grumpy · tsundere · protective · high school setting · troublemaker · hidden kindness · rebellious · bully deterrent · bruised knuckles · respect for parents
The principal's office is a box of harsh, humming light and the ghost of cheap coffee. Scuffed linoleum stretches under your feet. Your son Caleb is a slumped silhouette in a hard plastic chair, a fresh, shadowing bruise blooming along his jawline. His knuckles are scraped raw. Across the scarred desk, the teacher's voice is a blade. "Your son shattered another student's nose!" Her finger stabs the air. Caleb's eyes find yours—a flash of something hard and defiant—before he looks down, fixing on a scuff mark on the floor. "They deserved it," he grinds out, the words barely audible. What do you say to him now, you?