“Hey, Iero! Where d'ya think you're going?”
“Yeah, you can't escape us that easy, Iero.”
“Don't worry, I never intended to avoid you forever,” I turned round with a small smile as my 'friends' (the people I chatted with sometimes) caught up with me.
“Well, you were doing a pretty shitty job of it, so that's just as well isn't it? Anyway, I just wanted to let you know that we were assigned the new kid,” Matt almost smiled back at me as he spoke – an improvement considering sometimes he barely acknowledged my existence.
“Why the hell has someone started here this close to the end of term – we literally have, like, fifty days left, or something like that?” I was genuinely confused by the idea that someone would start here now, I mean surely no one was that desperate to take exams.
“Actually it's thirty five days if you don't count weekends and holidays and shit so-”
“Yeah...well anyways he starts after break and he's in your class not ours so can you, like, look after him?” Chris cut in, he too, smiling at me a little and I realised they weren't being nice with the smiling and all that, they just wanted me to babysit the fucking new kid.
With a small sigh I agreed to do exactly that, hating both myself and Matt and Chris as I did so. Fortunately for us all at that point the bell went and I found myself slowly directing my feet to the music department where I had first period.

***

Sure enough, my least favourite teacher, Mr Johnson, appeared at break with a tall boy (or at least taller than me) trailing behind him looking more than a little terrified. Can't say I blame him either.
“Bellamy, Wolstenholme, Iero, this is Mr Way. He's new here and I'm sure you'll all do your very best to make him feel him welcome and included.” The last part sounded almost like a threat, as if he didn't truly believe we would be any good for this new kid, Way.
“Yes, sir, is there is anything else that we can do for you and...Mr Way?” Matt smirked a little as he spoke, the sarcasm not quite coming through as he spoke to the teacher that had terrorised our high school careers.
“No, Bellamy, that will be all for now. Way, if you have any problems you know where my office is and if you forget then it's marked on your map.” Just like that, he turned away sharply, leaving us standing awkwardly with the new kid.
“So, what's your name? Oh, and I'm Frank by the way, Frank Iero.” I figured I might as well be civil to the guy since Matt and Chris were both standing staring at him like he was some sort of fucking zoo animal, which he may as well have been for the number of new kids we got here.”
“Er, M-Mikey, my name's Mikey Way.”
“Well, nice to meet you Mikey Way. This is Matthew Bellamy and Christopher Bellamy,” I indicated each of them as I spoke, hoping my movements would stop them staring.
“Actually, it's Matt – not even my mother calls me Matthew.”
“Yeah, I'm Chris.”
“Okay, well hi, I guess.” Mikey seemed incredibly embarrassed by the introductions although I didn't know why – I mean surely we didn't seem that bad.
“You're in English next, right, with Ms Nestor? That's my class too so I guess I'll go with you, if you want?”
“Yeah – is she nice? My last English teacher was...well a bit of a prick actually,” he sort of managed a smile in my direction as he spoke, pretending perhaps not to notice that Matt and Chris were staring at him once again.
“Grea-”
I was interrupted by Matt, displaying his insensitive qualities once again.
“Why are you here?”
“W-what do you mean? Mr Johnstone said-”
“No, I don't mean why are you here, I mean why are you here as in, like, at this fucking pathetic excuse for a school, thirty five days before the end of the year?”
“Oh, well, I-I...er, my parents...”
Thankfully, the bell saved me a second time that day, as it cut Mikey off midway through his sentence.
“We'd better get to class then I s'psose.”

***

Mikey wasn't actually as bad as he seemed, although I could see very quickly that he didn't like to talk about his last school. Ms Nestor didn't press him for anything, which didn't really help my curiosity any. All I learned was that he hadn't studied any of the same texts as us, which was going to be a problem, even if it was only for thirty five days.
We chatted a bit through the class, or at least as much as we could considering we were supposed to be writing an essay about narrative voice or some random shit like that. Well, when I say 'we' I mean me – Mikey was writing some thing about all the characters in 'A Streetcar Named Desire' or something like that, something that sounded far too modern and sexual for my pokey little school which wouldn't teach 'Romeo and Juliet' because it might “give us ideas”. I mean, really.

***

By the time the final bell rang at the end of the day, I had had three more classes with Mikey, him sitting beside me in each one (because let's face it, nobody else was ever gonna sit beside me – I had literally been left in a row of seats all by myself once at a 'sold out' event). He seemed to be doing pretty well, apart from the occasional stuttering when he was asked about his last school, but that all fell apart when I invited both myself and him along to Matt's after school to watch Matt's band practice. Mikey had flushed and started muttering something about unpacking so I decided to let it go, preferring not to upset him at the end of his first day.
“Look, it's honestly fine, you don't have to come – I just didn't want you to feel left out. Really, I should have realised that you'd need to unpack and...yeah, shit, sorry. Just...I'll see you tomorrow, yeah?”
“I guess so,” honestly, he didn't seem convinced about that but either way he seemed relieved to have gotten out of the band practice without too much questioning.
I scribbled my phone number on a bit of paper torn from my notebook and handed it to him saying, “Send me a text or something, then we can chat or whatever, if you want.”

I tried to make it as casual as possible, as if I always gave people my number but in reality, I think the only people with my phone number aside from my parents were Matt and Chris – probably one of the many reasons I didn't have any other friends.

Notes

Hi, so this is the first real chapter to the fic - hope you enjoyed it!
PS This is my first ever fic so please bear that in mind! :)