This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any real people or places is purely coincidental. This story is the property of the author and is protected under copyright laws. The author retains all rights. No reproduction is allowed without the author's consent.
Conversations and feedback are appreciated to Greyson B. via email at hokkaidohotel86it@gmail.com. The emails I have received thus far are greatly appreciated.
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This story will contain graphic depictions of sex between male teens (m/m). If this is an issue for you or the laws where you live, you are obviously in the wrong place. Also, this is a story with plot, not merely wank material. There will be potentially triggering subjects, including language, violence, and bullying. You have been warned.
You can also check out my other story, Cadence, in the Gay / adult-youth section.
A Ghost Finds a Body
Chapter 1
Word spread quickly about that kid, Kyle. Kyle had always been around, but always in the background. He was fairly average, Caucasian, dirty blonde hair, with bangs that constantly strayed across his grey eyes. He was 14 years old, a freshman, and just beginning his high school years.
He might have dressed strange, but that was because he didn't wear the newest clothes or keep to the hottest trends. He might have acted strange, but that was because he never spoke up in class and didn't have a group he hung out with.
Every school has its cliques. The popular kids, slightly different based on the region, but usually based around sports. The music kids, sometimes choir, sometimes orchestra, usually marching band. You have the geeks and nerds, shunned for their brains and their abilities to blow any bell curve, banding together for safety. Then you have the rebels, the cool kids. Consisting of former bullies, punks, Goths, misfits, all of these congregate towards like-minded individuals.
Occasionally, a school will pick up an enigma. One will come along who fits in no group. They will usually know a few people, but those people will be from different groups, and they will be shunned for their other acquaintances. They are not a pariah; they simply seem to fit no pattern. No group claims them, so they drift, forming no attachments. They are a ghost.
Kyle Bransau was one such ghost. He was too small for sports and, while cute enough, he did not possess enough patience to tolerate the popular airheads. Kyle had never tried music or art, and didn't care to have the fashion sense to hang with the Goths or rebels. He was too intelligent to be a thug, but didn't care enough to do the work it would take to be a brain. He was silently and consistently passed by and rejected by every clique in the school. Everyone saw him, but nobody cared.
The freshman took it seemingly well. Always of a melancholy mood, he seemed to let everything slip right off his shoulders. Not just the rejection, but also the responsibility. Having no friends meant no one need rely on him. It provided a lonely sense of detached freedom. He was the quiet one, the one who everyone thinks will eventually become pushed too far and is found one day with a loaded gun and a hit list. But Kyle was nowhere near that point, and unlikely to get there. He had other outlets and other friends, unknown by his classmates, awkward acquaintances, and parents. Most of his time was spent online.
All of this changed one afternoon near the end of an English lesson in the library's computer lab. As was his habit, Kyle had been ignoring the lesson, which was to research something about some author. Instead, he had bypassed a few monitoring programs and had been chatting on a forum with an online friend. As usually occurs in forums, a glance will only give a snapshot, many times out of context. A teacher caught the chat window and pulled him away, sending him to the school office. Before she could come back and close the window, however, several other students had seen the posts he was reading, as well as Kyle's responding posts.
Word traveled fast, and by the end of the day, there was another openly gay student in school.
Kyle ended up putting up with a lot over that simple forum post. The rumor was easy to believe. After all, he was small for his age, kept to himself, and carried himself in a way that could be taken as effeminate. His parents, in denial over the subject matter, grounded him and complained to the school over their lack of supervision. Most of his teachers treated him coldly. His English teacher, who had been disciplined for what her student had gotten away with, treated him angrily. Where before he had been ignored by his fellow students, now he passed through the halls to the sounds of jokes and catcalls. Life quickly spiraled downward for Kyle.
A uniquely annoying form of attention also sprang up for Kyle. Brody, a junior, had also taken notice. Brody was already openly gay, almost glaringly gay. He was the token `in your face', aggressively defensive gay of the school. Few people were surprised when he showed an interest in the young, blonde freshman. He approached Kyle in the lunchroom, at his locker, anywhere he could afford the time. He playfully mocked his own advances, and yet was forceful and aggressive in his pursuit.
