The hollers and hoots from the crowd still haven't died in the last ten minutes. Mike snarls to himself as the sound beats through the locker room door.

There's no one else in the room with him, and there was a good reason why that was. It was a respect thing; you let the participates cool down after a match and shake hands and say good game and the rest of the usual sportsmanship shit. Then they both go back to being buds, or at least warm acquaintances. But in this case; it's probably going to be a while before he'll willingly talk to anyone again.

Not to mention trying to talk to the losing side after a core match could get your neck broken. Especially with Mike Schmidt.

His nose is bleeding, and he hasn't been able to stop it since the end of the match. But right now, it was the least of his concerns. Sure, his white tank was getting ruined, and he didn't look exactly quite as handsome with face partly caked with blood, but it's hard to pay attention to the tiny things like that when there's much bigger issues on your mind.

An image of wide emerald eyes appears suddenly in his mind, and Mike finds it very hard not to break his locker door off it's hinges.

Go figure that the best boxer in the state lost a match because a puny kid on the sidelines was so utterly distracting.

Ignoring his nose, he adjusts his beanie and focuses on his hands. The bandages wrapped them are bloodied at the knuckles, which luckily for him, are drier than what was on his face. He remembers his old couch reminding him to change them after every round, not just after a match. 'To prevent friction on the skin', he said. Mike roll his eyes at the memory. His knuckles were just as scraped underneath the wrappings as they would be without them.

He grinds his teeth, tuning out the loud cheering coming from the rink as he sticks two fingers in the first layer of the bandage, ready to pry them off. His brows furrow as he tugs, the wrappings not budging. Shocked, he brings his hands up to the front of his face, eyeing them carefully. God fucking dammit He was shaking. The loss was actually making him shake.

Too engrossed by the cheers and his hands, he doesn't hear the door creak open behind him.

"...H-hi...."

Mike whips around, instinctively baring his teeth. For a split second, he thinks it's Freddy, even though the voice is much too pitched for the chubby man. As he opens his mouth to snap at the newcomer, he freezes.

Because there in the locker room with him, all alone with no defense, is the same little photographer that indirectly ripped away his beloved title.

Motherfucker. This kid had a death wish.

The brunette is unable to look him in the eye, nervously wringing his hands around his camera bag straps. "I..uh, w-wanted to say I-I'm sorry...." He stammers, staring down at his worn sneakers. They're childish looking, with tiny stars dotted on around the hems. "Y-you know...for f-flashing you back at the r-rink-"

"You"

Mike's tone is incredibly dark. He doesn't care to soften it when the brunette's head pipes up, startled both at the voice and the blood trailing from the boxer's nose.

"What the fuck are you doing here?"

He can feel his hands twitch into fist, fingernails digging into his palm. The urge to hit something is strong, and growing. But as the brunette anxiously eyes his hands, he resists the urge and stills them best he could. He wanted answers first.

Green iris dart around the room, lingering on the door a split second before steadying. "I wanted to apologize..." He mummers. "I d-didn't mean to catch you off g-guard like t-that...I-I just wanted a picture. I didn't k-know that-"

"Does it look like I give a fuck whether you meant to do that or not?" Mike sneers, the bandages around his hands growing tight. "I was wining. I was about to kick Fredfuck's ass when you came along and burned my fucking eyes out." Ok, maybe he lied a little. It wasn't only the flash of light that caught his attention after all.

The teen shifts his feet. "R-right...I'm sorry"

"Sorry's not gonna cut it"

Mike took a aggressive step forward, sending the brunette back in response. "You've fucked me over. Do you have any idea what kind of shit I'm gonna get now that I've lost? I've never lost, kid, not once." He barks, "How the fuck did a little shit like you ruin me in one night?"

The photographer swallowed thickly, taking a step away from the boxer. He was intimidating, he knows this. So what the hell gave this puny looking kid the courage to waltz right up in here unannounced and start blabbing to him in the first place?

"Ok, Ok I k-know I did something w-wrong..." The teen waves his hands around, stalling. "B-but I've said I'm sorry, right? P-people still respect you. One little match i-isn't going to c-change tha-"

"Obviously you don't attend here. Not just because you're way too fucking dweeby, but because no one's told you who I am yet, have you?"

