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Ollie had hated Kimi’s existence from the moment he’d first laid eyes on him. The Italian had come barging in as a new student some time late into Year 8, and by mid Year 9, had everyone fawning over him like he was some celebrity.
It had excited him at first, to finally have someone on his level to compete against academically and socially, but the idea had gone sour fast at just how charismatic the other was. School should have been Ollie’s domain, the place for him to conquer and rule, not the place he had to win a war in, to get everyone’s attention away from their other beloved.
There was a constant battle between them, everything a competition. Every test, every PE lesson, every debate in class. And people had known for years to stay out of their way, the safest solution. Ollie and Kimi were the two darlings of the school, the ones with the greatest respect, and yet there was no respect between them for the other.
Kimi had clearly noticed Ollie’s disdain for him, if the returned glares back at Ollie weren’t enough, then it was the clear territorial marks around the school. The Languages block was Kimi’s, just like the RS block and the Business block and the Maths block. The Geography block was Ollie’s in return, as well as English, and Music, and Science. Venturing into the other’s claimed region outside of lessons was like an act of war, and many battles had played out as a result of constantly changing war lines.
Everyone had a side. No matter the school year, older or younger, everyone had a side. Ollie or Kimi. Who did one support? The teachers did their best to stay unbiased, and to ignore the events unfolding, but had been known to cave once or twice on occasion.
So Ollie should have seen it as an oncoming inevitable possibility that the two would end up as head boys together, voted by the rest of the school.
But he hadn’t.
And now he sat angrily in the corner of the school’s 6th Form canteen, just after receiving the news in a joint meeting with the school's headteacher, gripping a cup of coffee in his hand and staring at it like it had tried to kill him.
He hated Kimi. He hated everything about him. And now they would have to work together for an entire year?
The boy seemed to lack the capacity to be serious, everything was a joke to him, always smiling and laughing over less-than-appropriate situations. They never agreed on anything, and Kimi would do anything to piss Ollie off. It made the Brit want to punch any smirk off of his face, or to beat him in every scenario possible. GCSEs had already ended in a tie-breaker, both of them getting the same results in every single shared subject, as well as scoring equivalent grades in the unshared ones. Ollie wanted nothing more than to win the competition and beat Kimi at A-Levels too.
It helped that three out of their four subjects were the same - both taking Maths, Further Maths, and Physics, with Ollie taking Product Design and Kimi taking Chemistry to round it out. Their competitiveness had reached an all-time high in Year 12, and now going into Year 13 as the head boys, Ollie just knew it would be even greater.
“You are going to be so much fun to work with.”
Ollie looked up, drawn out of his thoughts by the exact person that was consuming them, sarcastic tone and all.
“Vai a farti fottere, Kimi.”
The other let out a dramatic gasp as he sat down, Ollie holding in a scowl as Kimi knocked his textbook onto the floor. “Why so rude, little bear?”
“I don’t want to deal with you today. Fuck off.”
“Feisty. I see.”
“Did you not hear me? Vaffanculo!”
Kimi sat with his back against the wall, sideways on the bench with his feet also resting on it. He made no indication of movement, instead adjusting himself slightly to rest more comfortably. “I do not want to ‘fuck off’, mate. I want to know why you are being so rude to me.”
It was like the Italian knew how to piss Ollie off in the shortest time imaginable. Not that he didn’t have practice of it, over four years of it at this point. But it still aggravated Ollie how quickly he lost his filter due to Kimi pushing buttons.
“Because you are shit. Everything you do turns out to be shit. I don’t want to work with you.”
“The feeling is the same here.”
“This is the first time we’ve agreed on anything in years.”
Kimi laughed at the comment. “At least you know how much I want you to leave me the fuck alone. Even if annoying you is fun sometimes.”
Ollie scowled. “I’d much rather you leave me alone. I don’t want to deal with your fucking bullshit.”
“Bullshit? You should be grateful you have been graced with the honour of having this role alongside me. Being almost as talented as me is an achievement.”
“The size of your ego is an achievement that never fails to surprise me. You should be grateful I’m head boy with you, because without me this would be a disaster. You don’t know how to prepare for things in advance, and I doubt you’ve ever heard of the word ‘budgeting’, considering you seem to be on random trips every weekend.”
Annoyingly, the response Ollie got was the opposite of the one he wanted. A hearty laugh in which Kimi threw his head back at, having to take a brief moment to recompose himself. “Me? I am the unorganised one?" He began, hands thrown about as he spoke. "You had no back-up plan on Year 11 Leavers’ Day when it started raining, and it was thanks to me that the day actually went ahead still.”
“And I wonder why I didn’t know it was going to rain? Oh wait, you had Doriane convince her girlfriend to hack into my phone and change the weather forecast. All so you could fucking try and one-up me, which seems to be the only thing you’re good at trying to do. And you fail that ninety-five percent of the time as well, don’t you?”
“I would say those statistics are more than a little wrong, no? But if that’s what we’re going with, then there is still five percent where I get to beat you into a mushy little pulp.”
Ollie narrowed his eyes, holding back at the wave of anger and irritation that coursed through him. Kimi was trying to rile him up, and as usual, it was working. He downed the rest of his coffee instead, ignoring the way that the still-boiling drink burned in his mouth, tongue going slowly numb.
“And do not even dare to try and deny it. You and I both remember what happened at Jak’s.”
A wave of heat rushed through him at the memory, before he shoved it down and away out of his mind, throwing his coffee cup in the bin and standing up to walk around the table to face Kimi head on. “And I still have pretty good video evidence of you drunkenly bitching about many people, which would be pretty easy to release.”
