Chapter Text
A boy was met with a peculiar sight.
After school hours. He had just come out of detention. His friends were causing some trouble in class and all the blame was thrown at him. What did he do? He'd always wondered that. Everyone tells him his ego was too big for even his brain to accept that he was the one in the wrong but he knew he wasn't. They were lying to him. Trying to get on his nerves, and they did. He was going home.
The hallway was dark. Devoid of the life it usually houses. The students have gone home. The staff had done their duties. The place was liminal. He was alone. It scared him, but he would never admit that.
His hair was standing. He was shivering in his otherwise warm sweater. He kept glancing behind him, mistaking the echo of his footsteps as somebody else's. Maybe Kyle was messing with him.
He relaxes at the sight before him. He didn't realize he was so tense until now.
There was a kitten by the locker. It meows.
"Aww," the boy cooes, kneeling down before it, "What are you doing here, little kitty?"
He brings his hand to the kitten's face, waiting for it to sniff him. It doesn't even bother. It meows again, turning its head back to the locker.
"What's in there?" he asks, looking at the door curiously. He tries to listen in for a sound. A shuffle. Shallow breathing. A small whimper.
Thinking it may be the kitten's mother, the boy quickly opens the locker.
A familiar boy drops onto him, brown cap falling to the side.
"Pip, what the fuck?" the boy shrieks, pushing the other off of him. He looks to where Pip had dropped his weight and looks around before his eyes meet brown, crystallized ones. He lets out a sigh of relief. The cat was safe.
The two boys stand up. The first boy glowers at him, and the other dusts himself off after he puts his cap back on. His knees buckle. He struggles to keep his stance composed, but he forces himself to. Pip flashes the first boy a smile.
"Thank you for freeing me, Eric!" he says, giving a bow, "I thought I had to spend another night cramped inside a cold tiny space but I see that wouldn't—"
"Yeah, yeah." Eric waves a hand at him, "J-Just— Get outta here before I change my mind."
"Righto!"
A meow sounds from down below them, and Eric watches as the kitten scurries over to the boy and rubs its body against his legs. Pip kneels down to pet it and smiles sheepishly.
"Thank you to you as well, Claire, for keeping me company."
Eric snickers, raising a brow, "Claire? That's a stupid name." He doesn't think so.
"Yes, Claire." Pip repeats, "Because she has clear eyes that look like crystal gems!"
Eric almost felt just a little jealous as he watches the cat allow the other boy to stroke it- her, "It's a she?"
"Yes, a girl! Calicos are usually girls, that's what Red tells me!"
"Red? I didn't know you had a girlfriend, Frenchie."
Pip tenses up, "She is not my girlfriend."
"Well," Eric turns to avoid the boy's gaze, suddenly recalling that time he snapped during dodgeball. It didn't end well, "I have a girl cat too, but she's big and gray. Her name's Mister Kitty."
"That's... a cute name."
Eric nods at this silently. Pip had sat on the floor so that the kitten could lie on his lap. Eric clears his throat.
"Anyway, I gotta get home now." he says, "I, uh," he fakes a cough, "I got a cold and I'm not thinking straight, that's why I talked to you, right, Frenchie?"
"Righto."
"Don't tell anyone about this."
"Righto."
"Alright. Now go fuck yourself."
Eric dashes away.