The brunette blinks, "N-No...But I'm sure-"

"No, you don't know. There's nothing to be sure about, dipshit. Because of you, I'm royally fucked now. Everything I've been working towards is gone." Mike slams his locker shut, a grin tugging at his lips when the teen flinched at the sound. He forced it back down.

He's met with a confused stare. "...I-uh...J-just because you lost one round doesn't mean-"

"It's got nothing to do with boxing, dumb ass. It's got to do with the shit people here. In case you haven't noticed, they're not exactly the accepting type" The wrath in the boxer's voice only grew, sending a pang of fear down the photographer's spine.

The younger male seems to ponder on his sentence, baffled. "But...they seemed f-friendly to me..." Mike rolls his eyes. "Yeah, I bet they did. From the looks of it, you're not anything like me"

Blinking, the photographer is at lost for words, unsure how to take the statement. Surely a kid like him wasn't as dense as he was playing, right? I mean, wasn't it clear to everybody who Mike Schmidt was? Just one look at him and you'd know half of his life-story. Only, he's kept it hidden and masked it with athletic achievements since he's enrolled in collage. This was supposed to be a new start for him.

"I d-don't understand..." The brunette wanders out loud, "The p-people in there....they r-really seemed to like you"

Mike sneers, wiping his face with the back of his hand when a droplet of blood trails to his teeth. "That's a fucking lie." He snarks, wiping his wet hand on his pants leg. "They don't like me. They just like what I'm capable of"

Green eyes widen and track the bloodied hand, a flash of worry sewn into his features. For some reason, seeing the emotion across the stranger's face was heavy-setting. Mike brings his hand up again, only to sigh when the blood continued to drip. He lets his fist drop; he'll worry about it later.

The teen on the other hand looks utterly disturbed by the liquid however. A smirk etches on the boxer's face. Dumb kid must be squeamish.

"Did you really think coming here was a good idea?" The threat was growing dangerously stronger in his voice, earning a uncomfortable shift from the younger male. "You think that you can fuck up my career and get away with it? That because you apologized, you're off the hook?" Mike mockingly shakes his head, curling his hands into fist. "That's pretty fucking stupid, kid..."

"...Why don't you think people like you?"

Mike freezes, eyeing the brunette suspiciously. Seriously? He was just threatening this kid and now he had the nerve to ask that kind of question. Go figure.

The teen shifts, rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly. "I-I mean...I don't k-know you at all. B-but I don't see a reason why p-people w-wouldn't like you!" The tone at the end of his sentence belts out like a child would spoken. To this, the blue eye glare thicken and rose a brow at the words, watching as the brunette caught himself, a flush of embarrassment rising to his cheeks.

"B-besides the f-fighting and all...."

"...Why do you want to know?"

To his surprise, the photographer confidently shrugs. "...Curious" There's a bit of guilt in his pitch, but it goes unnoticed.

Mike growls, taking the teen aback. It wasn't a metaphor either, but a real growl. A deep rumble coming from his chest as a tell-tell sign of aggressive hinting that he was probably getting a little to close to the edge at this point. Although a little afraid, the photographer doesn't seemed too shocked. He must have figured Mike to be quite the animalistic man already.

"New's flash, dweeb: I'm the local freak." He snaps, "-and I was real fucking close to erasing that title for me until you came along. Now everyone's gonna think I'm a fucking pansy"

Instead of the booming laughter or sympathetic look he was expecting, like he's received before, Mike can feel uncertainty stuck in his throat when the kid innocently tilts his head, emerald iris blinking in child-like wonder.

"That's silly" He boldly muses, "Why would you care what anyone thinks?"

Mike opens his mouth to bite back a retort, only to be left gaping. Fuck, he really didn't have a decent explanation for that one, did he?

His silence is cold but fluid, the teen waiting patiently as he collected his thoughts. The dweeb stood there, clad in his weird little sneakers, with his weird floofy hair, holding a weird looking camera, simply staring at the man. The same man he's wronged, and the same man who's been threatening him for the past twenty minutes, yet somehow, he's still polite and kind as ever; even going as far to openly apologize to a freak like him.

