Chapter Text
He kissed his mother goodbye, then headed out the door.
The boy with a head of short, scruffy chestnut hummed a merry tune. He sported a kitty backpack that was lazily thrown over his shoulder, a happy skip in his walk. The sun kissed his long lashes, a small breeze teased the edge of his uniform, and the leaves he passed by waved good morning to him.
It wasn’t the first day of school, god forbid, even though sane children would be very much so excited for such an occasion. Luca Balsa, was simply not any other sane child down the block.
No, today was merely presentation day. His project stuck out a little from the bag, the zipper not quite strong enough to close over the metal wedges protruding. The boy thought about the faces of his classmates, in awe at his small frame presenting the way too complex presentation slideshow to them, and smiled. He truly did love the attention, perhaps it was a little bit of a complex. Or perhaps he was too young to know what the word ‘complex’ meant.
His side bangs swayed from side to side, in time with his skipping.
Luca was always the second person to be in class. He had tried to beat the other student that seemed to always arrive earlier than he would, but gave up after a few weeks.
Once, he had convinced his mother to let him walk to school at an unbearably early (for grade schoolers) six in the morning, waiting by the school gates to open before sprinting into class. The white haired boy was still, somehow, a step ahead of him, already at his desk in the back row and hiding in the shadow cast by the rising sun.
Whatever. He was fine with being bested at this particular matter.
The early hours he spent at school was on people watching. Emerald eyes trailed on every student, a head or so taller than him, file into the classroom with varying degree of enthusiasm. He was a year or so younger than most of the children in his class, and his already small physique for his age hammered that point home. Luca took pride in that, excelling over everyone else, being ahead of his age. It was something his parents praised him on, something his teachers would smile in approval for, something his classmates would respect him for.
He especially tried to rub it in the face of the white haired boy that sat in the corner, always too early to beat to school; the other was a year older than the intended age for this class, no doubt having failed the course a previous year. However, this tall lanky boy never cared for Luca’s antics.
Thus, Luca didn’t care about him, either.
Or perhaps that wasn’t true at all.
In truth, he did resent this boy a lot. The brunette had quite a temper, and the students in the class all seemed fixed on appeasing him so much that his childish tantrums never really showed up. Only for that white haired boy, would he rage so harshly that even the teachers had trouble calming him down. It was as if a toddler throwing a fit-- it was exactly a toddler throwing a fit. He cared, he cared so much it could have been comical if not for the fact that it was, very truly, terrifying.
And what could the principal do to little mister Balsa? His family funded the entire right wing of the school.
“Thank you for listening.”
He took a bow, and his classmates clapped vigorously at the presentation. It felt as though lectured by a professor. A very short, very small, very rude professor. Naturally, they didn’t say it aloud, only contenting on praising him for his hard work on the presentation.
And Luca did put in hard work, too! He stayed up until ten thirty last night to finish the layout of the slide show, and he was quite proud of the color scheme. The screens were pale lavender, with a hint of white as decoration, and murky olive green as text. A certain someone was taken into consideration when adding the last aesthetic touch for his slides, as much as he would deny it.
The bell rang, and the children hurried to their cubbies to take out the lunch money in their coat pockets, before pushing against one another, racing down the busy corridors to the cafeteria over the shouts of disapproving hall monitors.
Naturally, Luca lingered behind, sitting on the edge of the albino boy’s desk, watching the other’s sluggish movements carefully.
“What did you think about my presentation, Andrew?”
“Do you think I did good?”
It was a challenge, daring the other boy to speak anything negative, and the teacher left her desk hurriedly after excusing herself to the washroom. She was a young substitute, and she didn’t feel too keen on dealing with young Luca’s trouble on her hour off.
Andrew did not answer. The smaller boy frowned, now crossing his legs on the table-- a few pencils were knocked off of the surface as a result-- demanding direct attention.
“I put a lot of thoughts in it. I even added the colors you like in the slides.”
A curtain of white hair fell between Luca’s glare and the other’s soft strawberry pink eyes as he bent down to pick up the pencils, their tips no doubt broken by the fall; they were not very sturdy. It was the only ones his mother could afford.
