Chapter Text
The day begins off with our lovely boy, Callum!
Callum, who manages to arrive just on time for Art, looks over at his friends, Rose and Valerie, gives them a happy smile and waves at them.
"Hey Rose! Hi Valerie!" The young boy greets them in a feathery tone.
He walks over to the back of the classroom and sits down at his seat, putting down his book; "The History of Art" down onto his table as he sat down.
When class begun, he opened his book to page 167 to 168 as the teacher told them to do so. Their class's teacher now began a quick tyen question test to see if the class remembered everything she taught them yesterday.
"Now, hopefully, you've all reviewed page 163 till page 166 after school or have read your notes, because as of right now.. We'll be having a ten question quiz!" She exclaimed cheerfully. Hoping, just hoping.. in her head, that.. her class remembered what she had taught them.
The class groaned in sync, making her chuckle as she began handing out the sheets of paper with the test questions on them. The teacher then began to explain the instructions to the test questions,
"Numbers for one till five are multiple choice questions, you will be given four choices there. And onto numbers—six till ten, you will have no choices and must answer it in your own words." She explained whilst taking a walk through each row of tables.
"And remember, No cheating! 'Honesty is the best Policy', as all proper students remember. If I catch one of you cheating or your eyes are somewhere else, I will be taking your paper away and you will have no score for that quiz."
The teacher explained before walking up to the center of the class, "And.. start!" she announced before starting a timer on her phone for twenty minutes.
The class began to write their name on the sheet of paper and answered of the questions. Callum, who wasn't always very bright at remembering something he had no interest in, tried his very hardest to answer the questions, looking at the test paper numbers for clues in each of the words to find an answer.
Eventually, the timer on the teacher phone clicked and alarmed a loud and long 'Ting!' thought the speakers of her phone.
"Pass your test papers forward now, make sure they align correctly!" Their madam commanded subtly as she got up from her table and waited for all of the students in the front to have all the sheets of paper in their hands.
After she collected every single test paper, she stored them away in the drawers inside her desk, for now, and continued their lesson about the Baroque time period. Making people who still remembered their answers feel glad that they got it right or disappointed that they got it wrong..
Twenty minutes into the early morning of their Art Class, the teacher's ongoing blabbering and fact-telling was, unexpectedly disrupted by the entrance of a new student to the school.. going by the name of—
"Excuse me, I think this is where I'm supposed to be. I'm William, I just transferred here."
The newcomer exclaimed in an nonchalant manner, abruptly cutting in on my introduction about him. Nevertheless, William stood there, his long, straight dark hair, catching the eyes of others. Along with his pretty or mysteriously alluring beauty—that included his emerald green eyes, taupe brown jacket, black turtle neck, black pants, black shoes, black ear piercings— just mostly black things.
The class looked at William, Callum looked at the new student. The teacher then responded welcomingly, "Oh– well, yes then. There's an empty seat in the back." She responded before going back to teaching the lesson to the class.
William thanked the teacher with a quiet tone before he walked to the back of the class, sitting down in the seat to Callum's right.
Callum looked away from the textbook about "The History of Art" and over to the new student that sat beside his table.
Callum stared at William, looking at him as if he was a dog and was seeing a cat for the first time in his life. He looked William over, noticing how mysterious and... cool he looked! In Callum's eyes, he saw William as some superhero that was here on earth to complete his mission, that's why the new student's appearance was so mysteriously pretty.
William, who was minding his own business and was listening to the teacher's lesson to further learn more about the kind of art during the Baroque Era within Rome and Italy, primarily about the Renaissance works. Felt as if someone was staring at him, the stabbing sensation further intensifying as he continued to ignore where the stare was coming from.
But, eventually, William caved in to the sensation and looked over to his left, raising his eyebrow slightly as he looked at his seatmate.
Seeing that it was that gold-fish eyed kid with plum-like hair, he found it odd how the kid managed to keep staring at him for half a minute..
Unexpectedly, William saw a smile form from Callum's mouth. Then, the following words came out in a whisper;
"Hi! My name's Callum." The young boy quietly asked William, who, answered in a rather uninterested and solemn tone..
"William."
He answered in a monotone voice before looking away, his eyes landing back onto the chalk board.
Timeline Change; Callum goes out of his way to help William!
Callum, who looked back at the pages of his textbook, smiled to himself. Callum felt glad and somehow—giddy, that him and William had had an introduction towards each other.
Minutes eventually passing in class, approximately around five minutes until Callum noticed something. Someone, who seemed to be confused from the movements of their eyebrows.
William, who hadn't been to school in quite some time after being held back at sixteen years old from going into tenth grade earlier on, felt confused if this is just the start of the Baroque Time period, or they were in the middle or end of the time period.. He was practically on the verge of whispering to himself a genuine '..Huh?!..' from his understanding of the lesson.
The raven-haired man then heard a soft "psst!.." from his left, when he glanced over to whee Callum eat, he saw the boy looking at him with subtly kind expression, no big smiles..
Callum then quietly offered William his textbook, "Do you want to borrow my textbook? Mrs. Loraine hands out unexpected quizzes or tests when students least expect it, so you might want to catch up."
He spoke out, his smile ever so slightly widening as he looked over at William. The long-haired vamp, who wasn't quite fond of other people disturbing his peace or even showing pity for him, unusually has a thought of considering to accept Callum's offer.
He went silent for a few moments, but then said, "Hm, alright then.. just don't bug me about immediately giving it back to you after class. I have things to do."
William answered in a still tone but a calmer one from his earlier voice. Callum nodded his head and whispered "I won't." to William before discreetly handing him his textbook to read, for now.
