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The third-period bell rang throughout the halls, signaling a tidal wave of students to surge out of the doors and into the hallways, laughter and chatter ringing through the previously-still air.
Lightbulb instinctually began clipping her papers into her binder and throwing stuff in her bag, barely registering the teacher's call to complete the study guide. Whatever. She never cared enough to do her homework anyways. She slipped out into the bustle of the corridors, complete with a healthy buzz of conversation and the sound of lockers slamming.
she wove through the crowds, making her way to her locker. Once she had gotten her stuff put away, she walked to her next class and put her stuff down before walking to the bathrooms. The bell rung and the students trickled away, but she ignored it, trusting that her teacher would count her present after seeing her stuff on her desk.
Just as she was about to enter the girl's bathroom, she heard an annoyingly nasal voice call out to her.
"and where do you think you're going?" Lightbulb paused in confusion. It was that one teacher that everyone hated on. What was his name... oh yeah. Cobbs.
"The bathroom, sir," she replied, a touch of sarcasm in her voice.
"You? A boy? In the girl's restroom? I think not." Lightbulb tried to reply.
"Sir, im not a-" he cut her of with a single click of his tounge.
"I see through you, mister. You can dress up and pretend all you like. But at the end of the day, you will use the men's restroom. Now go. You're already late." Lightbulb waited until he had left, then ran off down the hallway, into a small cutout in the wall at the end of the hallway. She slumped down against the wall, then wrapped her arms around her knees, and just sat there, softly crying, for a bit.
Sback in the classroom, Paintbrush glanced at the door for the fifteenth time in the last three minutes. Class had been going on for a while now, and they still handn't seen Lightbulb yet. They thrust their hand up into the air. The teacher, Mr 3GS, pointed at them.
"Sir, Lightbulb has been gone for a bit now. May i look for her?" 3GS nodded his assent and continued his presentation on cell types while Paintbrush slipped out of the door.
Several minutes of searching later, they reached the end of the hallway, the place where Lightbulb barricaded herself off from the world. Paintbrush saw her crying and rushed over to her side, kneeling next to her and saying:
"Lightbulb? Whats wrong?" Quietly, in between sobs and sniffs, Lightbulb reiterated her whole interaction with Cobbs. When she was done, Paintbrush stood up and pulled her with them.
"You go back to class, i'll handle Cobbs." True to their word, when pretty much every other student and teacher had gone out for dismissal from the nightmare they called "school," Paintbrush cornered Cobbs in a hallway.
"Im not gonna beat around the bush. Stay the fuck away from Lightbulb or i will tell the principal about the travel-sized bottle of vodka in your desk drawer." Cobbs looked taked aback and more then a little intimidated by this tall basketball player looming over them.
"i-i was just making sure he went in the right bathroom..."
"She is a girl. Not a boy. You dont get to decide who she is."
without another word, Paintbrush turned on their heel and stormed off, confident that Cobbs would never harass anyone again.