Chapter Text
Studying in spring was objectively impossible.
Zhenya sat by the window with his chin propped on one hand, pretending to listen to the teacher's monotone voice. She kept droning on at the board, but all those numbers, formulas, definitions, he already knew. He could've walked up there right then, recited the whole section from memory, and solved half the class's pathetic little problems for them.
The bright sun kept beating down mercilessly through his thin shirt.
That year, spring had come a month early. The sky was a clean, cloudless blue, the trees around the school were already covered in white and pink blossoms, and bees, freshly awake, hummed lazily in the branches. Out in the yard, short skirts flashed by more and more often. From the hallway beyond the classroom door came shrieks, laughter, running footsteps.
So how the hell was anyone supposed to study?
Out of the corner of his eye, Zhenya tracked the lines in his textbook, but his gaze kept drifting back to the window. And like it was pulled there by a magnet, it kept snagging on the same silhouette.
By the trunk of a flowering tree, maybe cherry, maybe apricot, stood one of the older students, very obviously skipping another class. His dark hair stuck out in every direction, carelessly messed up by the breeze. His blue tie hung around his neck like it belonged on a scarecrow, and his shirt had more buttons undone than the dress code allowed. A dark backpack lay at the roots of the tree like a trash bag. His sneakers were crusted with dried mud, and his pants were wrinkled like he slept in them.
The guy took a drag, tipped his head back, and exhaled smoke into the sky. A shaft of sunlight caught the white line of it, like somebody had sketched over the scene in pencil.
Beautiful. Jesus fucking Christ, so beautiful.
Zhenya grimaced in annoyance and dropped his eyes back to his notebook.
Kwon Taekjoo, eleventh grade. Chronic smoker and the school's imported gift from abroad. He'd shown up a year ago. One day the semester started, and suddenly he'd been shoved into the system like he'd always been there. Korean. A real one. That hadn't stopped him from swearing in Russian better than half the locals.
Rumors about him multiplied fast. During breaks people whispered behind his back that he'd been kicked out of his last school for something serious. Either he'd beaten the shit out of somebody, told a teacher to go fuck themselves, or gotten mixed up in some criminal mess. There was even one rumor that murder had been involved, but that sounded like the product of somebody's overclocked imagination.
Still, one thing was true: he fought a lot. And he smoked anywhere he could get away with it, probably everywhere except the principal's office.
He'd only made it into eleventh grade by the skin of his teeth, thanks to failing marks, truancy, and his disgusting behavior. Every day Kwon came to class looking like somebody had been adding another brick to his backpack from Monday to Friday.
Zhenya snorted.
Always rumpled. That tie of his hanging like a noose. That face that basically said fuck off in block letters.
Scarecrow Kwon.
Compared to him, Zhenya looked like an angel. A corrupt angel, sure. But still an angel.
Yevgeny Bogdanov was a tenth-grader planning to go into medicine, with spotless behavior and excellent results in both academics and sports. He didn't think of himself as anything special. He just honestly acknowledged that, at this school, the competition in the brains department wasn't exactly fierce, and that suited him just fine. Wealthy family. Gorgeous house. Tutors. He'd even skipped a year because he was doing that well academically.
None of that made him feel superior or inferior. He just knew exactly what he could do and exactly what he was worth.
Looks-wise, he'd gotten lucky too. Tall, blue-eyed, with those eyes half-hidden under messy bangs that gave his mother a meltdown once a week.
"Go get a haircut, you can't even see anything!"
Teachers loved him: top student, academic competition kid, smart as hell. His classmates either kept their distance because of his sharp tongue or got irritated and muttered things like, "There goes that fucking smartass again."
As far as Zhenya was concerned, the only things he was unquestionably above Kwon in were brains and height. And the second one pissed the Korean off especially badly.
Outside the window, the older boy took another drag, leaning his shoulder blades against the bark. He flicked ash toward the flowerbed and dropped his eyes to his phone. Zhenya caught himself staring without blinking.
