That afternoon, their classes passed without anything of interest to note outside of a random homework assignment or two. As the final bell approached, Sebastian internally groaned as he could feel the impending question from Delilah about wanting to walk home together. After all, she had asked to accompany him almost every day this week so far so it was quite easy to predict the situation, however, when the final bell rang, the silence that followed shocked him.
As he packed his things, he honed his hearing in her direction but when he didn’t hear her voice, he glanced through his peripheral vision to see her packing her things up as well. Suddenly, she stood up and slung her backpack over her shoulder.
“See ya, tomorrow, Sebastian!”
Wait. She’s not going to bother me? She’s just leaving? I GET TO WALK HOME BY MYSELF!? I should stop off at the store on the way home and buy a lottery ticket or something. I honestly don’t care what her reason is. All that matters is that I get to go straight home in peace for the first time this week! No power walking to get ahead of her, no stupidly long detours, nothing!
“Take care…”
Sure enough, Delilah headed out of the classroom without so much as waiting for him. Suddenly, a smile came over his face that was visible to everyone. A few of his classmates who normally gossiped about him took notice of it and, as one would expect, the whisperings began. Sebastian noticed it almost immediately and his smile quickly reverted to his normal, neutral expression.
Tch… This is another downside of having to interact with her. Everyone is going to start thinking up stupid stuff about the two of us. I can guarantee that’s exactly what Bryce, Kayla, and Shiloh are doing over there right now. Knowing my luck, I’ll walk into school tomorrow to a rumor about the two of us dating or some crap like that. Great… just what I need…
Sebastian hoisted his backpack over his shoulder and walked out; however, as he passed by the trio, he glanced over with a bit of a menacing look. Shiloh and Kayla didn’t notice it but Bryce did and swallowed hard. Sebastian continued on his way to enjoy his peaceful, lonely walk home.
Delilah, on the other hand, took a left at the intersection at the top of the hill. That direction led straight to the highway. Her destination was the mall as she had some business to attend to there. The mall was only a bit further away from the school than it was from Sebastian’s house so it took an extra minute or two to get there on foot. Despite that, she made it one piece and wasted no time in making a beeline for the bookstore. Once inside, her eyes scoured the signs on each of the aisles. It was evident that she knew exactly what she was looking for.
Soon, she found the Self-Help section and began to look through the books that were there. Thankfully, they were all grouped so she would skip whole sections until she found what she was looking for. A few groups down, her mouth widened into a smile as she found a “How to Draw Anime” book. There were a couple of different titles there and while each one taught the same thing, the author’s styles varied a bit. Since the information was the same, she opted to pick one that used a style as close to Sebastian’s as possible.
The one she liked was also the thickest. It also meant that it was the most expensive, clocking in at a hefty $45. The price was a bit intimidating as it would eat up the majority of her money and she still had supplies to buy. She checked her wallet and noticed that if she were to buy the book, she would only have $20 left over for pencils, stencils, erasers, and other things. She could make it work but it would also mean going for some lower-grade items. Then again, she figured that since she was just starting, there was no real need to get the good stuff right away.
After working out the rationale in her head, she decided to go with that book and paid for it properly. With that out of the way, it was off to the arts and crafts store that she visited with Sebastian yesterday. She checked the price of the pencils that Sebastian had bought and found them to be a little bit up there. To save money, she opted for an off-brand graphite set that was half the price. She picked up a couple of erasers, a few stencils, a cheap wooden ruler, and a package of basic makers. All total, her supplies ran her about $17 after tax.
With everything in hand, she was excited to go home to start learning how to draw!
When Sebastian got home, he closed the door and just took in the silence. The walk home felt great and the fact that there wasn’t anyone home to disturb him only added to the calming aura that washed over his body. The homework assignments were light so he ended up banging those out within half an hour. This left him about an hour and forty-five minutes of alone time before his mother would come home so he fired up his game console and stuck in Omega Man III, his favorite in the series. After everything that he had gone through this entire week, he felt that playing his favorite game was a well-deserved reward.
Unlike last time, he blew through the game without dying a single time. As the credits rolled, he dropped the controller on the floor and laid back on his bed, staring at the ceiling.
Ah.. that was great. It’s like everything just disappeared and went back to normal with the flip of a switch. Of course, I’m not naive to think that every day is going to be like this but these past couple of hours made me realize just how much I love being alone. Even if I have to suffer through another interaction with Delilah tomorrow, I can at least take some solace in knowing that I got to enjoy my afternoon today.
Meanwhile, just a couple of streets down, Delilah sat on her bed with all of her art supplies set aside to her right. She cracked open the book and began reading the first chapter to herself.
