"What is your damage?" Claude asked, his lip twitching a little in annoyance as he stared at the older boy. 

"I'm sick and tired of your constant games, pretty boy, that's what," the upperclassman, Anthony, sneered mockingly. "Other guys might love you because you're pretty and room with Chris, but I'm not some sort of stupid sheep. You're not the king of this school, and I'm here to show you your damn place!"

"Hey, cut it out!" a boy standing near them shouted.

"Yeah! Leave Claude alone! another replied.

"Anthony is right! Show him he can't do just whatever he pleases here just because he is pretty!"

"Claude don't listen to them, they're just jealous because their own rank was lowered this morning!"

"Go Anthony! Show who is the man here!

The boys started yelling in unison, one side, which was the clear majority, cheering for Claude, another for Anthony. The two boys in the middle of the whole storm kept staring at each other, blue eyes meeting green with a taunt.

"I'm not going to fight you, Anthony. It proves nothing," the blond replied calmly, but his confrontational look had not disappeared from his face.

Then, as a reply, Anthony slapped Claude's cheek, and all the boys around them gasped almost exaggeratedly.

"It's a duel!" one of the boys shouted. "How old fashioned!"

"There is gonna be a fight!" another yelled, and at that moment all the boys gathered around Anthony and Claude, forming a circle.

"What is it, Claude? Scared?" Anthony jeered and cracked his knuckles. "You might look like a girl, but no other boy is coming to your rescue, princess."

Claude laughed loudly.

"Is that supposed to insult me?" he asked and his expression started forming a viciously arrogant smile. "I know what I look like. Congratulations for having eyes, Anthony," Claude continued with the kind of cocky self confidence that made Anthony grit his teeth visibly.

"Shut up!" the other boy yelled and charged at Claude. However, Claude managed to avoid the attack easily and jumped out of the angry upperclassman's way. Quickly he rolled up his sleeves and then gestured Anthony to come at him.

"Try me," he seemed to say, with an arrogance a boy as small and weak as Claude should in no way display to someone clearly stronger than him.

"To hell with you!" Anthony yelled again, this time even angrier after having his first attack missed.

Claude avoided him again.

"Stop dodging me! he screamed and gave Claude no rest. The self assured expression had disappeared from Claude's face, but it was simply because he was focused: even one misstep and his entire face would be disfigured forever by Anthony's large, strong fists that currently were punching air, but could very likely hit Claude if he wasn't careful.

But no matter how Anthony tried, he couldn't hit Claude. Claude, in turn, didn't even try to land a hit on his opponent, and instead fully focused on avoiding the other boy and his rage.

A junior student, Thomas, was watching all this from the sidelines.

"This is like a bullfight..." Thomas whispered to himself. He was standing a little further away from the circle of enthusiastic boys watching the battle, but nevertheless Thomas was looking at the fight with a keen eye.

The PE hall's door opened next to him, and in dashed Chris, the prefect.

"What's this commotion?!" Chris asked but didn't raise his voice: he saw Thomas was standing right there, and clearly decided to ask him first instead before stopping anything.

"There is a fight going on," Thomas replied calmly.

"Oh, great," Chris sighed and held his hand against his head. "Who this time. Marth and Jones? Or is it those Edmund and Oliver at it again?"

"Claude and Anthony," the younger boy answered.

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"Claude?" the prefect's eyebrows raised. "What, why?"

"Some upperclassmen don't like him and his guts, and Anthony decided to teach him a lesson, apparently. Are you going to stop them?" Thomas was curious of what Chris would do: normally he would have called the fight over already, but now he was clearly holding himself back.

"Hoo boy," the prefect sighed again, but this time smiling a little. He leaned against the wall next to Thomas. "Let them continue."

"But why?" Thomas asked silently. He didn't understand Chris' reasoning. "Claude is going to get hurt."

"No he won't," Chris replied firmly, looking serious, almost bored with his eyes half closed. "Anthony made a mistake in starting this kind of battle with Claude."

"He did?"

"Yeah. Claude might not be very strong or tall. His built is very delicate, actually. Once punch and he'll be on the floor."

"I can see that. So, why?"

"Claude never gets involved into anything he isn't certain of being able to go through. It just isn't something he does, simply." Chris shrugged, but this time with a small grin. "As his roommate I have already seen just what kind of wits that boy has. Anthony will lose. I'm sure of it."

