That night, Sebastian unloaded his art supplies and replaced them with all of his textbooks. As he was doing that, he remembered that Delilah had lent him her copy of The Zero Eclipse. He figured that since there was a bit of time left before he had to go to bed, he would fire it up and see what the game was about. The problem was that the game was so good that he ended up losing track of time. By the time he looked at the clock, it was nearly midnight. Jolted by that realization, he quickly saved and shut everything down.

He would pay for that the next morning as he was forced back to the world of the living by a screeching alarm clock. He smashed the button and pulled himself out of bed. After his typical morning routine, he almost succumbed to his regularly scheduled habits and was about to leave through the back door.

Wait… Delilah said that she wanted to walk to school together. That means that I’ll have to go out the front so I can meet her. Maybe I should have told her about my shortcut. Oh well, it’s only an extra minute out of the way. Not like it’s a big deal or anything.

Sebastian switched directions and headed out the front door. Their timing couldn’t have been more impeccable, though, because as he walked down the road toward the corner, Delilah could be seen walking there, too. At their current speeds, they would meet up at the corner at almost the same time. Sebastian chuckled to himself because he thought of it as a well-timed final scene from a cheap movie. However, what Delilah didn’t know was that when Sebastian woke up this morning, he decided to give her a bit of a surprise.

“Good Morning, Sebby!”

“Good Morning, Lilah!”

It took a second or two for it to register but when it did, she smiled and let out a gentle giggle.

“You gave me a nickname!”

“Just thought that I would return the favor. Is it okay?”

“Yeah! I love it! I’ll be your Lilah and you can be my Sebby!”

Sebastian didn’t have an answer for that in the vocal sense. Instead, he gave her a warm and friendly smile. As they walked to school together, Delilah tapped him on the shoulder and pulled a piece of paper out of her backpack.

“Hey. I practiced some more last night after you left. Do you think there was an improvement?”

She handed him the paper. When he unfolded it, he saw a sketch that was ten times better than the one she had presented to him before. Sure, there were some proportion issues still but they weren’t as glaring as the ones before. The shading still needed some adjustments and her line work was a mixture of harsh and smooth strokes. It was apparent that there were areas where she practiced the wrist control that he showed her and areas where she didn’t. Overall, it was a huge improvement and he was surprised that it looked that good only after that short amount of time.

One thing he did take notice of, though, was that there was a lot of smudges and lead residue all over the paper. That meant that she had drawn and erased her lines over and over again. They probably didn’t come out the way she had hoped and this finished product was the result of many failed attempts. It also meant that she had worked very hard on it to present this to him. He knew that he had to offer some words of encouragement and not let something just slip out of his mouth as he did last time.

“You did this last night?”

“Yep!”

“I’ll start with the fair critique. The line work is a little inconsistent but it shows that you practiced the technique I showed you. It looks like you practiced the parts you were most comfortable with doing and that, to me, is the best path to perfecting it. Once you master the areas you’re comfortable with, move on to the ones that you’re not and get better. Also, the proportions are slightly off but it’s not too noticeable. With that being said, it’s truly amazing you came this far just after the little time we spent together. You’re way further ahead than me when you compare your length of experience. In short, this is really, really good! I’m proud of you!”

He went to hand it back to her and that’s when he noticed an odd combination. Delilah had a huge smile on her face but she also had tears in her eyes. She wasn’t crying because her feelings were hurt but rather the opposite… she was so happy, the tears just came naturally; however, Sebastian didn’t know what to think, and after what happened last time, seeing those tears caused him to immediately tense up.

“Did… I say something wrong again?”

Delilah stopped walking and shook her head ‘no.’ Sebastian stopped as well and that’s when she stepped in and wrapped her arms around him.

“Thank you, Sebby! I worked hard on it and I’m so happy that you thought that I got better. It’s all because of you so, again, thank you for helping me out! You don’t know how much it means to me!”

Oh, she’s crying because she’s happy. I’ve never seen that before, to be honest. I was scared I did something wrong again but, that’s a bit of a relief. This is also the second hug I’ve received from her, and I have to say, I’m still not used to this sort of thing. It feels great, though. It’s warm and she smells nice but, somehow, I just have this unnatural feeling as if I don’t deserve to be hugged. I’m sure over time that feeling will fade but it doesn’t help me now.

Before he could even finish his thoughts, she let go and started walking again. The rest of the way there, Sebastian changed up the subject and told her that he had started playing The Zero Eclipse last night. Delilah wondered how he liked it and he confessed that he didn’t go to bed until almost midnight. He apologized if he seemed a bit tired but the game was the reason why. She giggled but was happy that he liked it but she sternly reminded him not to give away any spoilers.