Kimi also stood up, taking a step away from the bench to move closer to Ollie. “You said you were going to delete that. You like having sides of me to yourself, all stored away on your precious little phone?” The Italian crossed his arms, and tilted his head to one side. “Keeping me all to yourself now, are you?”
Ollie growled, the innate need to knock the other down a peg pushing its way to the surface. He went to grab Kimi’s wrist with his right hand, but was stopped by a sudden hand on his own shoulder.
“Easy there, tiger. Let’s not start any shit this early in the morning, mate.”
If it has been anyone else aside from Dino that had tried that, the chances were that Ollie would have bitten their head off. However, Dino had been one of his best friends since early primary school, a friendship started by teaming up in a game of tag on the Reception playground. His best friend knew just how much Ollie despised Kimi, and could often be known to interfere, to stop Ollie from doing anything stupid when clouded by hate.
Ollie sent a glare to his friend.
“Don’t look at me like that. You two are lucky it’s only first period and there’s literally no one in the common room. If you really want to start a fight here when people will likely show up any moment, be my guest, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
“Yeah, listen to your friend, little bear. For once in his life, he makes a good point.”
Ollie lunged at Kimi.
He had always been very protective of the people he held dear, and was already on a knife’s edge at the other’s prior words.
Little progress was made, as instead Ollie was quickly pulled backwards by Dino, Doriane appearing out of nowhere and doing the same to Kimi, who’d already been halfway through a punch that would have otherwise made direct contact with Ollie’s jaw.
“Putain d’enfer, absolutely not!” Ollie smirked as Kimi received a light slap from Doriane, the Italian being dragged away out of the side exit at the back of the building. Doriane kicked the door shut with her leg, muffling the sounds of Kimi getting verbally battered by his own best friend.
“I don’t know why you’re laughing.” Dino spoke, picking up a textbook from the floor, the one Kimi had thrown off the table when he’d first appeared. “You’re just as bad.”
“I hate him. I can’t deal with him. He makes everything worse and harder to deal with. It’s like the universe created him just to make my life a thousand times more annoying. And it purposely sent him after we’d already all settled in here, just to make things even worse. He disrupted my peace, and makes my life a living hell. Why the fuck can’t he just leave me alone.”
Dino gestured for Ollie to sit down, the canteen now beginning to fill with people as the first period ended. He sat opposite the Brit, slowly helping to pack up his things. “You’re both incredibly smart people.” Dino began, ignoring Ollie’s grimace at the idea of Kimi being equally as smart as him. “Until Kimi showed up, I’d never met anyone as smart as you. I mean, you should be at university by now, as an early joiner, and yet you chose to stay here with us. He did the same. It’s no wonder that the two of you are competitive, because you secretly love it.”
“I just have a need to beat him, I don’t love the fights with him.”
His friend looked at him knowingly, which confused Ollie. “Sure, mate. But my point still stands. He’ll never leave you alone because you don’t leave him alone. Just because he was the one to start with you today certainly doesn’t mean you’re never the one to start with him. So you can’t complain.”
Ollie knew the truth in Dino’s words. For all that Ollie hated Kimi, he couldn’t imagine school life without him there to annoy or be annoyed by. The days that the shorter one wasn’t in were incredibly boring to Ollie.
“So what happened at Jak’s?”
“Um. um, wh-what?” He stuttered, not mentally prepared for the question.
“It was the first thing I heard when I walked in. What happened at Jak’s? I presume Kimi meant at the party last month.”
“N-nothing!” Ollie hoped he wasn’t blushing.
“You sure? None of us saw you much that evening.”
“We just, w-we just had a normal argument in the garden, only we were both a little drunk.”
It was a lie by omission. It had been a normal argument, but they’d been more than a little drunk. And it only really counted as the garden if one counted anywhere outside as a garden. Ollie didn’t remember the events fully, but he certainly remembered the gist of it. Around the side of the house, quiet and out of the way, throwing insults at each other as normal, except Ollie had been mentally on the backfoot, the drinks he’d had not helping him to respond as strongly. They’d both dug in deep, using anything they could against the other, before Kimi had backed him into the wall of the house and left him no space to escape, whispering into his ear:
“Do you even care about winning? Or do you just want me to put you here, in the place where I win, and you get to feel the shame of losing to me?”
Ollie remembered the way that Kimi had smirked into his neck, and a warm feeling had bubbled in his stomach. He remembered how Kimi had waited a moment, watching as Ollie processed what was said before leaning in for their noses to touch. Ollie had stood there, feeling like that ‘mushy pulp’ the Italian loved to describe him as, before Kimi had turned and walked away, leaving Ollie there like nothing had happened.
And neither of them talked about it.
Nor did they talk about the way that Ollie had spent the past month solely making moves on girls amongst Kimi’s allies. Half of them had since changed sides and allied with Ollie, and he knew the way it pissed Kimi off, an easy read in his tense jaw.
Dino would likely have another go at him if he knew. So Dino wasn’t going to know. And neither was anyone else outside of Ollie and Kimi. Luckily, his friend accepted the story, Dino passing him his bag, and the two walking side-by-side from the 6th form block into the main school. They both had Product Design, a perfect opportunity for Ollie to imagine Kimi as the one he battered with a hammer, not the miniature chair he'd been making for his coursework.
Ollie could feel the looks directed at him from other students. They'd surely also heard the news by now, and there'd be rumours and gossip floating around their year and the rest of the school within a matter of hours. The pair's rivalry was infamous. He knew they'd been used as a warning to younger students before - 'we don't need another Ollie and Kimi now, do we?' - and as much as it annoyed him, Ollie liked to know the effect he had on others.
