassment is clear on their face.
“Big spooky ghosts, huh? That’s your excuse? You realise you could’ve just left, right?”
“How I wish I had. Forgive me for wanting to warn a teacher about the intruder in our school.”
He scoffs. “Yeah, right. ‘Intruder.’ 5 bucks says she’s back in five minutes and that there was absolutely nothing.”
“It’s on.” Illi smirks at him, faking confidence just to spite him even though their own story is starting to sound insane.
While they wait for the teacher to come back, Illi answers some of Ray and Mikey’s questions about what they saw while Frank tries to balance a pencil on his nose. After the allotted time of their bet, Mrs. Boonchuy still hasn’t come back, but Illi doesn’t feel like gloating. The waiting gets more and more tense as more minutes pass without a sign of her, until Ray decides to go check if she’s in the corridor somewhere. He sticks his head out the door and calls her name but receives no answer. “So… we should probably do something, right?”
“No way. She’s gonna be back.” Frank gets up and pushes past him, walking out into the corridor, and shouts her name. Again, no answer. And then he comes running back in, tail between his legs, and shuts the door hard. “I saw something. The lights turned off and I saw something.”
“AHA!” Illi exclaims. “I mean, told you so.”
“Fan-fucking-tastic.” Mikey sighs, leaning back on his chair. “What the hell are we supposed to do now?”
“Obviously we have to figure out what the hell that is and save Mrs. Boonchuy.” Ray says.
“Right, yeah, for sure. Or we could just stay in here and wait for qualified people to take care of this.” Frank proposes.
“Of course you would say that.” Illi answers.
“What’s your deal, dude? I’m just trying to keep us alive.”
“Keep yourself alive, more like.”
“As if you care about Mrs. Boonchuy.”
“I plenty care about her.”
“Guys, enough bickering this is not helping in any way.” Ray interrupts. “Mikey, get up, we need to brainstorm.” Mikey stops balancing on his chair and joins them around Illi’s desk. “See how he did that without complaining? Crazy, right?” Frank sticks his tongue out behind Ray’s back, which makes Illi crack a smile. “So, any ideas?”
“Well, if as you said it moves in the dark, then I think we ought to bring the lights back.” Mikey answers. “We can open all the classroom doors in the corridor so the sunlight streams in.”
“And then what?”
“Then we beat it up, I guess.”
They all consider this for a moment, and since no one comes up with a better idea, they all agree to it. It’s decided that Mikey and Illi will take the left side of the corridor while Ray and Frank do the right one. Ray and Frank head out first, and Mikey and Illi are just about to follow when Mikey lies down on the ground and starts crawling.
“What are you doing?” Illi asks.
“I’m trying to be discreet. In case you haven’t noticed, I am quite a bit taller than you.”
“Ok then just crouch, like Ray is doing. We’re not in the army you don’t have to be doing all this.”
Mikey grumbles something that sounds like ‘you’re no fun’ but gets up nonetheless. Once all the doors are opened and no corner of the corridor is left to hide in, they await their unknown assailant in silence, until Frank exclaims that he’s bored and that he’s going to be making a lot of noise to draw the ghost, no uh the monster, the creature, the… whatever it is out. Lo and behold, it works. Unfortunately, the thing is not much less terrifying in the sunlight, with its thick black coat, huffing heavily, its bulging eyes trained on them. But on the plus side, it looks to be human sized (well, more like gorilla sized while it’s on all fours, but those are minor details), so since it’s a 4v1 they should be fine, right?
Ray is the one to charge first. The rest of them follow suit, screaming profanities to hype themselves up, and then they attack, grabbing, scratching, kicking at anything they can. The monster seems confused at first, then tries to shake them off and swipe at them with its clawed hands to force them away. The back of its arm catches Illi, who is pushed to the ground hard, bruising their tailbone and back. Weirdly enough, Frank is the first one to react. “Holy shit are you alright?” He asks as he crouches down next to them.
“Yeah, ‘m fine.”
Then the monster turns to them, creeping closer, and Frank jumps up. “Leave them alone you ugly motherfucker!” He yells as he punches it square in the face.
A strange sort of mask comes flying off. “Ow!” The boy underneath says at the same time as Frank, who’s clutching his fist. “Jesus Christ that really hurt! Why are you attacking me?! I was just checking to see if you were alright!”
“Us attack you? You started this! Why the fuck are you running around the school acting all creepy in your gorilla- or whatever suit?!” Ray shouts at him (Illi thinks it might be the first time they’ve seen him genuinely mad, and makes a note to never get on his bad side).
“Where the hell is Mrs. Boonchuy?” Mikey asks.
“I ran into her a few hallways down and she got scared and passed out. I was trying to find help, and I heard people so I came here, but then you all started jumping at me like crazy people.”
“We’re crazy here?” Illi says at the same time as Frank jumps in with “Who the fuck even are you?”.
“I’m a student here! Or I was-”
“David?! What the hell are you doing?” Mrs. Boonchuy asks from behind them, seemingly fine apart for the frazzled hair that has come out of her slick ponytail.
“Oh, thank God you’re alright. I’m so sorry, Miss. This got out of hand way too quickly, you were just supposed to get a bit scared and that was it, I promise.”
“Well, you’ve certainly accomplished that.” David bows his head. “Is this because you failed my class last year?”
“Yes.” He admits. “I failed the year because of it, and my parents told me I was getting too old to be in high school. I had to drop out.”
“Oh, David, I’m sorry to hear that. But you know there are other paths than high school. I mean, even if it was just for a prank, look at what you built and all that you managed to do. I know I shouldn’t be saying this, but I’m impressed. With these skills there are so many apprenticeships you could do.” The boy doesn’t look convinced and is still refusing to meet her eyes as he worries his lips between his teeth. “Listen. I know someone who works in a theatre and who would be delighted to have someone with your technical skills help them with decors and props. How about you give that a try?”
The detentionees are all standing around awkwardly, torn between listening to the end of their conversation – which mostly includes a lot of teary apologies from David, especially when Mrs. Boonchuy tells him to never come back to this school after this, even if she won’t tell on him – or going back to the classroom and pretending none of this ever happened. They keep vaguely standing next to them, sometimes taking a step further away, until the teacher just tells them to go sit back down. Well, actually she tells them “I’ll deal with you lot later.”, to be exact.
When she walks in five minutes later to find the mood of the group very sobered, the only thing she says is “We will not talk about this to anyone, understood?” she waits for all of them to nod, which they do vigorously, before continuing. “Okay then. Just because I’m feeling nice, you may all leave early. Good evening to you all.”
Frank is the first one out the door, but before he leaves, he turns to all of them and says “I just wanted to say, even though I was a dick to you all, I had fun today, so, thanks for that.” And then he’s gone in a blink. He walks surprisingly fast for someone with such short legs.
On their way back home, Illi and Mikey walk in silence, both stunned by the day’s events, which gives Illi plenty of time to try to figure out if they still hate Frank. I mean, he seems alright. He did save them. Sort of. Maybe he was just being weird because he was stressed or something. It happens. Personally, Illi has never punched anyone just because they were stressed, but it happens, probably. He might deserve a second chance, even if he is an annoying little shit.