forum boarding school dark academia murder mystery queer love triangle rp (closed, but feel free to stalk <3)

Started April 13, 2020 by @darling-velocipede group

tune

Zephyr had been up far before light had so much as tasted the horizons, so went oblivious of the pavement-dark clouds smothering the sky until his oxfords hit the sidewalk outside his dorm building. Even then, he hardly noticed, though it was his favorite weather. The changes from the wooded scape of north dakota to the refreshingly urbanized campus of Thomas-Thyme Boarding School in Massachusetts were manifold in the environmental sense, and he cherished that on days like these. Everything was different in a social sense also. He preferred living alone as he did here; away from the noise of his family. He loved them, yes, and they tried their best, but it was quieter here.

Zephyr had always preferred the quiet.

He had friends here also, which he was far from used to. It certainly hadn’t been part of his plan to make any when he came here, as he had always found himself comfortable in solitude, but there was something about Leon that was so warm, something about Kate so explosive that he hardly had a choice.

His eyes ached behind his round, wire-rimmed spectacles as he hurried down the sidewalk– nearly three hours of reading small print by dim lamplight before dawn does that to a person. Still he couldn’t take even half a moment to stop and rub them. The tarnished silver watch weighing his right wrist told him he was already almost ten minutes late. And, knowing Kate, she’d likely been there for fifteen. Zephyr had started the morning with every intention to arrive on time, but one more page of his book on Pre-Socratic Scholars slipped into two, into three, and by the time they’d planned to meet he wasn’t properly dressed; hadn’t fixed his hair. Surely, he looked a mess in the clothes he’d thrown on, the comb he’d wreaked through the longer top part he usually spent a good few minutes and a healthy dose of pomade on. Even as he walked, he realized how painfully his deep orange slacks crashed with the trench coat he’d snagged from the coat hooks as he staggered out the door. But these worries were reassuring in their pettiness. His vanity kept his mind from… other, more troubling things. Like how he’d caught himself taking almost half an hour to puzzle out how to respond to Leon’s text of invitation to this very meeting, though it couldn’t have been interpreted as anything more than friendly and even if it had been, he would have shut her down. Yet, somehow, nowadays even the sight of her name on the illuminated screen of his phone made his heart murmur in a way he couldn’t say he cared for.

Zephyr had always preferred the quiet.

A soft chime rang from a little bell above the door as he shoved his way inside, almost tripping over his own feet as he walked briskly across the room to Kate. She caught his eye, nodded, and waved him over. He thought he’d be okay, but a yard from the table he noticed the scattering of freckles on her shoulders. A neutral, meaningless detail. But in the moment they felt like a punch to the stomach, another murmur from his heart.
“I’m going to get a coffee,” he muttered too quickly, not meeting her eyes as he threw down his messenger bag on the chair opposite to her and barreling towards the counter.

Zephyr had always preferred quiet.
So why couldn’t his stupid heart seem to shut up?

Leon wasn’t the type to ever flat-out ignore get-togethers. And the fact that she was the one who initiated it should have reinforced that decent habit. Unfortunately, it didn’t.
Though, it was somewhat true. She wasn’t just ignoring the “meeting.” She had simply forgot. Living alone with no one to remind her what she had planned was troublesome, to say the least.

Lee obliviously hummed along to the melody drifting from her phone. She was turned away with a hand tacking up a picture on her bare wall, so seeing her phone’s alarm was relatively impossible. And while it failed its duty in stopping her music to get attention, she’d see it soon enough. However, as time went on, and her picture-tacking ceased to end, she’d be later than usual.
Finally satisfied with the placement of the painting, she stepped back. Lee sucked in a deep breath, squinting her eyes and exhailing slowly through pursed lips. Her tired eyes wandered the barren wall— though, not barren for long. She had another pile of paintings to hang.
Her eyes soon drifted down to her phone. The case was littered with a constellation of paint splotches— as were her jeans— but she didn’t seem to mind. She raised an eyebrow, taking a moment to remember why she had actually set the alarm in the first place. With a sudden shooting realization, Lee yanked her dad’s old sage flight jacket from its stand, grabbed her phone, and strolled out the door. She didn’t bother to wipe the paint from her hands, smudges from her face, or fix her messy hair. She wasn’t ever too caught up in looks, especially if good ones took energy.