The Brit could tell that the rumours had officially started the moment Charles messaged him. A simple crying-laughing emoji conveyed all that was necessary. Charles wasn't his older brother, but his family were around at Ollie's often enough for it to feel that way. Only a few years older, and one of the previous head students, Charles was the biggest gossip Ollie knew. He'd probably found out from Arthur, who was only in the year above, and about to head off to University after exams were done, who'd have found out from Fred, who'd have found out from Dino, probably.
However, Ollie knew he was too well-respected to be asked about it directly. It was the one silver-lining of the frustrating situation he found himself in. Something about being seen as ‘school royalty’ making others often afraid to ask any probing or personal questions. He used to see it as a bad thing - it was harder to make new friends when people were too scared to properly get to know him, but now it was a blessing. Ollie had his friends, and the social hierarchy was well and truly in place. Any new people rising to the top would go through his friends first before reaching him.
At break time, he found himself sat in an English classroom with said friends, snacks laid across chairs as they all sat on tables facing each other. They were known by others as one of the two ‘inner circles’, but to Ollie, it was just a group of some of the people he trusted most in the world.
Maya and Aurelia stood scribbling unintelligible equations onto the room’s whiteboard, Chemistry, if Ollie had to guess. He only knew by vaguely recognising some of the phrases that the girls used from one time earlier in the year when Ollie stole and hid Kimi’s notes for the subject right before a test. Dino was sitting on his phone, rapidly typing something that Ollie couldn’t quite see from where he was, only that it was a message to someone.
He watched as Lia walked in, lightly slapping Zak around the back of his head as she did so, the other failing to duck in time. Lia dropped her bags and waved to the group before pulling up a chair.
“Jak not in today?” She asked, munching on a cereal bar.
“Appointment. He’ll be in by lunch.” Maya responded, her and Aurelia having finished their discussion and rejoining the group. Lia nodded at the information.
“Are we going to discuss the elephant in the room or let our favourite idiot sulk in silence once again?” Aurelia spoke up, a slight smile on her face.
Ugh. Just because the lower ranked in the school and his year group wouldn’t dare ask him anything, there was never any chance of the same with his friends.
“I don’t sulk.”
“So why did you spend all of PD in a corner with a hammer, glaring at anyone who went too near to you?”
Honestly, fuck Dino. He was the worst sometimes. The others didn’t need to know how much Ollie had been affected over having to be head boy with Kimi.
“Because I was incredibly focused! And you know what I’m like when I’m focused.”
“Yeah, probably pretty focused on the idea of bashing Kimi’s head in.” Muttered Lia. Ollie stuck a middle finger up at her. “Am I wrong though?”
Ollie slowly shook his head.
“Well?” Aurelia asked.
“Well what?”
“How does it feel to know you will be one of the two head students really soon, alongside him?”
“Really fucking shit. I should have seen it coming. I mean, who fucking else in our year would people dare to vote for? I don’t even think the Year 7s could name any other sixth formers outside of the two of us! It was always going to be him and me, and I hate the fact that I didn’t see it as a possibility.”
The group tried to conceal their laughter as Ollie spoke, escaped laughter erupting between them. Ollie threw his hands in the air in exasperation at their actions. “I didn’t even vaguely see it as an option! Genuinely!”
“Like, seriously, seriously?” Zak asked, sharing the group’s surprise.
“Seriously!” Ollie sat forwards, resting his right elbow on his knee, and his chin resting against his right hand, pressed into a fist. He really hadn’t considered it at all. Once a person had applied, there had been three stages of interviews, followed by a presentation to lower year groups, and then a student vote. And no applicant was allowed to find out who else had applied once the closing date had passed. Ollie had just presumed Kimi hadn’t even applied. And his friends failed to mention it to him (even if him knowing would have been against the rules).
Even now, Ollie didn’t even know who else outside of him and Kimi had applied. Not that it even mattered anymore. He just had to deal with it.
“I’ll be honest mate, you two were the only serious names on the ballot paper. I knew a few of the music and PE students applied but didn’t make it to presentations, and that group on Kimi’s side that always hangs out by the main canteen also did too. But, as far as I’m aware, they only did so in order for there to even be a vote. You two had no competition, except each other, as always.”
Ollie looked over at Dino in surprise. “Bloody hell, mate. I should have seen this coming.”
“I really don’t know how you didn’t.”
He was smart. Intelligent. Logical. It was an insult to his intelligence that such an outcome had been a surprise to him.
Ollie’s phone buzzed in his pocket.
[AKAnt - DO NOT REPLY]
Mr Vettel just pulled me aside to ask about planning the end of year events.
It’s a shared duty.
I would do it alone, and would do a better job alone, but apparently we have to work together.
Unfortunately.
So I will do everything and you can pick the colour scheme.
And we will tell everyone it was a ‘team’ effort. Capiche?
Pick: red, white, or green?
(AKAnt - DO NOT REPLY)
I would ask why you’re violating our ‘no messages’ agreement, but it’s you, so I’m not surprised.
You have always liked to be the one to give in.
(Oliver)
Just answer my fucking question.
The sooner you do, the less I have to interact with you.
(AKAnt - DO NOT REPLY)
Why would I let you take the lead on this?
If we have to work together (and the thought makes me sick), then we will.
Besides, I don’t trust you as a good liar. Nor do I trust you as a good planner.
Also, the Italian flag colours? Seriously? What are you trying to do, play a member of the tourism board?
(Oliver)
Every time you open your fucking mouth, you remind me why I hate you.
You also have every incentive to want Italian colours. You speak the fucking language too.
(AKAnt - DO NOT REPLY)
It’s a perfectly good language to learn. I’m not biased towards it, considering I speak other languages as well.
