Chapter Text
Frank dreaded going back to Pencey Preparatory School at the end of the summer every year.
This year was no different.
However, the thought kept flickering at the back of his mind that maybe, just maybe, it wouldn't be so awful this time around.
After all, he had made a few acquaintances by the end of the semester, mostly thanks to the croquet team.
The croquet team was small, and all of the members were outcasts and freaks, but Frank didn't really mind.
Some of them weren't that bad.
And so, this year, when he got out of bed and put on that godawful blazer, he didn't hate it quite as much.
The tie still felt awful around his neck, even when he loosened it until it could barely still be considered a tie.
He snuck out the front door before his parents could even realize he was awake, and started on his way to school.
It was junior year.
Time to start actually doing his homework and focusing in class.
Frank gave himself a few weeks before he'd inevitably stop caring again.
The quad at Pencey Prep was uncharacteristically empty. It was usually filled with hundreds of students, all separated into their cliche little groups.
This early in the morning, everyone was either not here yet, or inside finding their first period class.
So Frank continued inside to his locker, his headphones over his ears but no music actually playing through them at that moment.
He tossed his bag into the locker carelessly, taking nothing but a pencil with him to first period Chemistry.
Up on the whiteboard in the class, there was a seating chart.
Frank usually enjoyed sitting by himself more than with others, but he supposed a seating chart was better than the horror of having to choose a companion if there were an equal number of students and desks.
He hoped he would be sitting beside Mikey, or Ray, or at least someone tolerable like Patrick or Vic.
His heart sank when his eyes landed on the name next to his.
Illi McMillin.
He didn't have anything against Illi, not really, but she was Mikey's sister.
That meant that everywhere they went, she just happened to follow along.
And, sue him, Illi was annoying.
She smiled a lot, and she was still nice to him even when he was an asshole to her.
Frank didn't get it.
So he sat in his seat and dreaded the moment Illi entered the classroom.
As the minutes ticked by, she still hadn't shown up, and the final bell was about to ring.
Students were chattering to one another, their voices twisting together to form a sort of background ambience.
At the last second, Illi rushed through the door, her messenger bag clutched to her chest.
She didn't even glance at the board, her gaze landing on the empty seat next to Frank and making her way over.
"There's a seating arrangement, you know." Frank muttered.
"Really?" Illi looked surprised, turning as if she was planning on going to check the list herself.
"Doesn't matter. You're here anyways." Frank said sullenly.
Illi smiled at him as she took her seat. "So, how was your summer?"
"Horrible. Yours?"
"Not great, but it wasn't too bad." Illi glanced at Frank's desk. "You don't even have a notebook."
"Don't need one." He replied.
"Yes you do, there's always tons of note-taking in science classes. You're going to fail." Illi pointed out.
"Then I'll copy yours, whatever."
"What if I said no?" Illi countered.
Frank groaned. "Then I'd fail? What do you want me to say?"
Illi sighed, flipping open her own notebook to a blank page and slowly starting to sketch something, her pencil scratching softly at the paper.
Frank tried to ignore her.
He really, really did.
But after what seemed like hours but was probably only a minute, he peeked over.
"I can see you looking." Illi muttered.
Fuck.
That wasn't supposed to happen.
"I wasn't looking." Frank mumbled.
"Okay then." Illi agreed.
Frank's eyebrows rose.
Illi... wasn't going to argue with him?
Huh.
For the first time in what must have been her entire life, Illi didn't go along with Frank's dumb argument.
He remembered the first time he had ever met Illi, after Frank had joined the croquet team and met Mikey.
He had heard about Illi, seen her in his classes and around the school.
She was the topic of a lot of asshole's conversations, what with her being trans and all.
The first time they'd formally met, they'd argued.
Illi had, for some reason unbeknownst to Frank, tagged along to the croquet meet after school.
She had taken one look at Frank's form and scoffed. "You're doing it all wrong."
Frank had glared at her. "Like you could do it any better."
"I totally could." Illi countered.
The two of them had argued over proper form for half an hour before Mikey had finally stepped in, saying that Frank had fine form and could the both of them please stop arguing so that they could get on with actually playing croquet.
Illi had scoffed at her brother. "Fine, but I could do better than Frank any day."
Frank had furrowed his brow. "If you're so good, why aren't you on the team?"
"Because I have better things to do, Frankie." Illi had rolled her eyes.
Mikey had resorted to grabbing Frank's arm and dragging him to where Ray had everything set up. Frank wanted it to be clear that if he hadn't allowed it, Mikey most certainly couldn't have dragged him.
But, ever since that day, Illi has never once passed up an opportunity to argue with Frank.
So, Frank thought he had good reason to eye her suspiciously.
The silence between them grew longer, the only noise besides the droning of the teacher coming in the form of the scratch of Illi's pencil across the paper.
Against his better judgement, Frank glanced over again. "Psst. Illi."
Illi glanced up. "What?"
"What are you drawing?" Frank hissed.
Illi looked down at the notebook in front of her. "None of your business."
"Well you're doing it beside me, which makes it my business." Frank argued.
"Quiet back there." Mrs Patterson said sharply.
Frank rolled his eyes. "You're annoying, Illi McMillin."
Illi didn't even look at him. "So I've been told."
Frank felt a pang of guilt in his chest. He didn't mean to make her feel bad. Did she feel bad? Or was she just stating the fact? He had no idea. He hoped that she wouldn't tell Mikey if he had upset her. "Sorry." Frank grunted.
"Don't be." Illi waved him off.
For the rest of the period, they sat in silence.
Illi didn't look up from her sketch once for the entirety of the hour, and no matter how many times Frank tried, he couldn't see what she was drawing.
