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Coriolanus hadn’t taken the easy route, joining in with his friends, baiting and bullying the new boy from the districts who had shown up earlier that week, a bag of gumdrops clutched between shaking hands as he cautiously scanned the playground.
After all, Snows didn’t bully. They didn’t need to.
He thought of his father, the skilled and trusted commander of so many soldiers during the war, a national hero, respected in a way that young Coriolanus aspired to. His father didn’t need to bully others. They simply listened to him, obeyed his orders and commands, because it was him– General Crassus Snow.
His school friends teased him about his restraint when it came to Sejanus of course, but he brushed them off with his usual good natured attitude. He could see it in their eyes, even if their words didn’t reflect it. They all admired the fact that he didn’t join in on their relentless campaign to make the new boy’s life difficult, even if they wouldn’t admit to it. He was gaining respect, slowly but surely. Setting himself apart. In a few years time, they would all be looking to him for guidance. And then one day, once he had graduated from the Academy and University, he’d make a name for himself all across Panem.
Just like his father.
But just because he refused to bully Sejanus Plinth didn’t mean he liked him.
Far from it.
He hadn’t forgotten that it was rebels in the districts who had killed his father.
He closed his eyes, trying to banish any thought of his father dying out in the woods in District Twelve, so far from home. His head hurt enough without unpleasant reminders.
He rolled onto his side on the small cot in the school nurse’s office, pressed his eyes closed tighter against the bright fluorescent lights.
A noise in the doorway interrupted his otherwise blissful silence. He flinched at the sound, a wave of irritation rising in his skinny chest. This was the nurse’s office. Why couldn’t people shut up here of all places?
“Mr. Plinth, what happened here?”
The name only drove further indignation, and Coriolanus blinked his eyes open to glare across the small room at Sejanus, standing completely alone in front of the nurse’s desk with a guilty look on that hopelessly expressive face.
“I tripped.”
The nurse clicked her tongue, motioning him forward to get a better look, and as he stepped under the light, Coriolanus also got a better view. There was an ugly scrape along the right side of his face, a few of the cuts smeared where the fresh blood and dirt had been carelessly wiped off. It was hard to tell exactly what the stain on the fabric of Sejanus’s sleeve was, especially with the dark red of their school uniforms, but it seemed as if he had tried to hastily clean the blood off his face himself before being sent inside by one of the playground monitors.
“That’s the third time this week, Sejanus.” She was already pulling out a disposable wipe to more thoroughly clean his face, barely looking at the boy as she tugged on a pair of gloves. “Perhaps a different pair of shoes would help? Those ones may not fit right.”
Coriolanus watched him flush with embarrassment. He knew her reasoning was completely, carelessly wrong. Perhaps she was even willfully ignorant, not willing to drag the parents of some of the most respected families in the Capitol into the school over something so juvenile. Coriolanus also knew by now that Sejanus wasn’t going to correct her. As cruel as their classmates could be, he wasn’t keen on reporting them to school officials.
“Maybe,” he hedged, glancing down at his feet rather than the nurse’s face as he pulled nervously at his sleeve.
Perhaps Sejanus was more astute than he looked. Reporting their classmates would surely only make his treatment worse. As someone very used to self preservation, Coriolanus could grudgingly appreciate the same in someone else. Even if that someone was Sejanus Plinth.
“Chin up,” the nurse chided in her usual businesslike manner, “let me clean these scrapes. Don’t want anything getting infected.”
The room was quiet while she worked. Her hands were impersonal and efficient, this Coriolanus knew from experience through plenty of visits to this very office. This post-war period hadn’t been particularly kind to his body. He let his eyes drift shut again.
After a few moments, he heard her brisk instructions. “Go sit while I get some pain medication.” An indistinct mumble followed, one that Coriolanus didn’t bother straining his ears to hear. “No, don’t be ridiculous. That’s going to hurt as it settles, and you won’t be able to focus in class. You can swallow pills, right? Good. Go sit.”
