Allies? Allies.

Deny everything.

Narrator

"What happened?" Scar asks, he's talking slightly louder than he normally would because he had gone back to the opposite side of the room. Well, Grian actually kind of told him to. His voice is slightly higher pitched than Grian remembers.
"Shut up, I don't want to talk about it." Grian snaps back at him. He honestly wasn't trying to be rude— well, okay he was— but he really honestly just did not need this right now.

"If you don't talk about it, it'll only get worse" scar whispers, genuinely just wanting to help.
"We're not friends. Stop pretending you care."

It's when Grian says that that Scar felt hurt. He knew the rudeness before was just Grian being Grian. The class clown, the jock, the character that he is, it was normal. But that he thought Scar was just pretending to care? He knew they weren't close enough to have a friends status but that didn't mean he couldn't care.

"I do care" Scar says, barely loud enough for anyone to hear it.
"What was that?" Grian mumbles, anger still evident in his voice, but not overpowering the unconscious tone of curiosity and concern.
"Nothin'. I said nothing." Scar responds, and it almost sounds true.

Before any more words can be exchanged, the locker room door opens back up and in walks another one of Grian's friends, dark hair with a green streak in it, green eyes and a leather jacket. Scar immediately recognizes him as Joel, he's one of the only ones in Grian's friend group that hasn't legitimately talked to Scar before. (And by talked he really means played a prank on, or made fun of. You get the idea.)

The one person that was friends with Grian that never, ever, bullies scar was Etho. Because before Scar's friend Bdubs switched schools, Etho was friends with Scar too. But they all drifted apart. Now Scar just calls Bdubs and Cub every night, and that's his socializing for the day.

"Hey man" Joel greets Grian. "Hey, what's up Joel?" He responds.
They talk. Normal high school talk. Nothing Scar's interested in. He does catch the two boys talking about him a few times, exchanging words like "loser" and "weirdo" but that's just how they are. It's normal. Scar doesn't hold it against them, after all he deserves it.

Gym class starts, and Scar acts as normal. Putting nearly zero effort, being silent, and still doing pretty well. Meanwhile Grian is doing his very best. Not at exorcise, no. At avoiding Scar.

This poses a problem because right after Gym is their foreign languages class and they sit at the same table group in that class. However, Grian's friend Mumbo also sits in their group, so it shouldn't be so bad.