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Kylo was made of too-steep angles, thunderstorms of negative self talk, quicksilver rage, and a name that he had given himself. He supposed that he wasn’t a normal high-school senior; not many seventeen-year-olds had to change schools four times due to an emotional static that refused to just stay inside their brains and resulted in both property damage and self harm. His mother had told him to “just try and make it this time”, which Kylo took as his cue to try to be as invisible as he could.
This proved to be an impossible task. Even though he was sitting in the back of the classroom, he was in a new school, so his face didn’t fade into the landscape of the institution like it would for someone who had attended for four years. On top of that- his nose was too prominent, his hair was too black, and his height was too extreme. Perhaps there was no way to avert the stares of all of the identically-dressed preppies who sat in front of him. Then again, he supposed that he could help himself somewhat by getting over his habit of putting together outfits that consisted of black over black and studded accessories. Maybe correcting the teacher when he called him “Ben” wasn’t a good idea either. No. He was going to keep his self-made identity if it killed him.
The only person in the room not currently gawking at him was the kid sitting in front of him: a boy with autumn red hair, a perfectly organized binder, and a steaming pumpkin spice latte. He wasn’t the only person with an overpriced coffee- it was first period and there was a Starbucks less than three minutes away- but the sweet and crisp scent of the redhead’s drink was particularly strong. As the teacher continued to call attendance, Kylo learned that the kid’s name was Armitage Hux. It was a pretentious name, one that Kylo could expect to hear being called out by a mother at a country club pool. He almost liked it.
After attendance was called, announcements were made, and the Pledge of Allegiance was chanted, the teacher began the dry, annual ritual of handing out the syllabus. He handed each column of desks a pile of papers emblazoned with the words “AP European History” and instructed his students to “take one and pass it down”. When Hux turned around to hand Kylo a syllabus, Kylo finally got a good view of his face.
Hux was hot. No, hot was an understatement- the boy was a god! He had glacial blue eyes littered with spots of green and surrounded by delicate looking red lashes. His cheekbones were prominent and high and his lips were full and pink. The top two buttons of Hux’s green plaid shirt were undone, showing a tantalizing peek at his collarbones.
“Are you going to stop staring like an idiot or are you going to take the paper?” Hux said.
Oh, that accent! If Kylo weren’t so embarrassed about being called out for staring, then he would have swooned at that crisp, English-sounding inflection.
“Geez, sorry,” said Kylo as he swiped the paper out of the other boy’s hand.
Hux scoffed and turned back around.
As the first week of school progressed, Kylo couldn’t help but pay more attention to the cute redhead in front of him than the dry lectures of his teacher, Mr. Schmidt. Armitage Hux knew an awful lot about history and wasn’t afraid to correct the teacher when the information wasn’t entirely accurate. By the power of smooth-talk alone, however, he was able to keep the teacher from hating him. Even when Schmidt declared beverages other than water to be a “distraction” in the classroom, Hux still managed to talk him into allowing him to bring his pumpkin spice lattes. It was kinda hot to see a guy effortlessly control the people around him, and every day Kylo’s daydreams about Hux pulling him in for a furious make-out session in the middle of class got more vivid. Kylo wondered if Hux could talk Schmidt into letting them do that. More importantly, he wondered how pumpkin spice tasted on Hux’s tongue.
When Kylo started sketching pictures of Hux in the margins of his black and white composition notebook, he knew he was thirsty. He only drew things that interested him, after all, and no one else had to see Kylo’s notes. They were for his eyes only.
On the Friday of that week, he learned that he was sadly mistaken. His composition notebook, or what he thought was his composition notebook, fell out of his messenger bag as he flung it onto his bedroom chair. As soon as Kylo got a glimpse of the page that it had opened to, he saw none of his doodles. Instead, he saw typewriter perfect, color coded notes. On the inside cover, in the little box provided for the owner of the notebook to write their name, Kylo saw the name “Armitage Hux” written in the same perfect handwriting.
Shit.
It must have happened when they ran into one another on their way out of the classroom door and silently and curtly helped one another pick up their things from off of the dirty tiled floor. Their notebooks were identical on the outside, so they must have inadvertently switched them.
That meant that Hux had seen Kylo’s drawings of him- every single one of them.
Kylo almost skipped first period on Monday, but decided to go anyway. He supposed that he was some kind of a masochist. He tried to shuffle his way to his desk without drawing attention to himself, but his combat boots clunked loudly on the floor. He knew that Hux was looking at him and could feel his sharp gaze boring into him, but he made no eye contact as he sat down.
“Hey,” said Hux, his clipped accent as appealing as ever, “I think I have your notebook.”
Kylo tore his eyes away from his graffiti-covered desk and looked up at Hux. The redhead was holding a black and white composition notebook in his hand and wearing an exasperated expression on his face. Awkward.
Kylo snatched the notebook out of Hux’s slim hands, fished out Hux’s identical one, and shoved it onto his desk. Once the exchange was done, both boys turned around without a word.
Kylo opened his notebook to make sure that everything was in order. At the bottom of the seventh page, in typewriter-perfect handwriting, was a short note. “It’s interesting to see that the cute goth boy behind me is such a wonderful artist. We should text some time. Or maybe we should get coffee together before school. If you want, we can do both. -Armitage”
Below the note was Hux’s cell phone number.