soulmates ⋮ heroes of olympus au

eleven.

F r a n k

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"You ready for art class, lover boy?"

Frank rolled his eyes at Percy's teasing and smacked his hand away when he began to poke Frank in the shoulder. Percy teased at lunch, poking me repeatedly in the shoulder. "Leave me alone, hypocrite. Let me eat my lunch in peace."

Nico let out a snort of laughter and began chewing on his French Fry in such a way that it made him look like he was smoking a cigarette. "For once, can you not tease each other about girls? Jason, how was your audition yesterday?"

Jason groaned and hid his face in his hands. "I got called back for Marius, the cast list is going up in about two hours, and I am freaking out."

"Jason, you are going to get Marius," Leo chimed in. "That dude's like the hopeless romantic right? That sounds perfect for you."

Glaring, Jason shot back, "Stop mocking me when I'm stressed. I'm seeing the cast list in an hour, and after that I'll be fine again."

"You do this every single time," Percy added as he chewed into yet another one of his mom's famous blue cookies. "You spend weeks freaking out to us over your auditions, and you get the results and you end up doing much better than you thought you would. It happens everytime. Trust us, you're stressing over nothing."

"I hope," Jason responded, burying his face in his hands once more. "I just want Mr. Apollo to post the list already so I can stop stressing."

"I wish Mr. Apollo would post it so you'd just shut up already," Leo muttered.

Jason punched him in the shoulder. "Heard that!"

"You were meant to!"

Sensing an argument on the horizon and not wanting to stay to witness it, Frank stood up and grabbed his empty lunch tray before saying, "Well, I think that's my cue to leave."

"Have fun with Hazel!" Leo called out, causing Frank to glare at him before walking away. As he made his way out of the cafeteria, he looked over his shoulder to make sure Hazel hadn't heard what Leo said. But when Frank found her table she usually sat at, Hazel didn't appear to be there.

Not thinking that much into it, Frank walked out down the school hallway and began to prepare himself for yet another day of painting flowers in vases. Outside of the partners project, they were reviewing painting techniques by repeatedly painting flowers. It was incredibly boring, which meant Frank ended up looking forward to every Wednesday when Mrs. Stevens let them work on their projects.

It certainly didn't help that he always talked the most with Hazel on those Wednesdays.

When Rachel walked in a few moments later, strangely, Hazel wasn't with her. This stood out as odd to Frank, as the two always came to Mrs. Stevens' class together. But again, Frank tried to dismiss it as him being crazy. He had seen Hazel earlier that day, but maybe she had gone home sick. She could be in the bathroom or just needed to stop by a classroom or her locker before coming to class. Frank thought it was ridiculous for him to be worrying so much, so he turned his attention to grabbing his sketchbook and pencils out of his backpack.

A few moments before the bell rang, Hazel rushed into the classroom and took her seat near the front of the room. There were a few things about this that stuck out to Frank. One, Hazel was rarely ever late or even close to being it. She was always on time wherever she went. Two, she was refusing to look anyone in the eye and kept her gaze trained on the tile ground in front of her. Even though she had also been quiet, Hazel had rarely ever kept her head down. She always held it up high and always had at least a small smile on her face.

Frank's curiosity – and worry – suddenly ballooned. Something seemed off about Hazel, even though he couldn't quite figure out what. Rachel seemed to be thinking the same thing as Frank was and was now continually glancing over at Hazel, trying to figure out what was wrong.

However, the school bell rang and kept Frank from questioning even further. "Okay guys, there's been a change of plans for today," Mrs. Stevens began, not even standing up and choosing to remain seated in front of her computer. "I'm incredibly back-logged with grading Art II papers, so I want you guys to spend today working on your partners projects, and you can get started right now."

Hazel made her way over to Frank and sat down in the seat next to him, angling her body away from him and making sure Frank still couldn't see her face.

"Hey...are you alright?" Frank questioned quietly, starting to become incredibly worried,

"Fine," Hazel whispered, her voice so brittle that it made Frank not believe her in the slightest. Looking down at her sketchbook, she continued with, "Is it alright if we just start sketching each other today?"

Frank nodded unsurely, unsure of how to respond. Yesterday – and most of the days before that – Hazel and him had spent most of their time cracking corny jokes and telling stories about their most embarrassing moments. There was just something so drastic about the change in Hazel's attitude that it made Frank want to keep trying to figure out what exactly went wrong.

"You really don't seem fine, Hazel."

"Just leave it," Hazel snapped, finally glancing up at Frank and revealing a tear-streaked face that made Frank's heart crack. Just as quickly, however, she looked back down at her drawing once more and began to work on it in silence.

Frank went quiet and finally began to work in his sketchbook. As much as he wanted to figure out what was wrong and why Hazel was crying, he knew she wouldn't reveal anything. But the sight of Hazel's tear-covered cheeks didn't leave Frank's mind the entire class period.

As soon as Frank stepped outside the classroom after the bell rang, he felt an arm wrap around his shoulder and pull him down the hallway. "So...how was art, lover boy?" Percy teased.

Frank brushed him off, not really in the mood for any of Percy's jokes. "Today is not the day for it," Frank mumbled. Hazel walked a few feet ahead of him, talking with Rachel Dare and finally laughing, although her smile didn't seem to entirely reach her eyes.

"Woah, is everything alright?" Percy asked, taking a step away from Frank and removing his arm from his shoulder. "You seem unusually on edge."

Shrugging, Frank didn't want to talk about what he had witnessed in the art room and instead responded, "Just a little stressed out. You know how it can be."

Frank knew he wasn't the closest to Hazel, but because of how secretive she was being, Frank had the bad feeling that something was going on with Hazel. And Frank was determined to figure out what.

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