Sadly enough, Bular hadn't come to save you the trouble with school and so it came that you were pushing your bike into the little schoolyard where the lockers were.
Jim and Toby were chatting quite actively besides you but you barely listened while you crouched down to lock your bike in place.

You wondered if that punch from Bular had maybe given you another concussion.
Because frankly, now that you thought about it, it was weird that his brute strength hadn't been enough to smash your skull into tiny little pieces.
Perhaps he had held back intentionally so he could torture you later? Well, if he had then maybe you should thank him.

Covering up bruises was a lot easier than hiding a broken face after all.

"-n)! (Y/n)! Helloooooo! Earth to (Y/n)!"

You blinked and looked to Tobias, who was waving his hands around in front of you, trying his best to get your attention.
Only then did you notice that you were kneeling around in the middle of the schoolyard, holding your bike lock midair.

"Oh," you made and closed the lock quickly, "sorry, I spaced out."

"Yeah, we kinda saw that," said Jim while chuckling softly, appearing to be quite amused by your slow reaction.

The two boys shortly looked at each other and then waited for you to get back up. Once you stood and were ready to go, you walked to your first class for this year, partaking in the conversation this time but mainly just listening to Toby gush about his new magic tricks.

He had shown you quite a few when you hung out during the break and it was funny to see him try so many hards tricks when he barely managed to do a simple card disappearing act.
But it was also cute to watch when he succeeded.

"-and then, I'll make the hat disappear too. Everyone will be so worried! ''Oh, nooo' they'll say 'how will you bring me back my watch now, oh great Tobias'!" the boy said with a fake female voice, mocking fear and then striking a dramatic pose that nearly made you burst into giggles, " 'don't worry! The amazing Tobias has your watch right here!' And I'll pull it out from behind her ear!"

Jim laughed at his friend's act and shook his head lightly before pretending to pull a watch from his ear, making a fake surprised gasp.

These two could be such dorks.

Rolling your eyes at them with an amused little hum, you entered the classroom and walked to your usual desk by the wall.
Thomas was already there and greeted you with a smile, his face tinting red for some reason.

After catching up with the dark-skinned boy, you gave a yawn and leaned back in your seat, still looking to Thomas and listening to him tell you about what he experienced with his family during the break.

Due to you focusing on the boy besides you, you didn't notice that a particular blond was glaring your way.

---

Steve had had a pretty shitty morning and after seeing the girl he viewed as his rival chat so comfortably with the Dumbzalski and Jim Lame Jr. he didn't really feel any better.

Why would she spend time with those losers when she should be trying to surpass him?

Not that that was possible. She only threatened to maybe be nearly as good as he was. Nothing more, nope.

Surpassing him wasn't possible after all. He, Steve Palchuk, was the best at this school. No, not just this school. This city!

That girl should be working her butt off to keep up with him yet all she's doing is having a relaxed chat!

How dare she!

Grinding his teeth, the blond boy threw another glare into her direction, feeling very much frustrated.
To his dismay, it wasn't her who turned and looked at him with fear but the thin boy besides her.

This Tom dude or whatever his name was. She was always so chummy with him.

The black-haired boy whispered something to the girl Steve was staring at, which caused her to turn her head into his direction.

Their eyes locked and for a moment, Steve suddenly felt kind of strange, as if he had been caught driving his mother's new boyfriend's car again. Her (e/c) eyes were curious but cold, sending a shiver down his spine.

And the next moment, she just looked away and shrugged.

This simple action drove the Palchuk mad.
First she didn't pay attention to him, not that he wanted her to or anything, and then she just straight out brushed him off like a random bystander!

She was supposed to be the one shaking, not him!

Clenching his fist and hitting it onto his desk, the tall boy turned back around and grumbled into his nonexistent beard.

He'd get her back for that. Yeah, he'd come up with an amazing plan to make her regret what she's done.

"Uhhhhh, Steve? Are you ok?" came the unsure voice of that Pepperjoke from the front row, "you look a bit tense-"

"Shut it, buttsnack!"

Maybe he'd push him into a locker later.
Would that work for (Y/n) too?

If he pushed hard enough, probably, but she was a bit too tall for the lockers. A dumpster would work better... then again, he'd have to lift her up to throw her in and he didn't know how he could get her to follow him to the dumpsters either way.
Plus no one would see her there.

He needed a plan to humiliate her in front of everyone somehow...

Oh, that's it! He was such a genius!

When school's nearly over, he would catch her by the lockers and
b u m p   i n t o   h e r !!

She'll be so embarrassed when she drops her books and falls on her butt! It was the perfect plan!
And he could even play it off as an accident too!

Grinning to himself, the blond teen imagined how everyone would laugh at her in his head and continued to dwell on the thought.

---

Why was Steve cackling like an evil witch over there?

Oh well. Probably just came up with another of his oh so amazing pranks.

Turning back to Thomas, who seemed pretty scared of the strange noises the blond teen was making, you poked his shoulder and watched as he flinched and gave off a low shriek.