(Oliver)
And yet you didn’t start learning it until after I joined the school.
I wonder why?
(AKAnt - DO NOT REPLY)
Because you’re a pretentious little arsehole who thinks the world revolves around you and your egotistical little group of friends.
I don’t care for you in my life. I want you out of it forever as soon as possible. You don’t affect me or my actions.
(Oliver)
That’s funny.
(AKAnt - DO NOT REPLY)
Sei un fottuto stronzo. Un pezzo di merda.
(Oliver)
So, are you going to choose a colour scheme?
Or are you going to be a little bitch and wait for me to do stuff on your behalf?
Again.
(AKAnt - DO NOT REPLY)
Meet me at The Stakehouse. 4pm.
We’re doing this together, as much as we both hate the idea.
(Oliver)
Willingly meeting in my domain? Little bear, I know you love daring into enemy territory, but even for you, that’s a bit much.
(AKAnt - DO NOT REPLY)
I don’t know who you think you’re kidding but Valtteri is firmly on my side now.
(Oliver)
Don’t fucking rub it in.
(AKAnt - DO NOT REPLY)
Poor baby, did I hit a nerve?
(Oliver)
Aspetto il giorno della tua morte con grande felicità.
I’ll be there at 4.
If anyone sees us, you are dead.
(AKAnt - DO NOT REPLY)
If anyone sees us, they’ll likely run in fear.
But don’t worry, coniglio, you’ll be safe with me <3
(Oliver)
You’re lucky Dori didn’t let me punch you earlier.
The least you deserve right now is a black eye.
Speaking of - we tell no one about this.
I’ve heard enough rumours today.
(AKAnt - DO NOT REPLY)
By the time the end of the day was reached, Ollie felt slightly sick to his stomach, and had gotten almost no studying done in any of his afternoon free periods. He’d made some random excuse to his friends about feeling sick and having to go home, before hiding in the science toilets for the last thirty minutes of the school day.
Why did he even suggest the idea? It would have been so much easier to just give Kimi his opinions on the matter and take the loss for once, than to willingly work with him on organising an entire event. But he couldn’t take it back now, as that would make things even worse. So he just had to do it.
Kimi had also chosen to play up during the day as well. They’d had another near-fight in physics that they’d ended up both channelling into an argument over the effects of air resistance and friction on moving vehicles. Their teacher, a young Australian by the name of Mr Piastri, had just stood aside and let them take over the whiteboard as they raced to outline their respective arguments on the matter. The rest of the class had watched intensely as each filled as much of the available space as possible with notes, theorems, and diagrams.
It had taken most of the hour, the original lesson plans left abandoned in the wake of the argument. Ollie thought he’d seen Mr Piastri smile at one point, the corners of his mouth curling upwards at him and Kimi noting content not covered until degree level. Sue him, Ollie had been bored in the long summer break between GCSE and A-Levels and took a few classes! And given by the way Kimi could keep up with him like usual, he’d probably done the same.
Kimi was such a copycat.
And in their shared Further Maths class, right before lunch, their teacher had to move them even further apart than normal when Kimi kept kicking his chair, and Ollie retaliated by changing the other’s calculator angle unit to degrees from radians. It was embarrassing for them both, especially as the only two students taking the subject. Moved from already sitting at separate desks on the front row, they’d been put in opposite corners of the room for the remainder of the lesson.
Ollie knew that the two of them were bad to each other on a normal day, but this had been on a whole other level. Something about finding out they were the two new head students and had to work together, combined with knowing about their upcoming meeting arrangement had made Kimi douse his day in flames. And now said meeting was just around the corner, Ollie glancing at the ‘3:43pm’ on his phone. He had countless notifications from his friends, wishing him to feel better soon, but he swiped them away in annoyance, before grabbing his back and leaving the bathroom cubicle.
He didn’t know whether to be thankful or not at Kimi having arrived before him, the Italian leaning against the café window with his arms crossed and one foot planted on the wall. Ollie wasn’t late, and he certainly wouldn’t have wanted the anticipation of being there first, just waiting for Kimi to appear, and yet the other would likely use it as another situation he had ‘won’ in.
“Why aren’t you waiting inside?”
“It is closed.” Kimi responded, sighing heavily as he did so. He looked tired, hair dishevelled from a long day, and his bag resting on the pavement next to him.
“What do you mean, closed? It can’t be closed!”
“Well, considering none of the lights are on, the door is locked, and there is a big sign reading ‘Not Open Today’, I would say that it looks pretty ‘closed’ to me.”
Ollie rolled his eyes. "That's not what I meant."
The comment was responded to by an infuriating smirk. "Well you have got to be more specific then. I know I am one in a million, but I am not a mind-reader."
"If you actually were a mind-reader, I’d fear for everyone’s safety. No secrets would ever make it past you, and you’d probably try to blackmail everyone. I’d have to be the fairytale hero and take you down.”
"Are you trying to say you are going to destroy me?"
Not what he was going for, but Ollie would take it gladly. "When am I not?"
It got the exact response Ollie wanted. Kimi's face blushed deep pink and the Italian glanced away. Bullseye!
Both stood awkwardly outside the closed café for a minute, unsure of how to proceed. It was definitely closed, and yet they both knew just how important it was to get this event planned whilst they were willingly in the other's company.
"We could head into town? I know of a few quiet coffee shops we could go to?"
"I do not want to sit next to you on a train. Also that would make it feel like we are hanging out, and that we are friends, which is absolutely not the case."
"Well unless you want to sit roadside with me and we get this shit done here, we're gonna have to go somewhere."
