"I'll know if I need to know. All in due time," Lucius said as he walked back to his dorm room. He'd been trying to figure out what exactly happened between Tissette and his fellow Student Agent Amelia, but eventually came up short after consulting his stashed knowledge of rumors and hearsays. He wasn't that worried about not finding out about it just yet though. As far as he read from a lot of novels, friendships fall apart for many different reasons, and he had better things to do than to speculate.

Lucius grinned as soon as he saw someone looking at him from the corner of his eye. With the most approachable smile he could muster, he walked towards that person and called out, "Gilly? Are you heading back to the dorms too?"

"Y-Yes I am," Gilly answered conservatively, his eyes planted firmly on the ground. "Wh-What's up?"

"The ceiling," Lucius said, attempting to land one of those Outwrolder jokes in hopes of lightening up the mood but to no avail. The joke landed on its face faster than he could eke out a fake laugh, which came out more as an awkward exhale than anything.

"Oh, haha. Right. W-Were inside a building after all. Gee, I walked right into that one," Gilly said with a rather dry smile much to Lucius's disappointment.

Perhaps I butchered the delivery? No. I should have pointed to the actual ceiling itself just to reinforce the impact. Curses, why didn't I think of that?!

Angry at himself for blowing such a simple joke, Lucius sighed as he walked alongside the timid Gilly. He was silent for a while, not knowing what to say after such an uncomfortable ice breaker. Fortunately though, for the most part, Gilly didn't seem all that bothered by his joke. He sensed more of a general unease, which was understandable given the manner they parted ways.

Of course, Lucius wasn't willing to give up on Gilly. Not a chance. He'd been carrying on with life with no one but himself to rely on and connect with for the past ten years of his life. He grew up, dreaming for someone to talk to and bond with, like friends that the heroes on his novels played, trained, and fought together with. If fictionary characters were allowed that, then surely he was too, wasn't he?

"So, what's up? Might there be anything new going on with you?" Lucius carried on with the conversation with a nervous grin, but he didn't look as nervous as Gilly did. Why the latter practically looked like he wanted to get out of there even if he had to run all over again, and he knew for a fact just from their very first conversation that Gilly hated running. Well, he hated anything to do with improving his Corpus, actually. It was one of the reasons why Lucius decided to shoulder Katherine's punishment alone back then in the first place.

"Nothing much really..." Beyond that, Gilly said nothing. A bead of sweat ran down his forehead as his eyes glazed over, not even bothering to throw even the quickest gaze at Lucius.

One look and Lucius knew that Gilly didn't want to be there at all, and the thought made him frown. If only Dario and the others hadn't messed it up, then he'd still have someone who was willing to talk to him for hours on end and lend him his possessions without him even asking. Gilly was someone he would've been delighted to call a 'true friend' just like in those sappy, yet wholesome stories he read. Now, however, he was ashamed to see that all that was left of the boy was a nervous mess all too afraid of being seen with him.

Dario and the others must've gotten into his head pretty bad. I wonder what I can do to win him back.

Despite the odds being against him, however, Lucius would be damned if he just gave his relationship with Gilly up. The boy had been one of the first few people he talked to ever since he got sent into the future. He would never just roll over and let Dario have his way for long. A plan to win Gilly back and stop the ruffians from harassing Tissette and the others hopefully once and for all.

For now, however, after seeing that Gilly wasn't willing to talk with him any further, he realized that he would have to wait until his plans come to fruition, and until then, he would have to settle with a passive Gilly who wouldn't even talk to him.

"If you don't want to talk right now then that is fine," Lucius said. "Though if Dario and his footsoldiers are the reason why you're avoiding me then don't worry. You won't have to be afraid of them for long."

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

"Why?" Gilly asked, finally breaking his silence before promptly halting his steps. With a sudden rise of tone that surprised Lucius, he continued, "Please don't tell me you're planning on antagonizing them just like Tissette and the others!"

Lucius narrowed his eyes. "Why not? They are the ones who're running around as if they're the kings of this place. Are they not like that just because they're members of the Shining Congregation? Surely you must agree that they must be put in their place sooner or later?"

"Put them in their place? What in the gods are you talking about Lucius?" Gilly asked incredulously. "D-Do you even hear what you're talking about or...or are you just stupid? Haven't I told you enough about them to make you want to avoid them or what?!"

