Work Text:
Today hadn't been too bad yet.
Chen, he had yet to see him. The rest of the group hadn't seen the jock or his group of followers either. Which was weird and good, in some way.
Then after school, Lloyd had been waiting in the schoolyard for the others to finish their last class for the day (he had a free period at the end of the day).
"Hey, blondie!"
Not now, today had been so good!
The jock approached him, followed closely by his gang of 'followers'.
Before he could do anything to stop him, Chen had shoved him over, sending his bag flying, his bag had split and its contents spread all over the grass. Somewhere along the way, Chen had gotten his phone that was still unlocked.
No, no, no!
"What do we have here?" the jock had a fake interest in his voice.
"A crappy phone?" Chen swiped through the different pages of apps, looking for something to tease him about. He found Lloyd's photos app and the photos of him and the others that Nya had stolen his phone so she could take them.
"Oh? What's this?"
"Did you pay these people to take these photos?" Chen taunted, scrolling through more of the photos.
"'Course you did, you have no friends!"
Lloyd tried to snatch his phone back from the jock but unfortunately, Chen was quite a bit taller.
Soon, Chen couldn't find anything else interesting on his phone and had gotten bored at the endeavor.
Before leaving, he chucked Lloyd's phone down onto the concrete and stood on it for good measure.
NO!
In a futile attempt, he bent down to see if his phone had somehow survived (it hadn't). Its screen was absolutely smashed, some of the inner mechanics were sticking out.
There was no saving it.
He couldn't afford another phone and...oh god, his mother would kill him, she wouldn't believe that his smashed phone was his fault!
She would kill him.
She would be so mad.
She would so kill him!
Somewhere in the back of his mind, he knew that Koko wouldn't be all that mad if he was could explain before she made assumptions, or if he didn't show her the battered remains of his phone.
But the small part didn't make a difference. He had crouched down so that he could inspect his phone and now he was frozen in that position.
He didn't have enough money for another one!
Kai had gotten out of his social studies class early and had been on his way to the schoolyard to meet with Lloyd and anyone else that was already there.
Turning the corner of the Humanities block, he saw Lloyd but the boy was crouched down to the ground with his back to him.
"Lloyd?" Kai asked as he walked around to where he could be face-to-face with him. Lloyd was holding cracked and crushed remains of his phone and had a haunted look in his eyes.
"Lloyd?" He tried again. The boy either didn't or couldn't hear him.
He quickly connected the very obvious puzzle pieces: This was Chen's fault. Kai could barely hear Lloyd's breathing, he was breathing so quietly.
"Kai? Lloyd?" That was Jay's voice. Kai looked up as the blue-clad boy approached them.
"What happened?" Jay asked as he crouched down next to him.
"I don't know exactly, I got here and found him like this," he told him.
Jay was searching for something in Lloyd's eyes, when he couldn't find whatever he was looking for, he muttered a curse under his breath, surprising Kai, he usually had the cleanest mouth of them all.
"Help me get him over to that wall?" It was phrased as a question but was really a command. They both managed to get him over to the brick wall of the Humanities block.
"Do you know what's up with him?" Kai asked, feeling very out of his depth.
"Not definitely but maybe, I'm guessing that's Chen's doing?" Jay pointed to where what was left of Lloyd's phone was still clasped in the boy's hands.
Even though they had known Lloyd in person for almost three months now and in total for over a year, they still didn't know that much about him.
Which probably, no, definitely, wasn't good at all. Kai made a mental note to see about it later and turned his attention back to the younger boy.
"Lloyd? Are you okay?" Jay's voice was so quiet. Somehow, the redhead's quiet words had gotten through to Lloyd and he looked up.
"Jay? Kai? When did you get here?" he asked, looking up slightly at them, the haunted look was gone from his eyes.
"Me: a little while ago, Jay: just now," Kai answered before he asked, "Lloyd, did Chen do that to your phone?" Kai pointed to the phone.
The look came back for a brief moment when he looked at the remains of his phone before it disappeared.
"Y-yeah he did," Jay looked like he wanted to kill the jock, Kai fully agreed with him.
"It'll be okay. Come on, everyone is waiting for us at the mall,"
That was true, Cole had messaged Jay a few minutes ago to tell him that they had a change of plans and were going to just meet at the mall instead of at the schoolyard then to the mall.
Maybe it would be fine.