Ollie watched as Kimi pondered. He rubbed the fabric of his jumper with his fingers, deeply concentrating. "You cannot come to my house. My whole family is there visiting. There are lots of children."
Valid. The idea of them trying to work together in such an environment sent a slight chill down Ollie's spine. Working together in the first place already was annoying him, that would only ever make it worse.
The next option made his stomach uneasy. He didn't want to offer it, but there seemed to be no other choice. "You could come to mine?" He asked timidly.
"Eh?"
"None of my siblings will be home until eight at the earliest. They have clubs and stuff. It will be quiet."
Kimi huffed out an amused breath. "You are actually offering?" He said, the disbelief evident in his voice.
"Do I have a choice?"
"Yes and no. I am sure you could stop me from going over to your house, but unless you feel like giving in and letting me sort out this event, like was the original plan, we have got to do this somewhere."
"Sorry to burst your little perfect bubble, but I never agreed to letting you take control of this event. Those were your words, and yours alone. Not the original plan.” Ollie huffed. “And fine. Mine it is."
Both of them walked silently as Ollie led the way. He’d sent a quick message to his parents to let them know of the situation, and thankfully, both had replied with a simple thumbs up. No questioning on why the boy he’d complained about non-stop for years was willingly invited over to their house, although Ollie was sure he’d be questioned about it later.
Kimi had also sent a message to someone, likely his parents, if the scowl that appeared on his face shortly after was anything to go by. For some reason, that upset Ollie. It wasn’t any of his business, and the scowl looked similar to the kind Kimi made when being teased by his own friends, and yet he wanted it gone from the Italian’s face. Not that he didn’t like the expression on him, just that, Ollie hadn’t been the one to put it there.
On the bus, they sat three rows apart, opposite sides. On the walk down Ollie’s street, they walked as far apart as they reasonably could. And yet, when they entered the house and greeted Ollie’s parents, the pair smiled at each other as though there was no animosity between them.
They had settled on an unspoken mutual agreement. No arguments in front of Ollie’s parents.
“Good afternoon Mr Bearman Sir, and Mrs Bearman Ma'am." Kimi spoke, as he carefully wiped his shoes on the doormat, waiting carefully to decide how to proceed.
"Oh, no no no, none of that now!" Ollie's mum began. "Call me Terri. You make me sound old otherwise!"
A voice called in from another room. “And call me David!”
“It’s nice to finally meet the boy my son has spoken so much about. Here, let me take your jacket!”
Ollie internally rolled his eyes. Trust his mum to make it sound like Kimi was some famous name, graciously agreeing to visit. She made it sound like this occurrence was something positive, and yet the Brit knew it was anything but.
This would be a one-off situation. It would not happen again.
And Kimi was already pissing him off. The other was never this polite, always just a quick introduction to new teachers and students and school visitors, nothing as formal as this. He was treating the situation as if Ollie’s parents were royalty, and Ollie knew they’d likely fall for it easily. Kimi was almost certainly doing it on purpose, as if to get them to doubt their own son’s words on why the Italian was so bad.
“Thank you very much, Terri. I apologise for the intrusion this late afternoon, this project will hopefully not take too long, and I can be out of the way as soon as it is complete.”
At least Kimi still knew how little Ollie wanted him there.
“Nonsense! You must stay for dinner! We’d both like to get to know more about you, if that is okay?”
Ollie fought the urge to interfere with a loud ‘no’. He strongly hoped Kimi would politely reject the offer, although there was a sinking feeling in his stomach that the Italian would accept. The day had gone from bad (hearing the news of having to be head boy alongside Kimi), to worse (having to meet at the café after school), to terrible (Kimi being in his house, talking to his parents, and potentially set to stay for dinner). There was not a chance he had any luck left.
“Thank you so much for the offer, that would be absolutely lovely Terri. It really is such a pleasure to be here, to meet the people who raised such an amazing person.” Kimi gestured to Ollie as he spoke, wearing a smile that didn’t quite meet his eyes. Manipulative little shit. Terri beamed at the high praise, warmth radiating off her at Kimi’s words.
Ollie felt sick.
How dare he come into Ollie’s own home, and act like he’s some superstar! His parents were already charmed by him, under Kimi’s spell as though he were a siren. Could they not see? Could they not see how disingenuous the Italian was? Willingly calling Ollie an ‘amazing person’? Kimi would rather die than call him such a thing if there weren’t some end goal in mind.
Had his parents forgotten all the stories Ollie had told? About how Kimi would spin things into his favour, everyone too captivated by him to see past the lies and the deceit. The only thing he cared about was achieving his own goals on any given day, something that Ollie spends most of his time trying to decode and figure out.
Ollie was no fool. He knew exactly what the other was trying to do.
“Mum, we’ve got work to do.” He hurried, grabbing Kimi by the wrist and pulling him towards the stairs. “We’ll see you in a bit.”
Kimi stumbled slightly as Ollie pulled him up the stairs, a flurry of movement and uncaring about the harshness at which he dragged the other along. The sooner the pair were safely out of earshot, the better.
“Wow, taking me to the bedroom already? I have only been here five minutes!”
Anger bled through Ollie’s veins. “The fuck is wrong with you?” He hissed, as he pulled Kimi into the room before kicking the door shut with his foot. “I knew you had no respect for me, but my god, that is a new low!”
“What are you afraid of, little bear?”
Ollie startled a little, his train of thought broken by the confusing question. “Huh? What do you mean?”
“You scared they are gonna like me more than they like you? Scared they are gonna think you’re some kind of liar?” Kimi huffed out a chuckle as he leaned against one of the walls, looking up at Ollie a few steps away. “Or perhaps this is it? Scared of watching as I easily turn more people against you like gusts of wind?"