Flipping the lights out, she stepped out the door, closing it gently behind her. The thing couldn’t have taken more than that— it was the cheapest apartment she could find. Barely room for a bed, the studio didn’t serve much purpose besides basic shelter. Still, she didn’t mind. A house was a house.
Lee continued down the fire escape, the steps spitting her out behind the building. She swerved through a few alleys, utilizing her little knowledge of the city to take the quickest route. It wasn’t too long before the sauntered into the cafe.
With no surprise to her, Zephyr and Kate were already there. She gave them a quick smile, asking the barista for a water before heading over. Leon couldn’t have afforded much more— yet she was working two jobs back to back. All her savings would go to her brother and father— as she had promised.
She slid the water on the table, taking a seat and shoving her hands into the pockets of the flight jacket. The worn green fabric was littered with patches, and had been her favorite jacket since she was young. She couldn’t even remember ever wearing another.

Kate wished that she could say her friends’ lateness surprised her, but it was pretty much par for the course. Although it was a tad unusual for Leon to be quiet this late. She gave them each one the looks that she was famous for when they arrived tardy. While many people took this gazes to be annoying or even rude, Kate’s friends knew that while she was a bit annoyed at them, there was a fondness to it. There was a fondness, a softness, in every expression she had for these two goofballs. Especially Leon, her traitorous mind loved to remind her when the girl in question finally showed up.

Kate’s heart skipped a beat to see her, even with her paint splattered clothing. Her smile at that was every bit as teasing as it was caring. “I see that someone was in the middle of an art project,” she remarked, lips turning up at the corners. “Looks like you really got into it. It must be something special.”

She tried to glaze over the way that Zephyr had quickly dismissed her earlier, giving a quick hello and walking off to get a drink before she could truly respond. It annoyed her a bit, and yes, there was a pinprick of hurt there, but she tried to brush it off. They were best friends, surely Zephyr was just distracted. She tried not to think about it as she refocused on Leon, waiting for an answer. She wasn’t trying to ignore Zephyr, but him barely looking at her while they waited for Leon bothered her. When something was bothering Kate, she always seemed to let it show in little unconscious moments. Of course, she still hadn’t realized this about herself, and it was entirely possible that Zephyr had noticed her ever so slightly brushing him off like he had her. Kate had a habit of keeping her emotions very near the surface sometimes, especially with her best friends.

The combination of saccharine indie-pop piping through little speakers on the ceiling and the way Kate kept glancing at him, squinting, opening her mouth as if she had something to say, then closing it again without a word had grated Zephyr’s nerves to a jagged stump by the time Leon arrived. Kate’s greeting to the other girl, which seemed so painfully jolly in the wake of their shared uneasy, silence sealed the deal. He couldn’t imagine how he could have so swiftly offended her; it was as though his very presence was enough to irritate her. This is Kate, he reminded himself. She’s silly and sensitive, this isn’t new news. If he felt any guilt at whatever he may have done, it was clouded out by the sting of her slight.
“No, not really.” Leon’s response to Kate’s inquiry returned Zephyr to the moment. “Just hanging some old stuff up, daydreaming. You know.” Her voice was sincere yet undemanding. Her eyes, though a glittering blue, shone with grains of orange in the rays of orange in the pale sunshine that managed to weave it’s way through the clouds and into the cafe.
“Don’t you want something other than that?” Zephyr asked distractedly, nodding to Leon’s glass of ice water.
“Seriously?” Kate butted in. “Mister oblivious, right here. Glad you can afford a seven dollar coffee whenever you feel like it, Zeph.” He hated when people called him that. Kate was the only one who ever did.
Zephyr squinted back in disbelief. “But your drink cost more than mine! You’re far from struggling.” A poison burned behind Kate’s eyes, and Zephyr had to grit his teeth to avoid looking away, to avoid losing. Yeah, Kate was pretty. But a handful of minutes with her made Zephyr plainly recall why he could hardly stand to speak to her.
“Guys, let’s not.” Leon interrupted, soft and confident in equal measure. “There’s no point in this. And it’s our last year here. There’s not much time to waste.”
Kate’s eyes darted back and forth, Leon to Zephyr and back again as she tried to decide whether to continue the fight. But Zephyr knew she’d give in to Leon– she’d said the magic words. Though oft-unspoken, the countdown was on for their time together. And neither of the three of them was dull enough to believe they wouldn’t all be going their separate ways when high school ended.
“I… guess you’re right, Lee,” Kate resolved, shooting one last toxic glance at Zephyr, who smiled lazily, impassively. He wasn’t in the habit of faking repentance.
“Would anyone care to tell me why we’re even here?”
“Because we’re friends.” Leon sighed, face flat. When Leon was beginning to get irritated, even Zephyr could tell things were falling apart.
“If we don’t have anything to actually talk about,” he hurried on, “I found something at the library the other day.”
“Oh, imagine that. Everyone’s favorite scholar in the library.” Zephyr was surprised the sarcasm Kate’s words were drenched in didn’t drip down and burn holes in the table.
“I was at the library the other day and I found this.” He pulled a neatly folded print of a scan of a newspaper article from a pocket of his book bag and slid it across the table towards the girls. “A professor died here, nearly 50 years ago now. They never figured out who did it. Didn’t find much evidence at all, really. But he was found under a bridge on the other side of campus. With a gold-gilded dagger through his heart.” The air around them hummed, electric.