“Basics of drawing anime. In this chapter, we will learn how to start with simple shapes for proportion and positioning. We will cover forming those shapes into an anime character in the next chapter. It is important to understand that all things drawn, much like things in the real world, can be broken down into basic shapes. Once you understand this concept, creating anything from plants to cities, to even anime characters will be much simpler.”
“Hmm, I guess that makes sense. When Sebastian was drawing Cora, he started with a couple of circles. I’m going to need to use the stencils since I can’t draw a circle to save my life and yet… he was able to do so effortlessly. I wonder if he would get upset if I started calling him the human stencil?”
She didn’t have enough money to buy a sketchbook so she opted to use a spare notebook that she had lying around. She followed the lesson by making a couple of circles; however, the lesson began to go into rectangles for arms and legs. All she wanted to do was draw a bust like Sebastian did so she didn’t think any of that was necessary. When the lesson kept going on and on about parts of the body she had no interest in drawing yet, she skipped the rest of it and went right to chapter two.
“Clothing and body parts will come later. One of the most iconic pieces of an anime character is their head. Everything from their hairstyle and their eyes can be found here so it’s important to focus on these pieces bit by bit. Here, we will focus on dividing the head into regions and then we will tackle the eyes.”
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“Oh yeah! Sebastian did the same thing! I remember he made guides for the eyes, nose, and mouth! This should be easy since I already saw him do it!”
With her guides in place, she flipped the page and her eyes nearly popped out of her head. There were at least 100 different styles of anime eyes all laid out as examples, each with a different style. The book didn’t even pick one to teach her, it simply told her to look over the eyes carefully and select the ones that she wanted to draw. It assured her that no matter which eye she picked, the same technique for drawing them was transferable.
The number of choices presented to her made her feel overwhelmed. She had no idea what kind of character she wanted to make and was scared that if she picked a certain set of eyes, it might lock her into a type of hairstyle that would fit with them versus a hairstyle that she loved. She didn’t want to erase and redo anything so overthinking began to settle in and she became a bit demotivated to continue.
Right before she was going to pause, she looked over and noticed the drawing that Sebastian had signed for her poking out of her backpack. She pulled it out and stared at it, taking in how good it looked. A faint smile came over her face and her determination renewed. She gently laid it back down and picked her pencil back up. She decided not to be picky and just chose the first eye example on the page since it was one of the more basic-looking ones.
When she moved on to the hair, she, again, saw nearly 100 different choices but rather than fall back into the overthinking trap, she just picked one and began to practice. Page-by-page, she followed the instructions until she finished all of the lessons that focused on the upper body. When she was done, she looked at her drawing and frowned.
“Wow… this is terrible. Even with a book teaching me, I kind of failed pretty hard. Then again, this was only my first time drawing. All I need to do is keep practicing! One day, I’ll get good enough to show my work to Sebastian!”
That night, Delilah practiced and practiced again. Each time she did, her skills showed next to no signs of improvement. Even though she wasn’t getting anywhere, she remained committed to her vow to get better. With Sebastian as her goal, she was determined to learn how to draw no matter how many times she failed at it.
The next day, Delilah headed out to school with a little extra pep in her step. Even though her journey to drawing had only just begun, the thought of being able to share something with Sebastian one day made her happy. She stopped at the corner of where Sebastian usually walked out from but he was nowhere to be seen. This marked the second time she waited there and didn’t end up running into him.
“Hmm.. I hope he didn’t oversleep again…” she said to herself.
Like last time, she opted to get going rather than risk being late; however, when she arrived at school, she noticed that Sebastian was already there at his desk. Surprised that he beat her there, she took a seat and wished him good morning.
“Fancy seeing you here so early.”
“Yeah… I went home yesterday and did my homework then I settled into some gaming. I thought I had finished all of the assignments but when I went to gather everything for school today, I realized that I had forgotten to do the history assignment so I rushed over here so I could get it done before homeroom started.”
Well, that’s a lie. I finished all of my homework before playing Omega Man III. I left extra early so I could enjoy walking to school without running into you. I had such a marvelous time walking home yesterday, that I thought that it would be just as nice to do it again this morning. You have no idea how much I didn’t miss you. I’m really glad that the 30 minutes of sleep I sacrificed just to walk here alone ended up being worth it. Hell, I might make this a new habit of mine.
“Well, I’m glad you were able to get it done. That would suck if you thought you did everything and realized you hadn’t right when you had to turn it in. That would have been the absolute worst!”
“Yeah… it would have.”
Still not as bad as sharing a morning walk to school with you, though. If I had to choose between the two, I’d choose forgetting my homework ten times out of ten. Then again, since I didn’t forget, that means I won twice as much this morning!
“So, the weekend is coming up pretty soon. Got any plans?”
Yeah, staying away from you. That’s definitely at the very top of my list. There’s also not having to see you, not listening to you talk to me, and forgetting that you even exist. All of which are excellent ways to spend a weekend.
