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I Had A Chapter Title But I Forgot It

Thankfully, during French, they didn't do a lot of 'partenaire' work, so Dan actually focused on his work for once in order to avoid thinking about Phil. It worked, until French was over and it was passing period.

Did Phil actually mean that? Does Phil actually think that? What if it's a trick? What if he's lying? What if he's just trying to gain my trust so that he can just rip it all away? What if it's a dare? I never did figure out why he got his own stop. Why does he have his own stop? What if he's a really important person's son? What if he's just doing this to look good? What if I'm a charity case to him? What if he's just doing this out of pity?

And then it was time for math. Which was stupid, because Dan was fairly certain that he never wanted a career in math. What, would he use the 'power of triangles' to stop a mugger? He was fairly certain the answer to that was a resounding no.

"Dan!"

"...Phil?" I mean, he's the only one who would actually call me Dan and not fag, even the teachers only call me Daniel.

"Um, I don't know where I'm going."

Dan was very bemused. "...so?"

"So...please help me?"

Oh. "Oh."

Dan waited for Phil. Phil waited for Dan.

"...where are you going?"

"Oh! Yeah! Whoops. Um, I'm going to room... um... give me sec." Phil took off his galaxy-themed backpack and ruffled through it. He pulled out a crumpled ball of paper triumphantly.

"Aha!"

"Nerd." What just happened? Did I just joke?? Is this 'bants???' What is life????

Phil flushed. "So are you!"

Dan rolled his eyes. "I don't believe you know me well enough to call me that just yet."

Phil smirked.

"What?"

"You said yet. That implies I have a chance," Phil said smugly.

Dan was speechless. I did say 'yet' didn't I?

Then the warning bell rang.

"Oh! Your class?" Dan asked.

"Oh yeah! Um, it's room 163. I think I have math?" Phil said, unsure.

Dan sighed. "Yeah, it's my class. Follow me or we'll be late. Actually, we're probably going to be late anyway."

Phil looked apologetic. "Sorry. I'll say it was my fault and that you were just helping me."

Dan just shrugged his shoulders and turned around, trusting Phil to follow him.

Sure enough, he heard Phil's footsteps echoing behind him. Only stragglers were left in the halls by now, and even they quickly cleared out. Dan recalled earlier, how he had felt a sense of foreboding.

Please, not now. I'm helping Phil. Do it during lunch or after school or something.

Quite consciously, he picked up his pace a bit, pretending he was just worried about being late.

"Dan?" Phil called.

Dan wasn't really in the mood to talk, what with the 'impending doom' feeling he had, so he pretended not to have heard Phil.

He almost jumped out of his skin when he felt a hand on his shoulder.

He flinched away immediately, trying to relieve pressure from the bruise that was directly underneath the hand, unwittingly hunching over a bit into a more protective stance.