Act One: In The Closet

Terrance was utterly humiliated, never in his life did he think he'd be so eager to come with his senior and her ex-fiance—a fact that still caused the prodigy to crumble from the inside out—to a family dinner. At times, he forgot about his hardened exterior brought upon by a rough childhood and an atrocious reputation in school, especially when he clung onto Ambrosia's arm like a needy toddler, ardently refusing to let her leave with the theater director.

The brown-eyed girl only snorted, a light dust of pink tainting her cheeks, "Shit Terr, your puppy eyes are deathly cute, but you're still in costume. My dad's gonna kill me if I don't go home soon."

"S— sorry.." He looked down, face burning in realization. His irrationally was really ready to let him walk out of school and into Rose's house in shoulder pads and a fantastical military uniform.

Terrance let go of her eventually, the image of Nikolas' victorious grin hindering him deaf to his favorite senior's reassurances.

"We'll see each other again tomorrow, anyway. Just look forward to that, okay?"

The prodigy was on the verge of tearing the entire building apart as he watched Ambrosia and Nikolas walk out through the doors of the theater shoulder to shoulder. It made him question whether she intended to see his performance in the first place, realizing how spontaneously he received his role.

It embarrassed him further to realize that Ambrosia had probably come to pick Nikolas up so they could head to her house together, not see him act.

At that point, he was fuming from the ears, face red from all kinds of emotions. After just getting rid of Hugh, Nikolas decided to come in between him and his beloved, lingering hope distorted into disappointment. It made him want to crush something with his teeth, anything at that point—candy, nails, Nikolas' demeaning fingers.

A hand came in contact with his shoulder, his entire body whipping towards the perpetrator.

"Holy shit. Calm down, junior. It's just me." Lucy quipped, presenting her open palms to him in defense. The heat in Terrance's eyes caused her joke to escape her tongue, forgotten to make way for her fight or flight instinct. The younger boy looked feral, predatory.

"What?" He snarled, no longer able to bottle up his emotions and protect his newfound reputation.

"Woah. I was just gonna congratulate you for the performance."

"Thanks." Terrance sighed, a raspy sound. The prodigy pushed his hair back, contemplating his actions for the remainder of the day, planning and calculating.

He certainly couldn't just let Ambrosia be with Nikolas. Just imagining them be all by themselves, with the urges of hormonal teens, made him want to step on burning coal. Hopefully, she kept her careless habit of leaving her windows open that night—Terrance would then assure no accidents would happen.

Before Lucy could elongate their conversation, he'd already been heading towards the dressing room, rushing to be stripped of his heavy clothing and makeup. He stared at his bare figure, letting the amount of change he'd undergone in a matter of months hit him full force.

A familiar face with an unrecognizable soul.

Apart from having a big role in swaying his reputation, Rose influential in making his mannerisms softer, Terrance realized that she was to credit for how comfortable he had grown with himself as well, a sentiment that had made getting comfortable with others easier. The moments they shared flashed through his mind, the weight of her head on his lap as they listened to his favorite songs together.

At some point, he couldn't remember which tracks in his playlist were his or hers—they'd gotten used to co-existing with each other. It was something Terrance hadn't experienced in the past. Ambrosia, apart from being his first love, had persisted on becoming his first friend as well.

The difference between being alive and not being dead was made clearer with Rose's presence in his life.

Maybe he was desperate for reacting jealously to Nikolas' involvement in their relationship, a person who evidently knew Rose years longer than he did, but who could blame him? He wanted to matter to her as much as she did to him.

Late into the night, long after arriving home, he snuck out of his extravagant manor, taking a route he knew better than any of his family members. It must've been fate that allowed Ambrosia to live nearby because it made keeping an eye on her much easier for the obsessed junior.

On the way there, he passed the usual batch of luxurious households, their neighborhood fairly well-known for being filled by the wealthy. Terrance didn't run into many disturbances on the way there. Not a single person bothered him, not when he himself looked like he'd be able to take five men down with his height and stature.

