Sparrow Truman March 30th, 20XX

The class passed quickly and Finn looked at me like he had something to say but eventually decided against it. As soon as the bell went, he jumped out of his seat and sped out of the room.

Having let Finn slip through my grasp like that, I rushed to catch Melissa before she could escape as well and cornered her against the wall of the hallway. We got a few strange looks from other students that passed by but it didn’t bother me.

“What was that about?”

She gave me an irritating look that suggested she knew something about me I didn’t and shook her head flippantly.

“Nothing.”

Before I could probe any further, she reverted to her usual calm and collected self and ushered me to my next class. She was deflecting and actively hiding something from me, but the hard way she set her mouth made it clear that she wouldn’t tell me.

“If you don’t hurry, you’ll be late.”

I debated pushing the issue but eventually decided against it. Pushing her anymore would put a strain on our friendship that I didn’t think the topic was worth.

As for Finn, whatever he wanted to tell me, I would hear him out. If he wanted it badly enough to enlist Melissa, then he should want it enough to come to talk to me.

I’d wanted to get close to him at first but he’d always seemed slightly scared of me and would run away whenever I tried to talk to him. At first, I’d thought he was shy, but after seeing him interact normally with others, I figured he had a problem with me.

Then again, I was the only one at this school that knew he’d had to see a lawyer earlier. I didn’t know any details, but maybe he thought I did and felt awkward about it.

It was unexpected that he would suddenly want my help, but as long as it wasn’t anything too out there, then I would try my best.

The next class passed by quickly and soon it was lunchtime. Melissa emailed me a copy of her notes and ran off to the clubroom, leaving me alone to buy lunch from the cafeteria.

As seniors, we got two-hour lunch breaks, but the trip across the large campus took up about half an hour.

It was on my way back that I spotted a familiar head of black hair walking alone. He had his nose stuck in his phone and his lips moved as he read whatever was on the screen. The courtyard was all but empty, so it wasn’t bad. But I’d noticed he had a dangerous habit of not watching where he was going.

I debated going over and telling him to pay attention to where he walked but decided against it. After all, I wasn’t his real older sister and as much as I wanted to look after him, I wouldn’t do it at the cost of making him uncomfortable.

As soon as I faced away and walked a few steps, I heard the aggressive sound of water hitting a solid object and a wave of obnoxious giggling.

I turned on my heels in a manner just short of dramatic and shoved my plastic-wrapped sandwich into my pocket. As I headed towards Finn, I carefully noted the numbers on their track team uniforms before arriving at the soaked teenager.

I fished a towel out of my bag, glad I had brought a clean one today and handed it to him.

“Are you okay?”

He looked upset and frantically wiped down his phone before making it to his hair and body. It was only after making sure the device could still turn on and off that he finally looked up at me.

“Thanks, Sparrow. You’re a lifesaver.”

“No problem. What happened?”

“Beats me. Those idiots must have slipped or something.”

As he spoke, he took off his glasses and shook out his wet hair like a puppy. His mouth tilted into a discontent pout and he aggressively used the towel to get himself dry, but his hair stayed damp.

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With the usual obnoxious gel washed out, it flopped around attractively and grazed the nape of his neck. He finally lifted his face out of the towel and I got a good look at his face for what felt like the first time.

More so, I realized just how much of an injustice he did to his appearance.

He finished with the towel and flapped it out a few times before trying to hand it back to me. I pushed the damp rag back at him and held him back before he could walk away.

“What about your clothes? Do you have spares? or can you borrow any from a friend?”

An embarrassed expression blossomed on his face, and he avoided my gaze. I felt bad as I remembered how much time he spent alone but felt even worse when I heard his downcast response.

“I’m sure I could find one.”

My mind ran a few thousand steps per minute, and I came out with a solution. I grabbed him by the arm and took off at a fast pace, making him stumble as he tried to keep up with me. We were about the same height, but he was a slow walker and likely wasn’t used to walking with others.

“Come with me”

While he didn’t directly resist me, he gently attempted to pull his arm out of my hands as we walked.

“Where are we going?”