There's a little voice in the back of Mike's head. This kid was better than him, it said, a better person than he could ever be. He knew it, and as much as he hated it, believed it without a doubt, and he didn't even know the dweeb's name.

With this realization, a storm of hurt pride boils within him.

"Do me a favor and stop asking stupid questions," He barks, advancing on the photographer. "Your little apology doesn't change what you did. I don't care if it was an accident or not, it still happened. It's your fault I'm too ashamed to show my face, that Fredfuck's gonna have boasting rights for the next three fucking years."

He's getting dangerously close to the teen now, fingers curling in and out of a violent fist. In retaliation, the brunette is already taking three more steps back. "Ok! Ok! I get it...." He holds his arms to his chest, "I-I'll leave! You won't see me ever again-"

"Yeah, like I'm gonna let you go after this whole charade" Mike fumed, "If it was your plan to come in here just to piss me off more, you've succeeded. Better yet, congrats on over-doing it and causing me a whole fucking lot of trouble, dumbfuck. You're not leaving the room until I can return the favor...."

The brunette is shaking, goosebumps rolling over his skin as Mike cracked his knuckles. "I didn't mean it!" He stutters, his last line of defense diminishing. "T-the camera flash! N-not the apology! I'm sorry! I really am!"

The boxer takes another step forward. "Tough luck"

The brunette's takes a step back, whimpering as his back hits the wall. His mind ran through a multitude of options, sadly, the only possible ones allowing him to get hurt.

Desperate, he resorts to verbal offense. "Y-you'll just be a bully if you d-do this!"

To his horror, Mike smirks. "I already am"

He yelps as the front of his shirt is pulled forward, stilling as Mike steadied him for the beating. "Let me go!" He squirms, making no progress. "D-don't you see? M-maybe p-people don't like you because you do t-this kind of stuff! It's mean! It's b-bad!..It's....It's...." He trails off in a squeal as he's hoisted higher. Fuck, he was too innocent for this shit.

Mike rolls his eyes. "Fuck you. Fuck you for walking onto my campus like you own the place. You're real damn foolish waltzing into the rink too, my fucking territory. All ya had to do that press a little button on that camera of yours and bam, you've ruined my college years. Congrats on that. But no, you weren't finished, were you? Do you really think that if you skipped right in here unannounced, stuttering shit sorrys and apologies that I would just forget all about this because you're cute-?"

His sentence stops abruptly, the word rolling off his tongue before he could stop it. Emerald eyes halt in the midst of their panic, and rise to stare at him with bewilderment.

Mike bits his lip, wrinkling his nose as they locked in a dead stare. Then, those innocent eyes returned to the state of despair as the boxer pulls his arm back, finger's curled intently into a fist, ready for the beating. "Don't worry," He added, "I won't break anything important"

Horrified, the photographer shuts his eyes closed and raises his arms for what little defense he could muster. In the midst of the commotion, his pinkie brushes over something soft. Without thinking, he grabs it.

Mike froze dead as the feeling of something slipping off his head ran through him, his fist still held posed in the air.

The kid pulled his fucking beanie off.

Immediately, he drops the photographer, back-peddling away. Surprised to feel the ground underneath his feet again, the younger male steadies himself, eyes prying open to stare at what he held in his hand. It's a grey beanie. Simple, worn but soft, he blinks at it before turning his vision upwards, shocked at what he saw.

The very man who almost punched his face in a minute ago was now cowering on the other side of the room, a horrified expression painted on his face. He's holding shaky hands around his head, as if he was hiding something, and when the teen takes a brave motion forward, he takes an equal step back.

Dumbfounded, the photographer gives the beanie in his grasp a thoughtful look. Oh, how the tables have turned.

"...That's not yours" The older man speaks out, "Give it back to me"

Why the man just doesn't stomp up to him and take it was beyond the brunette completely. Still a little shaken from the minute before, he doesn't move from his spot. Mike emits some impatient, almost desperate noise from his corner.

It goes unacknowledged. "...You're really m-mean, you know" The teen speaks softly, rotating the article of clothing in this hands. "....Why are you?"

The man doesn't answer, swallowing thickly as green trailed up to observe his hands. Even though they clasped over the most of his skull, it was evident he didn't have any hair. Which wasn't uncommon, really. Short styles and close cuts were actually pretty popular among brutes, some rebels, even some nerds like himself were found of the trend.

