Chapter Text
George stares at his reflection on the Merce Dez Fountain.
The fluttering waves of clear water shows his seventeen year old self, blue eyes framed by long lashes, thick busy brows and a skin that had grown paler during the summer break, his cheekbones and jaw more pronounced.
His hair, unlike himself, lacks any sort of discipline. He attempts to swipe the front fringe to the right. He’d straightened it enough to tame his natural curls. Yet, the consequence of cutting his own hair had led to an awfully short ends. On the bright side, he'd saved enough money to buy extra stationeries for the year.
He tucks the knot of his maroon tie over his freshly ironed white shirt. Dusts at his navy blazer’s shoulder pads, still slightly oversized on him (his mum reasoned buying his senior year size as a freshman would be a smart investment—which in hindsight, it was, considering he’s in his junior year and it still goes big on him).
Finally, George grins wide.
Checks his perfectly lined teeth for any food stuck on it.
“Excuse me!”
A young man in an ill-fitting blue suit and a bouquet of thousand roses under his elbow approaches him.
“Hi, could you please take a video of me and my partner?” The man hands him a small digi-cam. “I’m going to propose to her. Right there, near the fountain–”
George attempts to hide the sickening burn of acid brewing in his guts.
“Uh, mate, you’ll have to find someone else,” he puts his hands up, “I’m really bad at, whatever this is.”
“No, it’s okay! It'll be even better if it’s all shaky and handheld. Pretty vintage, if you ask me!”
George takes in a breath and purses his lips into a pout.
“Actually, I just don’t believe in grand romantic gestures,” he shrugs, “So, really, taking the video would be super off-brand for me.”
The man goes red faced. He flips him off.
“Ugh, what a brat!”
George steps away from the fountain immediately and peers at the distance of the park, avoiding eye contact with the guy and his fiancee-in-waiting.
Welp, what a dazzling start to the day.
He glances down at his watch.
It's all Alex's fault.
He's three minutes late.
If that plonker goes beyond five minutes, they’ll be two minutes late to school. And, if they’re two minutes late—which he does not want to be on the first day of his junior year—they won’t get good seats at the auditorium. If they’re too far back, they can’t hear shit, which is absolutely unacceptable during the orientation. Especially when you need to get everything right on the first day. The schedule, extra-curriculars that would look fantastic on his resume and of course, the elections.
After all, junior year is the first stepping stone to his gloriously ambitious future.
He has been the class president for his freshman and sophomore year. This year he’s finally eligible to run for vice-president of the student council.
He’d run his campaign alongside the most talented senior at Effon High—Lewis, who’ll be running for president.
And, when they’re elected, he’ll help pass decisions over the school year, making their student council super efficient. It will only make things easier next year when he’ll run for presi—
BEEP! BEEP!
George snaps out of his thoughts to find Alex in his blue scooter and white helmet.
“Please don’t start on me for being late,” Alex pleads. He hands over an extra black helmet to him, “I had to practically shove off Mr. Fluff and lock him in. He’s been just so clingy since I came back.”
Mr. Fluff is one of the twelve cats in the Albon household.
“Since we’re late ‘cause of you,” George puts on the helmut with a grin. “Let me drive—”
“Hell no! You nearly sped us into a ditch last time!”
“It was one time,” George rolls his eyes as he gets on the passenger seat.
They head off.
“Wait? Did you actually gain some weight over the summer break?”
“Georgie!” Alex gasps, flipping him off in offence. “How dare you!”
“Come on, mate,” George leans forwards and pokes his friend’s cheek, “Look at all this chub.”
“Fuck off, it’s grandma’s love,” Alex laughs then stills for a second, “Better than having bones for skin. Did those kids you tutor drain you over the break or something?”
“No, they’re thankfully quick learners.”
“Ah, then it must be—yeah…”
Alex trails off, probably remembering the actual reason.
George purses his lips.
The summer break was a bit hard for him.
Money was a bit tight. To take things off his parent’s plate George pushed himself—get the best grades, take part in every activity his school could ever offer, excel each year with flying colours—just so he could maintain his scholarship at his posh private school through senior year.
He would’ve even gotten a job during the summer himself if it wasn’t for the job ban.
Fucking job ban.
