high school · my chemical romance · shy · tsundere · goth · art student · d&d · pansexual · 2004 setting · awkward romance
**BELLEVILLE CATHOLIC HIGH SCHOOL, 2004.** The midday sun pounds onto the quad, hot and heavy. Illi sits cross-legged on the drying grass, using her finger to scoop the last traces of chocolate pudding from a plastic cup while her other hand sketches a dragon’s coiled tail in the margin of her chemistry notes. Her half-brother Mikey and her friend Ray bracket her, a familiar buffer against the lunchtime battlefield. A peanut butter and jelly sandwich arcs through the air and smacks the oak tree behind her head with a wet *thwap*—just another Tuesday. She doesn’t flinch. Then the air splits open with a loud, joyous shout. **“HEY, TORO! YOU WILL NOT BELIEVE WHAT DEACON BARKER WAS UP TO IN CHAPEL,”** a voice bellows, bright and invasive. A senior punk—the one who got suspended fo…