chalk ; tyrus {completed}

chapter 1 - a new neighbour

A/N: Hi! This is my first chaptered fic! I'm aiming for about 36k words across 28 chapters, and I'll hopefully be updating every 2 days.

~

There were 3 weeks until summer vacation, and that fact was pretty much the only thing motivating Cyrus to sit down at his desk after school and work on his assignments.

Everything went smoothly for about an hour - he had turned his phone off to avoid distraction, and put out a very bold sign on his door saying 'STUDYING.'

That was the point at which he began sneaking curious glances out of his window at the house next door. There had been a moving truck there yesterday, and he had yet to see who his new neighbours were.

Cyrus managed to finish his assignment about an hour later, despite his slight preoccupation, and he rushed downstairs when his dad called for dinner.

His eyes wandered to the window again when he came back up to his room later on, and when they landed on a boy his heart skipped a beat. Cyrus hesitantly approached the window to get a closer look, and his mouth dropped open in shock.

He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, very convinced that he was just seeing things, but when he opened them again the scene hadn't changed.

He was still in his bedroom, looking at his neighbour's house, and TJ Kippen was still sitting cross-legged on the driveway, holding chalk in his hand and admiring the pictures he had very clearly just drawn.

Cyrus let out a small, disbelieving laugh as he settled down on his desk-chair, his eyes wide as he peered out of his window.

There was no denying that it was TJ. Although he was missing his usual navy blue snap-back, his dirty blonde hair was gelled up as normal and he was wearing one of his (slightly obnoxious) red basketball hoodies.

Cyrus' eyes eventually wandered from the boy to all the chalk drawings that surrounded him on the driveway. It was explosion of rainbows and words and animals - essentially the very opposite things he associated with TJ Kippen.

The basketball captain, the guy with about a million obnoxious friends and most importantly - the guy who had a history with his best friend that made Cyrus enemies with him by default.

Although they had all been in middle school when TJ got Buffy temporarily suspended from the basketball team for doing his homework, he had never apologised to her. So she had never forgiven him, and they had continued disliking each other for the sake of disliking each other.

Cyrus tried to push this to the back of mind as he watched the boy work, his brows furrowed in concentration as he added details and patterns to all of his drawings. It felt wrong to admit that they were all good, but they were, and Cyrus found himself wondering if TJ did this kind of thing often.

Eventually, he was able to pry his eyes away from the sight by closing the curtains, and he resolved to keep them shut as much as he possibly could. All that separated their driveways was a flimsy white fence, and it'd be far too tempting to look at all of the rainbow chalk drawings.

~

Cyrus had honestly never cared much about TJ Kippen. He didn't get involved in Buffy's rants about him, and he most certainly never tried to speak to the boy. Or any of his friends for that matter. He was perfectly content with remaining somewhat neutral towards TJ, which resulted in simply not being acknowledged by him.

The following day though, he could barely keep his eyes off the athlete as he roamed the corridors with his friends. He blamed the universe entirely for deciding that TJ Kippen should move in next to him of all people. He wouldn't even be staring at the boy right if he hadn't of seen all of his rainbow chalk drawings.