What a load of bullocks!
“I’ve already written to the mayor about this,” George sighs, holding onto the back of the scooter as Alex sped up, “I mean, I get wanting to prevent child labour but could they have not been more strategic about it? Banning summer jobs for all children? Some of us are trying to survive here, mate!”
Alex nods along.
Soon, the overarching gates of Effon High come into view. Students in the navy blue blazer, grey pants and maroon tie pool around the expansive space of the private institute.
As they near the parking lot, a familiar black Wrangler pulls up. George gets off and lets Alex park up ahead as he approaches the car.
“Wait, is that—”
Oscar, their classmate, jumps out of the driver seat and holds the door open for Lando, a senior.
Well, that’s new.
“What’s all this then?”
Lando looks up at him with a sheepish smile, “Missed the bus so…”
George cocks a brow at Oscar, looking up and down at him. Despite Lando being absolutely capable of being late, Oscar was definitely not one to miss the school bus.
“Of course you did,” he narrows his eyes at Lando, then the other, “But I did not expect tardiness from you, Oscar.”
Oscar does not meet his eyes.
“Not everyone has a built-in alarm clock like you, Georgie-bot,” Lando pokes his tongue out.
This is the first time he had ever seen the two arrive at the school together—Oscar driving Lando’s jeep, for that matter.
“And, you must be his chauffeur?"
“Yes,” Oscar nods with a smirk, thumbing at the senior, "Because his driving sucks.”
George snickers and Lando rolls his eyes and weakly punches his arm.
“Oh, sod off, you juniors—”
Lando’s face suddenly freezes.
Alex walks in behind them, talking to a senior, Carlos Sainz Jr., who has a girl, Rebecca attached to his arm. Carlos does not spare Lando a glance and keeps walking with the girl towards the main building. Lando stays in place. Frozen.
Womp, womp.
It seems the Anglo-Spanish war is still on.
George and Alex are both aware of the hostilities between the two seniors that blew up before the summer break. However, Lando, who has a knack for spilling every bean in his bag, never mentioned what really happened between them. He seemed shaken when he excused himself to go ahead.
Oscar stares, like some lonesome maiden awaiting the return of his departed prince.
“When did you get close to Lando of all people?”
“Sweet Jesus!” Oscar jumps as his whips head towards him. “Uh, we’re neighbours.”
George cocks a brow, “Since when?”
“Since I was a freshman?”
Norris had moved from his and Alex’s neighborhood at the start of his freshman year. But, neither Lando nor Oscar had ever mentioned living in the same neighbourhood.
“I would have never figured,” George shrugs, walking alongside him to the main hall, “I’ve literally never seen you guys talk.”
“We talk.” Oscar says a little too enthusiastically for his deadpan face, “Well, sorta, kinda. We were on the same bus too.”
“What a lucky prick that Norris…a car and a free chauffeur.”
Well, to be fair, Alex and his scooter too have saved him bucks that would have been spent on the bus. To each their own.
Students gather at the main auditorium.
Murmurs and chuckles crawl among cliques, freshmen with the spotless glint in their eyes, eagerly awaiting for the start of their first academic year. It reminds George of his own freshman year. He was much shorter, his round face adapting to the spurt of adolescence. Yet, his eyes gleamed with the prospects of having just got into the most prestigious private school in the region with a scholarship.
Sophomores slink in the middle rows, breaking off the larger groups they had so enthusiastically made during their freshmen years.
Kimi, now a sophomore himself, waves at him from the row, alongside Ollie.
George smiles and waves back.
Mr. Wolff, his homeroom teacher last year had encouraged him to tutor Kimi in World History and Geography over the break. The Antonellis were generous enough to pay him for his time, despite the summer job ban. After their recommendation, George was sought by Gabi and Ollie for tutoring as well.
After some searching across the hall, they sit next to Alex who talks about his summer with Oscar. Oscar apparently was in Australia with his dad, slaving away in his garage without minimum wage. At least someone knew the woes of not being able to get a summer job.
Across the hall, a loud group of seniors make their grand entrance.
Charles, with Alexandra in hand, stops everyone in their sentence with their hands linked together. A new couple in town. It makes the whole lot of seniors whistle.
