Marcel left the boys bathroom zipping up his pants. Issa left the boys bathroom wishing he had a strong mint flavored mouthwash.

'What an ass. I don't owe him head.' He thinks, checking his shirt in the camera on his phone, retying his striped school tie and running his fingers through his hair. Niles was a top-end all-boys school, but that didn't mean the boys studying in it were as respectable as the school's reputation. The school halls were a mess in the morning, boys left-and-right greeting each other with whoops and name-calling. Bags were all over the floor (lockers were tiny, there wasn't enough space to put excess weight in them) and wrappers of early-morning corner shop buys were scattered on the floor.

"Oi oi!" Tao hollers at Issa from their block of lockers. Issa laughs at the Chinese-Spanish boy.

"Morning, Tao," Issa gets out his keys and unlocks his locker, "I see you're in a good mood for once."

"I'm trying to pretend I don't have Double English with Ms Piget," Tao leans against the locker, "He sniffs the air and wrinkles his nose at the smell of cheap cologne, "She's a right b*tch, y'know. Gives us sheets upon sheets of homework. I'm not exaggerating."

"I had her in Year Seven." Issa pulls his P.E Kit out and slams his locker shut, "You're not wrong about her being the prositute of Satan herself."

"Damn, the adventures we could have had if I'd moved here from Florida a year earlier." Tao looks up to the ceiling dreamily, "Could have written a whole biography from the lot of experiences we could have had in that class."

"A biography needs a name," Issa digs his hand into his pocket and pulls out a lighter, "Any ideas?"

"The amazing, talented Tao Corazon-Huang and his irrelevant best friend who needs tweezers to wank off coz his d*ck's so small," He opens up his pocket blazer to reveal a pack of cigarettes and nods towards the door to outside.

"Oh ha ha." Issa follows Tao out towards the edge of the school campus, behind some bushes. Tao lights up his cigarrete and holds the lighter out to Issa. They breath in the smoke and exhale deeply.

"My dad found my stash over the weekend. Good thing I had a back-up stash in the shed, eh?" Tao blows out a stream fo smoke in Issa's face and he fans it away.

"Oi, don't blow it into my face." Issa laughs, puffing his own smoke into the air, then coughs into his sleeve.

"So how's things with Marcel, eh?" Tao rests his cigarette in-between his two fingers, closing his eyes, "You two still together?"

"Err, I suppose so." Issa scratches the back of his neck awkwardly, "Not really sure now, though."

"If he's getting uninterested, you should try and shag him." Tao kicks a stub of a stone with his shoe, "Sure, the whole school might find out, but that always happens eventually with any secret in this place."

"I'm not..." Issa hesitates at the sound of a notification on his phone, "I'm not doing that with Marcel. He acts like a chav whenever we're alone."

"A'ight, but I'm just saying," Tao throws his cigarette onto the ground and stubs it out, Issa following in suit, "Anything goes in this area."

"Tao, you really are a bad influence," The two walk back into the school as the school bell rings, "Got me into smoking, had me purchase a fake ID and now this? Aren't you Asian people supposed to be uptight and completely clean?"

Tao stops walking at a split in the corridoor, "Not all of us. Ciao," He waves and heads down his fork of the corridoor. Issa goes har har har until Tao disappears into a form room before heading to his own classroom.

//

P.E is sh*t. Issa had come to that conclusion the minute he'd put one one of the stupid kits that came with the subject. Niles' uniform was worse than his primary school's. Sky blue and white stripes on a crew neck t-shirt, shorts that just about reach his knees and a pair of socks that shrunk in the wash. His trainers are chunky tennis shoes he thrifted from a charity shop, a stark contrast from the rest of his class with multi-colored Nikes and the sort.

Hockey was also sh*t, but it wasn't as unbearable when you were paired up with someone. It was however, unbearable if your partner was someone with the name Marcel Rossi. Issa would rather chew off his own foot.

"Y'know, if you weren't such a prude you'd be much more interesting to make out with," Marcel leans against the wire fence of the multi-use court, hockey stick spinning around in his hand.

"I'm not a prude," Issa is actually putting effot into the lesson, walking backwards and forward as he shoots the hockey puck over and over again into the net, "You're just an ass."

"Come on, don't be like that," Marcel walks forward and blocks Issa's shot with his stick, "You know you like to snog me."

"No, I do not," Issa wacks Marcel's stick away and shoots the puck into the net with a tut, "I saw you over the weekend. You lied. You're still with Heather."

"You know you're more important to me," Marcel leans forward as if to kiss Issa but he smacks the Italian away.

"Lies. You really f*cked up in the bathroom this morning. I'm not comfortable with doing anything like that and you're aware of that," Issa perks up at the sound of a whistle signifying the end of the lesson, "I told you in the bathroom and I'm going to tell you again now: I don't want to be with you anymore."

Marcel blocks the single exit from the court, "You're lying. You like me. You love me."

"F*ck off, Marcel!" Issa attempts to shove Marcel away, but his attacker grabs his arm instead.

"You smell like cigarretes and cheap cologne." Marcel squeezes Issa's arms and bends down to kiss him, but a loud bang on the wire fenced door behind him stops him in his tracks.

"Is everything alright here?" A voice says behind Marcel, who steps aside to look at the person behind the wire door.

"God, it's one of you Asian punks again." Marcel lets go of Issa and turns around to open up the door, "F*ck off, will you? It's none of your business."

"It turned into my business when you two argued so loudly practically everyone in the class could hear you." And he's right. In the two neighbouring courts everyone has stopped packing up to look at the them.

"Fine. Apologies for being loud. Now go away." Marcel shuts the door and the wiring in the court shakes.

"We're going back in anyways. The lesson is over. You need to get out of there."

Issa lets out a quiet sigh of relief and carefully walks past Marcel out of the court. He speed walks down the path towards the school building, not regarding a thought for Marcel, still standing on his own in the court.

"Are you okay?" It's the Asian boy again, with a face of concern looking at Issa.

"Yeah, I'm..." Issa hesitates, "I'm fine. We were just discussing some... personal things, going on between us."

"Oh, okay." He nods and drops back a little.

"Thanks for doing that. You really didn't need to bother youself by interfering...uh...." Issa struggles to name the boy, "I'm really sorry, but I can't recall your name? Are you new here?"

"Oh, it's fine if you don't," He smiles awkwardly as they head into the changing rooms, "Some people in my form still can't remember my name since I transferred from a different school in Year Eight. I moved down from a higher set yesterday since I got a low score in the fitness test. I'm not exactly the most athletic person in the year group." He laughs quietly, scratching the back of his neck.

Issa just stares and nods, until the taller boy stutters out an answer to the former question.

"I'm Ki," Ki holds out his hand and Issa just stares at it for a second before tentatively shacking it for barely a second, "Weon-kee, really, but that makes me sound like a real foreigner."

Iss shakes his hand, "Isiah. Call me Issa. Isiah sounds real chav."

"Nice to meet you, Issa."

"Nice to meet you too, Ki."

And that was it. That was the start of everything. The start of two-and-a-half years of both heaven and hell, face cradling and face slaps, tears of joy and pain.

Two-and-a-half years of nothing but stomach butterflies.