It had all started in the library. That was where he should've strangled him. Or in the bathroom, instead of...
He shifted slightly in his chair, resting an elbow on the windowsill so he could keep both the yard and the teacher in sight. And he let himself remember what had happened a year ago.
* * *
Back then, it had started with something completely harmless.
The library had seemed like a safe place to study: quiet, the rustle of pages, the smell of paper and polish from the old furniture. Zhenya had been given a desk by the window so he could prepare for an academic competition. Kwon had been dragged in there like a live grenade with the pin already pulled.
"Let him think about his behavior," his homeroom teacher had snapped, face red with anger, practically shoving the boy inside. "Maybe books will get through to him better than I do."
Books, naturally, had no effect on this particular specimen.
Taekjoo dropped into the desk beside him and sprawled out so much his legs nearly touched Zhenya's. He kept spinning some click pen in his fingers, God knew where he'd gotten it from, clicking it open and shut every few seconds in the most irritating way possible. On top of that came tongue-clicking, heavy sighs, and quiet muttering under his breath in multiple languages.
Zhenya tried to read his textbook.
For five minutes. Ten.
By minute fifteen, he was done.
"Listen," he said without looking up from the page, "for a piece of furniture, you make a ridiculous amount of noise. Your sighing is making my bookmark move. You trying to blow me away?"
"Got a lot of complaints all at once, don't you?" the other boy snapped immediately.
Bogdanov looked up.
"Kwon, if you were trying to sound threatening, you failed," the blond said calmly. "Which, by the way, seems to be a running theme in your life."
Taekjoo's jaw twitched.
"Listen here, clown," he started, leaning forward. "Who the fuck do you think you are? Local golden boy? Daddy buys the school shit and Mommy writes thank-you notes?"
"Something like that," Zhenya said, not bothering to argue. "Unlike some people, I know how to read and write, not just fight and smoke behind the school."
"Oooh," the Asian drawled, looking Bogdanov over with open contempt, taking in the neat clothes. "Why the fuck are you acting so high and mighty, rich boy? You trying to fix me?"
Zhenya stared at him, one brow lifting slightly.
"Amazing. Every cliche at once. Maybe try something a little more original? With a vocabulary like that, the best you can hope for after graduation is some shitty trade school where they let you mop floors. Assuming they even take people who can barely read."
"The fuck did you just say, you little smartass?"
Zhenya slowly set his textbook aside.
"Look, Kwon. I'm going to give you some free advice," he said in the same tone he usually used with classmates he considered borderline brain-dead. "If you want to get under my skin even a little, you're going to have to try harder. Use your head. Think. Don't just throw around labels like 'rich boy.' It's boring."
He smiled a little, barely lifting one corner of his mouth.
"So here's the deal. When you learn how to come up with original insults, come back. Until then, you're very boring."
Zhenya almost liked exchanges like this. It was like an academic competition, except his opponent could barely remember the multiplication table.
But apparently that last part hit something raw.
Taekjoo's eyes flashed. He stood up so fast his chair scraped loudly across the floor. He'd already opened his mouth to bark something vicious, something that would actually sting, but for some reason no sound came out. For half a minute he just stared Bogdanov down like he was trying to burn a hole through him. In that look there was more than rage for a second. There was something like exhaustion too.
Then he jerked hard, turned, and stormed out of the library with a quiet, bitter, "Fuck."
The librarian lifted her head from her book, looked helplessly at the door, then at Zhenya.
"I very much doubt he spent this time reflecting on his behavior," she sighed.
Zhenya shrugged and went back to his textbook. A weird kind of satisfaction spread through him, like he'd tugged a tiger by the whiskers and somehow managed to keep his hand.
* * *
After the library, Kwon had apparently decided he had a brand-new sworn enemy.
"Hey, Beanpole," he'd call down the hallway instead of saying hello. "How's the weather up there? Windy?"
"Not windy, Scarecrow," the blond would shoot back. "And from up here I can also see one idiot smoking behind the school and then acting shocked when his lungs give out in PE."