“I’m not scared of you. Why would I be scared of someone like you?”
“Because you see me as a threat.”
Ollie scoffed in response. “The only threat you pose is ruining my day. You’re like a parasite that serves to piss me off at every opportunity.”
“What happened to the whole ‘let us try and at least be civil for this’ thing?” Kimi asked, making direct eye contact with Ollie until the Brit glanced away.
“You ruined it the moment you entered the front door on a mission to manipulate my parents into falling for your every word. Just because they and everyone else can’t see the truth, doesn’t mean I’m also blind.”
“And what can you do about it?” The Italian stood up straight, taking a step closer to Ollie and grabbing his school tie to pull him down slightly to eye level. “You have your half of the school and allies, and you can try and steal from me all you want, but I will always get my way in the end.”
Something about Kimi’s actions just made Ollie want to shut him up, more than normal. His heart had skipped a slight beat when the other pulled him down, and he felt slightly light-headed. Losing this fight was the last thing he wanted, and yet he had no idea what to say in response, all thoughts vanishing from his head. The fact that Kimi had pulled him down by his tie had gotten to him.
“Are you feeling that losing shame yet? It seems to me that you are, and yet I do not see you complaining.”
At least one percent of his brain had returned, slowly rebooting. “You may think that you always get your way, and yet you’re here in my house, because you caved when I said I won’t let you do this planning alone and take all the credit. It’s as though you’re the one that enjoys losing, given how much you talk about it, and bring up times you’ve lost. What if you’ve just been trying to convince me to give you what you really want this whole time? Then, you’d really be the master manipulator.”
Now it was Kimi’s turn to stumble a little. The grip on Ollie’s tie loosened as his eyes widened. Ollie smirked before continuing, standing up taller and slowly walking Kimi backwards towards the wall again. “Is this what you have been wanting, baby?”
Kimi bit his lip, eyes still wide and staring deeply at Ollie as the Brit’s stomach twisted slightly at the sight.
"The feeling of losing at something? Is that what you secretly enjoy?"
Pink on Kimi looked pretty. It pained Ollie to think it, but it suited him, it made him more attractive. Not that he thought Kimi was attractive in the first place, not at all. The colour just bounced around his tanned cheeks softly, and Ollie desperately needed it to stay that way permanently.
"But right now? It doesn't matter what you enjoy, 'cause that's not what we're here for. We can talk about that later. Shall we begin planning?"
He took a step backwards, watching as Kimi stuttered out an agreeing response. It felt good to win the battle.
The tension had melted to regular awkwardness. Neither seemed to want to start anything with the other straight away, and Ollie still felt mentally dishevelled from the way that Kimi had pulled him down by the tie.
He made sure to take it off immediately. It now felt like it was choking him, a weakness in a room with someone who would willingly use it against him.
Kimi was notably quieter after the exchange, and Ollie had noticed him running his hands through his hair more times than normal. The Italian had sat where Ollie directed him to, at the end of his bed, cross-legged, whilst Ollie pulled his chair out from under his desk and sat backwards on it.
Thankfully, the awkwardness eased as they planned. At first, they'd hesitantly discussed ideas, afraid of mentioning anything that would set the other off, although with time, they both grew more relaxed, almost forgetting whom they were with. Ollie had noticed a few times where he'd actually found something Kimi had said to be funny, which surprised him immensely. He'd then immediately snapped out of it each time, and forced himself to ignore the way he wanted to hear more funny lines from Kimi.
They'd made progress. The final day of the school year was planned theoretically, Kimi just needed to call some companies to hire equipment and catering, and they'd created a rough draft of an assembly. All Ollie had to do with it was check it over with their head of sixth form, Mr Vettel, to see what teachers wanted to speak as well. It had gone a whole lot better so far than Ollie had thought, and it was the longest he and Kimi had been in each other's presence without a disagreement or brewing argument of some kind. Not that such a record was hard to break, considering how they normally avoided each other, or had interfering parties (their friends) keeping them apart for everyone else's safety.
All that was left was to plan the party, not explicitly mentioned by Mr Vettel, but a well-known event amongst students. Ollie remembered hearing about Arthur's end of Year 12 party last year, and had been looking forward to it ever since.
It was close to dinner time, and Ollie could hear his parents downstairs in the kitchen, so the boys had agreed not to start the planning until afterwards. Instead, they sat making conversation, carefully balancing on the line between peace and purposely pushing the other's buttons.
"Y'know, I was surprised by you today."
Kimi tilted his head slightly at the comment. "Eh? Perché?"
"In Physics. I didn't know you liked me enough to copy me in starting some degree courses."
"Perché cazzo dovrei mai copiarti? Like you said earlier, my actions do not reflect yours. I am my own person, no? You are not the only person on this planet who wants to study mechanics."
A small smile escaped from Ollie, no matter how much he tried to keep a plain face. "I was just teasing you! Besides, it was nice to prove I'm the better mechanic out of us."
"Ah! No no no!" Kimi shuffled forwards to the edge of the bed as he shook his head rapidly. Competition for both of them always woke them up like it was some kind of sleeper agent programmed into them. "It was a draw! There was no winner, even when my solution was definitely the better one!"
"You're funny. The moment you lose an audience to work your charisma on, you resort to false truths."
"False truths?! My solution was so much more plausible than yours!" Ollie laughed at the way Kimi expressed his irritation, his Italian nature kicking in as he began to speak with his hands. "And I do not have to rely on charisma to get what I want. People just like me naturally, unlike you."
"It's almost as though you swallowed a dictionary. People liking you naturally is because you are charismatic. So therefore you do rely on it!"
"Do you like me naturally?"