Leon gave a sort of passive tired smile, her eyes duller than before. Zephyr and Kate had always been quick to go at it, and Lee loved her own sidelines. It had been a life from the bleachers, and she couldn’t say she hated it. If anything, her sun-soaked bleachers were a safe space. Where the metal was warm, the stands empty and peaceful; a perfect vantage point for what happened on the field. It was clear that Zephyr and Kate were starting players, though, always stepping out to the turf. And here Lee would be, cheering them on or offering them a side of the bench when one of them got too tired.

She had always liked the benches lining the sidelines. It was a place to offer people a peaceful seat beside her.

However, the sudden information posed by Zephyr bit at her skin, the coldness creeping in under her heavy jacket. Still, she showed no sign of her change in tone, just calmly looking over to the boy beside her.
“What about him?” she mumurmed, her voice a sort of melodic hum. Although, when Zephyr met her eyes, it took her quite a while to form the words. The sun beating off the beautiful deep chocolate irises, and illuminating his face perfectly…
She shook the thought somewhat brutally aside. Leon didn’t want to have to deal with that feeling now. In fact, she didn’t want to have to deal with it ever. That was a part she’d keep down— deeper than the rest of her emotions, which always ceased to boil over. She had been doing it already for long enough. Why stop now?

“Yeah,” Kate yipped, breaking Leon’s thoughts. Her eyes flicked back up to the conversation as Kate continued. “What’d you find?”
Zephyr, who had been staying inherently still, gave a light sigh.
“First of all,” he said, voice bolder now that he was in his domain of books and the like. “I believe it’s quite interesting— the whole situation. The whole story is decently entertaining, and I suggest reading some of the background of the school—.”
Kate raised an eyebrow, drawing her latte closer. “Is there a punchline, Zeph?”
The boy stopped, taking a brief moment to adjust his wire-frame glasses before continuing.
“I was just going to say, the whole situation is odd, is it not?” he muttered with a lowered voice. There was a slight hint of curiosity to it.
“Are you suggesting we investigate it?” Kate asked, no hint to read on her emotionless face.
Before Zephyr could answer, Leon sat up, laying a hand passively on the table.
“I’m in,” she said, her voice stronger. It was shocking, to say the least. Never before had she been so bold as to purposefully get roped into some mystery mission.

Leon had always liked the benches on the sidelines. Though, it was nice to go out on the field once in a while.

Kate's eyes widened. Out of the three of them, she would definitely have thought Leon least likely to go along with some mystery investigation into the murder of a random professor. It wouldn't be the first time she was wrong about one of the members of their little group. Kate always stated her opinion in situations like this, but for once Leon had beat her to the punch. She wasn't sure how to feel.