You had to suppress laughter and covered your mouth.
He was so easy to scare.

"H-hey! Don't do that!" he mumbled to you as his face's color shifted from 'regular' to 'practically glowing in embarrassment'.

He wanted to say something else to you but the door opened and Señor Uhl came into the room, looking as displeased as ever to see this class.

At once, the chattering that had been all around you just a moment ago ceased and some of your classmates such as Mary or Darci hurried to sit in their seats, having been talking with Claire until now.

Quickly, you turned to face the front as well, watching the German teacher unpack his things and then look up at the class. For a moment he seemed to simply stare at you all before he shook his head and rubbed his eyes, giving off a small sigh.

Looks like the students weren't the only ones who wanted longer breaks.

"Alrite," he then said loudly with his sharp accent and straightened up, "let us begin today'z first klass."

Lucky for you, you were fairly good with languages so Spanish wasn't that hard to learn and the classes were quite easy to get through. Although it was clear that the blond teacher was pretty strict so you needed to watch what you were saying and especially how you were saying it.
You know he loved to make a fool out of students that pronounced words incorrectly and you weren't going to make it so easy for him.

Either way, it wasn't as bad as other subjects.
Math for example. Ugh.
Thank god that Thomas was a lot smarter and willing to help you with it.

The lesson went by rather quickly, at least it felt like that to you, and you were finally able to get a bit of normality back into your life.
You would've never thought that you'd actually enjoy school like this. It was so calming to know that the worst thing that could happen was getting an answer wrong and being corrected before the lesson went on like usual and not taking a wrong step and getting your limbs torn off or something of the sort.

You couldn't help the subtle smile that tugged at your lips while you waited for the next teacher to come in and start another pleasantly boring lesson.

---

The day went on like this and although you could see Steve giving you the stink eye from time to time, it wasn't really unsettling. Maybe nearly dying a bunch of times had made you less easy to intimidate.
It was probably just another petty try to make himself feel better by making you feel miserable.

Emphasis on 'try' since those attempts never really worked.

Actually kind of amusing to watch him try so hard and still fail so badly.
So let's see what he came up with this time.

Chuckling quietly to yourself, you walked back into the classroom from a little bathroom break and went to your desk to store your books into your bag.
The History lesson had just ended but most students were already out, which honestly wasn't all that surprising since school was finished for today after those seven periods.

Toby and Jim had told you they'd wait for you by the bikes and Thomas needed to get to his vocal lessons right after school so you were the only student still in the classroom.

Mr.Strickler was still there too though. He was wiping the blackboard, removing the sketches of war tactics and other History related things from it.

Thanks to his private lesson yesterday, you had actually understood what he talked about today. It felt kinda nice.

Lost in thought like you were so often, you only noticed that the teacher had walked up to your desk when he spoke to you.

"I see you've been more active today," he told you, lightly smiling with a proud look as if he was praising his own child, "hopefully that will stay this way."

Turning to look up at the tall man, you nodded and zipped your backpack shut.
"Thanks again for your time yesterday. I probably wouldn't have made it without your help," you answered him and for a moment you thought you saw a panicked look flash in his green eyes. But it was gone nearly instantly so that probably had just been your imagination.

"I'm glad to hear that," he answered after a short moment and then put on a strange expression that you couldn't quite place. Something like anticipation, suspicion and a hint of fear?
You had never seen the tall man look like that.

"Were you able to sleep well after I left?"

Well, that was a weird question.

"Uhm, yeah. I was-..," you halted, trying to find a good way of putting 'nearly beaten to death by a troll prince and then saved by a green troll only to be mothered by the trollhunter' into words that wouldn't make you sound insane, "..-totally knocked out."

Yeah, yeah, that worked too.

The teacher gave a little laugh, although it sounded somewhat nervous.

"Hopefully that didn't hurt too bad," he told you, most likely as a joke, but for some reason it made you feel as if he was trying to say something else.

Strange.

You decided to play it off and chuckled a bit while shrugging, "I'm used to it by now."
Speaking with a light joking tune, you masked the fact that you were indeed quite used to it already.

Strickler seemed to relax a little at your playful response and nodded his head, his hands absentmindedly reaching for his pen and clicking it open before shutting it again.
You had seen him do this frequently so you assumed that is was a normal habit of his.

Grabbing your bag and slinging it over your shoulder, you looked up to him again and nodded at the door.
"I gotta go. Jim and Toby are waiting for me," you told him and were about to say goodbye for the day when he suddenly spoke up again, taking a step closer to you to put his hand on your shoulder in a fatherly manner.

"Actually," he said and looked at you worriedly, "I wanted to warn you."

"Warn me? Of what?" Raising an eyebrow, you glanced up to him with a confused look in your eyes.

Could he know of what was happening to you?

What if he did? How could you explain this to him? Would he call the police? Hopefully nothing bad would happen to Kanjigar if he's found by the authorities...