“Seriously, what a childish reaction,” George comments, scrunching his nose, “What are they? The royal couple?”
“Definitely, royalty,” Alex perks up, “The hottest seniors get together. It’s a front pager, mate.”
Daniel, obviously, the craziest of the seniors, increased any space’s average loudness by a hundred decibels, beams with wide smiles and his ridiculous jokes. Alongside Lando, they were nuclear powered laughter dynamites waiting to drop.
“Look, there’s your idol,” Alex wiggles his brows at him.
Lewis waltzes in his usual charm.
“Fuck off, he’s not my idol!”
George lies.
He’s always looked up to and respected the upperclassman.
…to an extent he thought everything about him was super cool.
For example, how effortlessly Lewis manages to compliment the boring uniform with his red headphones slinging around his neck, eyes locked on his phone, casually making his way to an unoccupied seat at a corner. He’s surrounded by juniors just like George, looking up at him with wide, starry eyes.
Sometimes he feels they’re alike in so many ways, especially being scholarship kids in the sea of trust-funded kids and surpassing their pea-sized brains in every possible subject.
Suddenly, the group of sophomores at the front rouse themselves into a chattering frenzy.
Kimi practically pounces upon the incoming senior at the entrance door.
George narrows his eyes.
Ugh.
Verstappen.
Public enemy numero uno.
In his pathetic excuse of the school uniform—the maroon tie hung too loose and too low, one of the sides of the shirt untucked, surrounded by his gang of underclassmen that have nothing but fascination plastered over their heads.
For George, Max was like a hurricane.
Unpredictable and unwanted.
Or, ‘Mad Max’ as he coined once the term—with how rageful he was, often talking back to teachers, drunk in ego as big as his nose because he excels in everything, like freaking everything he participates in—be it academics, sports or even just a random project he’s assigned to.
And, not to mention, he’s a fucking legacy student—his father, Jos Verstappen, a top lawyer, is a well-known Effon High alumni.
George grips on the edge of his cushioned seat.
It’s not fair.
Max transferred during his sophomore year. Despite the lack of the whole chunk of freshman experience, Max magically became the sensational transfer student, rowdy enough to get into trouble but lucky enough to get out of it.
It’s not fucking fair that he has everything handed to him.
Especially when he doesn’t even work for it.
“Guess what I heard?” Alex quips between his internal monologue, “Mad Max broke up with that senior, Kelly, after she graduated. Apparently, he dumped her saying she’s too old for him now.”
Great. Another fucking reason to hate the guy.
Max had the audacity to date a senior during his junior year. And, now it seems he’s dumped the poor girl for being too old.
Fuck this prick.
“Obviously,” George scoffs. “You’d expect that from the brute.”
Alex raises a brow at his friend, “Damn, are you still mad at him for what happened with Lewis before the break?”
George grits his teeth.
Right.
Last year’s debate incident—
God, he doesn’t even want to think about that.
“Please be seated.”
Their principal taps onto the mic on the podium. A sudden hush falls in the auditorium. The orientation begins as their principal welcomes them.
“Welcome, dear students!”
George jots down every possible opportunity that he could lunge at. Alex resorts to scrolling through his phone while Oscar blatantly stares ahead, unfocused, as if he’s sleeping with his eyes open.
“And, now, for those interested in the elections…”
His ears perk up as Principal Ben draws on.
“Each student requires a minimum of 25 signatures of your fellow peers for a nomination in each category. Please drop your list of signatures to Mr. Wolff, the election co-ordinator by 4 PM tomorrow. We’ll post the nominations and then conduct the elections the next day. By the end of the week, you’ll have your student council ready to take on the responsibilities.”
“Twenty five signatures for nomination?” Alex whispers, “That’s too easy! A bunch of nonsense might pop up that way.”
“Makes the victory even sweeter,” George hums, “If there’s multiple fights for the position.”
“I expect to see the spirit of democracy in full display from you all,” Principal Ben laughs.
Unfortunately, the hall is dead silent except a few hushed whispers and a cough. After all, lectures on democracy do not really suit a despotic leader, err, their current principal himself.
That’s why student councils are so important.
It’s where the voice of the students unite.
And, not to mention—being vice-president or president of the student is the best addition to your application for top universities.
