"Hey Catherine! Sabine is not in her room. Do you by any chance know where she is!?", Carlos, Sabine's Dad, asks loudly from Sabine's room upstairs.
Catherine, Sabine's Mum, was making rice and beans stew with some chicken in the kitchen before she heard Carlos ask that question.
"Oh yes! She said she's heading over to Anthemon's place", she replies back.
Carlos descends the stairs and enters the kitchen.
"You think she's up to something?", Catherine asks when she sees him enter.
"She better be", he replies with an evil smile. She chuckles.
"I'm heading to work so I'll see you soon", he says, walking out the door. "I'll be back before six or seven pm"
He gives her a quick peck.
Carlos worked at 'Red Cloud'. It was a combination of a cafe and an inn. He was the owner of that place. It was in the woods but not the deep part of it. There was a road which led to that place and he had quite a lot of customers. He would always go with Catherine but since it was a weekend, he decided to go alone. No one at work knew Carlos nor Catherine had a daughter.
"She is a Sylvia?", Sabine asks after she realized she had mistakenly blurted out the name of her mother.
"Yeah she is. Whoa, that was some wild guess", Anthemon replies.
"I know right", Sabine replies, chuckling. She was still staring at the portrait and Anthemon just sat on her bed, waiting for her friend to finish her portrait examination.
"What about your dad? What's his name?", Sabine asks.
Anthemon rests on her bed, embracing her orange pillow.
"He's Jonathan", she replies, still hugging her pillow tightly.
"Wow, he looks like a Jonathan", Sabine replies.
"Yup"
"What about this girl with grown hair in the middle of them"
"Seriously Sabine. That's me!", Anthemon replies throwing the pillow at her. Sabine laughs and soon they break into a pillow fight.
"Wait wait, let's talk about you", Anthemon says, catching her breath from the pillow fight. She sat upright on the left of the bed and so did Sabine, on the right.
Anthemon's bed was all messed up from the fight. Her parents could hear her laughing from her room.
"Magnus didn't come over today?", Jonathan, Anthemon's Dad asks.
"Yeah, something's definitely wrong", Sylvia replies.
Jonathan's arm was gently embracing Sylvia's neck and her head rested on his shoulder. The both of them were very busy with work and they felt like they didn't give enough time to their daughter. Correcting that would take a lot of work so they just allowed her to have some level of freedom to make up for it.
"Okay so, my mum is Catherine", Sabine replies to Anthemon's question, "And my dad is Carlos. He works in some tech company that I'm not interested in", she laughs on that, "and my mum… she's a teacher in some school that I'm also not interested in"
They both laugh.
"Really? You're not interested in anything at all", Anthemon asks, still laughing.
"Yup"
Anthemon enjoyed Sabine's company very much and it had a very good vibe to it.
Magnus was now in his room, all alone. He wanted to ask Anthemon whether he could come over but he didn't. He hears a knock on his door.
"Come in!"
"Hello Mr. Pais", his mother, Nancy Pais, greeted. Nancy enjoyed calling her son Mr. Pais because it was professional and it always chilled down the atmosphere around him. Today, however, was different. She saw that he looked sad and asked him about it. Even though he said it was nothing, she saw way past all of that.
"Mum, what would you do if you know you really like someone and the person is just getting closer to fire. Well, you feel like the person is getting closer to fire and you want to tell them but then you are just almost nonexistent in their life because they've given all their attention to that fire" Magnus asks, looking deep into his mother's eyes. His mum sat on his bed, just staring at her son.
"You are growing, understand that sometimes all you can do is to just try to put out that fire, even if it's at the cost of your relationship with that person. If you truly like them, you'd understand that their safety is way more important than anything else… one day they will thank you"
Magnus sighs. Nancy tells him to hurry and come for his food. She leaves and Magnus sits there thinking about how he's going to take Sabine away from Anthemon. He still hadn't forgotten about the information he heard from the gossips. He remembered how he just heard them and how he had to act like he didn't, creating an awkward scene. It bugged him so much and the way Sabine was getting closer Anthemon made his heart ache. He needed to take Sabine out of the picture but he decided to do that right after he finally manages to ask Anthemon about what he heard from the gossips.
He heads downstairs and has his meal. After seeking for permission to visit Anthemon, he heads over to her house. Little did he know, what he was about to meet.
Anthemon and Sabine were having a good time.
"Do you want to talk about it? The name?" Anthemon asks Sabine respectfully.
"Okay then, so… you know Elaine right? She was once my best friend and she knew that I liked two guys, at the same time." Sabine pauses and notices how Anthemon paid rapt attention to her. She laughs softly. "From what is going on, only the gossips call me by that name. So, it would be right for me to say that Elaine told them about this little childhood secret of mine"
"No way!", Anthemon interrupts, gasping with her palms covering her mouth.
"Because she was the only one who knew. And so, the name Ms. S, was born… like Ms. Simultaneous"
"Aww that's so sad" Anthemon says, "I don't think I'd want something like that to happen to me"
"Honestly, I really don't know how nor why Elaine stopped being friends with me"
"What happened?", Anthemon asks resting her elbow on her orange pillow and her head in her palm. Her legs rested, outstretched to the far end of the bed and Sabine sat upright on its edge.