“Yeah. I’m planning on going to see my, um, Dad.”
Wow… of all the excuses I could have come up with, why in the holy hell did I pick that one? Come to think of it, the one thing and ONLY thing I would choose you over would be if I had to choose between hanging out with you or hanging out with my father… if he were still alive, that is. In that scenario, you would be the lesser of two evils but as long as she doesn’t know anything, it doesn’t matter what I say. It’s not like I’m going to visit that dead piece of shit any time soon.
“That’s cool! I guess that means you don’t live with your Dad, huh?”
“Nope. My parents are divorced.”
“But you’re still going to see him, though. That’s sweet of you to try and stay a part of his life. I’m sure he loves it, too.”
HA! If only you knew. That asshole never cared whether I lived or died. If he still walked this Earth, the only reason I would EVER go and visit him is if I could put a bullet between his eyes and not go to jail for it.
He simply nodded in response and, thankfully, their homeroom teacher came in and put a halt to their conversation. After the morning’s classes passed, the lunch bell rang; however, Sebastian hoped against fate a little too much. He hoped that things would have been like yesterday and Delilah would just get up and go do her own thing but…
“Hey! Do you want to have lunch together again?”
Nope. I gave you enough attention yesterday. If you’re lonely, go fawn over that drawing I did for you. I’m sure she’ll keep you company.
“Ah, sorry but my friend needs help again. He’s doing a project and he keeps getting stuck so I told him that I would spend my lunch to help him figure it out.”
“No problem! You’re always helping people out. That’s cool of you!”
“I just like to help my friends, that’s all.”
“That’s not a bad quality to have, though!”
“I guess, haha.”
Sebastian grabbed his backpack and started to head out. Suddenly, Bryce, Kayla, and Shiloh stood up and followed him. He had no idea that they were tailing him until he was about to head to the staircase that led to the roof. Right before he was about to turn, he pretended to check his phone and that’s when he noticed the three of them following not that far behind. He always made sure that the coast was clear before he went up there for situations just like this.
He pretended to keep going through his phone, hoping that it was just a coincidence; however, they kept approaching without pause, their eyes locked squarely on him and nothing else. Before he knew it, they had him surrounded. He looked up as both Kayla and Shiloh had neutral looks on their faces while Bryce didn’t look too happy.
“So, Sebastian. You sure do like to move fast when there’s a brand-new girl who knows nothing about you, huh?” he said.
When Sebastian didn’t answer, Bryce’s expression turned deathly serious. He even went so far as to grit his teeth. The words he spoke next were laced with venom.
“What you’re doing with her, Sebastian? Are you trying to become friends with the new girl? That’s the lowest thing you could ever do after what you did to us.”
Sebastian looked away because he knew that Bryce was right. Perhaps, if he hadn’t stared at him on the way out yesterday, he wouldn’t be in this situation right now. Even though he was cornered, he didn’t have an answer for him.
“Don’t have anything to say for yourself?”
Sebastian continued to stand there and ignore them.
“HEY! ASSHOLE! I’M TALKING TO YOU!” screamed Bryce as he shoved Sebastian so hard that he nearly lost his balance. “If you’re not going to say anything then fine. We’ll just go back to class and tell the new girl everything. Maybe after she hears the truth, it’ll save her the trouble of having to go through the same stuff we did!”
NO! Don’t go and tell her anything! She doesn’t deserve to… wait. What am I even saying? Why am I filled with so much fear right now!? Wouldn’t this be the answer to my problems? If she hears about me from a third party, I could just have a casual conversation and explain things. I can let her down easily! She’ll hate me and I can go back to my regularly scheduled life! This a blessing in disguise but… why does my heart ache so much when I think about it? GOD DAMN IT ALL!
“I… didn’t try to become friends with her. She chose to become friends with me.”
“Just like you did with us back in elementary school but we all know how that turned out. Tell me this… are you planning to do to her what you did to us?”
As he said that, his vision became fuzzy again. It became clear that the boy in his visions was Bryce. This time, he was flanked by Kayla and Shiloh, much like he was now; however, they were much younger. It was as if a portal to the past had opened before him and their younger selves were standing there. He saw pained expressions on their faces and that’s when Sebastian twitched his face and everything went back to normal. He collected himself and looked up at Bryce, staring him in the eyes.
“That depends…”
“Depends on what?”
“... depends on whether or not she turns out to be a piece of shit like you. If she does, I won’t hesitate to bury her where she stands… just like I did to all of you.”
Sebastian didn’t want to stand there and listen to any more of this. He turned and walked away. Thankfully, they opted not to follow him; however, unbeknownst to Sebastian, Delilah was down the hall and overheard everything. She figured that maybe she could lend Sebastian a hand with his friend but what she discovered was something she never expected to hear.