Taken aback by Gilly's sudden outburst, Lucius stood motionless for a while as he took in the grave expression staring right back at him. He had never seen Gilly so animated before. He looked offended, somehow, and most definitely annoyed judging by the knot on his forehead that he rarely showed.

"I don't know why you seem to oppose me. Don't you want them gone and not bothering you ever again? Besides, surely you have seen how they acted against me? Against Tissette and—"

"I don't care!" Gully exclaimed as Lucius stared on, wide-eyed. "You might think ill of me from now on but I didn't get to stay here for this long by plotting revenge against guys like Dario, no. I simply kept my head down and let them walk all over me, and you should too! Why should we care about other people when we don't even have the ability to look after ourselves?"

Lucius tried to stomp down the confusingly intense anger after hearing Gilly's words, but a dark, sharp glare couldn't help break through his calm facade despite his best efforts as he replied, "Are you perhaps saying that you are content with letting them do this? Not fighting back at all? A coward trembling like a leaf in the wind?!"

As soon as these words escaped his mouth, he knew that he'd completely failed to keep his composure. Not only was he surprised by his own mistake, but for the very first time, he saw Gilly's eyes flare up with so much emotion and intensity that he almost thought he was dreaming. Coming from someone soft-spoken and aloof as Gilly, it really meant a lot for the boy to have that look on his face.

"What the hell would you know?!" Gilly shouted, almost looking as if he wanted to punch Lucius. His eyes were watery and his voice was shaking, but it didn't stop him from saying what he has to say as loud as his oft-gentle voice could that the students around them started to notice what was going on.

Lucius, for the most part, was unaware of the attention their conversation was getting from the others. He simply stared at Gilly, dumbfounded. Try as he might, he couldn't come up with a way to salvage the conversation. No books. No passages. No paragraphs. No witty lines of advice came to his mind. No amount of knowledge helped him, and for the very first time, he was truly stumped. He struggled to come up with a way to move on from the subject as he watched Gilly's tears finally fall from his eyes—the look on the boy's face slowly turning from contempt to that of regret and sadness.

Would it be better to just move on and start over with a completely new topic despite having already getting too far with the one he started with?

Maybe he should just stay silent until the atmosphere lightens, or perhaps even walk away from Gilly entirely?

What he was supposed to do, he didn't know. It was all like a rumble in his head. He thought of many things at once, but nothing at all was useful, really, for there were too many.

A second passed. Two. Five. Ten.

It took Lucius several moments to finally come up with a thought that not only he hated, but one he knew he thought of in the heat of the moment, but he couldn't stop.

Perhaps the one friend he had been looking forward to making really was gone.

Or maybe, just maybe, he just wasn't there in the first place.

Addled by the alien feelings and thoughts in his mind, Lucius was about to voice out that one thought that echoed in his mind when he saw someone approaching far behind Gilly that made his eyes sharpen that it almost bore holes through the person.

"Go away and leave."

"Wh-What?"

"Don't look back and just walk away. Slowly. Dario's here and he's coming my way."

"B-But—" Gilly paused, his eyes flitting left to right as he seemed to fight himself inside, but eventually averted his gaze before walking away just as Lucius suggested.

With Gilly now gone and out of the possible danger, Lucius finally turned his attention to Dario who was approaching him with a seething look from right under his curved horns that he could see even from several paces away.

It didn't take much from him to deduce that Dario was, to put it in the new Otherworld lingo he learned, pissed off, and it couldn't have happened in a worse possible time. After all, so was he, and he could only hope that he would be able to hold himself back from doing something stupid, like fighting someone whose Virtus he reasonably surmised had long surpassed 200, for example.

Lucius took a deep breath to calm his nerves, then opened his eyes with a casual smile. Whatever this was, he needed to at least try to diffuse the situation for his own sake. Just as he was getting ready to speak, however, he absently took a step back just as Dario's fist flew right past his face. The blow was so strong that he even felt a small breeze right under his chin, and even though he avoided it all thanks to his training meetings with Elrond, he had very little doubt that the bastard actually tried to take his damn head off.

"You're dead meat, you damn sniffer! Dead fuckin' meat!"