When they arrived at class, Sebastian was a bit parched from all of the talking they did. After all, he normally walked to school alone in silence so it wasn’t something he was used to. He excused himself and said he was going to go buy a water since they still had some time before class began. A few students were already there in the classroom, Bryce, Shiloh, and Kayla included; however, Jessika, the girl who sat behind her was there and tapped her on the shoulder when she sat down.

“Hey, Delilah?”

“Hey! Jessika, right?”

“Yep, that’s me! Say, are you doing anything for lunch today?”

“I don’t have any plans yet, why?”

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“It’s just that it’s been a bit since you transferred in and I noticed that you eat lunch alone here in the classroom sometimes. I was just wondering if you wanted to hang out today.”

“Oh! Sure! I’d love to! Sometimes Sebastian likes to hang out with me at lunch. Would it be okay if he tagged along, too?”

“Normally, I wouldn’t mind but I was just wondering if it could be just the two of us today.”

Delilah internally raised an eyebrow. She had a suspicion but figured that maybe she just wanted to get to know her and didn’t want the conversation to derail.

“That’s fine.”

“Cool!”

Sebastian returned shortly after empty-handed. When he took his seat, Delilah glanced over looking a bit perplexed.

“I thought you went to go get water?”

“I did. I was thirsty so I already drank it. I only got one of those half-sized bottles, though, so don’t worry. It’s not going to be a repeat of what happened at the mall. By the way, do you want to do some more lessons during lunch?”

“Ah, I can’t today. Jessika here invited me to lunch. She wanted to hang out. I hope that’s cool.”

Sebastian looked back as Jessika waved and smiled at him. Sebastian returned her smile with one of his own.

“Yeah, it’s cool. We can always catch up after school or something. It’s not a big deal.”

Sebastian caught Bryce over in the corner of the room whispering something to Shiloh and Kayla.

Something seems a bit suspicious here. Why would Jessika want to hang out with Delilah all of a sudden? She minded her business this entire time but now that I’m getting closer to Delilah, she suddenly wants to have lunch with her. I mean, that in and of itself doesn’t seem all that suspicious but the fact that those three are over there whispering to each other tells me that they have something to do with this. For now, I’ll just let it go and pretend like I don’t suspect anything. If Delilah is my friend, she’ll tell me about it later… or at least I hope she will.

When lunchtime came, Jessika got up and asked Delilah to come with her. Sebastian made a friendly remark to “have fun” to which Jessika smiled and thanked him. Sebastian took notice that they exited the class and went to the left. Bryce, Kayla, and Shiloh remained seated; however, Shiloh was side-eyeing him as if she were keeping tabs. Sebastian decided to play along and gathered his things. When he left, he took a right and decided to head to his storeroom hiding spot. Sure enough, once he was far enough away, the trio got up from their seats and headed out to the left.

After Jessika led Delilah down a couple of hallways, they came to a secluded dead end. Delilah was a bit confused by what was going on until she saw Bryce, Kayla, and Shiloh turn the corner.

“Looks like they’re all here. I did my part. Hope you four have a great lunch together,” said Jessika.

When she turned to leave, Bryce handed her what looked to be some money. It was more than obvious that she had been set up by them. Delilah wasn’t sure what to do when Bryce approached her; however, he immediately calmed the situation.

“Don’t worry, my method was a bit underhanded but all I wanted to do was talk to you. Given the past that Sebastian and I have, I either suspect that he already told you about us and you would have rejected my offer to hang out or if we asked in front of Sebastian, he would have stood up and rejected us for you. Either way, I thought this would be the only way to get to talk to you without any interference. Just one thing, though. Don’t be mad at Jessika… we asked her to be a neutral party without telling her anything. We just promised to buy her lunch if she helped us out.”

“So, what’s so important that you needed to go this far?” Delilah asked.

“I simply want to know what the deal is between you and Sebastian.”

“We’re just friends. That’s all.”

“I see. Did he talk to you about us by any chance?”

“In fact, he did. He told me how you used him. He thought you guys were friends. His heart was crushed when he found out that you didn’t care about him.”

“That’s only half true. You see, we didn’t ditch Sebastian because we were using him. We ditched Sebastian because we found out the cold ugly truth about him. Let me ask you this… When you started talking to Sebastian, did he seem friendly yet distant to you?”

“I mean, he was nice when he spoke to me.”

“And what about when you asked him to hang out at lunch or to walk home with him after school?”

“He said that he was busy and he couldn’t”

“Right. He must have said that he had to help his friends with something or run errands for his mother, right?”

“Y-Yeah…” she said as those excuses sounded familiar.