"You rich little prick," Taekjoo would hiss through his teeth. "You think just because your family's loaded, you get to look down on everybody?"
"I look down on you because you're shorter," Zhenya would explain patiently. "That's physiology. Even money, if you had any, wouldn't fix that."
The Korean got pissed off fast and beautifully.
"You're a fucking sociopath, Bogdanov," he'd snap back. "You don't even have friends. Just your books and your stupid notebooks. Nobody talks to you except teachers, and even they only do it because they have to, and because your family's got money. What, you gonna graduate and sit around in some pretentious university with a bunch of other assholes like you?"
"At least not a trade school," Zhenya would reply politely, "where, at best, they'll teach you how to screw in a lightbulb. Though I doubt they take people who can't write. Then again, the word 'dick' is only four letters. That might still be within your capabilities."
"I swear to God, I'll fucking..."
They kept up that nasty little ping-pong for months. During breaks, in the hallways, by the school gates. If a teacher happened to be nearby, they'd try to break it up.
"Bogdanov, don't answer him."
"Kwon, how many times do we have to do this..."
But neither of them could stop. For them it had become a game.
Sometimes Zhenya thought Kwon's whole day would go off the rails if he didn't call him "Beanpole," "smartass," or "rich asshole" at least once.
The blond never let it slide either. He called him "Scarecrow," "future janitor," and "moron with a cigarette."
And it probably would've gone on like that until Taekjoo graduated, if Zhenya hadn't ended up stepping in deeper than he meant to.
He remembered that day especially clearly too.
* * *
They'd started in on each other again after seventh period. The hallway had already emptied out. Everyone was trying to get the hell home.
"Fix your tie," Zhenya said lazily as he stepped out of the classroom and spotted Kwon by the next room over. "They don't bury people like that."
"They'll bury you, Bogdanov, if you don't shut the fuck up," the Korean shot back, slamming the classroom door. "What makes you think you get to give me advice at all?"
"Because I know how to tie a tie," the blond answered flatly. "Your dad clearly never taught you. There are tutorials online, by the way."
Taekjoo stopped dead. His backpack slipped from his hand and hit the floor with a thud.
"Say that again," the Korean said quietly.
At that point, Zhenya still didn't know that Taekjoo hadn't had a father for a couple of years.
Bogdanov turned his head and gave the faintest smirk.
"I said your dad never taught you the basics..."
He never got to finish. The punch cut him off clean, landed hard on his cheekbone, fast and vicious. The world spun a little. His vision went dark at the edges. Zhenya hit the wall and exhaled through his teeth.
"Are you out of your fucking mind, Kwon?" he snarled, and without thinking twice, drove his foot into the other boy's knee.
Taekjoo swore, lost his balance, and dragged Bogdanov down with him, fists twisted in the front of his shirt. A second later they were rolling across the linoleum of the empty hallway, their fight collapsing into a mess of elbows, knees, and swearing.
"I'm gonna fix that smug fucking face of yours, smartass," the Korean growled, trying to get on top.
"That still won't make you any smarter," Zhenya rasped, and punched him square in the nose.
Kwon made a sharp sound of pain, and rage flared in his eyes. He caught the blond by the arm and flipped their positions in one hard movement. Now he was on top, straddling Bogdanov's hips and pinning him down with all his weight. Blood poured instantly from Taekjoo's broken nose onto Zhenya's white shirt.
"Smug little bitch," Taekjoo rasped, drawing his fist back for another hit.
To his own surprise, Zhenya suddenly caught himself freezing for one weird second in something close to anticipation.
Like a still frame, the other boy loomed over him, face twisted with fury, dark hair disheveled around it. His eyes shone, full of pain and rage, and a thin line of blood running over his upper lip burned bright against his tanned skin.
Instead of flinching, instead of squeezing his eyes shut, the blond had one stupid thought flash through his head:
I wonder if it'll hurt even more if he hits me again?
He smiled, barely. That, apparently, pushed the Korean even further over the edge.
