"Mavis!"
Hearing someone shout her name, Mavis lifted her head. In front of her was a young man waving at her happily, his smile was ever so bright. She knew him. It was Tobias Lane, someone who had a few classes together with her, but they didn't interact with each other often enough to be called friends. With that, she was a little confused. What did he want from someone like her?
"Yes?" Mavis replied after walking up to him.
Tobias was about to say something but paused when he saw her face. "Oh… Didn't sleep well last night?"
Touching the heavy bags under her eyes, Mavis nodded. "Something like that."
The day before, she was kicked out of the car by Evie at a random place after there was nothing more to discuss and was left alone. She wasn't familiar with the area, so she ended up painfully trying to find a way to the nearest train station. When she finally managed to get home, it was already morning. Thank god it wasn't a weekday, otherwise, she wouldn't know how she will survive at school. Dead tired, she had immediately fallen asleep once she touched her sweet bed. But even so, it wasn't enough sleep for her eyes to look awake.
Tobias looked at Mavis with pity, thinking it was because of the sudden dump of homework they received not long ago. It was understandable, even someone like him had the urge to lock himself in the bathroom, and cry. However, when Mavis heard about this, she was petrified.
"Would you please repeat that?"
Not noticing the strange tone in her voice, Tobias said, "Yeah, it was quite evil of that teacher to do something like that. I already got lots of other homework to do, and she decided to give us even more!"
That was it.
"Doomed." Mavis could only utter the word.
She had completely forgotten about the homework. What was she thinking before when she got them? She could have started at the beginning but regrettably, she simply put them somewhere in her room to rot away.
When he heard her, Tobias smiled blankly. "Eh?"
Looking at how Mavis was full of regrets and ready to let her soul escape from her body, Tobias knew that she had forgotten about the homework. "How much have you done?"
"... As much as the score I got on the math test."
The math test… He had previously seen the score on the front paper of her returned math test and it had no doubt been a long time since he was astonished over the ability of a student at his age.
"So nothing. Very impressive."
Mavis awkwardly turned aside, feeling a tad bit ashamed, and said with uncertainty, "Thank you?"
"..."
Tobias had a feeling that if Mavis carried on like that, she would unquestionably fail. The sight of her was so unbearable to him that he arranged a study session together. Only then was he relieved, as there was still hope.
"Good. Don't give up yet, I'll make sure you don't fail the class..."
Mavis looked strangely at him rambling on, and thought, 'Does it matter to you whether or not I fail? I'm not even close to you. What an odd person.'
But since he nicely offered her his help, she wasn't going to be polite, and so she happily accepted it. She wasn't worried about bothering Tobias with her homework, as he willingly offered help, he would naturally bear the aftermath. It was also good to have someone to help her with her homework, maybe she wouldn't have to hand them in late and get deducted after all.
"Oh right, do you want to join the barbeque party at my place later on today?" Tobias asked with a happy face.
Mavis was surprised, and once again, confused. No matter how much she thought, she was pretty sure she wasn't his friend… so why the invitation?
As if he read her mind, Tobias explained, "Well, you are always alone and I know it's none of my business but in the end, I can't help myself but to do something about it. I'm sorry if I have made you uncomfortable."
'So you do have some self-awareness.'
Smiling, Mavis shook her head. "It's okay. However… " She paused before continuing, "I don't know if I will come, I'm not even prepared."
"Ah? Prepared? You don't need to be prepared."
Her eyebrows knitted as she frowned. "But, wouldn't that be rude?"
Tobias was puzzled by her question. "What's there to be rude for?" He couldn't make sense of what Mavis was saying. It was only a barbeque party.
"I don't have any gift. If I had known about it earlier, I would have gone to the store yesterday."
"What?"
"Yes, it wouldn't be proper of me if I came without any gifts, would it? Therefore, thank you for the invitation but I am sorry."
Bursting out of laughter, Tobias clapped her shoulder and said, "Ah, aren't you just cute, Mavis?"