The middle aged man narrowed his eyes and stared at you seriously as he answered.
"There's been a coyote sighting near your street so I just wanted to make sure you knew not to leave the house after sundown."

You kept looking at him with a confused expression but nodded and watched as he took a step back again, seeming to be satisfied now that he had told you this.

Oh, thank god. Looks like he didn't know about trolls.

"I won't," you said to him, not really worried about coyotes at all. Not like you were gonna leave the house unless Kanjigar was there with you anyways. But you couldn't really tell him that you were safe because you had a supernatural guard dog, "thanks for the warning, Mr.Strickler. I'll see you tomorrow!"

And with that, you hurried out the door, feeling the teacher's eyes follow you until you had left the classroom for good.

He did seem really worried but now that you knew what he was worried about, it didn't really bother you all that much.

Catching up to your two buddies, who were still waiting, you had immediately forgotten about this incident and wouldn't remember it until much later.

---

There she was. Finally.

Steve had been waiting for the girl to leave that classroom for ages already. What even took her so long?

Anyway, now that she was on her way to her locker, he could start his brilliant plan at last.

First, he pretended to casually walk toward the lockers that were underneath the small roof, heading toward the slender dweeb with glasses.
He then proceeded to stuff him into his locker, which was a usual thing by now so no one really paid attention.
Well, maybe the buttsnack himself complained a little at first.

Very sneakily looking over his shoulder toward the group of three that had been heading toward him now, Steve made sure that she would have to walk past him to reach her locker.

He waited for just the right moment when he would push her so she'd fall and embarrass herself and then everyo-

His thoughts were interrupted as Eli fell out of the locker, due to the blond not paying enough attention to what he was doing, and collided with Steve, pushing him backward and causing him to crash right into someone else in the process.

Luckily this someone else was strong enough to catch the tall teen without them falling as well.

For a moment, Steve just kind of hung in their arms until he looked up and saw straight into the surprised face of the girl he was trying to make a fool of.

He didn't expect her to have such reflexes.

"Looks like someone fell for you, (Y/n)!" came Mary's teasing voice as she snapped a photo of the usually so buff boy hanging in the girl's arms like a little kitten that had been saved from falling off a tree.

Immediately, the (h/c)-haired teen's face turned into a disgusted frown and she let go of Steve, letting him hit the ground with an 'oof' before she took a step back, raised her hands and shook herself.

Rude.

It took the blond a few seconds to understand what had happened and to notice the chattering and giggling all around them.

His face grew scarlet in anger.

It was supposed to be her and not him! They should be laughing at her! Damn it!

Jumping to his feet, Steve glared at the still somewhat disgusted looking girl.
He couldn't just let her get away with using his own plan against him.
Fueled by the laughing classmates around him and the frustration of being humiliated, he reached out and pushed her further away from him by roughly shoving his hand into her face.

Of course he didn't know about the hidden bruises so the reaction he got was more than surprising.

---

"Fucking hell! That hurt, you stupid dumbass!" You yelled at the slightly taller teen with a pissed off expression, holding your nose in pain.
He had hit the bruises right on and you were pretty sure he smudged the make-up as well.
Judging by the gasps and shocked sounding whispered around you, the dark purple and blue spots on your face were visible now.

Great. Just great.

Jim came to your side, placing his hands onto your arm in a comforting way. He seemed quite confused but very much worried as well.

Although you were glaring daggers at the blond before you, who kept on glancing at his hand and back to your face, you didn't try to punch back.
Starting a fight would surely get you some revenge but it would also get you into the principal's office.

Maybe it was also Jim's calming presence that kept you from losing your temper for good.

Steve appeared to be quite conflicted too. He probably thought he had caused your bruises, which was pretty darn stupid but let's be honest, what else were you expecting of the blond oaf?

He kept looking between his hand and your face with a simultaneously puzzled, amazed and scared expression. How he was able to convey so many different emotions with just one face was a mystery.

Suddenly, a strict voice rose above the others.

"What is going on here?"

It was Mr.Strickler, who had come out of the classroom and seen the small mob of students around Jim, Steve and yourself. Maybe he also heard your rather loud yell.

Steve stuttered out incoherent words but it was quite obvious what was going on here.

For a moment, you thought you saw Strickler glance to your direction with a saddened look but it soon turned into a scolding one.

Your anger dissipated and you let out a sigh, relaxing your muscles again. Looked like you were in for it.

"To the principal's office. Now," he instructed Steve and you, sounding a lot more commanding than you had heard in quite some time.
Letting your shoulders slump, you looked to Jim and Toby with an apologetic shrug before wandering off toward the told direction. Although you weren't really worried that the punishment would include you, since you hadn't done anything wrong, it still felt pretty shitty.
Steve was nervously walking a few steps behind you, mumbling under his breath and fidgeting around while occasionally glancing toward Strickler, who escorted you.

So much for a peaceful time at school.