Miserable Comedy - 7

[Observer]

The office had been up five floors, and they had taken the stairs.

At about the second floor, Seth had fallen forward and asked for a break. The two gate boys had grabbed his arms rather unceremoniously, pulled him up, and carried him the rest of the way. At the time, it had felt quite abrupt and rude. He had had about twenty minutes to rest now, enough time for him to take in his surroundings.

The messy boy he'd vaguely glimpsed walking slowly in front of him and then fighting the giant was lounging on the couch opposite his across a rectangular glass table. They both looked and felt plush and luxurious, in contrast to the completely free tuition of the academy. The bourgeoisie setting was a stark contrast to the childlike figure across from him.

Grant was flipped upside down, his back on the seat and his legs resting over the back of the sofa. He was now eating a red, and presumably spicy variant of his original chips, and Seth wondered how he was doing swallowing them.

"Hey," he said, smiling at Seth.

"Uh... hi," he replied, shifting his eyes away to the door mid-response.

"Come here often?" Grant said through his latest mouthful of food.

"Huh? Ah, uh... no?" Seth responded, puzzled. He looked again at the door, this time meeting Anthony's gaze, panning over Argus boring holes into Grant's shoes. He hastily averted his gaze. He didn't want any trouble.

"Good answer," Grant replied, grinning wider.

- - -

[Seth Lee]

Is this kid a fuckin' nutjob?

These three are crazy. Pretty boy over there looks like he's trying to see how fast he could kill me, big boy is staring at fuckboy, and fuckboy is acting like a goddamn sociopath. How'd I even get here? How did not setting an alarm backfire so fucking hard?

Holy shit, this is creepy.

Don't really remember what he said. Mostly small talk, I guess. The smaller one would ask me normal shit, like what school I went to, or what my favorite book was, or what my favorite song was, or what I thought the prettiest color was, or how many states I was a sex offender in. I'd say some pretty standard shit back: "Dunno", "Dunno", "Dunno", and "Dunno".

He won't stop talking, what the fuck!

- - -

[Observer]

Eventually, Grant ran out of chips.

Wiping the dust off on his front, he burped quietly and looked back at Seth.

"So, what's your name?" he asked, with an expression rather like a satisfied cat.

"Huh? Oh, uh, Seth," he replied, taken aback by the sudden shift.

"Seth. Sethy Seth Seth. Not much to make fun of, huh?" the other boy responded, now doing a handstand on the couch.

"Yeah, uh, hey, are we... allowed to do that?" Seth said distractedly, staring at Grant's hands.

"No," Argus interjected curtly.

"One syllable. In and out, I like it, Seth. Actually, would you happen to have a last name? Let's see if I can work with that," Grant said, ignoring him.

"Lee," Seth replied hurriedly, feeling rushed to respond and then immediately feeling stupid for having felt rushed.

"Damn!" Grant cursed, wilting and pouting. Seth was struck by the image of a child who had just been told he had had enough candy for the day.

"So what's your name?" he blurted out again, internally punching at himself for his haste.

"Oh, Grant. Grant Wisteria. I'm fine with being called Flower Boy, since I probably deflowered your parents," he responded nonchalantly. Seth laughed nervously.

"600 pound life over there is named Angus," Grant continued, pointing at the two boys who were guarding the door as they had guarded the gate. It was hard to say which of them looked more angry.

After a heavy sigh, Argus slowly walked over to Seth, extending his right arm in a clear prompt for a handshake. When he tentatively responded in kind, Seth felt his arm nearly rip from his socket as Argus pumped it firmly twice, saying, "Sorry, we met on very bad terms. Argus Manson. That's Anthony Chen, he hates being called Tony, huge pet peeve."

"Nice to meet you, Argus, Anthony," Seth said, clenching to hold onto his grin for dear life.

Anthony nodded to him curtly. After furrowing his brow for a second, the stoic boy took three clean strides over to Grant's seat and kicked the sofa sideways hard. It turned ninety degrees away from the table, and Grant fell to the ground from his handstand, dismayed.

"You ruined it!" he complained, pouting insincerely.

"I could say the same for you," Anthony responded without looking up, completely focused on dusting the chip residue off of the leather.

"C'mon, lighten up," Grant responded, lowering his hand to pat at Anthony's back.

The movement was instant. One moment, Grant was reaching for Anthony's immaculate dress shirt. The next, he was kneeled on the ground, forehead pressed to the floor, his arm twisted behind his back, his wrist grasped firmly by the other boy's fingers. Nothing had changed in Anthony's expression, but a single strand of hair had come loose.

And once again, Seth had seen light.

"Uh, 'scuze me," he said hesitantly.

"What's with the formalities? We're friends, right? Talk normal, bro," Grant replied with a friendly expression.

Deciding on the fly not to question it, Seth pushed on. "What was that flash of light just now? Was that just me?"

The light struggle of Grant reaching up towards Anthony's chin stopped. They released each other, and held perfectly still. Then, Anthony said, quietly, in a beautiful voice, "What kind of light did you see?"

"Uh, well, I don't know. It didn't really have a-a color, more like it just had, like, a thing? I dunno, it just looked different," he replied.

Anthony stood. Walking towards Seth quickly, he seized his shoulders, his eyes burning with a cold fire that made his perfect face look imposing. "Tell me every time you have seen this light," Anthony told him quietly.

"O-once while those two were fighting, actually, not twice-not once, not twice, three times, and also just now, and that's it," Seth said. Another thought flashed through his head. He ignored it.

"Light? Light?" Anthony breathed, staggering backward.

Exchanging a glance with Argus, Seth could tell that neither of the two boys thought that what he had just said was normal. Before he could ask what they were thinking, however, Grant piped up.

"How did you survive this long?" he asked innocently. Astonished by this question, Seth jumped a bit in his seat, whipping his head back and forth to look at both Grant and Anthony. However, Anthony looked too lost in thought to respond and Grant looked too lost in wonder to elaborate. Argus, however, was a different story.

"So she wasn't joking," he said softly.

The door opened.