Silas smiled nervously from where he sat.
The table was filled with different types of food and drinks.
The students had gone as far as to organize a party after the completion of the weapon.
That was just how happy they were.
And he, against his wishes, had been dragged into this party by his friends.
The loud music made him shift from his position constantly, as if he was looking for the spot where it was quieter.
"Isn’t this fun?" Sylvester screamed just so Silas could hear him.
Silas nodded.
Seeing this, Amelia smiled.
It was obvious Silas was being sarcastic.
But Sylvester did not seem to catch that.
"I already told you, this party would be really interesting," Sylvester replied.
"It is."
"I wonder how far the tide is from us," Billie muttered as she took a sip of wine from her glass cup.
"Can’t you just think of positive things for once?" Sylvester asked, his head snapping towards Billie.
Billie rolled her eyes.
"I only asked a question, no need to make a big deal out of it."
...
Hope sat alone at her table, her eyes darting through the other students.
She had no friends among them, even after spending so much time building the weapon together.
Her eyes traced towards Silas’s table.
She did not need to try too hard to find it; his table was placed at the highest point in the place.
’He has friends,’ she mused.
She had expected Silas to be an outcast, just like her, but it turned out she was wrong.
From Silas’s table, Silas looked around, exhausted by the heavy atmosphere.
His eyes turned slowly towards another side.
Then he caught someone’s gaze.
"Isn’t that Hope," he wondered, his voice barely above a whisper as he looked towards her.
"Why is she alone?"
"What are you mumbling about?" Amelia asked, lifting her head away from the plate in front of her.
"Nothing," Silas shook his head.
He stood up at the same time.
"Excuse me."
Calmly, he began to make his way towards his room.
Amelia’s eyes traced him for a moment, only turning towards her food when she saw him enter the room.
...
"Hey, how are you doing?"
"Ahh!" Hope yelled.
The noise was buried under the loud music, but it was enough to make Silas cover his ears due to their proximity.
"How are you here?" She asked, looking at Silas with surprise.
"Clone," Silas winced as he replied.
"So, you tricked your friends?" Hope asked with furrowed brows.
Silas shook his head.
"If they saw you with me, they would probably include you in their madness and you don’t seem like someone who likes too much drama."
Hope nodded.
Silas looked at her for a moment before he spoke again.
"You don’t seem like someone who talks much or even knows how to make friends, so why did you approach me that day?"
Hope scratched her head in embarrassment at those words.
"My boss asked me to rein you in."
"Rein me in? Why?" Silas asked.
"I don’t know, she only asked me to do my best. But you did not show up at your store again, and a few months later, our own shop was acquired by an unknown company."
Silas cleared his throat at this.
"Please slow down."
He smiled.
"It was my company that acquired that place though."
Hope’s eyes widened.
"You were the one who expanded your company to that level? So fast?"
Silas nodded.
"I guess I was just lucky."
"Lucky?" Hope repeated with a scoff.
"But not having a single friend even after joining some people in construction is really weird."
Silas shifted the topic quickly.
Hope sighed. "Getting along with people is really hard for me."
"How about meeting those guys?" She asked, pointing towards his table.
"Your friends? I thought you said they were crazy."
"They are, but they are quite welcoming too."
As he spoke, he looked towards them.
"How about this, I would go back first, then you come."
Hope looked at him for a while before nodding. "Okay."
Silas tapped the table, then stood up.
"I don’t want them seeing me," he muttered.
With a thought, his body dissolved into pure aether, crawling back towards his room.
Asher saw this, then opened the door for him.
He knew without doubt that one was Silas, and the other was his clone.
As for which was which, he could not be bothered to care.
As the aether crawled into the room, Asher was about to close the door when a hand held it.
"Don’t worry, I am going back now," Silas said as he stepped out.
He reached his table again.
The atmosphere there was unusually quiet, something that scared Silas more than it relieved him.
"Hi," someone suddenly said.
It was Hope.
"Here, you can sit here," Amelia said, pulling a chair out for Hope.
She frowned, but accepted the seat anyway.
’What’s going on?’ Silas wondered.
Even though he knew they were receptive, it was not to the extent of giving a random person who greeted them a chair.
"Why are you surprised?" Sylvester whispered in his ear.
"Nothing," Silas quickly said, shaking his hands as he moved away from Sylvester.
"We saw you with her, dummy," Billie said, tapping her head gently.
"Ohh."
Silas shrank back into his chair after finding out he had been exposed.
Hope sighed from her seat, but her face remained calm.
"How did you meet him?" Amelia asked.
"He was my neighbor in the Nexus Dimension," she replied quickly, as if she was afraid of Amelia.
"What’s wrong? Why are you talking like that?" Billie asked with furrowed brows.
Hope shook her head slowly.
Her head was already facing the ground.
"Really? Silas, how did you get someone this shy to talk to you so jovially earlier?" Sylvester asked, looking at Hope.
"You can sign up for a master’s class; it costs just a million credits per hour," Silas replied, raising his head with pride.
"Try to compose yourselves," Amelia groaned.
Like that, with the addition of a new friend, time passed, and the day of the tide arrived.
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