Chapter Text
Dunkleman knew he was in love with Jodi. They'd been a pair since elementary school. It'd been him and her against the world, and he was determined for it to always be that way.
Even if she didn't want anything more than friendship from him.
"Dunk, get your head out of your ass," Fareeda snapped her fingers in front of his face.
Dunkleman did stop daydreaming about Jodi, but not without turning his best bitch face on Fareeda first. Couldn't a man get lost in his thoughts of unrequited love beside a locker in peace?
"We both have to get to class and I don't have time for you to be standing here all dove-eyed in front of my locker." She raised an eyebrow and waved her hand to motion him to the side. He stepped aside, but didn't stop his glare. Fareeda got to work on her combination, not giving him another glance. "Dunk, we're cool and all, but you have got to get over her. It's been too long. Sad, dude."
She got her books, and they walked their separate ways to their respective classes. She just doesn't understand, he rationalized to himself. She probably hasn't felt this way about anybody. He can't just 'let it go' - he knows Jodi's reading list, for Pete's sake! Knowing everything about someone is the deepest kind of love, and that's what he has with Jodi. For Jodi. Whatever.
He walked into his chem class with milk box in tow. This class was bearable mostly because Jodi was his lab partner in it. But also because once Frederick Hillmeyers set his hair on fire with a Bunsen burner. Good times.
The day seemed to be perfectly normal at first. He, with his routine cheesy pick-up line. Her, with her daily rejection and self deprecation. And, of course, her constant need for a tall boyfriend. What happened to chivalry, humor, loyalty? Meaningless if you're under six feet these days.
Something decidedly not perfectly normal walked through the door the second the minute hand indicated the start of class.
He was tall, that was for sure, but he was so much more. The light from the hallway behind him lit his flowing golden locks like a halo around his head. His body said 'I go to the gym for fun' but if the mystery boy had said he'd never gone to a gym in his life, Dunkleman would believe that he came out of the womb as chiseled as a Greek god. His eyes were hidden from the backlight of the hallway, but he wouldn't be surprised if the second he saw them he got lost in them.
But all that didn't matter. Because he was tall, and that's what counts in Jodi's book. So this beautiful mystery man was his enemy. God, he hopes he's dumb.
He is not dumb. He takes one look at the board, a complicated chemical formula the class usually works together with the teacher to solve each morning, and does it himself. Our normally hard-ass teacher nods approvingly with a smile. His smile is blinding when he turns to give Mrs. Jenkins a high-five. Which she returns.
Dunkleman does not stare at the new transfer student's ass as he goes to his seat and he really doesn't even remember that he was introduced to the class as Stig. Jodi, however, did both of these things.
And that was the problem.
Dunkleman doesn't pay much attention to the chem lesson. He's much too busy plotting against his new enemy #1. And stealing glances at said enemy #1. He makes sure he's glaring each time he does.
He especially makes sure to glare when The Enemy catches him staring and smiles with a little wave. Dunkleman justifies his immediately flushed face with the rationalization of too tight a glare, and definitely not because that was very cute.
He and Fareeda go with Jodi to her locker after class. Jodi only has eyes for The Enemy, and Fareeda (curse her!) is encouraging her on with some bull about everyone being tall in Sweden.
Dunkleman tries his best to deter her with a delicately painted word picture. He believes he made a very compelling argument. C-sections are no joke, after all, but evidently not everyone can plan as far into the future as he. He is the only one with a seven year plan, after all.
Jodi doesn't go talk to Stig in the hallway. They all watch as Kimmi, the queen bee of their school, takes Stig's arm in hers.
Dunkleman lets out a sigh of relief.
Jodi's slouch turns into a kind of wilt.
Fareeda, much to Dunkleman's chagrin, does not stop in her encouragement.
He spends his last class of the day in a cycle of fuming over The Enemy and then comforting himself with the reminder that, for the first time ever, Kimmi has done something that works in his favor.
So when he walks out to his mom's car to be picked up from a frankly long day of school, the last thing he wants to be reminded of is Stig. But why would his mother know anything about some Swedish transfer?
The Enemy is sitting shotgun beside Mom. Mom is sitting next to The Enemy. And they're both grinning like fools.
He sprung up the seat like an excitable puppy. His accented "Surprise!" meshed with Mom's. They were going to be Stig's host family. The Swedish fiend was going to live with him.
Dunkleman, for all his creative word paintings, could not imagine a worse thing to happen to him.
Then his mom made him sit in the back even though shotgun is his seat and The Enemy would've moved to the back if she hadn't stopped him. Dunkleman crossed his arms and slouched as angrily as he could muster after buckling in.
Okay, surely now nothing worse could happen to him. It's at that point the Enemy gives him a smile and a thumbs up in the rearview mirror. Dunkleman rolled his eyes.
There's nothing he wants to do more than fall face-first into his bed and pass out immediately. Possibly never wake up. Hopefully wake up and have all this be some terrible and really weirdly fucked up dream.
He didn't wait for his mom or Stig as he got out of the car. He was headed straight for his room. Straight for peace and normalcy and a strong depression nap. He went through the house faster than normal, and opened the door to his room a little too hard.
His bed is not at the center of the room. His bed is gone.
There's a bunk bed in its place. Both bunks are queen-sized, similar to his old bed. How had Mom managed to not only get his bed out but assemble this beast of a bunk bed while he was at school? She worked during the day. Did she hire someone to steal his bed?
It was too much, and Dunkleman had already handled a lot in his opinion. So he looked at the bed from the doorway. Set his milk crate down next to the door. And lied down right there in the doorway.
This is it, he thought, staring at the ceiling. This is the end of good ol' Dunkleman. May he rest in peace.
He doesn't get long to contemplate his death alone on the floor. Overhead lights are blocked by a large figure.
"So, uh, do you need help up?"
Dunkleman groans.