Kyle was quickly becoming tired of Brody. After nearly a week, the older boy had not picked up on Kyle's shy and subtle hints that he was not interested. Kyle was too shy to flat out tell Brody that he wasn't interested and too naïve to know that nothing short of that would convince him to stop. This new harassment became, in many ways, worse than the ridicule of the teachers and other students.
Another student also took notice of Kyle. Marcus was a sophomore, a year older than the freshman. Kyle was one of many cute students that Marcus watched and crushed on. He was not openly gay. In fact, Marcus had not yet come out to anyone. He watched with more than a passing interest at how the younger Kyle stood up to the unwanted attention. On the one hand, it scared him to see how cruel and destructive everyone was, including the teachers. On the other hand, however, it made him come to really respect the freshman and how he quietly handled everything.
Marcus really wanted to talk to Kyle, but to his way of seeing it, he would just become more of the same problem. He liked the young freshman and thought he was really cute. But there was no way Kyle could feel the same way about him. Kyle was too pretty to go out with a rough, oafish guy like him. And so Marcus said nothing. He did nothing.
Every afternoon, Marcus always cut across the faculty parking lot to head home. He only lived a few short blocks from the school, and the shortcut was the quickest way out of the school. Kyle, he knew, took one of the buses home, so Marcus was quite surprised when, one afternoon, he saw Kyle use the side door and slip around the rear of the building right ahead of him. Looking around to see if there was an obvious reason, he noticed Brody searching the crowds, looking for all the world like he had just lost sight of his prey.
Smirking about the brazen hussy, Marcus made his way to the rear of the building, unsure if this was his fantasized chance to talk to Kyle, or if he should just head home. As the rear lot came into view, however, the two guys in letterman jackets he saw quickly decided things for him. Marcus recognized the jocks propped against the back wall of the building. Christopher, the shorter of the two, was a starting halfback on the school football team. The other, either Shawn or John, he couldn't remember, was a starting defensive end. Both were assholes.
They had spotted the freshman, who had stopped perhaps fifteen feet past the corner. Christopher pushed himself off the wall, flicking his illicit cigarette away as he sauntered toward Kyle. He popped the collar of his blue and silver school jacket as he made eye contact with Kyle.
"Hey there," he said, grinning. Marcus had seen these guys in action, and knew the smile was not a good thing.
Kyle, not sensing the danger, mumbled back a shy "Hey."
"So, you're the new fag in school, huh?" He cocked his head back over his shoulder, motioning to his buddy. "Hey Shawn. This the new faggot you been hearing so much about?"
The bigger lineman had moved up on his buddy's right, out away from the wall, cutting off easy retreat. Kyle either didn't see the setup, or didn't care. Marcus may not have been as muscular as the two football players, but he had height and bulk, making him bigger than either of them. He stepped out, making his presence known to the antagonists. Christopher looked up at him at once and spoke over the younger boy's head.
"This ain't your business, unless you want it to be."
Summoning more courage than he realized he had, Marcus stepped forward, smiled nervously, and said, "No, you're right." Reaching for Kyle's arm, he added, "We were just leaving."
"Look, fat-ass, stay the hell out of it."
Marcus wasn't really obese, just tall and massive. Still, comments like that had always been taken to heart by the larger boy. He laid his hand on Kyle's shoulder.
"Go on out of here. I know these guys," he said. "Trust me. You would rather deal with what you left around the corner."
Kyle seemed to just now realize there were people on every side that didn't have a wall. He also registered the fact that everyone else here was a foot taller and weighed nearly double his size. He let the older boy push him back, getting himself out of the circle.
"You gonna be okay?"
"I said I know these guys."
"You don't know shit," Christopher said cockily.
"Yeah," added the other. "What the fuck makes you think you know us?"
