*EPIC* Chapter of NaNo

[tempered-rose.livejournal.com]

Title: The Eternal Heartache, Chapter Seven of ???
Characters (in this chapter): Cesc Fabregas, Bojan Krkic, Raul Gonzalez, Sergio Ramos, Lionel Messi, David Silva, Alexis Ruano Delgado, David Villa, John Terry (briefly)
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Um…I don’t know if it counts, but Nerd!Silva and a little bit of jerk!Villa
Words: This chapter 4,131 ; Total: 19,444
A/N: Um…I have no idea where all these words came from, but hey, I’m not complaining. Um…yes, Silva is a nerd in this chapter. So if you like nerdy boys and Silva…then…well… =-| I hope I don’t tick anybody off for that but anyway. Here’s the chapter and it has some silliness in it.



Last part here. All previous parts listed here.



Once the door opens, a new world is revealed. The sunlight is brilliantly blinding as it suddenly floods their senses. Once the initial shock has been overcome, the brilliant white light reveals the street outside. Unlike their last trip to get school supplies, the street is more active.

Luxury cars of different colors, most were either a sleek silver or a professional black, cruised up the passeig at their own speed of rich indifference. Some of those cars had their windows down, but most were rolled up. Cesc wondered about the people inside. He wondered what type of rich people they were; if they were the kind who were staunch and rich or the kind of rich people that wanted to share their wealth with the world.

Across the avenue, a man on a bicycle cruised down the concrete walkway. He cruised by at an easy pace, easily avoiding the people walking down the street—walking in the direction of the city center; the same direction as l’acadèmia. Cesc noticed that quite a few of the pedestrians were schoolboy age.

Cesc did not get a moment to study his realization further because from the building next door, an older boy with long brown hair walked out. Raul and Bojan both noticed this too and Raul lifted his hand to wave.

“Hi Sergio!” Raul calls over and the boy looks over and waves back.

“Hola Señor Gonzalez.” He bends down to pick up the morning paper and opens the door to his building again. He yells inside, throws the paper in the door, and then closes it. “Are those Señor Guardiola’s nephews?”

“Sí, that they are.” Raul says and walks down the steps.

“That’s cool.” The boy says and then walks down the rest of the stairs for his building. Cesc gets his first really good look at him. He wears jeans that have frayed ends and patches of worn places on the legs. His dark green t-shirt is faded and clings to his body like it is a second skin. He has a brown satchel bag that is slung over one shoulder that he adjusts as he throws something to the ground and steps on it. Cesc has never seen a skateboard before but as the boy, Sergio, slowly glides a few feet down the concrete, he guesses he can scratch that off his list of things to see.

Raul leads Bojan and Cesc down the stairs. The boy slows down his skateboarding long enough to call over his shoulder. “See you around school guys.”

Cesc and Bojan watch as the boy speeds up and flips the skateboard before proceeding along as it had never happened. Cesc is awed and, from the expression on Bojan’s face, he is too.

“Sergio is a bit…” Raul hesitates searching for the right words. “Erm…He’s a bit…”

“Different?” Cesc suggested and Raul nodded.

“Yes, he is very different. Thank you Cesc.” Raul smiles grateful.

They walk down the sidewalk, melding with the foot traffic on the same concrete path. They walk in silence for the most part. Raul occasionally says hello to people that he knows as they walk past. Cesc makes sure to keep Bojan in front of him at all times so that he can keep his eyes on the boy’s head. He was not comfortable being away from Bojan for several hours in a new place. He wasn’t comfortable being without him period.

Cesc fidgets with the strap of his satchel bag, one resembling the one Sergio had except a newer version, as he wonders if he will see Bojan at some point during the school day. Bojan himself is filled with great anxiety; his nervous feelings are not helped when he looks to Cesc for reassurance and sees matching worries dance across his face.

Cesc remembers from their earlier walks through the neighborhood where the school is. It is several blocks up on the corner on the opposite side of the street from where Pep lives. According to Pep, the school services several of the ‘nicer’ neighborhoods and that the school attendance was to be estimated around six hundred estudiants. Cesc didn’t know that there could be that many ‘nicer’ students that could all go to one school. Cesc couldn’t even remember if he had ever even seen six hundred people in one place before, regardless if they were children or not.

