Chapter Text
Starting a new school is never easy, but you don’t get pushed around and laughed at before class starts, right? Maybe it was his clothes, could they tell that he bought them at a thrift shop? Or that he wore glasses, but a lot of the other kids wore glasses. Claude couldn’t fathom what provoked this boy to yell something so nasty across the courtyard at him.
He tried to ignore it and waited for the staff to finish their speeches and unleash the crowd of boys into the school. Legs ache when they were finally released. Claude tried to keep up with the crowd, the pushing and squishing almost made him fall into the sea of feet but he managed to save himself. He made his way up the stairs, mindlessly following the herd, and tried to catch a glimpse of room numbers. He looked down at the paper containing the number of the room he was looking for, but before he could look back up he felt himself being flung to the side of the hall, knocking down everyone in his path. Claude looked up, adjusting his glasses, to see the boy who had yelled at him in the courtyard. He stared at him, actually, he stared at the brown leather patch over one of his eyes. The boy noticed, and his face turned sour.
“What, do I have something on my face,” He said with a laugh, and everyone around him joined. Claude looked to the ground, his face burning with embarrassment, and slowly got up.
By the time he was back on his feet, the boy was gone. He went back to looking for his class, and it was only when the bell rang that he realized he was going the wrong way.
Claude finally found his class, which was on the other side of the school from where he was originally looking. He was very late, and already embarrassed. He opened the door to the class and accepted his fate of humiliation by the hands of his teacher.
The teacher, an older man with a scrunched face, turned to the door in both disappointment and excitement. “Well, who do we have here?”
Claude began to scratch at his palms and stepped into the class. “I’m Matisse, sir, Claude Matisse.”
He watched the teacher's eyes look him up and down, looking for a flaw or insecurity to mark him with. “What are you so nervous about, we’re all men here, take a seat.” Claude let out a sigh of relief, the public torture was not nearly as bad as he imagined, and turned to find a seat.
He walked slowly to a seat near the window, glancing around the room at his classmates. His legs almost gave out when his eyes fell upon the eye of the boy who pushed him. He felt his stare as he sat down, and continued to feel it for the rest of class. It made it hard for Claude to focus, and it made him wonder how one eye could have such an intense stare.
As the day went on, Claude realized the boy was in all of his classes, which makes sense because they were in the same year. Each class period Claude's anxiety made him hyper aware of what the boy was doing, hoping he wouldn’t be the butt of a joke again, which prevented him from focusing on anything else. By the end of the day he figured out that the boys’ name was Descamps. Nobody had told him, or even talked to him, he just listened to all of the other boys' conversations.
When the final bell rang, everyone bolted out to the courtyard. Claude maneuvered his way through the hallway, slipping through any opening he saw just to get outside. He walked toward the gate, being glad that the first day was finally over but that soon turned into dread for the next few months. He hadn’t talked to a single person, or the way he saw it no one had talked to him. That combined with the constant fear of being harassed created a pit in Claude’s stomach. Even when he was leaving school he could feel the burning stare from the one eyed boy.
Claude’s weekend felt too short and too long at the same time. The gnawing feeling in his stomach would not go away no matter what he did. He couldn’t stop thinking about school, the agonizing fear and loneliness he would feel, and why nobody wanted to befriend him- not that he was making an effort to befriend any of them. He debated with himself over everything: school won’t be so bad, it’ll be the end of me; I don’t need friends I’ll be fine by myself, I’ll be so alone and miserable by myself; don’t think about Descamps, think about Descamps.
He wanted to know what happened to his eye- the missing one. He knew Descamps would probably sock him if he asked straight up, and he avoided the idea of asking other students because that would mean actually talking to them. But he wanted to know so bad how it happened, and what it looked like underneath, and what it felt like. Maybe he was born with it, but judging by his reaction to Claude’s stare probably not.
The thought that in less than 8 hours Claude would be walking back into the courtyard made him sick. They’ll laugh at me , he thought over and over again. It made it impossible to sleep. So instead he went for a walk.
The street outside his house was dimly lit by street lamps and a small sliver of the moon. Claude walked down to the end of the street and lit a cigarette, looking at the shops around him. Drug stores, bakeries, butchers, what a boring little town. He walked around, turning and twisting his head taking in all of the markets. It made him miss his old town, the fish shop that had tanks full of swimming fish, a stationary store with naughty postcards, and his favorite- the movie theater. Here, the theater looked to be an old warehouse repurposed to hold two screens and a couple dozen seats.
Claude took a seat outside the theater, staring at the poster plastered on the wall to tell the town that the new Jean-Luc Godard film was out. The doors to the theater burst open with a wave of adults, all laughing and talking loudly to each other. Claude looked at the crowd disperse, and noticed one tall black figure walked towards him. He couldn’t see their face until the light from the street lamp unveiled Descamps. Claude froze in a failed attempt to choose between fight or flight and soon he was at the bench. He stared at the boy, making sure to avoid the patch on his face, trying to read his emotion. Descamps face was stoic, a mix between annoyance and something else that Claude couldn’t quite figure out.
Descamps looked like he was about to say something but Claude stood up and began to walk away quickly, muttering a polite goodbye as he sped down the street. When he turned onto his street he ran to his house, cold air burning his nostrils. He finally got home and silently rushed into his bedroom. He went to his window, scared that Descamps might have followed him or someone saw him run around in the middle of the night like some freak. The street was empty, which was a weight lifted off Claude’s shoulder. He got into bed hoping he would be able to fall asleep, but the thoughts about school were now replaced with thoughts of Descamps.