And right then a couple of girls walked into the hallway from one of the classrooms they'd been cleaning after school. They saw two boys rolling around on the floor, blood, scattered stuff, and screamed so loudly the whole school probably heard it.
Ten minutes later the two of them were sitting in the principal's office. Rumpled, shirts dirty, still breathing hard after the fight.
Zhenya's split cheek was already turning purple. Blood was still running from Taekjoo's nose. Every so often he tipped his head back and pressed that cursed tie to his face, and at last it was actually useful for something.
"Well, of course," the principal sighed, looking at them over his glasses. "Kwon. Who else. But you, Yevgeny... I didn't expect this."
Zhenya said nothing, staring at a single point on the wall just above the desk, fully aware of how he looked right now: model student involved in a fight. A total accident, whichever way you looked at it.
Taekjoo said nothing either. He sniffed from time to time, but the tendons in his neck kept tightening with silent aggression.
In the end, the decision was what it usually was. Kwon was the instigator. Bogdanov, top student, good boy from a respectable family, had merely defended himself.
The Korean got a reprimand, a threat that his mother would be called, and some other "final warning." Zhenya got a stern talking-to and was let go with a half-hearted lecture about how fighting was wrong, even when you really, really wanted to.
When they left the office, the hallway had gone quiet. Without saying a word, they both walked up to the third floor to collect their things.
Zhenya buttoned up his coat, feeling the ache under his eye. Someone else's blood had already dried dark on the collar. Taekjoo was stuffing his few scattered things back into his backpack, shaking his head now and then like he was trying to stop the bleeding for good.
"You got a crush on me or something, Kwon?" Zhenya blurted out suddenly, not entirely sure why he was saying it. "You can't go one fucking day without picking on me."
The Korean jerked like he'd been hit again.
"What? Bogdanov, are you completely fucking insane?"
"Just asking." The blond shrugged. "Maybe I should buy something. Pepper spray, maybe. Or a bouquet, if my admirer is going to keep being this persistent."
Something completely unreadable crossed the Korean's face.
"Go fuck yourself," he muttered dully, turning away and walking off fast.
After that, Kwon eased off for exactly one week.
* * *
Seven days later, when Zhenya came back to his classroom from the teachers' lounge with a stack of extra materials from one of the teachers, his backpack was gone from under his chair.
He checked the desks around him, looked under the teacher's desk, checked the supply closet.
Nothing.
The blond clenched his teeth. That familiar irritation was already rising somewhere inside him. This had one specific idiot’s cheap little stunt written all over it.
Of course.
For the next twenty minutes he went through the school methodically, checking everything: empty classrooms, hallways, the cafeteria, the gym, the stairwells.
Nothing. Fucking nothing.
That moron had outdone himself and reached a whole new level of putting his tiny brain to use.
Zhenya was already heading back to his floor, preparing to humiliate himself by going to the vice principal or the principal with a complaint, when someone grabbed him by the collar so hard he nearly choked. One yank, and he went stumbling backward into the bathroom door.
"What the..."
He didn't get to finish.
He was shoved inside and slammed against the wall so hard the air got knocked out of his lungs. His shoulder blades hit the cold tile immediately.
Kwon stood right in front of him, fist twisted in the already badly stretched collar of his shirt, wearing that exact delinquent look that made other students' knees go weak.
"Listen carefully, Bogdanov," the Korean growled, grabbing him higher up by the shirt, right at the throat. "Because last time we weren't done talking. Starting today, you're done acting like the smartest guy in the room. Got it?"
Taekjoo leaned in again, pressing his body into his. One hand clenched the white fabric until it creaked in protest. The other was already coming up for a punch. Their faces were only inches apart. Zhenya could smell cigarettes, cheap deodorant, and something else, something hot and alive.
"You think just because you're tall and your family's got money," Kwon breathed right into his face, "you get to look down on everybody? You think I'm scared of you, Bogdanov?"