Soon, the last corner on their side of the street comes to an end. Cesc and Bojan get their first glimpse at what a school day at L'Acadèmia de Barcelona Per Nois looked like. From all the streets near and far, it seemed as if stream after stream of school children, more than a few of them were boys, were pouring into the school via the front doors. Cesc swallowed hard as he watched all the different types of people go inside. Some went in in pairs and others were in groups. It seemed as though no one was going in alone.

“Bon dia!” A very accented voice greeted in even more accented Catalan. Cesc and Bojan turned around to see the flower man, Señor Terry waving at them from behind a counter near the door. He stopped arranging a vase of lilies and walked out to stand with them on the corner. “I remember you boys, but then again I remember almost everyone who walks by my shop. And good morning to you Señor Gonzalez.”

“Bon dia, Señor Terry.” Raul greeted with another smile that Cesc was realizing was his trademark. “It is the boys first day of school today.”

“Oh how lovely. I remember my first day at school, of course it was not here.” The man reflected on a memory from long ago. At Raul’s throat clearing, he was pulled from his past and brought back to the future. “Forgive me. I wish you boys the best of luck. In fact,” he reached over to pluck a single daisy from one of his displays, “here you are lad. I saw you admiring them the other day.”

Bojan blushed but accepted the flower. “Gracias.”

The Englishman patted his head. He then tilted his head as he looked at Cesc. “You sir, are a very hard one to peg for your favorite flower.”

Cesc looked down, embarrassed. “I don’t have one.”

“Impossible!” The man exclaimed. “Everyone has a favorite flower. Hmm…” He hesitated in thought. “A lily?”

Cesc shook his head.

“A sunflower? Surely someone as fit as you appear to be likes sunflowers…” Again, Cesc shook his head. “Well don’t worry my boy, I will figure it out.”

Cesc felt very embarrassed but he did not continue the line of questioning. Raul seemed to feel bad enough for him that he decided to bail him out.

“Pardon me Señor, but I must get them into school. We wouldn’t want them to be late on their first day!”

“Oh no, certainly not. That would be most unpleasant.” The Englishman backed away from the group. “I wish you the best of luck boys, may you meet many interesting people and learn a lot today.”

The boys nodded and thanked the man for his time, Bojan also thanked him again for his flower, and they crossed the street. Cesc swallowed his nerves as the front door loomed closer with each footstep. It seemed that fewer people were coming in now; classes must have been getting ready to start, Cesc thought. As they arrive at the door Raul holds the door open and ushers the boys inside.

Cesc steps across the threshold and for what seemed to be the thousandth time, his jaw dropped. It was quite clear to see why this school was the rich people’s children’s school. A marble entryway with dual staircases, two going up with two going down, was alit with all the light let in from the enormous glass windows that lined the front of the building. A few feet from the bottom of each staircase a corridor went in either direction.

“Now from what I remember,” Raul said as he turned to the right. “The main office of administration is this way.”

“You went here?” Bojan asks, incredulous with not only that revelation but with the building itself. They follow Raul as he looks at the room names and numbers.

“Oh, no, definitely not. I will save that story for another time because it is much to long and to personal to tell in this academy. Bon dia Señora.” Raul greets the woman behind the desk in the admissions office as he walks in the door. The office is a collection of offices, Cesc realizes as he takes in the room. There is a desk out front and then a hallway that leads to several other offices.

“Buneas dias, Señor. Can I help you?” The woman, who looks quite at home in a rich school and even richer neighborhood, asks them with a voice of most unpleasantness.

“Sí, these two boys need schedules because they are starting today.” Raul handles her icy tone well and for that Cesc is most grateful. He would have died of embarrassment walking through that door on his own.

“Names?” She asks as she starts to type into her computer.

“Francesc and Bojan Guardiola.” Bojan and Cesc are both more than a little surprised that Pep enrolled the both of them under his last name. But as he repeated it inside his mind, Cesc Guardiola did not sound all that bad. It truly was the start of a new life.