“Could use less words.”
Andrew commented softly, and all hell broke loose.
--
They found themselves spending lunch time at the infirmary again, the counselor threatening to kick out the taller boy from the school if he happens to pull another stunt similar to this one. Had it not been for the brunette’s defenses, Andrew would have been sure that he would be expelled on the spot.
He could throw a good punch to defend himself, but it wasn’t really his fault that Luca was as thin and snappable as a twig.
Luca would always be the first to apologize after a fight, and beg the principal to not tell his parents. He found the actions a little amusing, why go through the motion of covering up when they could have simply not feuded in the first place. He didn’t understand that strange brain of his, no one ever did.
And he wouldn’t complain, either, being sheltered from other students picking on him because Luca especially wanted to pick on him, alone. Just the two of them. He wouldn’t complain when Luca tried to hide what mischief he was up to this time from his family, lest the Balsa family come crushing down with their thumb onto his struggling mother. She had sacrificed so much for her son to be in such a prestigious private school, and Andrew couldn’t let her efforts go in vain.
He tried sucking up to Luca, once, thinking it’d satisfy the other’s ego and leave him in peace from being constantly tethering on the brunette’s good or bad side.
To his surprise (and chagrin), Luca sneered at him, and said that he didn’t need his pity. That this was so ‘not like him’, how the Andrew he knew would never say words like he just muttered out. That he’d earn Andrew’s true approval on his own.
Andrew has always spoken his mind from then on, every time Luca would ask him something.
It didn’t mean Luca wouldn’t throw a fit-- but he couldn’t even blame it on the albino, at that point. He simply didn’t do good enough. And that was enough to transform him into a miniature tornado of destruction.
Andrew didn’t mind.
“Sorry for trying to sock you.”
Luca said, he always looked very small, smaller than he already was, when he apologized. His hands would grip the sheets of the infirmary bed, back hunched over, almost as if he was about to collapse in on himself until he became a single point. Andrew rubbed the shorter boy’s shoulder sympathetically.
“Sorry for punching you in the face as retaliation.”
Andrew replied in a whisper, and they both giggled a little.
They weren’t friends, by any means, but moments like these made the white haired boy wish that they were. Imagine, being friends with Luca Balsa. The Luca Balsa. He wouldn’t have to worry about his future anymore, wouldn’t need to work for anything to get what he wants.
He didn’t want to be friends with Luca Balsa. Not the pretty princely boy that wore a suit too tight for him when he invited the whole school to a birthday party at his house. Not the well-behaved little devil he was with his other peers, seemingly as amiable and friendly as any other child at his age.
Andrew wanted to be friends with Luca, just that much. The bratty one that yelled at him for criticizing his work, the irrational one that tried to pick a fight with him every time something didn’t go his way, despite knowing that Andrew was far stronger than him. The cute one that apologized after they fight and laughed with him instead of at him.
Andrew wanted to be friends with Luca, but he wasn’t quite sure how to ask.
There were a lot of people that wanted to be friends with him, but the small boy would always keep them at arm’s length, a polite smile scrawled on his childish, round face. It looked too mature and composed. Andrew found a little bit of solace knowing he was the only boy in the class that could make Luca react so violently over him, whether good or bad. Maybe he just had to ask, but he didn’t know how.
Sitting next to him, Luca’s stomach rumbled.
“I haven’t eaten lunch yet, Andrew.”
“Go fetch me my lunch bag from the classroom.”
“I haven’t broken your legs. You can walk.”
Then the brunette scowled at him. It was a scowl mixed with a pout, somewhere between being truly cross and being a little whiny. Andrew liked to think about it as his own scowl. Luca would only look at him like that.
“May you please fetch my lunch bag from the classroom, Andrew?”
“I don’t think I will.”
The other groaned, he chuckled a little at Luca’s defeated look as he slid off the bed.
“Quickly, you don’t want to waste time. Lunch is about to end.”
“I wasted my time talking to you!”
“Okay.”
He watched his little tornado stomp down the hallway, a hand around his cross necklace for whoever the boy happens to cross in his path to the classroom.
Andrew wanted to be Luca’s friend, and he had an idea on how to ask.