That, of course, is secondary.
As soon as the principal dismisses them, George gets right up with Alex and Oscar, weaving through the crowd to get to class first.
The rule of private schools is that class seats are never assigned. It’s a rat-eat-rat kind of world out there. If you’re not choosing your seats correctly, you could end up at a teacher’s blind side, or worse, between chatter heads who pay no attention to class and later bother you for notes.
Alex and Oscar walk ahead.
“Hey, mate, how have you been?” Lewis taps him on the shoulder on the way out, “How’s your dad? I hope his recovery is coming along, man.”
“Ah, Lewis! Yeah, he’s doing fine. Thank you for asking,” George smiles, “How was your break? I saw your mum’s post on Facebook—”
Suddenly, in a whirlwind of movement, he’s being shoved against the entrance door along with the other students.
The notebook in his hand drops to the floor.
A bunch of rowdy students thrash around.
“Come on! I need those fucking seats, man!”
“I’m trying, Maxie! These younglings have no sense of pace here, mate!”
Out of the corner of his eyes, George watches the two seniors, Max and Daniel, pushing against the crowd, itching to get out of the auditorium.
“Watch it, mate,” Lewis narrows his eyes at the two.
His words fall to deaf ears. The seniors run out to the hallway and race each other to their classroom, laughing all the way.
Before George could, Lewis bends over and fetches his notebook for him.
“Bunch of kids. We really need to get some ground rules on crowd etiquettes around here,” he huffs, handing it over. “You okay, George?”
“Yeah, thanks. And, you’re absolutely right,” George nods, looking sideways curiously. “That’s something one should put into perspective, you know, into some place where it matters—like the student council.”
Somewhere along the lines Lewis gets the message.
“Yeah, we should plan on the election campaign together,” Lewis waves him off with a smile, “See you at lunch, running mate.”
George stands there waving at the senior.
Running mate.
He’s going to be Lewis’s running mate!
“What’s the hold up, Georgie?”
Alex shouts at him from across the hall.
Right.
Let’s secure the classroom seats first.
Thankfully, the first period is Pre-Calc with Mr. Fernando or Mr. Nando as everybody lovingly called him.
Mr. Nando was the type of no-bullshit teacher who gave everything in the classroom but wouldn’t bat an eye beyond it. George liked Mr. Nando despite hating Pre-Calc in general.
In between the class breaks, he shares Lewis’s approval for their joint campaign to Alex.
“So, you’ll be joining too,” he adds, “For Vice-Sports Captain.”
“Wha–why me?” Alex gawks, “I’m the least athletic person to exist. I literally only play football.”
“Look, if you want to control the decisions, you need to control the council members first. I need more than a majority of the council to be on our side for that. So, we control the presidency, the extra-curriculars, and…”
George drifts off, looking back to Oscar who’s busy scrolling on his phone at the back of the class.
“The treasury.”
Alex blinks, “Man, you’re too invested in shit like this.”
“You’ll thank me later,” George grins.
“Aight, boys and girls, I don’t want to cramp your little brains on the first day,” Mr. Nando yawns, stretching, “So, go take your lunch a little early, yeah?”
Mr. Nando is literally the best teacher ever.
During lunch, Lewis joins them as promised.
The senior informs them of Carlos and a bunch of guys from the football team who’d be running for Sports Captain. Despite the number of candidates, Carlos had the highest chance of winning, having already been a Vice-Sports Captain last year and leading the football team for the year.
They spend their break discussing and finalizing a public manifesto.
RISE UP.
It’s the perfect slogan for what they represent.
Rise up for fairness. Against injustice. To doing good, being good.
Believing in the consciousness of the voters.
By the end of the day, they had an unofficial party of Lewis, George, Alex and Oscar for each of the nominations. Lewis also successfully strings along his classmate Charles to run for Head Treasurer.
The next day, preparations begin early in the morning.
George and Alex set up a booth near the entrance of their school to collect signatures.
As if aided by Lewis’s charm and the heat of their slogan, George and Lewis had collected enough signatures for their respective nomination before the lunch ended. Alex was only a short of a few until his football team mates huddled around and helped.