However, at the mention of their uncle’s last name, the woman behind the desk seems to sit up a little straighter. “I apologize for my earlier behavior.”

Raul waves it off. “No need to worry about it Señora, things happen.”

“Sí señor, that they do. Here you go gentlemen.” She hands two freshly printed schedules to the boys.

Cesc looks over his timetable and finds that his classes suit him. Even his elective courses matched a few of his interests. He makes a mental note to ask how Pep knew these things as he looks at Bojan.

“When do you have your break?”

Bojan looked up from where he was reviewing his own perfectly matched schedule. “Um, fourteen thirty.”

“So do I!” Cesc grinned and Bojan smiled in return.

The woman, who was trying to get Raul’s attention by batting her overly made-up eyelashes at him, cleared her throat. “I will get an escort for the young men to show them around a little. Can I get you a cup of coffee or something señor?”

Raul dodges her flirtations by shaking his head with fake sorrow. “I am afraid I will be late to work if I do that, I apologize señora.”

“Oh, well that is okay. Another time perhaps?”

“Perhaps.” He agrees although Cesc knows that he will never take her up on it. She’s not his type, in more ways than one.

A door shuts in the innermost part of the office and a boy steps out. He makes a beeline for the door but the secretary calls him before he can make his escape.

“Oh Leo!” The boy freezes as if he were a mouse caught in a spotlight. Cesc looks him over and notices that he looks very familiar, but he could not quite place where he had seen him before. “Would you be willing to show these boys around so that they can find their classes?”

From the tone of voice she used, the boy did not really have any other options other than to flat out refuse. He clearly had enough manners not to do such a thing which lead to him accepting.

“Very good then. Boys, you can just follow Leo there and he will show you around.” The woman says and then resumes typing on her computer’s keyboard.

Raul smiles down at them again. “Have fun boys.”

They swallow thickly and then follow after the small boy, Leo, as he walks out of the office. He waits for them to catch up as they tell Raul goodbye. As soon as they have parted ways and are on their own again, Leo looks at them nervously.

“Um, what are your timetables?” Cesc hands him his as does Bojan. Leo looks at Cesc. “You’ll be in most of my friend David’s classes; he is the same grade as you. He’s very nice, quiet like me, but nice.” He then looks at Bojan’s. “And it looks like you are in most of mine.”

“Really?” Bojan asks and unknowingly takes a step closer.

“Yeah. Maths, Catalan, history are all the same. Your biology is different than mine and your two electives, but pretty much the same.” Leo looks at Bojan for a second and then he appears to look closer. “You were at Señor Reina’s store the other day, weren’t you?”

“Y-yes…?” Bojan hesitates and then he looks Leo over again.

“I was there with my mother.” He looks down, blushing slightly. “We um, we were looking at the suits.”

“Oh yes! I remember you now!” Bojan says excited that he remembered. Cesc remembers now too and he blushes at the thought of what happened to him a while after that in the dressing rooms…

Leo smiles. “Oh, come on, I had better introduce your friend…?”

“Brother, actually.” Cesc says as they start walking down the hallway, away from the entry hall.

“Oh sorry.” Leo apologizes with a twinge of red in his cheeks. “I should introduce you to my friend. He’s a perfectionist and has to be everywhere on time so he’ll be leaving the courtyard soon. He is always there this time of morning.”

Cesc admires at the routine that Leo and his friend David have set. He does not comment on it, but it still amazes him just the same that people actually had friends that knew their schedules.

Leo leads them through a series of corridors until he arrives at another door, which opens up to a hall of windows. The hallway is lit with natural light and Cesc sees the courtyard. Small hills are covered in green grass as boys, and a few girls, lounge around in groups in different places. They all sit on either benches or a few on their backpacks. It is a small space for the number of people in it, Cesc notices. But he had grown up around a place that was nothing but space.

Leo opens the door and waits until the two of them are following him again before walking off to find David. Cesc notices that he looks over to a group of boys laughing with a couple girls before he refocuses on finding his friend. Bojan notices too and looks at Cesc with a questioning look. Cesc shrugs and follows after their guide.