The sound of footsteps was far too loud in his ears, and Coriolanus flinched again, eyes squeezing tighter instinctively. His head was throbbing.
He could feel the shift in the air as Sejanus stepped past him to the second cot, the plasticky mattress crinkling with his weight as he sat on the edge of it.
The sound of the nurse’s footsteps, much more severe as they clicked against the tiled floor, were a bit farther away now.
Coriolanus was unfortunately stuck facing the direction where Sejanus now sat. He considered turning around for a brief moment, but that would probably be rude. Snows weren’t rude. He kept his eyes stubbornly closed and hoped the other boy simply assumed he was sleeping.
No such luck.
“Hey. You’re Coriolanus, right?”
He opened only one of his eyes, squinting against the harsh lighting. Why was he being so loud?
“Yes.”
Sejanus didn’t smile. Just stared at him with those big, brown eyes. Watching him. Coriolanus didn’t like it. He didn’t like anyone seeing him like this. Pitiful, weak. He had hoped, now that the war was over, that his headaches would have stopped.
“I’m Sejanus.”
“I know who you are.” A beat of awkward silence, and Coriolanus realized that his manners were slipping. He closed his eyes as he rolled them so that Sejanus wouldn’t see. “Sorry. I’m not feeling well,” he said pointedly before gritting out, “but it’s nice to meet you, Sejanus.”
He could hear Sejanus swallow. Again, why was he so loud? Even his breathing was loud. “Nice to meet you too.” It was quiet again for a moment, and Coriolanus thought maybe he had taken the hint. But apparently not. Though when he spoke again, it was slightly more hesitant. “I wanted to–”
“Here are those pills, Mr. Plinth.”
Okay, maybe Sejanus’s voice hadn’t been that loud. Because the nurse’s voice, much closer than before, was ten times worse. It grated against his ears, a sharp throb of pain blocking out everything else for a moment as he took a deep, shuddering breath.
“Oh, thank you.” He watched as Sejanus swallowed the pills with a sip of water from a paper cup. The nurse took it from him once it was empty, crossing the room again to throw the trash away.
Sejanus was quiet now, and Coriolanus could probably get away with closing his eyes again. Waiting for him to leave without another word exchanged between them.
But his brain was stuck on that interrupted sentence, and once his brain was stuck, it was frustratingly hard to get it unstuck.
“What were you saying?” he finally blurted into the silence, thankful that any blush creeping into his cheeks could be blamed on his being unwell.
“Hmm?” Sejanus glanced up from his clasped hands in his lap, brow furrowed as his eyes met Coriolanus’s. “Oh.” Realization suddenly dawned on his face. His cheeks also flushed a deeper shade of red, and he quickly shook his head. “It was nothing.”
Fighting against the pull of his headache, Coriolanus was about to argue because it clearly wasn’t nothing if he was about to say something, and it wasn’t right to start telling someone something and then just take it back. But then the nurse was in front of them once again, motioning for Sejanus to get moving. “Alright, back to class, Mr. Plinth, let’s go. You boys can chat later.”
At that, Coriolanus’s face grew even hotter.
He wasn’t using this as some excuse to slack off. He’d rather be in class right now anyway. He liked his classes, and every moment he was here was a moment he risked falling behind.
He should have known Sejanus would make him look bad.
Sejanus nodded quietly as he got to his feet. “I hope you feel better, Coriolanus.”
He blinked a couple of times, confused.
Why?
He was talking like they were friends, but they had barely exchanged ten words.
“Thank you,” he responded, only because he couldn’t not respond. If his voice was slightly tense, he could blame it on the headache at least.
He watched as Sejanus ducked back out into the hallway, his steps far too sure for the nurse to really believe he had tripped by his own fault not only once, but several times in one week.
His head felt hazy as he closed his eyes again. Behind his lids, all he could see was a pair of large, soft brown eyes staring back at him, Sejanus’s brow crinkled in concentration as if he was trying to solve a particularly difficult puzzle.
Coriolanus couldn’t help but think the feeling was mutual as he rolled onto his back and tried to will his headache away before math class.