He himself certainly wasn't, at least for his own image. He nervously reaches up and twirls a brown lock of hair around his finger as he thinks this, missing how icy eyes locked onto the notion. "Do I have to have a reason?"

The photographer ponders on the beanie a little more before mischievous smile tugs at his lips. He holds it in the air, uncharacteristically taunting the older man, sending a shudder down the boxer's spine. The brunette's trying to force the mischief back down, but it's failing. "You have to g-give me one to get your hat back!"

Fuck this kid. Fuck him and everything he stood for.

"Listen, dipshit, my morals aren't any of your business" Mike sneers, lips thinning into a line as the brunette inched a little closer. "Y-you almost beat me up! You could at least give me something..."

He's halfway across the room when Mike stumbles backwards, teeth bared in the defensive. "Don't come near me"

The younger male eyes him up and down, "Why?"

"...You don't want to see this"

"See what?"

"Something bad"

"But all y-you're hiding is your head" He muses, eyeing the older man's fingers. What? Did he have an embarrassing tattoo or something. Too be honest, he wouldn't be surprised if he did. College kids really went all out on risk nowadays.

Mike bits hit lip once more, frustration piling in his mind. "That's the point"

He backs up a little more, cursing under his breath as his heels hits the wall of lockers behind him. He briefly thinks about snatching the beanie and bolting from the room, leaving the kid to whatever assumption he could make up. But that would risk exposure, and he didn't need any more rumors floating around about him. No, he's getting enough harassment as he is.

They stand in silence, green trailing from his bandaged hands, down to the beanie, and back up to Mike again. Only when they land on his nose and chin, stained red with drying blood does the teen sigh to himself, swinging his camera off his shoulder and settling it on a nearby bench.

The boxer was hiding something, he was sure of it, and it seemed like he was pretty insistent on keeping his hands right atop his hairline. To better prove this, the younger male walks even closer to the inwardly fuming man, quiet and unsure of what to do.

His pupils shrank as the photographer smiles, pinching his nose.

Fuck. This. Kid.

Tan hands fly down to smaller ones, closing around the grasp and prying it away from his face. "What the fuck is wrong with you-?" Mike stops, realizing his mistake. Before he could shield himself again, he grims at emerald orbs spy up to his skull.

The photographer tilts his head at the scars. "That's what your so ashamed about?"

Rather than lashing out, like he had originally planned, Mike find himself stuck. Funny, he expected some sort of harsh insult or look of fright or sympathy or even disgust. Instead, with his hand still held firmly between the boxer's large palms, the teen stared up at the scars, face lightened with curiosity.

Honestly, he doesn't know what takes over the brunette when he raises his free hand to gently glide his thumb across the lines. "I d-don't get it..." He mummers, "Is this why you're such a bully? Because people don't like this?"

The question is left hanging in the air, more for himself than for Mike. He may not be an expert on social norms, considering he wasn't very outgoing himself to begin with. But he wasn't an outcast, not one of the most liked students either, so it was easy to understand both sides of the story when it came to personal acceptance. So why did he find it so hard to puzzle together why someone would be rejected for their appearance? Even better; someone like this boxer guy to even care?

Mike's frozen in place, unable to muster words or movement. There's a lump in his throat and a heat rising in his skin, an unfamiliar feeling he's never felt before.

"You're not...scared?" He whispers, "Creeped-out? Disgusted? Any of that?"

The younger male shakes his head, "No....Am I supposed to be?"

"...You were before..."

It takes a moment before his sentence smacks hard into the teen, realization hitting him like a truck. Gathering himself, he pulls away from the boxer, half expecting for the older man to lunge at him and take a swing. But to his relief, he stays in place, the most dastardly expression of confusion written across his features.

Ok, it's really awkward now. There's butterflies in the brunette's stomach, and he fidgets to quiet them down. "Your...uh...." He stammers, looking away. The bravery he had before slowly faded. "Y-your nose is still b-bleeding..."

Swallowing, Mike doesn't break eye contact as he raises a finger to tenderly tap his nose. He pulled it back, his fingertip wet. "Yeah, it is"