Zhenya looked at him in silence, watching him rage, watching how fast he was breathing, how hard he was still trying to seem threatening. A perfectly normal, sane, logical thought flashed through his head: first hit him in the solar plexus, then dodge whatever comes next and break the hold with a sweep.
Not a single neuron in his brain suggested kiss him.
And yet, for some reason, that was exactly what he did.
Zhenya moved in, almost flush against him, driving one knee between Kwon's thighs, catching both wrists in one quick motion and yanking them up, pinning them painfully against the wall until the Korean winced and swore. Instead of holding Bogdanov there, he suddenly found himself the one immobilized.
"The fuck are you, y..."
He opened his mouth to spit out another insult.
That was when Zhenya bent his head and kissed him, hard, with tongue.
Neither of them closed their eyes.
Zhenya saw Kwon's pupils blow wide with shock. He saw the aggression vanish from his face, leaving behind nothing but pure disbelief and something close to horror. He saw him stop breathing for a split second. Felt the hot body under his own give a weak, involuntary shudder.
Taekjoo tasted bitter, smoky, and faintly of cheap mint gum. The Korean's jaw locked tight against his mouth.
Time seemed to stop in that weird, sealed-off world of the school bathroom, like there was nothing left anywhere but the still-damp tile, the faint smell of bleach, somebody else's burning mouth, and his own heart pounding so hard in his chest it drowned everything out.
One second.
Then another.
On the third, Kwon jerked so violently, on so much pure adrenaline, that it looked like his life depended on what he did next. He tore his wrists free hard enough to nearly strip skin and shoved Zhenya away from him with all his strength.
"You're fucking insane!" he shouted, staggering half a step as he turned, nearly clipping a stall with his shoulder. Then, without even looking at Bogdanov, he bolted out of the room and slammed the door so hard it shook.
Zhenya stayed where he was, his back against the tile. His stomach felt tight. His mouth burned.
Slowly, he ran his tongue over his lips.
Nicotine. Mint. And something else, something he couldn't name.
Bitter.
Under the sink, between the bucket and the drainpipe, a familiar black strap was sticking out. The blond bent down, pulled out his backpack, looked at it first, then at the closed door.
What the fuck did you just do? he asked himself.
No answer came. Like some hideously complicated equation with too many variables, it refused to solve.
* * *
After that day, everything on the surface seemed to calm down.
If they ran into each other in the hallways, they still traded the same unflattering names.
"Hey, Beanpole."
"Hey, Scarecrow."
"Rich boy."
"Trade school's waiting for you."
But now it all sounded lazy, automatic. No heat behind it anymore. Like they were both just repeating lines from a script they'd memorized too well.
Zhenya noticed the main thing pretty quickly: Kwon had almost stopped looking him in the eye. The Korean could walk past him, bump his shoulder, mutter, "Move, smartass," but his gaze would catch on the floor, the wall, literally anything except the blond's face. Sometimes Taekjoo just turned around and left altogether if he spotted Zhenya by a window or standing in a doorway ahead of him.
Bogdanov stubbornly pretended he didn't care. He kept showing up to class, kept solving difficult assignments with ease, kept listening carefully to teachers. Once in a while, though, the same silent question would start pacing circles in his head:
Why the hell did I kiss him?
None of the possible answers looked remotely reasonable.
More and more often, the blond caught himself thinking not just about the punch to the cheekbone, but about the way Kwon had been breathing when he pinned him to the wall, the blood dripping in heavy drops from his nose onto Zhenya's white shirt, that stunned look in the bathroom...
And outside the window, just like today, Taekjoo kept standing under that tree, smoking, letting the smoke drift up into the spring sky.
And Zhenya, who thought he was smart, still couldn't explain why, ever since that day, every time he looked at the Korean, something inside him pulled tight in a way that felt wrong.
We just fought once. We just snap at each other whenever we see each other. It's just...
He jabbed a period into an empty square in his notebook.
It's just that every single day I think about that Scarecrow.
And I'm pretty sure he thinks about me too.