Ollie scoffed, breaking eye contact for a moment. "I hate you, so why would I?"
"You called me charismatic."
"An objective term. Other people do and it works on them. You just piss me off, so you cannot make me like you."
"Bet."
Huh? What was that supposed to mean? Ollie scrunched his nose and furrowed his brow as he expressed his confusion.
"Bet." Kimi repeated, smirking as he did so. Ollie had to once again ignore the way it lit him on fire internally. "We are going downstairs for food in a moment, no? Pretend we do not hate each other, and I will be me. We will see how you cope."
Interesting. Ollie would win, as always expected.
"Deal. How do we measure this then?" He rested his chin on the tall part of the chair, on top of his already folded arms.
"I think we will know, little bear."
You have 34 unread messages.
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He didn’t think his heart had ever beaten that fast. It had pounded in Ollie’s chest throughout all of dinner, as he tried to ignore the many events occurring both internally and externally.
Ollie didn’t want to admit it, but Kimi was right. There was an internal crisis racing through his mind as he tried to comprehend the way that the other slotted in at the dinner table like he was meant to be there. He’d chatted along with his mum about travelling, and dutifully responded to questions from his dad about academics and future careers. Somewhere along the way, a Kimi-shaped hole had been carved into the dynamic, a perfect fit in just a few short minutes.
It had sent Ollie’s brain haywire. Why was it so natural? Why did the person he was pretending not to hate (although he wasn’t quite sure if it was pretend anymore) belong instantly alongside him so perfectly?
And Kimi wasn’t exactly playing nice with him either, smiling and making eye contact when suitable, laughing at all the right moments. He looked happy, and it made Ollie feel weirdly fuzzy inside. This was supposed to have been easy, he wasn’t supposed to have been lured in at all, let alone as quickly as this. But there was just something about Kimi that was ruining Ollie’s ability to hate him, and fast.
Ollie had even had to look down at his food a few times just to blush! To blush! Ollie didn’t blush, just let his brain power down and reboot. This wasn’t supposed to be happening.
He’d secretly kicked Kimi under the table a few times to try and get him to stop, but the other had hardly glanced back at him, just a small pinch to his thigh to silently ask “Are you giving in yet?”, which the Brit was not prepared to do.
Look, he may not be able to hate Kimi anymore, but willingly giving into a bet with him would be a step too far.
So he was suffering, patiently waiting for dinner to end, so the pair could escape upstairs and Ollie could return back to what he knew best when it came to communicating with Kimi - harsh words and arguments. He would pick him apart word by word, and destroy Kimi to ignore the fire that was raging on within himself. It was the only way to win, the only way to not give in to the monster that had been created.
It was physically painful to watch the scene around him. To see the intrigue in his parents’ eyes as they asked questions, and to see the ease of Kimi whilst Ollie suffered so. None of them had any clue to the war battling behind the plain face he kept, a dainty smile the barrier to a crime scene of murderous proportions.
Or, at least, he thought none of them knew. Until Kimi pressed his leg up against Ollie’s, trouser fabric to trouser fabric, a slight heat where skin met at their ankles. Ollie went to move away, responding appropriately to a comment made by his dad, and pouring himself more water, heavily focused on not spilling any in his heightened state, but Kimi stopped him by locking their ankles around each other. It was like a ball and chain, keeping him both grounded and overly aware of the situation, how tensely he was balancing on the edge to stop himself from snapping.
Kimi definitely knew.
He had always been too perceptive not to.
And so by the time they’d made it back upstairs, Ollie free from the most torturous meal of his life, Kimi was waiting.
“I win.” He said calmly, standing opposite to the Brit in his room.
Ollie stuttered out a response, both slightly flustered at the confident statement, and also unprepared for the immediate battering. “Wh-what do you mean?”
“I win. You know exactly what I win at.”
“Y-you don’t win! I-i win! I coped perfectly fine, thank you very much!”
“You are not fooling anyone, little bear. Just look at yourself! Tell me you were and still are unaffected and I will tell you that I am the Queen of England.”
“You’re a fucking arsehole, that’s what you are! Deluded by the fact that for a completely unknown reason, some people fall for your every word like you’re a kind of magician!”
The words had begun to flow out of Ollie’s mouth, and they showed no sign of stopping. It felt like a bucket of water that had finally reached capacity and was beginning to tip, the entire bucket ready to pour out. He’d moved closer to Kimi, taking a large step across the room, beginning to close him in.
“But I can see through you. You’ve weaved a web of lies and deceit for your throne, undeserved in every way. Sure? Your academic crown may even be slightly warranted, but your social one? I should shatter it into a million pieces and toss it into a burning fire! I can’t let you win against me, because that would be like losing to a piece of dirt!” He spat, faces now mere inches apart as Kimi’s back pressed against Ollie’s bookshelf.
Kimi looked up at him, eyes wide and circular, a perfectly innocent picture of a face. He looked slightly shocked, and Ollie noted a hint of sadness in his eyes. It took a lot to push down the regret it brought up like bile in his throat. Ollie didn’t want to be the reason that Kimi was sad, he just couldn’t let Kimi win. It went against every fibre of his being.
“Why do you hate me?”
It had been whispered near-silently.
Just mere echoes of the words from Kimi. They felt slightly haunting, carefully breaking a layer of Ollie’s anger away. “Why do you hate me?” He asked breathily in return.
“I started hating you when you started competing against me. When I noticed you glaring at me from across classrooms and playgrounds.”
“Because I was a threat?”
“Because you made yourself known.” Kimi’s voice grew stronger again, emotion channelled into responding with equal anger to match Ollie. “I have told you why, so now it is your turn. Why do you hate me?”