“Well, he lied to you. You see, Sebastian doesn’t have any friends. He hasn’t had any since middle school. We should know because we used to be his only friends. He’s always been a loner even way back in elementary school. Nobody wanted to play with him because he would always just sit by himself and look gloomy. We decided to change that so we approached him about playing kickball with us. We thought he would turn us down but he accepted. He seemed pretty happy at first but slowly, he started to hang out with us less and less. I invited him over to read comics, to go check out new video games at the arcade, little things like that, and he started turning us down.”

“Yeah… it got to the point where we felt like we didn’t matter to him anymore,” added Shiloh.

“Then, one day, Bryce confronted him and asked why he didn’t want to hang out anymore. Sebastian turned around and said that we already knew why but none of us knew what he was talking about. He mentioned something about a camping trip and that Bryce was gloating about going on one with us and we never invited him.”

“Yeah,” said Kayla. “We did go on a camping trip but when we called his house, his mother answered and said that he couldn’t go because he wasn’t feeling well. Soon after that, we began to notice the change in him. He tried to tell us that we were the ones that stopped bothering with him and then he got pretty mad and started a fight with Bryce and then… when I tried to stop them… he turned and struck me in the face, breaking my nose.”

“Since that day, Sebastian swore he would never make another friend again,” said Bryce. “When we saw him getting friendly with you, we didn’t think that anything would come of it. Now it seems you two are getting closer so I thought we should pull you aside and tell you this for your safety. Sebastian isn’t the kind and gentle person that you think he is. One day, he may snap again and end up hurting you. We don’t want to see that happen.”

This was a lot to take in for Delilah. She had no idea how to process any of this but she also weighed the fact that they could be lying. Then again, she starkly remembered their confrontation with Sebastian during lunch where they threatened to tell her everything. Sebastian didn’t seem too pleased about that and even threatened Bryce. If this was all true, it would also explain why Sebastian didn’t want to reveal everything to her but, at the same time, it also would mean that he was lying about what they did to him, too.

“Whether or not you want to believe us is up to you. I just figured that the best thing we could do is tell you everything. I know Sebastian probably painted us in a negative light but we’re not bad people. We’re just trying to make sure nothing happens to you as it did to us. Now that we’ve said what we wanted to say, we’ll leave you and let you decide what to do for yourself.”

“If something does happen and you need help, just let us know, okay?” said Shiloh with a hint of concern in her voice.

The trio walked away. Delilah stood there in disbelief that the kind-hearted Sebastian who took the time to help her learn how to draw would be such a terrible person. With lunch nearly over, she had to go back to class. She knew that she wouldn’t be able to look at Sebastian the same way until she had an opportunity to speak with him.

The whole afternoon, Delilah tried to think of anything that would indicate that Sebastian was the same person that they described him as. Nothing could come to mind but, then again, the excuses that he gave for avoiding her last week did make more sense.

When the final bell rang, she got up and waited for Sebastian to pack his things. As he left, she left with him, acting like they were going to walk home together. He didn’t mind it since the two of them were friends now. The entire way out of the school, nothing seemed out of the ordinary. He still had a warm smile on his face as if he was genuinely happy to be with her. She even remembered that he thought about giving her more art lessons so she used that as a way to break the silence between them.

“Say, are you still up for giving me some more drawing lessons today?”

“Sure! I’d be happy to. There is something that I need to take care of first if that’s okay.”

“Yeah! That’s fine! What time would work for you?”

“Right after we get home.”

“I don’t understand. Didn’t you say that you needed to take care of something first?”

“I did. That something is you.”

Suddenly, a shiver ran through her spine. They had already crossed the intersection and were on the main road home. A little bit past the intersection, there was a vacant lot filled with gravel with an old, abandoned warehouse there. Sebastian glanced over at it and motioned for her to follow.

“Come… let’s take a bit of a detour.”

At that moment, every red flag was raised. She began to think that Bryce and the others were right about him. If so, what was he going to do to her if she went with him? A look of fear became apparent and when he saw that, he immediately waved his hands in front of him.

“OH! I guess I’m phrasing this in a bad way! I just want to talk but I want to do it in private in case anyone from school passed by and heard us! I swear, that’s all I intend to do! Sorry!! I didn’t mean to scare you!”

When she heard that, she could hear a genuine tone in his voice. For some reason, she believed him. She agreed to follow him so Sebastian led the way. Once they were inside the abandoned warehouse, Sebastian put his backpack down and took a seat on a random container.

“Now that we’re alone, I just want to ask… what did Bryce tell you at lunch?”

Even though Sebastian didn’t look upset or angry, she still tensed up. She wasn’t sure who had told her the truth and was afraid to even say anything. Her heart began to race as tiny beads of sweat formed on her brow. Sebastian sat there patiently and awaited an answer. With the silence dragging on, she knew that she had to say something!