Icarus Reincarnate || The Secret History

six

I once again fell into hiding from the grecophiles. I sit through biology but none of the information really sinks in. I just write down whatever is put in on the board in the hope it makes sense later. The next week goes by like this. I keep to myself, taking the long way to certain places if I spot any of them.

It works right until I get back to my dorm and Henry of all people is waiting for me. "Henry, what are you doing here?" He looked at me pointedly. "You've been skipping out on us." I cross my arms. "Is attendance mandatory?" He leaves no room for argument in his answer.

"Upon invitation, Yes." I falter. "Henry I- I don't fit in with you guys. I had a great time in retrospect, but I can't do it anymore." In all honestly, I didn't have a great time. I just felt something instead of nothing. Nerves I could handle, but now I only feel as if I'm breaking.

"Are you going to tell me what happened?" I suck in. "I'm not."

"You owe us a conversation."

"I owe you nothing." I can see Henry getting angry, he begins to tower over me, and only now does his height fill me with unease. I lightly stagger backward and my breathing increases.

He raises an eyebrow as if daring me to repeat myself. I refrain. "Tonight at 8. I trust you remember where I live?" He says waits for me to agree. "Yes. A conversation. Fine." He retreats and I stand there in the hallway until he leaves. Locking my door and collapsing onto my bed. I cry until I come to a decision.

I have to transfer.

That night I end up at Henry's door with slightly red eyes from crying and everyone is there aside from Richard and Camilla. I find this peculiar and discomforting.

"Well, Henry I'm here." I say as he widens the door for me to enter. He hands me wine, I take it but don't drink any. "I say we don't skirt around why we're all here." He says and I disagree.

"I told you I don't want to talk about it, I'm just not going to be around anymore. That's it."

Henry leans towards me. "You will explain, or someone else will do it." He says and sharply and glares at the others.

This Henry is scary. It's like he's on a power trip and is aware no one will defy him.

"You're being quite irrational, aren't you? I don't remember saying or doing anything Richard could try to threaten me over after the countryside incident." He says calmly with a hit of ice. I almost smile at the thought of Richard arguing with him on my behalf but the current atmosphere snuffs out any positive thoughts. 

Charles looks at us in confusion. My eyebrows raise. The twins didn't know about that? Henry's eyes meet Charles' and he breaks under stress. "I accidentally spilled hot water on her and her trip the countryside with Francis was to make sure it didn't scar. They sought out his family doctor." My eye twitches in annoyance. I tried to forget all of these incidents but having them brought up to me by the very people who did it is-- insulting frankly.

"Well let's see it." Henry says. I look at him in disbelief. "I-what?" He shifts comfortably and continues. "You're so adamant about leaving over a burn scar you never reported so let's have a look." The atmosphere in the room turned cold at his suggestion. "Henry you can't possibly expect me to," I clear my throat. "take my shirt off in front of you all right now." He just stares blankly at me and I look towards the front door, wondering what my chances are of outrunning the tall guy.

"I wouldn't." He says as if reading my mind.

Seeing no other option slowly my shaking hands lift my turtleneck over my head and tears begin to fall again but I remain silent. "Your neck. Francis, I'm assuming." Francis shrugs and I know he's not sorry. His nonchalant attitude that morning made things perfectly clear.

Goosebumps appear on my skin from the lack of cover. Bunny looks away and sounds upset all of a sudden. "What is the meaning of this Henry? This is getting fucked up far too quick for my liking." I think he's defending me in his Bunny-esque way.

"She thinks the Greek religions are silly ideas. I figured I'd show her what it truly feels like to fall from the sun."

I laugh hollowly. This whole thing is because I didn't like Greek history? His psychopathic tendencies are astounding.

"Your group isn't the sun Henry, this fall can't kill me." I comment. I'm not sure if I believe myself but I fake the confidence regardless.

I suddenly realized Henry thought himself to be a god. I think I was just an experiment of his to see if he could truly manipulate another person to his heart's desire. 

———
This incident put a strain on the grecophiles relationships. Charles and Bunny became weary of Francis and Henry. Camilla and Richard kept getting left out of the loop and ultimately became closer. They began to date uncomfortably leaving me as a third wheel. I'll admit, I was a bit jealous of their relation, maybe I was jealous of both of them. Regardless, I pushed those feelings aside and cheered them on. 

Oddly enough, Bunny began to stick near me. He was still a self-absorbed problematic individual. However, I stopped feeling entirely sick of his company. We could be seen bickering on the quad in the afternoons adjacent to Robert and Camilla. I often looked over his math because "Richard here is the only one decent at math and he's still average at best."

Richard ignores the dig while Bunny sips the coffee he goaded me into buying him. 

I'm explaining one of Bunny's easier equations as an example but I can tell he's not paying attention when Richard asks me a question. "Hey, what happened to your neck?" Richard asks while peering just above my shoulder. 

My eyes widen and I don't have it in me to lie at the moment. "I'll tell you later, okay?" Camilla frowns as well. "Hey, you can talk to us." I nod at nothing in particular but don't explain any further.

"If you're all quite done I need my tutor to get on to the next question." I scrunch my nose at him. "You're supposed to be able to do these now." He laughs, "I very well can't since they were talking over my teacher. Show me again." I sigh but silently thank Bunny. 

Next to me, I can tell Camilla and Richard grew uncomfortable at the idea of Bunny knowing something they don't. "You guys have been close recently." Richard comments. I shrug. "It's getting warm again, he blocks out the sun." Bunny laughs obnoxiously and I smile as I write out the next equation. 

Richard makes an excuse for them to leave and we part in pairs.

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A/N: I've noticed some people have actually been reading this! Thanks for taking an interest. I never thought anyone would seek out Secret History fanfic so even if this is one of my lesser read works I'm so happy someone is out there enjoying it!