“Fuck. Um. Non ti odio? Not now, I don’t think.”
“Oh?”
Did he respond with the truth or did he lie? It would be easy to lie, to spin some form of the truth about growing as a person and realising he knew better than hate. Or he could be truthful for once to Kimi, to show a hint of respect and give in. Ollie didn’t want to lose, but he couldn’t bear to see the other look so dependent on a response.
“Fine.” This was it. “Fine! You win!”
A glow appeared in Kimi’s eyes as a small smile crept onto his face. Ollie liked it there.
“You’re funny, and people like you, and everything you do is so effortless and calm and collected, and I envy the way you are able to just be you! And I want to hate you again, but I can’t. Because you’re standing here with a stupid little grin on your face that shouldn’t be anywhere near as attractive as it is.”
Kimi flushed a deep pink after hearing that statement.
“You shouldn’t be attractive to me as I’ve always hated you from the moment I first laid eyes on you, and yes, that’s because I saw you as a threat to me. You showed up and destroyed the place I was carving out for myself and it felt like a threat. And yet now I can’t imagine life without you in it, as much as I have wanted you out of it, and I wouldn’t survive without having you alongside me to torment or be tormented by. You piss me off, and then it sends butterflies running through my stomach, and I just have to ignore the effects you have on me because I would keel over and die otherwise.”
Two pairs of eyes connected, locked together as Ollie continued his ramble, Kimi stunned into silence. “I-i hate you, or, well, I hated you, and yet I love who you are at the same time. Learning wouldn’t be learning without you there to fight or to compete against, because at the end of the day, we are just as competitive, and I hate losing to you, even if your confidence makes me feel warm inside. I hate that you’re just as, if not smarter than me, because it means that I have to feel second best to someone, when all I want is to beat everyone, and yet you’ve always made me a better student as without you, I’d have no one to fight! I’d just get complacent. So, no, I don’t hate you, not anym-”
Ollie was interrupted by a pair of lips on his, soft and warm, yet fiercely shutting him up. The shock took a moment to process - Kimi was kissing him! - but he quickly responded with the same energy, pushing back against him.
He felt a sharp pain as Kimi bit down on his lip, before being flipped around and suddenly having his own back against the wall, Kimi placing one arm across his chest and keeping him in place. The other reached for his right hip, fingertips gracing the area before grabbing it tightly.
A noise of content escaped Ollie’s lips.
“This better, little bear?”
Fuck.
That nickname was supposed to anger him, to irritate him beyond belief. But fuck, he wanted it to be the only name Kimi ever called him again.
He reached in to connect their lips again, but was pushed back by the arm across his chest. “Nu-uh. You didn’t answer my question. Is this better than all those confusing thoughts running around inside your pretty little mind?”
Ollie ignored him and went to try and connect his lips to Kimi’s neck instead. He was stopped once again.
“Fine. Yes! Now shut up and kiss me again, idiot!”
“So impatient.” Kimi huffed, smirking as he re-joined their lips.
It didn’t take long for them to continue to behave as normal, the same attitude to their verbal fights reflected in their kissing, by pulling every single trick in the book. Kimi had let out a loud whimper when Ollie pulled his hair tightly, and Ollie knew he hadn’t kept quiet when Kimi peppered his neck with a combination of feathered kisses and harsh bites.
Somewhere along the way, they’d flipped multiple times, both wanting to be the one in control, and to not be the one to give in to the other. Ollie had ended up sitting on his desk chair, Kimi on his lap after he’d walked the Brit backwards to reach it. He knew he probably looked dishevelled, especially if he looked anywhere near as dazed as Kimi did, hair a mess and lips bitten red. But Ollie couldn’t bring himself to care.
This felt right.
Like a culmination of everything at once, the whole of his life feeling as though it had led up to this moment. To be in his bedroom, making out with the boy whom he was supposed to still hate, the person who had been his competition, his rival, since the moment the pair had first met and laid eyes on each other.
It was addictive. He didn’t ever want it to end. Ollie wanted to stay in this little bubble forever, to have his world be reduced to just Kimi, and to let nothing else matter. Although he supposed that was already the case, seeing as the majority of his thoughts were already encompassed by the Italian.
“You’re so pretty, baby.”
He meant it. Ollie had never before let himself become lost looking at Kimi, but he really was pretty.
“Do not think you can compliment me into letting you win in the future.” Kimi responded, face buried into the Brit’s neck as he lightly sucked on it.
“Wouldn’t dream of it. Not fun if I won easily every time. You as a challenger makes winning fun.” His voice trailed out at the end, fading out into a slight whine.
“And seeing the effect I can have on you is just as fun for me.”
The smirk was more than evident in the Italian’s voice as he looked up into Ollie’s eyes.
“I’m not just going to let you win either.”
“I would be surprised if you ever did. You do not give in easily. I like that.”
Ollie ignored the way that comment made him light up inside. It was possibly the closest Kimi had ever come to willingly complimenting him. A lot must have changed in the past few hours for that to be the case.
He told Kimi as such.
“You do not threaten me as much. I am scared of the hold you have over me but I am not scared of you. I still want to fight you but I think I can be nice to you sometimes.”
“I would like that very much, baby.”
Kimi hid his face and made a noise of embarrassment, the tips of his ears turning red. “You cannot call me that in front of anyone else anymore.”
“Aw. But you’re cute when you blush, baby!”
A high-pitched squeal filled the room, shortly followed by Ollie erupting into a burst of giggles, planting his face into Kimi’s hair.
“There will probably be a lot of questions.”
“Probably.”
“Do you want to team up for the first time and confuse everyone?”
“I thought you would never ask, little bear.”