"Well, from what I remember. We were young. We were kids, just playing hide and seek", Sabine sighs, "I did the countdown and I looked all over for her and couldn't find her. Soon after, I noticed her running away from my house and I was so confused. I called out to her and she ignored me", Sabine explains, putting on a sad face and looking at Anthemon with a sad smile.
"I am so sorry about that", Anthemon apologizes.
Sabine turns to face her and continues.
"That night, when my dad returned from work, he asked me whether I had come into his room. I said no to that and he said some things were not in place in his room that's why he decided to ask", she sighs again, "I don't know what actually happened but I feel like it's connected"
"Magnus?", Sylvia asks when she opens the door after the doorbell rang. She was quite shocked because Anthemon already had Sabine in the house. Magnus was not aware of this.
"Hello, Is Anthemon around please?", he asks politely. The weather was quite cold so he was rubbing his palms against each other.
"Yes yes, come in, she's right upstairs"
"Thank you so much" Magnus replies.
"Was that Magnus?", Jonathan Tane, Anthemon's Dad, asks.
"Yeah, something is definitely wrong with those two"
"Don't think too hard, we know they're in a relationship. Let's just hope everything's okay", he replies. Magnus starts walking up the stairs slowly. He questions as to whether this was a good idea.
"No!"
Magnus hears Anthemon's voice along with giggles as he neared the room.
"Yes, she literally stopped being friends with me because of a hide and seek game", Sabine says, laughing hard. Anthemon joins in and a knock sounds on her door.
"Come in!", Anthemon says.
The door creaks open and behind it was Magnus, looking at Anthemon with eyes so full of jealousy. He coughs awkwardly. He was jealous that Sabine and Anthemon were spending such quality time together but he was worried that Anthemon might be enjoying the company of the wrong person.
Anthemon and Sabine look at Magnus, confusion drawing in their eyes. Anthemon sits upright.
"Heyyy" Anthemon says to Magnus, her gaze slightly meeting Sabine's.
"Hi", Magnus replies, looking awkwardly at Sabine. Sabine lets out a soft, "I gotta go" before leaving the room and then out the house.
Anthemon's parents see this and know something is definitely up. They brush it off because they had way more important things to think about.
Magnus holds the door handle of the white door, enters the room and closes it. He locks eyes with Anthemon.
"Let me just get to the point… Do you actually like me or it was just pity out of the hatred you had for Henry", Magnus asks, slightly furious. There was absolutely no time for a 'how are you' conversation. His hands were in his pocket and he leaned his back on the door. He remembers how he had his first kiss with Anthemon.
"Magnus I'm really sorry", Anthemon's voice becomes shaky, "I just…", she sighs, "I didn't know how to…"
"Save it! We're done… Anthemon", Magnus says with a mix of gentility and pain.
Magnus leaves out the door and heads downstairs. "Thanks for having me", he says to Anthemon's parents who were still watching TV.
"Is everything okay dear?", Sylvia, Anthemon's mum asks Magnus after she noticed his expression was quite odd.
"Yes. I'm taking my leave now"
He says and heads out the door. Sylvia and Jonathan look into each other's eyes, concerned.
Anthemon sits upright on her bed and sighs. She takes her orange pillow and buries her head in it. She lifts her legs up onto the bed and crouches, holding on tightly to her pillow.
Magnus heads home and runs to his bedroom. His parents call him but he ignores. They figured something was wrong.
"Sabine?"
Anthemon called Sabine on phone because she needed someone to talk to. The intensity of everything weighed down on her. She also in a way wondered how Magnus knew about this piece of information.
"Anthemon? Are you crying?" Sabine asks.
"Magnus broke up with me", Anthemon says, her voice a bit shaky, "Please tell me you had nothing to do with it"
"Oh My Gosh Anthemon, of course not" Sabine says, her voice increasing in pitch.
"I know but I just had to ask", Anthemon sniffles, "A part of me is happy about this but a part of me didn't want it to end like this. I remember the first time we kissed, I think I felt…"
"Look, how about we talk about this in school", Sabine says, after measuring the intensity of the situation. Clearly, Anthemon needed some alone time.
Anthemon sniffles, "Okay", she says.
"Don't think about it too much okay", Sabine requests politely.
"I won't", Anthemon says, knowing she really needed some alone time, "Thank you very much"
Anthemon hangs up, exhales and forces a nap.
Sabine sits on her bed. Her mum called out to her and she told her she was home. Sabine's Dad wasn't around and she figured he was out, obviously he was the owner of a tech company so he must be out at work. At least that was what Sabine was told growing up.
She picks up a sheet of paper. It had 'Murder Plan', written atop it and the 'befriend' option was cancelled. She writes 'befriend' once again and smirks. The murder plan of Anthemon was back in motion and she had infiltrated and befriended, next on the list was 'Betray'.