As Marcus pushed him back further, the scared freshman took the opportunity and made his way back to the corner, not taking his eyes off the scene. He looked everything over once more before leaving. Both of the jocks seemed relaxed. He couldn't read the bigger guy, but he knew he wanted out of there. The older boy had been right. He definitely would rather face Brody over those two. The guy seemed nice. Good thing he knew the jocks well enough to help.
Kyle made it to the bus without running into his stalker and had made the transition back from scared to miserable by the time he made it home.
"Hey shithead!" the familiar voice called out over the heads of the students in the hall the next day. "Hey! Faggot!"
Don't turn around,' Kyle thought to himself. You know they're talking at you, but answering will admit it. That will just make it worse.' He kept walking, even though it meant walking right past his own locker. He would just deal without his math book. `What's another punishment over...'
"Hey! Faggot!" It sounded closer this time. A lot closer.
He lengthened his stride, but hadn't taken his second step when a hand snatched his shoulder and spun him around to slam him into the wall of lockers. He turned a pair of wide eyes to look up at the face of the jock from the day before. He tried looking past his aggressor, seeing if there was any help to be had. There were students all around. About a third of them were standing around watching. The rest were walking by as if nothing were happening. He saw his Algebra teacher look right at them, shake her head in disgust, and then disappear into a classroom. Kyle's veins went icy when he realized that not even his teacher would help.
"I'm talking to you, fag," Christopher sneered in his face. "Your boyfriend wasn't as tough as he thought he was."
Kyle had no idea what the bully was talking about. His confusion wasn't able to show through the mask he was using to try and hide his fear.
"I notice that bitch isn't here today," continued Christopher. "That bitch messed up my jacket yesterday. I guess since that," he spit out the next word, "asshole took your payment yesterday, you can take his today."
Suddenly Kyle's world exploded. His gut was on fire. Christopher pulled his fist back and drove it for a second time into Kyle's stomach. Tears welled up in the boy's eyes as his body tried to double over in the jock's grip, but he didn't cry out. His head hung forward, his blonde bangs falling across his eyes as he fought to catch his breath. His first gasp tore through his throat just before Christopher slugged him once more.
Waves of dizziness washed over him as he fought to take a breath. His hearing and vision swam for a moment before steadying. He could just make out that Christopher was saying something else, but he couldn't comprehend the words' meaning.
"...join your boyfriend in the hospital, you freak." He slammed the smaller freshman back against the lockers. His shoulder tore across the metal handle at his back just as his head let out a sickening crack against the steel door. The snap of the reverberating metal door sounded over the gathered students in the hall, startling several of them. The jock launched a fourth and final jab before letting go of the freshman.
Quite a few students chuckled as Christopher stepped back. "Fucking faggots," he said, turning and walking away.
Kyle slid down the steel wall, not caring if his clothes or skin caught on the grates or handles. His eyes were awash with tears of pain. He couldn't make out any of the people standing around him. He heard someone mutter, "Man, he's wasted," but couldn't even make out if the voice belonged to a girl or a boy.
Small hands, not much bigger than his own, pulled him awkwardly to his feet. He shakily wiped his eyes enough to see that he was being helped up by a girl only a little bigger than himself. Embarrassed at being helped up by a girl after just taking a beating, he pushed away and drunkenly made his way past the milling students and into the closest bathroom. He hid in a stall, his adrenaline slowly fading, until well past the start of the first class.
He took stock, wincing as he probed and prodded himself. His stomach and ribs were quite painful to the touch. When he tried to stretch, he also found that the locker had torn the shoulder of his shirt, as well as scraping his skin enough that his fingertips were smeared with blood. He felt a knot on the back of his head, but couldn't tell if there was more blood there, because of the blood from his shoulder. Whether from the knock to the head or from the punches to the stomach, Kyle felt seriously nauseous.
He zoned for a moment, staring with unfocused eyes at the smears of blood on his fingertips. He relived the fight, every humiliating, painful moment of it, standing there straddling a dirty toilet in a shitty school. His heart burned with shame.
"I'm not even gay," he whispered into the silent bathroom. His whisper returned, bouncing off the tile walls to come back and mock him.