For some reason, the students readily signed Oscar for Deputy Treasurer—which is weird because they still hadn’t informed about him running for the position to, well, Oscar himself. The man seems to be too engrossed in something else to notice anyway.
By the end of lunch, George had four papers filled with more than fifty signatures each for their impromptu party of Lewis, himself, Alex and Oscar.
He walks to their classroom alongside Alex, trudging along the narrow hallway.
“Well, we just have to submit them to Mr. Wolff now,” he smiles, carefully filing them in a plastic folder, “Then, we can—”
Someone hits his elbow as they sprint by.
“Hey!”
George watches as the signature filled papers fling into the air. Alex gapes.
The paper roars against the wind and plasters on the floor.
He instantly bends over to pick it up when—
“Ah shit!”
A shoe lands on one of the papers.
George widens his eyes.
He whips his head up.
Max Verstappen stands, nose crinkled, lips downturned, looking down at him as if he was the inconvenience.
“My bad,” he mumbles, removing his foot from the paper. The senior bends down and starts picking it up. One of the pages with the signatures for Lewis has a dirty footprint running across the surface.
“Uhh,” Max hands them out, flicking his gaze onto the papers guiltily, “Yeah, here.”
George reaches to grab it when Max retreats it.
“Wait, is that—” he narrows his eyes, then elbows his friend, “Hey, check this out! Lewis is running for president!”
Daniel gasps, flinging an arm around the senior’s shoulder.
“Woah, that’s like a lot of signatures for a nomination,” Daniel inspects the paper, “Like a lot!”
“Give it back!”
George snatches the paper from the senior’s hold. He deposits it into Alex’s hold, who tries to flick off the dusty footprint.
“Geez, we were just looking,” Max holds up his hand in defense, “Right to information or whatever.”
George’s nose scrunches up.
“You think this a joke?” he breathes shakily, attempting to calm his tone. In contrast, his chest heaves.
Daniel and Max share a look, and shrug.
They fucking shrug.
The audacity of these seniors!
“Ugh, nevermind,” George huffs in annoyance, filing the papers into the folder, “As if you’d have the capacity to understand the gravity of student body elections. Let’s go, Alex.”
As they attempt to make their way to class, Daniel fakes a cough.
“Excuse me?”
George flicks his head back—only to find Max’s blue eyes wide, lines across his forehead as if confused.
“What’re you trying to say?”
Alex, who had been quiet throughout the fiasco suddenly stands between them.
“Uh, it’s nothing, Max,” his grin turns into a straight line, “Let’s just get on our way—”
A sudden flash of red. George curls his hand into a fist.
Why do they always have to step down against these bullies anyway?
“As I said,” George shoots his nose up in defiance, “Students like yourself wouldn’t know the sanctity of free and fair elections.”
For a second, the students passing by them halt. They look at the juniors and then at the seniors they had stood up against.
“LOL, he said titty,” Daniel breaks the silence. He’s grinning like a child who just learnt a bad word.
George rolls his eyes, shaking his head.
“Case in point.”
He attempts to walk away from the two when—
“Wait, how is this election even fair?”
It’s Max.
George stops in his tracks, gripping onto the papers tighter. He turns around, again.
“It seems Lewis and the other candidates are running unopposed,” Max observes, “What’s the point of voting then?”
“Well, if there’s going to be no other candidate, there’s not much to be done, is there?”
“In that case, I might just have to run for president.”
George blinks.
His body stills.
His mind stalls.
A scoff.
Then, he laughs.
George fucking laughs.
Loud. Bent over, hands clutching his torso, shoulders shaking and everything.
His laugh rings across the hallway, a clear indication of the sheer absurdity of the situation.
Alex sweats beside him, grinning with brows furrowed. They’re not only poking the lion but practically rolling in front of him, begging to get shred apart.
“You? You’ll run for president?” George laughs again, patting Max on his shoulder twice. He had zero signatures and they only had a couple of hours until the nominations close up anyway.
“Great one, Verstappen!”
Max does not laugh.
He only stares at him, brow raised, arms folded before his chest.
“I’m not kidding.”
George stills, pausing mid-laugh, straightening his spine.
“In fact, I’m not only running,” Max smirks, an air of defiance surrounding his stature. His lopsided grin screams trouble.
“I’m also winning.”