Climbing up on a variety of things to reach her bedroom window on the second floor, something he usually saved for later into the night, had been one of the harder tasks. Avoiding attention would've been much easier with everybody in the household asleep, but Terrance didn't want to risk anything with Nikolas. He had to get there before anything went down.

He climbed a towering tree, dark and spooky without the aid of sunlight—not that he needed it. His body moved by itself, almost as if in a trance, taking a familiarized, memorized path upwards.

Terrance hopped from the tree's outstretched branch towards the edges of Rose's window, relying on what little space he was allowed to stay standing and push against the pane. He released a breath of relief once he realized that his senior had indeed left it open—a deluded part of him wanted to believe that Rose did it on purpose.

He snuck through the open gap, carefully attempting not to make a single squeak as he strode through the dark room. The prodigy's first thought was to take a peek of the ongoing dinner downstairs, but caught on to his own blatant naivety.

His best bet was the closet where the objects of his nightmares were being kept. Terrance stared at the floral doors, wondering, weighing his options, until he eventually jumped straight inside, scampering as he heard someone struggle with the bedroom door's doorknob.

The prodigy was quick to assess his new surroundings, hiding in a dark corner where a hamper of clothing hid his towering figure. There, his hand met a hard object, the texture of molded plastic intriguing him.

When the doors to the closet opened once more, Terrance had a hard time not being suspicious. The movements that followed after were much too articulate, much too quiet, incredibly unlike Rose's loud and uncaring movements whenever she was in a comfortable place.

Even Terrance moved more carelessly in his own wardrobe.

Soft rustling was heard from beside him. Whoever it was, their hands were searching for something, going through articles of clothing with a haste.

At that rate, he'd be caught in no time. A familiar flow of long raven hair moved around the dim closet—the prodigy swore he'd seen it around before. He just couldn't pinpoint where, or whose hair it had been.

Briefly, he considered Nikolas whose hair had a similar look and texture, it would've made sense too considering he had come with Ambrosia to her house. The thought had Terrance's hands clenching, infuriated.

He felt the plastic object he'd forgotten about, momentarily distracting him from his wrath.

"Where is it? Where is it?" The voice was enraged. Feminine.

So it hadn't been Nikolas.

"Mika?" His favorite senior's voice chimed across the closet, along with it came light, and not in a metaphorical sense.

The surprise he felt as he stared at the two figures was unmatchable. Under the bright glow of the closet lights, the scene looked like something straight out of a soap opera.

Whether it would become a dramatic confrontation or a fairly mellow exchange was uncertain. Mikaela, who Ambrosia claimed to have known for years, looked suspiciously more in shock than Terrance was, like she too was anticipating conflict.

"Your parents are looking for you." The junior's beloved said, skepticism clear in her voice.

"Oh."

"Did you get lost on the way to the bathroom?" Rose asked, the tilt of her head signifying curiosity with underlying sarcasm.

"I thought I'd use yours." Mikaela answered, eyes fidgeting from her best friend's face to anything—anywhere else.

"I see." The girl mumbled. "I don't really have a bathroom. Thought you'd notice after our hundredth sleepover, you know."

The silence that followed afterwards was suffocating. The prodigy could vaguely make out the sounds indicating that Mikaela had walked out.

Terrance intended to do other things in Ambrosia's room, but it seemed like he was absorbed into drama not many people were aware of. So many questions were racing in his head. He'd never noticed tension between two girls in the past, their lively laughter ever so often filling the school halls, so to witness them speak to each other in a manner one would to an offensive intruder was...

He had no time to collect his thoughts when Rose walked deeper into the closet, the image of her mostly bare legs greeting Terrance's crouched figure. He tried to distract himself with the plethora of clothing he was surrounded with, his face growing redder once clothes started dropping into the floor.

Ah. His beloved was changing and he—he needed to get out of there or avert his eyes at the very least.

He had no time to do either as the hanged fabrics surrounding him were pulled apart, revealing him to the light.

Ambrosia stood there, fully clothed in what she entered the closet in.

"Ha! I really got you there!"