It started with Sean’s voice — sharp and smug, echoing across the benches near the gym.

“Come on, boys,” he laughed, loud enough for anyone with ears to hear. “You think I actually wanted to date her? I only asked so I could see how long it’d take to get her out of that little good-girl act. Tease like that? You know she’s just begging for it under the surface.”

Hughie Biggs froze.

He was mid-joke with Joey, rugby ball in hand, but the moment those words hit the air, the humor dropped from his face like a stone.

“Did he just—?” Patrick started.

“Don’t,” Johnny warned, but Hughie was already moving.

The rugby ball hit the ground.

“Oi, Sean,” Hughie’s voice was deceptively even as he crossed the concrete, his friends trailing after him.

Sean turned just in time to catch the fist that sent him sprawling off the bench.

What followed wasn’t clean. It wasn’t strategic. It was personal.

Johnny slammed one of Sean’s mates against the gym wall. Gibsie was yelling something no one could hear over the scuffle. Joey’s knuckles were already bloodied, and Patrick moved like a shadow—quiet, efficient, deadly.

And Hughie—Hughie wasn’t letting up. His fists connected again and again until Sean stopped laughing, stopped grinning, stopped talking altogether.

It took a whistle and two teachers to break it up.

Ten minutes later, Hughie sat on the back steps behind the music room, nursing a split lip and the pulsing beginnings of a black eye. His hoodie was dusted with grass and grit, knuckles raw and trembling with leftover adrenaline.

“You idiot.”

He looked up.

She was standing there—his childhood best friend, arms crossed, eyes wide with both worry and something that looked dangerously close to fury.

“I’m fine,” he muttered.

“You’re bleeding.”

She dropped to her knees beside him anyway, backpack falling to the ground. From it, she pulled a little first aid pouch—something she always carried because she was the sort of person who worried just in case.

She wet a tissue, pressed it gently to his lip.

He winced.

“You shouldn’t have hit him,” she said, voice low. “You’ll get detention. Or worse.”

“You heard what he said.”

“I did.” Her hands trembled just slightly. “But still.”

Hughie didn’t argue. He just watched her, close, as she fussed over his bruised knuckles, wiped at the blood on his cheek.

“You always this prepared?” he asked, voice hoarse.

“For you?” she shot back, then faltered. “Yeah. Kinda.”

He didn’t say anything to that. Neither did she.

But when their eyes met, the air between them pulsed with something thick and unspoken.

Still, no love confessions.

Just silence. And her hands on his skin. And the quiet truth sitting heavy between them.