"I'm in too," Zephyr agreed, the two of them looking annoyingly friendly. Something about it made Kate more angry at Zephyr. She had to be reasonable, and stop her anger now before it escalated and ruined something.

"So is some kind of Scooby Doo thing? Like we're all going to be happy friends who solve mysteries now?" Kate asked, narrowing her eyes. Okay, so that wasn't exactly fixing it. Why did she do this to herself?

Kate's attitude had obviously annoyed the others, Zephyr especially. Leon's face fell a bit, and Kate instantly felt bad–not just for her last slight, but for being a bitch today when her friends clearly just wanted to be, well, friendly. At least Leon definitely did. Zephyr was being weird. Of course, it wasn't the first time. Kate just had to lay down her weapons and agree. It shouldn't be so hard.

"Come on, Kate," Leon responded, her expression kind, like usual. Leon always seemed to be playing the mediator with her and Zephyr when they were being dumb, which was a lot. Kate pursed her lips, staring at nothing for a moment before giving in.

"Fine," she sighed. "But only because it's our last year together." She gave both of them a smile, her animosity temporarily forgotten.

"So how do you propose we get started with this?" Argument dropped, Kate seemed almost gleeful. Or maybe that had more to do with how Leon was studying her; a thoughtful sort of expression, equal parts relief, a sort of admiration, and something else too hard to place. This was the undercurrent to every one of their meetings recently, far more subtle than the way their time together was winding down, though infinitely more painful for Zephyr. He was already beginning to regret even leaving his desk that morning.
"On second thought, what if this is a bad idea?" Zephyr ventured lamely. "It might take time that should be spent studying. Or something." Both girls looked at him perplexedly and Zephyr's neck burned. He'd never enjoyed people looking at him like he was an idiot. Taking a swig of his coffee and wishing it was something stronger, he braced himself for another contradiction and the resulting bout of confusion.
"Gah, never mind. If we're going to do this I suppose we should start at the library, find what news we can about the murder. Or suicide. It could have been a very aesthetic suicide." Swallowing the rest of his coffee and tossing down a few dollar tip while avoiding Kate and Leon's gazes was no easy feat, but he managed it, pulling on his coat as he moved for the door. He could feel their eyes on his back.
Another thing for them to do together, sneered a petty corner of his mind. He knew how irrational the thought was, how foolish it would be to find irritation in their alliance against his odd behavior, but he still had to swallow his pride in order to slow down and wait for them to follow him out the door.

Leon watched as Zephyr discreetly tipped the server. How she wished she could do the same.
Though the water wasn’t much, she liked to be kind where she could. And unfortunately… there were times when she couldn’t. This was one of those times.
She took another sip from the plastic straw, her eyes following Zephyr as he pushed to the door. She gave a small glance back to Kate, who was already up and walking after him, remarks of sarcastic wit at the tip of her tongue. Though Leon drowned it out; she was just simply happy they would be going on an adventure.

While she was quite the quiet one, she loved a little exploration once in a while.

She watched as the two made their way to the door, her heart swelling. It may have just been the light music with the evening sun casting a passive orange glow on the cafe, and the way they bickered on their way to the door, but she was happy. More content than she had been in a while.
Not to mention, equally as scared. The full feeling in her heart… while it was something to be acknowledged, she wanted to push it down with the rest. She loved these people. As friends.

With a last peaceful smile, she pushed herself to her feet, tossing the empty water cup to the trash and slipping both of her hands within her flight jacket. It was tearing at the seams, but the worn-ness was comfortable. She joined her friends by the door, following out after Kate, who followed nonchalantly behind Zephyr. Book-ends, it had been a habit of theirs. Once the walkway widened, they all walked side-by-side, Kate taking up the middle and Leon closest to the street. Their shadows cast among the walls to buildings, walking just paces behind.
“So,” Kate began, turning her attention to Zephyr. “Any ideas once we get to the library? Do you even know of any other… documentations?”
“Not a clue, but I’m sure there’s something,” he replied. Kate gave a half-hearted nod, their footsteps filling the growing silence.