The side of William's mouth faintly raised up as he now looked at the tittle of the textbook, before looking over at the other's students page number,
'One hundred sixty-three till one hundred sixty-six..' and opened the book on page 163, now not looking at the teacher's chalkboard and instead reading while subconsciously listening to what the teacher said.
'Guess plum boy here isn't so bad after all.." William thought, reading thoroughly and putting each fact he learned into shorter or more comprehensive phrases, sentences or even paragraphs.
Callum stared at William for a few moments before looking back to the chalkboard, watching the edge of the slim and long chalk glide across the rough surface of the blackboard as Mrs. Loraine wrote down a few other facts about the Baroque Time Period—and.. would definitely mention as a question in the tests.
The bell rang just in time to save Valerie from practically falling asleep onto her desk. A glad smile grew on her faces before she immediately got up and cheerfully told Rose to come along with her,
"Ough, finally! C'mon, let's go get lunch together, Rosie. Having to wait in line for such a long time is just—so boring!" She exclaimed before grabbing Rose's hand and pulling her out of their boring History class.
Callum smiled happily as he muttered a small "Phew, finally!" between his breath, remembering what William had said earlier, about not bugging him in giving back his textbook, the plum-haired boy got up from his seat and walked out of class, glancing at William for a few moments before leaving thought the exit of the classroom.
William, who found himself getting a bit bored by the time the class ended, felt relieved he could finally have some peace in the library. It honestly surprised him that such a school like this one had such a wid category of books in the library when his parents told him about the high school's interior.
He closed the textbook and got up from his seat, waiting for the messy line at the door of the class to finish before actually leaving the classroom, remembering to bring Callum's textbook with him.
The vampire arrived at his locker and opened it up, fitting the textbook in between the other books he had in the middle level of his locker's inside.
"I can probably look for more books in the library to find more about the Baroque Tike Period—orr.. just read my favourite books." He muttered to himself before he closed his locker door, not forgetting to grab the coffee he had kept in his locker to drink during lunch time.
Right as William was about to leave for the library, a person went up towards him and called his name.
"Your name is William, right?" Asked Rose, smiling in a friendly manner towards the man.
William turned towards the girl and had to resist the urge to just not acknowledge her question.. "Sigh... Yes, my name is William. And you are?"
"Oh, my name is Rose. I just wanted to say this to you, but I think you already know; if you're confused with anything around here, feel free to ask-" she was then interrupted by William's sudden answer.
"If you already know that I know that I should ask people around if I'm confuse, it isn't recommended to repeat it over and over again, y'know." William Interjected with an unwelcome expression.
"Ah- right, sorry-" William then went back to what he was doing and left before Rose could even finish her sentence.
'Rude, much..' Rose thought to herself before she walked back to the cafeteria, getting her tray and purchasing lunch from the lunch lady.
He walked throughout the hall, going to the southeast hall of the school since the 3rd room there was the library. But as William walked towards his destination, he spotted Callum, who seemed fixated something posted on the noticeboard.
`Softball Auditions: Results `the sheet of paper displayed, 'Did Callum audition to be on the Softball Team?..' William asked himself in his own head.
After a few moments, the slight excitement and anticipation on Callum's face gradually disappeared as he saw that his own name wasn't printed onto the notice paper.
"Awh, man.. shame I didn't get in. Maybe next time." Callum mumbled to himself before he turned to go into the library in hopes of checking if the library finally released "Spider-man 2". When Callum did turn around, he spotted William just right beside the door to the library.
"Oh! Hey William! are you planning to read a book from the Library?" Callum asked the tall boy enthusiastically, hoping both of them could maybe read together, whether it'd be the books they were reading were different or not. William found himself out of place when Callum unexpectedly turned around, he had not anticipated that.. and he didn't expect himself to actually acknowledge what Callum was currently doing, 'Curses..'.
William responded back in a still, and nonchalant voice, "Well, yes.. I plan on finding books about the Baroque Time Period. The textbook only had a couple pages about the Baroque Time Period, anyways."
He replied before he suddenly saw a smile emerge from Callum's face after only blinking once. Goshh.. this kid's smiles are so sudden.
"Oh, if you need to know where the books are about History, you can take a left then go straight, look to the right bookshelf and you'll see the books the school published to help out students." Callum elucidated in subtly cheery tone.
The vampire felt surprised how such a naïve and bubble-eyed boy such as Callum was that knowledgeable, but.. he could admit, the instruction Callum gave William was quite convenient, helping William avoid wasting time from walking and walkinga round the library to find the books about 'Time Periods'
"Right, thanks, anyways.. are you also going into the Library?"
Callum nodded his head as he looked up at William, "Yep, I'm hoping the Library finally has "Spider-Man 2" Comic! I've been waiting all week."
"Hm, you still read comics, even when you're a tenth grader?" William asked with a subtle scoff.
"Mhm, there's no rules against reading comics in tenth grade." Callum answered, not noticing the faint mocking chuckle from William.
"By the way, if you're cool with it, maybe we can read something together during lunch time?"
William thought about what Callum had said, 'William, honey.. we know that you've been held back from entering your tenth year into your private school. So, me and your father thought we'd enroll you into a public high school. You can even learn how to make friends there!' William remembered, that thought nudging him to maybe have Callum as his friend, just to show his parents that he does have a friend.
"Hm, as long you won't pester me with you comics, then sure." William answered, putting up a faint smile to seem 'friendly'. Even though in truth, he didn't know how he should feel about hanging out with such a cheery—sweet— boy like Callum.
Callum lips rose up happily, "Great! let's go in, then." Callum replied with a cheery undertone. He went over to the door of the library and opened it, entering first and courteously holding the door open for William. The vampire felt surprised that Callum did that for him, but he felt.. pleased, in the very least. "Thanks, I suppose." William says before going through through the entrance of the library.