The two turned their attention back to the fight. Anthony had started to get tired now, one useless charge after another. He had tried to hit Claude, kick him, punch him and even use his entire body to slam Claude on the ground. But the blond just kept dodging and avoiding his attacks, moving like this was some sort of dance competition. And, much to Anthony's dismay, Claude seemed nowhere near as tired as he was. He wasn't smiling nor did he have strength to provoke Anthony, but his breathing had not gone particularly heavy or fast quite yet unlike Anthony's, who was already panting.

"You... son of a bitch..." he huffed and swung his massive hand, only managing to partially touch Claude's ponytail as he yielded once more.

"What is it, Anthony? Are you staring to get tired?" a boy from the circle of spectators shouted.

"Shut up!" the older boy yelled, and at that moment his attention was taken away from Claude. Claude saw his chance coming, and using his upper body to balance himself, the blond used his lower body to tackle the unsuspecting Anthony onto the ground.

Surprised by Claude's sudden attack, Anthony yelled as he hit the ground with a loud thud. However, he still had the strength to immediately roll himself away from Claude's upcoming kick, and he managed to avoid it just barely. The audience screamed at this sudden change in offense and defense.

"Anthony won't give up with something like this," Thomas commented.

"Wait for it," Chris said and crossed his arms.

Anthony had cleared his head and was now standing again.

"Shut up, shut up, shut up!" he yelled at the excitedly screaming audience. "I still haven't lost! I won't... I won't lose to someone like him!"

He stood up and angrily tried to punch the blond standing in front of him. However, Claude knelt down and avoided the attack, and before Anthony could balance himself back after his strike, Claude used all his strength to bolt up from the ground level and punch Anthony right into his jaw.

The audience broke into cheers and screams as the older boy physically jumped up a little from the impact. Claude had to balance himself back again too from using his entire body to the attack: it seemed he had hurt his own hand in the process, but it didn't seem to be anything major.

Anthony fell on the ground, and this time he didn't move for a while.

"Did Claude kill him?!" a high pitched voice of a younger student gasped.

"No, idiot! He is just knocked out!" another replied.

"He is coming back to his senses again!"

Anthony groaned on the floor but he didn't stand up. Claude was standing further away from him, huffing, unable to keep his posture straight anymore.

"Claude is the winner!" the audience the started screaming in unison. "Claude did it! He actually beat Anthony!"

"With only two whole strikes, nonetheless!"

Anthony's friends rushed to check on their friend, but the other boys started approaching Claude and cheering for him. However, they couldn't get far as Chris raised his voice.

"Alright, enough of this show!" he yelled and clapped his hands together. "You all are grounded, immediately go to the headmaster's office for a punishment for this ridiculous act."

He turned his attention to Anthony's friends. "You there, take your hot-blooded friend to the nurse's office and then follow the other boys to the office."

Chris then looked at Claude. "And Claude, you'll stay."

After he was done yelling, all the boys started dragging themselves out of the hall, some muttering curses at Chris from under their breath. The prefect, however, feigned ignorance at that and instead waited for Claude to come to him.

The two boys stood face-to-face in silence until the hallway was completely empty - Thomas leaving as the last person.

"Claude, I'm disappointed in you," Chris finally started.

"That's what you say, but you didn't even try stop the fight. You knew I would win," Claude replied and attempted a smirk, but he was far too tired to do so.

"Shut up, I didn't ask for your opinion on my judgement."

"So, what is my punishment?" Claude asked as if he couldn't care less, but Chris being mad at him did hurt him a tiny bit. But Claude was, ultimately, too proud of his own win to feel any guilt, and he knew Chris well enough to tell he would not give him a hard punishment. Claude was special, after all. He was certain of it.

"Are you going to kiss me as punishment?" he suggested teasingly.

"The only thing you'll be kissing is dust. Claude, you'll do volunteer cleaning work in the old history classroom for one week. Alone."

"W-what? B-but it's so dirty there?" Claude huffed, not believing what he had just heard.

"Precisely. I expect you to do as good work dodging the spider webs as you did dodging Anthony there," Chris smiled. "You're dismissed. Go to your room, you won't get any food today."

Claude felt angry and offended for actually been given a punishment like this, but he couldn't help but feel glad Chris had, more or less, given him special treatment anyway. Without saying a word, Claude walked past Chris towards the doors.

Only when he was already holding the door's handle, he turned slightly around and said: "So, who did you place your bets on?"

Chris didn't answer.