Behind The Smile *[Skephalo Highschool AU]*

Chapter 20

Woah! 20 chapters! That's awesome! I'm surprised I've made it this far! Hope y'all enjoy this chapter!

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Zak's POV

The rest of the day went by slowly. I mean, I don't pay attention in class and it STILL went by slowly. Like, come on.

But finally, school was over, and I could see Darryl! I hadn't seen him in a few days, so it'll be nice to see him again. I wonder how he's doing. Anyway, back to the topic at hand. Walking.

A smile is spread on my face as I walk through the halls towards the tutoring room. I already know Darryl is going to be in there, setting up. Or maybe he's already set up. You never know with him.

I reach the room, and open the door. I hear a book drop as I walk in. Darryl pops out from behind a stack of books. "Uh..what are you doing?" I ask, pointing at him. But he doesn't answer, he just stares at me weirdly.

"How'd you get that black eye?" he asks, standing up straight so I can actually see him. He's pointing at my face. "Hey, it's rude to point," I say, and he facepalms. "Zak, you were pointing at me two seconds ago," he responds. "Now how'd you get that black eye?"

Great, back to this topic. "Blah blah, whatever. It's nothing. Now what are you doing with those books? There's so many it's like a library in here!" I say, walking over to one of the books and picking it up. "Holy- this is a library book."

He narrows his eyes at me, and lets the black-eye topic go. I sigh quietly in relief. "Well Zak, I'm sorting through the library's history section. The librarian allowed me to," he responds, disappearing behind the books yet again. "I'm looking for a certain book based off a topic you've been struggling with."

My eyes widen with shock. He's searching through all these books..for me? But why? Well now I'm confused.

I shake my head, and walk around the pile of books. I can now see tons of bins filled with books. He's searching through them, and then putting the ones he doesn't need in a stack. How long has he been doing this for?

"Why couldn't you just look through the shelves?" I ask. "It definitely would've been easier." He looks over at me. "Well, there wasn't books I was looking for. These books are older books that aren't out for everyone. I got special permission to look through them."

He turns away, and I turn in circles, my mouth dropping at how many books there are. "This is all we're gonna be doing today, huh?" I say, but I already know the answer.

———

"That was so tiring!" I complain. Darryl rolls his eyes. "It wasn't even that bad, you muffin," he argues, but in a polite way. I left out an angry puff. The sky is already dark and I can feel the cold air hitting my face.

"It's so cold," I point out the obvious, literally pointing towards the sky. Darryl sighs, before I hear him start to walk away. I turn back towards him, only to hear him yell "See you tomorrow!" Before disappearing.

Well that was rude. I shake it off anyway, and start walking towards my house. I shiver. It's actually pretty cold right now. Usually it's not as cold, but today it's so cold my lips are turning blue.

I ignore the cold, and pull a paper out of my bag. It was a poem I had typed a few weeks ago for Language Arts. It had just been handed back today, and I hadn't bothered to look at the grade. I just folded it and stuffed it in my backpack.

But now I could finally look at it. I unfold it, straightening it out. My mouth drops when I read the grade. I got a B+, probably the best grade I've gotten all year. My shock causes me to stop walking, and it also causes me to drop the paper I'm holding.

Usually I wouldn't care if I dropped it, but this time I did. I mean, how else would I show it to Darryl? There's no way he would just believe I got a good grade. I mean, nobody ever does. That was my only proof.

I break out into a run, following the paper as the wind blows it out of my reach. It stops, and I jump towards it, landing on the concrete sidewalk, the paper a few inches away from my hands. I groan, a headache starting to fill my head. This was not the wisest idea.

I sit up, looking at the paper again. But it's gone. Shocked, I look up, just to reveal a person. They have dark, black hair and blue eyes. They're smiling down at me.

Still shocked, I jump up, which makes my headache worse, but I ignore it. "I think you dropped this," he says, handing me the paper. I stiffen. His voice is off. It's laced with..

"Hello?" he says, and I quickly jolt back to reality. "Sorry!" I apologize, taking the paper. I wanted to get out of here as soon as I could.

"I'm Theo, what's your name?" he says, putting his hand behind his back in a polite way. "I uh.. I'm Zak.." I say, my voice unsteady. Something was off about this guy. He reminds me of-

"That's great! We should hang out sometime!" he exclaims. Gosh, would this guy stop cutting me off?! I just nod to his question, and before I know it he's already put his number in my phone.

When I finally realize what's going on, he's already walking away. "See you later. Zak."

I stand there for at least 10 minutes, just completely shocked.

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I tried to make this chapter more like.. eventful. I'm slowly leading up to the main problem, so I can actually get this story going. It only took 20 chapters. I'm planning on posting again today, but don't hold me to it.

Thoughts?- comment them here!

Constructive criticism?- comment it here!

Ideas?- comment them here!

Word Count: 1037