“To get you into dry clothes. We have a dryer in our department building, but it looks like your uniform is big on you. We can adjust it when we get there. I think we also have a few spares we could adjust for you.”

He followed instructions and stopped struggling but did not speed until I did. I pulled out my phone and called Melissa as we neared the room.

“Yeah, I’m on my way to the department building. Can you bring a sewing machine with you? Also, do we still have those uniforms donations from the seniors last year?”

Melissa sounded confused but responded quickly, anyway.

“No one has requested to use them yet.”

“Great. could you try to find some from the business department? Male ones. We’ll be there in about seven minutes so meet me there… No, I don’t particularly care how….but keep it legal. I really don’t want or need any more meetings with the administrators.”

I heard an odd sound behind me and turned around to see Finn’s head down and his shoulders shaking with silent laughter.

“Is something funny?”

He shook his head and stiffened, but attempted to relax. He was still uncomfortable with me, but I appreciated his attempt not to show it.

“I just never knew we had a mob boss inside the school”

I purposefully chose not to answer and continued walking, but I suddenly stopped feeling bad at all for what I wanted to do.

We arrived at the clubroom to see rows upon rows of uniforms from the business and management department. I briefly wondered how they had gotten so many since we’d only gotten about ten from the donations, but I got over it quicker than he did. Sometimes the best way to deal with my department was to ignore them until they went too far.

I grabbed the measuring tape and instructed him to get onto the model’s pedestal as I discussed with the girls what I wanted to do.

The quadruplets had tagged along with Melissa on her way here. They weren’t actually quadruplets and weren’t even from the same family. But they were closer than many real siblings that I knew and almost had a telepathic understanding of one another.

They flocked around Finn a few times before returning to me with sparkling eyes.

It was almost cute how carefully and quickly he followed my instructions, but I got too absorbed in planning to appreciate it. I saw why Will got so overprotective of me, though.

Having someone younger than you that would trust your decisions, even if they didn’t understand them, wasn’t a bad feeling at all.

One quadruplet took his measurements and ran off, making space for the other to work on him.

I pulled them away from him before Finn melted down and directed him over to a chair to calm down. The quads quickly switched targets and came over to me with questions, but I didn’t let them ask until I’d moved them to another room.

“Isn’t that Finn Hall?”

“I thought you said we should leave him alone?”

“Can make him over?”

“What about Alice?”

“Are we finally going at Alice?”

“Should we launch an official attack?”

The four girls spoke at the same time, and each question overlapped the other before I could reply. Their rapid-fire styles of conversation had made talking to them difficult when we’d first met, but I’d figured out how to handle them. I stayed silent until they finally calmed down enough to listen to me, but didn’t dally with giving a response.

“We’re not going against Alice, but we aren’t going along with her either. Its none of my business if Alice wants to act like a bully from a third rate young adult film, but Finn and my older brother are close. I should look out for him a bit. And yeah, go crazy with the makeover but remember we’re still at school.”

I knew little about Finn, but if he could afford my older brother as a lawyer, then he likely wasn’t poor. However, the cuffs on his sleeves showed signs of fraying and his pants looked baggy on his slender frame. His hair looked like he had cut it himself at home. Whether he really was struggling financially, or he just didn’t care that much about his appearance, I could at least treat him to a haircut and a new set of uniforms.

Rin was an experienced hairdresser since her mom was a celebrity hairstylist so I had asked her to give Finn a haircut, but as for the others… well, he wouldn’t leave looking worse than he had come.

We re-entered the room to see an awkward-looking Finn, who had changed into a spare uniform but hadn’t put on the tie or the blazer.

“Well, thanks for the spare clothes.. I’ll return this later.”

He held up the towel and prepared to leave, but the Quads quickly cornered him.

Like trained sheepdogs, they herded him back into the chair. Finn didn’t resist too much, but he sent me a desperate and confused look.

“Sparrow? what are your friends doing?”

I sent him as gentle of a smile as I could in return.

“I saw you handn’t gotten a haircut in a while and my friend needs a bit of practise. Would you mind?”

I somewhat felt bad for lying to him, but I convinced myself that it was for the greater good. After all, it wasn’t like I was hurting him.