As soon as the bell rang, Frank jumped up from his seat, almost forgetting to grab his pencil in his rush to be out of the classroom.
On his way out, he noticed that Illi didn't seem to be rushing at all.
She was closing her notebook with care, as if worried she might hurt the sketch inside.
What. A. Weirdo.
————
Frank stood in the cafeteria, unsure where to sit.
Every single table was inhabited by at least one other person, and not a single one of them was a person that he considered worth his time.
The courtyard it was, then.
He could sit alone on the grass and hope everyone was too preoccupied with first-day antics to throw their food at him.
Within moments of sitting down, Mikey joined him.
Well, sat near him with enough of a presence that it was hard to ignore him.
"Hey, Mikey." Frank greeted him eventually.
"Hello, Frank." Mikey replied.
Short and sweet. Just the way conversations usually went with Mikey.
"Your summer was good?" Mikey asked.
Huh.
Well, it was true that Frank hadn't known Mikey for all that long before school had let out.
Maybe the guy was more talkative than Frank had given him credit for.
"It was fine. Yours?" Frank replied.
Mikey nodded once. "It was alright."
Just as their short-lived conversation was about to die out, they were interrupted.
"Mikey! Oh, hey Frank."
Illi.
She bounded over with a smile on her face, which already made her stand out from the two boys.
She had her notebook in one hand and a sandwich in the other, sitting down a short distance from Mikey and pulling a pencil from behind her ear.
"Whatcha workin' on?" Mikey asked through a mouthful of food.
"A sketch," Illi replied. "Just a little something I started this morning."
Frank, for lack of better wording, was insanely curious. He wished he wasn't, because it was practically a death sentence at school to even be near Illi, let alone be interested in what she was doing. He was really hoping she would explain what it was she was drawing. Ever since she'd started it in Chemistry, he'd been dying to know what it was.
Mikey didn't seem to harbour the same curiosity. He just shrugged and kept on eating.
"Where the hell is Ray?" Frank asked after a long moment of silence.
"You know Ray, he'll show up eventually." Mikey responded, seemingly unconcerned.
Illi glanced around the courtyard, as if looking for him. Sure enough, her eyes landed on something. "Ray!"
Illi hopped up and headed in the direction of a confused-looking Ray. The guy was looking all around, as if wondering where the hell his friends could possibly be.
Frank glanced at the ground where Illi had been sitting, her notebook left open and abandoned on the grass.
"Don't even try, Iero." Mikey warned from where he was sitting.
Frank turned to him. "What?"
"I see you eyeing her book. Leave it. She'll be pissed if you go through that." Mikey informed him.
So he left it.
When Illi returned with Ray and picked her notebook back up from where it had been lying in the grass, Frank didn't even try to peek at it.
Maybe Mikey was right.
He shouldn't be looking at other people's stuff, and her notebook meant a lot to her.
It wasn't any of his business.
So he tried not to glance at it whenever it was in his line of sight. And if he failed at that endeavour, well, no one had to know.
————
By the end of the day, Frank had discovered that he had Calculus with Mikey and English with Ray, and, of course, Chemistry with Illi.
His second period was Computer Science, which he shared with none of his friends but seemed vaguely interesting.
He had also discovered that the walk home was somehow worse than last year, his feet just slightly aching by the time he reached his front door.
"Hey, Frankie!" His mom called from the kitchen as she heard the door open. "How was your first day?"
"It was fine." Frank replied, only slightly sullenly.
His mom poked her head around the corner, her eyes bright. "Give me the details! Did you meet any hot girls?" She lowered her voice, eyes glinting. "Or hot boys?"
"Mom!" Frank exclaimed.
His mom just grinned. "So, I'll take that as a no. Did you find all your classes okay?"
"I guess so." Frank replied.
"Make any new friends? Y'know, I made some of my best friends when I was in my junior year. I met Emma because we were forced to sit beside each other in math class."
Frank remembered Emma. She had come over for dinner a few times, or she had used to before his dad had put a stop to it, saying that dinners should be family affairs.
"Nope, no new friends. Though I do have to sit beside Illi in Chemistry. That means she's gonna have to be my lab partner." Frank made a face at that.
His mom cocked an eyebrow. "Illi as in the Illi you kept complaining about?"
"Yes. She's Mikey's sister. And she's annoying." Frank rolled his eyes.
"Y'know, your dad once thought I was annoying." His mom smirked.
Frank huffed out a laugh. "I'm pretty sure he still does."
"Hey!" Frank's mom threw an oven mitt at him, her face alight with amusement.
The mitt missed him by a good three feet, causing Frank to raise an eyebrow at her. "That's the best you could do? Really?"
"Not all of us have the athleticism of a croquet player." She defended.
Frank scoffed. "Croquet is a very respectable sport."
"I didn't even know it was classified as a sport." His mom shot back.
Frank just stuck his tongue out at her and turned to go up to his room.
"Oh no, I hope you're not going up to your room to play guitar loud enough for those of us downstairs to enjoy." His mom said sarcastically.
"I won't." He most definitely would.
And he did, at least, he did until his father got home and told him to turn it off.
————
The next day, Frank prepared himself for the same thing, a carbon copy of the day before.
He wore the same uniform, walked out the same door, took the same route.
However, today, by the time he got to school it was already packed with other students.
He was far from as early as he'd been the day before, which didn't matter a whole lot but meant the chances of being shoved into a locker was higher.
He made his way to his own locker, pushing through the endless sea of bodies. He put in the same code, unlocked the same locker.
But this time, when he opened the door, it wasn't empty anymore.
A singular notebook lay on the metal, a small piece of paper on top of it.
Frank picked it up, somewhat curious to see what it said.
The note was written in a pretty, almost cursive font:
You're going to be needing this. -I