They finally realize where they are going when Leo zooms in on a small boy sitting in the corner on a bench, reading a book. He is small, just like Leo, and has brown hair. David, Cesc realizes when Leo starts in his direction, isn’t looking around or gawking at them like almost everyone else is.

“Hola David.” Leo says for a greeting and sits on the bench next to his friend. As if David had sensed that he was going to do that, or perhaps it was their routine, he had reached over and moved his bag so that Leo could sit. All while he had not looked up from his book. “This is Bojan and Cesc. Cesc has most of your classes.”

Leo introduces them and looks back over to where that same group of guys and girls were. David, however, carefully places his bookmark in the spine of the book and closes it softly. Cesc sees the word “Tolstoy” written on the cover and then does a double take when he looks up. The boy could not be more than Bojan’s age and yet he was in the same grade as Cesc? Impossible.

“Hi…” Cesc says nervously. The boy’s brown eyes kept looking at him.

“I’m David. David Silva.” He finally speaks and when he says his last name, Pep’s words click inside Cesc’s mind. ‘Oh the Silva’s are a nice family, very good friends. Loyal.’ Loyal they may be, Cesc thought, but he seemed to have left out the fact that the Silva’s son was high on intelligence.

“I’m Cesc. It’s nice to meet you.” Cesc smiles shakily. “This is my brother, Bojan.”

“Hello Bojan.” David’s voice is cool, studious, and had the air of being smart.

“Hi.” Bojan replied shyly.

David picked up his phone, a very expensive looking cell-phone, and checked the time. “Oh dear. I will miss Señora Delgado’s daily greeting. That is most unacceptable.”

Cesc, while he was not usually late all the time, was amazed that this boy seriously did not want to miss a teacher’s ‘hello’ for the morning. He looked at David bemused.

“Yes, Cesc, I am a nerd. But at least you will never see me fawning over a…” He shakes his head. “I cannot find the words to describe him.”

Leo’s head snaps away from where he had been staring at the boys and back to David. “‘He’ is perfect. And as for not fawning over someone, what do you call Villa?”

David’s cheeks turned pink but that did not stop him from standing up and adjusting his bag. “I call David Villa a person of interest. He is a very smart young man and—”

“Smart, yeah right. Since when do you call putting Vaseline on toilet seats for pure entertainment purposes smart?” Leo asks with a raised eyebrow. Cesc has to bite his tongue to keep from laughing.

“Well he hangs out with your Mr. Dreamy Eyes. Who is the smart one now?” David crosses his arms.

Before either one of them can say anything, Cesc and Bojan notice their neighbor Sergio walking by with another blonde boy. When the blonde notices David, he stops Sergio and they both walk over to join the ever-growing crowd.

“Hey Silva.” The blonde greets and Sergio just nods at Cesc and Bojan when they wave. Cesc absently wonders why he calls David by his last name and why David lets him.

“Hi Alexis.” David greets, his micro argument with Leo is over and his ‘I’m smarter than you and I know it’ tone returns.

“When you see my mom later, can you tell her I’ll be hanging out with Sese this afternoon?” Alexis twirls his hair around his finger as he asks.

“Of course I can Alexis. I was on my way to see her right now.” David says smiling.

“Thanks Silva.” Alexis ruffles David’s hair and smiles at Leo. “See you later guys. Come on Sese.”

“See you guys later.” Sergio says before he follows after Alexis.

“Cesc, we had better proceed to our first class otherwise we will be late.” David turns and starts for the door closest to them. Leo mouths along with his next sentence. “Tardiness is not in my vocabulary.”

Leo rolls his eyes at Bojan behind David’s back and Bojan stifles a giggle.

“I saw that my friend.” David says as the group walks into the corridor.

“You are lying, there was no way you could have!” Leo says appalled. He knew David was smart, but honestly, he couldn’t see everything as well as know about it.

David turns and looks at Leo with a look. “Oh my dear Lionel, when are you going to realize that glass gives off reflections? If you would like, I can explain the physics of how you are able to see yourself in reflections. It is quite simple really. First the light waves—”

“I already took physics David.” Leo says and then looks at Bojan. “We had better escape now otherwise you will be getting a physics lesson.” Bojan nods sheepishly and looks at David shyly. Meanwhile Leo speaks. “See you later Silva.”