His sudden action caught her off for a bit. Rarely had anyone done such a thing to her—for someone to casually touch her as if they were close. Admittedly, she didn't dislike it, feeling a tiny bit of warmth flowing throughout her heart. But that only lasted for a second.
She looked up, seeming to be thinking. "Me, cute? I suppose I am."
Tobias smiled widely. "Yes, yes. Don't worry about anything and just come, okay? I'm sure you will have lots of fun! Even if I say it's a party, there will only be two more people."
Mavis looked straight into his eyes until a smile formed across her face. "...All right, if you say so."
"Great!"
Tobias successfully invited Mavis to his barbeque party and he couldn't stop being happy the whole day at the college. After all, he had always wanted to hang out with her but somehow kept failing. He would definitely make sure to become her friend at the end of the day. But, putting that aside, how was he supposed to deal with the people at his place? One of them wasn't fond of women and the other one had a screw loose in the head… Tobias thought hard but couldn't think of a solution to deal with the situation that was going to take place at the barbeque party.
After their last class ended, Mavis walked together with Tobias to his place. As they walked, Tobias explained and let Mavis know about the people she was going to meet, to which Mavis listened attentively.
"He can be mean and rude but don't take it personally. I hope you won't judge him too hard when you interact with him. He has… gone through a lot, to say the least."
Mavis nodded her head. "Don't worry."
'Don't worry about what? Her responses are short as always, I see.'
Tobias was helpless. Nonetheless, he continued talking. "Once he opens up to you, you will notice that he's actually cute but he can be clingy sometimes."
Mavis looked at him chuckling at the end of his sentence. A thought popped up in her mind, it was rather surprising but reasonable. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her peculiar facial expression and immediately stopped to give her a disapproving look.
"It is not what you're thinking, Mavis! He's just a really close friend of mine. What's wrong with thinking about how he can be like a child at times?"
Mavis shrugged her shoulders and continued to walk. "I haven't said anything."
Seeing her walk farther away from him, he quickly caught up to her and said, "Your face says it all!"
"Anyways, if you really can't take his attitude towards you, let me know and I'll take care of him for you."
Mavis nodded her head again. "Mhm, okay."
"You got this, right? Because we are already here." Tobias stopped in his tracks and took out the keys in his pocket.
Mavis eyed the big white house in front of her and raised an eyebrow. She didn't expect Tobias to be well-off, she had thought he was just like her, living in an apartment.
"Is your family home?"
"Oh, no, I live by myself."
"... In this big house?"
Tobias unlocked the door and opened it to let Mavis in first. "Yeah, my parents are working overseas so I guess you could say I'm having the whole house to myself. Make yourself at home."
"Thank you," she said as she entered the house.
The clean hallway that she somehow expected to be was messy; things were scattered all over the floor. Tobias dropped his school bag to the floor, his mouth opened and closed a couple of times. Seeing the current state of his house, he was stupefied. He knew exactly who the culprits were. Speaking of the devils, they were still fighting and trashing each other. One was holding a carrot with his hand, trying to stab the other while the other was attacking with a pillow.
A vein on his head bulged, his eyes darkened at the sight. Tobias grabbed a slides shoe, strode to the two culprits and hit them in the head. "Do you guys want a beating?!"
Both of them froze and awkwardly looked at the angry Tobias. One of them said timidly, "Toby, you're home already…" but as he talked, his tone changed and he pointed his finger at the black-haired person beside him, "It was Vinnie! He's the cause! He's the one who started! It was him! Him!"
Being accused out of the blue, the black-haired person widened his eyes and threw the carrot in the other's face. "Don't listen to that liar!"
However, he got hit back in the face with the carrot and both of them started to trash-talk each other again. Having enough of their quarrel, Tobias slapped both of their heads with the slides shoe harder this time.
"Shut up! You better clean this place up if you don't want to die at my hands!"
Mavis, who watched from the sidelines, covered her giggle. Tobias' friends were sure a funny pair, his life must be lively and intriguing.
The black-haired person noticed there was someone behind Tobias and as soon as he saw the figure, his expression turned ugly.
"… Utterly disgusting."