Cesc swallows at being left alone with David. “So um, they call you Silva?”

“Yes, or David. I don’t mind really. Most people call me Silva though because I’m almost always in Villa’s classes.” If Cesc didn’t know any better, he could swear that David had sighed at the mention of Villa’s name.

“So, he’s Villa and you are Silva…?” Cesc asks for clarification.

“Yes, you are learning Cesc.” Cesc finds it more than a little weird that he is being told he is learning by a kid who is at least two years younger than he is.

“How old are you, if I may ask…?” Cesc hesitates as David leads them down the hall to a classroom.

“I will be fifteen in January. And before you ask, I have an I.Q. of one hundred and sixty seven.”

Cesc stopped in the hallway, despite those who were trying to get to class on time’s protests.

“Is there a problem?” David asks as he looks at the door that was only a few feet away and back at Cesc.

“No…” Cesc struggles for a way out of his stupor. “No, no, no problem.” He coughs and remembers himself. “Um, class?”

“This way.” David ignores Cesc’s moment of incredulousness. “This is Alexis’ mother’s class. She teaches maths.”

“Oh.” Cesc wonders how Alexis feels about his mother teaching in the same school he attends. “That’s nice.”

“Just do your work and she will treat you admirably. And she is quite nice to new students.” David says as he turns into her classroom.

Inside, Cesc sees a few boys lounging in the back. At the teacher’s desk, however, he sees a blonde woman and he notices that she is very pretty. Cesc thinks that there have been quite a few boys that have been smitten over her.

“Señora Delgado, this is Cesc. He’s new.” David says as he walks into the classroom to take a seat to the side.

“Oh, how lovely.” Señora Delgado comes around from where she was writing something on the whiteboard. “Cesc? I’m your maths teacher.”

“Nice to meet you ma’am.” Cesc feels the relaxed boys’ eyes on him and hopes he isn’t being judged too badly by them.

“How refreshing to have someone who actually has manners around here.” Señora Delgado smiles at him. “Take a seat, this is a pretty small class so there is lots of room. I will get you your textbook in a moment.”

Cesc nods and goes to sit near David. The bell rings a minute later and Señora Delgado turns to address the class. She gets no more than a ‘good morning’ out when in walks a boy.

Cesc swallows when he sees the boy. He was no Iker, but he wasn’t bad either. He was taller than him and definitely cockier. He had a swagger about him. From the way that the relaxed boys laughed when he entered suggested that he was the ‘leader’ of their clique.

“Nice of you to join us David.” Señora Delgado says with a tiny smile. “What happened to you today?”

“Well, ma’am, I was on my way to your class early this morning because I wanted to be on time.” The other David says in a voice that has ‘rich kid’ all in it.

“Go on Mister Villa, I know this story is going to be quite the tale.”

“Well, I ran into this girl and she needed some help, you see. And being the nice charitable guy I am, I had to help her.”

“Mm, and what did she need help with, mister Villa?”

Villa sat and latched his hands behind his head, the complete picture of relaxed. “She needed help getting out of her wet clothes.”

The other boys in the room burst out into loud fits of giggles as Cesc felt his stomach turn violently. He did not find the joke funny at all. Silva didn’t either, it seemed as he suddenly turned the page of his math book with more force than was necessary.

Señora Delgado shook her head at him. “If I weren’t such a nice teacher, I would have you sent to the headmaster’s office for that.”

Villa just grinned.

“How about we actually learn something now?” Señora Delgado asked rhetorically as she went to the small closet she had in her room. She disappeared for a second but returned with a fresh textbook. “Here you are Cesc.”

“Thank you ma’am.” Cesc said trying to recover from the wooziness he had felt a moment ago.

“You’re welcome. Now, let’s open to page number thirty one and there we will begin—”


Cesc wondered what else could possibly happen today. At least he had possibly made a new friend, two of them, in David and Leo. That was a start, wasn’t it?