Kai cleared his throat.
"The story."
Chris nodded and leaned forward.
"Eventually, Oliver snapped. He just... jumped at Danny. It wasn't planned, and it definitely wasn't smart. He just lost it."
"And Danny grabbed him and threw him aside like it was nothing," Noah added, his jaw tightening. "It happened so fast none of us had time to step in."
Chris hesitated.
"And after that..."
The words died in his throat.
Noah looked down at the table. Kai glanced at Chris, and for a moment it seemed as though none of them wanted to be the one to finish the sentence.
Finally, Chris spoke.
"His shirt came open during the struggle."
Luna leaned forward.
"And?"
Chris rubbed the back of his neck.
"There was... more."
"More what?"
"Of that thing."
Luna stared at him.
Aria looked from Chris to Noah, clearly lost. Eris stopped with her fork halfway to her mouth.
Tyler, meanwhile, kept writing.
Luna slowly turned toward him.
"Do you know what they're talking about?"
Tyler smiled faintly.
"No."
"You're lying."
"I haven't lied."
"You smiled."
"That's not evidence."
Luna pointed accusingly toward Chris.
"They're talking about something embarrassing."
Noah immediately looked away.
Luna's eyes widened.
"Ah."
Kai placed a hand on the desk.
"Don't."
"I didn't say anything."
"You were about to."
"I was thinking."
"Stop that too."
Aria laughed quietly.
Luna stared at Kai.
"You're extremely controlling."
"I'm trying to stop you from making Oliver's situation worse."
That wiped the teasing from Luna's face.
"Fine."
This time, she meant it.
Chris continued.
"Danny's group started laughing harder after that. Worse than before."
He looked toward Oliver's desk.
"And Oliver just sat there. He kept repeating the same thing."
"What?" Aria asked.
Chris hesitated.
"'It's over.'"
The words settled over the table.
"He kept saying it," Chris continued. "Then he said, 'Everyone will know.'"
The room seemed quieter around them. The distant noise of students eating and talking remained, but nobody at the table paid attention to it anymore.
Luna glanced toward Oliver.
Her earlier curiosity was gone.
Eris lowered her fork.
Tyler kept writing, though the movement of his pen had slowed.
"Eventually, Danny got bored and broke it," Noah said. "Then they just left. Like nothing had happened."
Chris nodded.
"We tried talking to him. Told him it wasn't that serious."
Tyler finally looked up.
"That probably sounded stupid."
Noah rubbed the back of his neck.
"Yeah. It did."
Chris continued, "He told us to leave. It was getting late, and we couldn't exactly drag him home."
"So we left," Noah finished.
Tyler's eyes narrowed slightly.
That part was familiar.
The same exhausted refusal Oliver had given him and Elijah at the playground.
Aria spoke next.
"And the following day?"
"The same thing happened," Kai said.
Chris nodded.
"We found Danny and the others bothering Oliver again. That's when we got involved."
Tyler looked toward Noah.
"Define involved."
Noah hesitated.
Chris answered.
"We told them to back off. It turned into an argument. Lucas and Evans were talking nonsense, Danny was acting like he owned the whole playground, and then Oliver stopped us."
Aria frowned.
"He didn't want your help?"
"He wasn't exactly given a choice," Kai said.
He looked down at his lunch before continuing.
"Miles threatened him. Told all of us that if we kept interfering, they'd expose whatever Oliver was hiding."
Tyler's pen continued moving.
Eris glanced down at the report.
"That sentence is too long."
Tyler looked at her.
"Now?"
"Yes."
"We're discussing blackmail."
"And you're ruining my report."
Tyler stared at the page for a second, then scratched out a few words and rewrote the sentence.
Chris watched him.
"I genuinely don't understand you."
Tyler smiled.
"You'll survive."
Noah leaned closer.
"That's why Oliver isn't saying anything. They have something on him."
Chris's expression hardened.
"And now they're trying to make it look like we did this to him."
Aria looked toward Oliver's desk.
"So you think Danny's group beat him?"
"I don't know," Chris admitted. "But when we left him that evening, he didn't look like this."
Noah nodded.
"Then the next morning he comes to school looking like he lost a fight."
Kai added quietly, "And Evans and Lucas are suddenly spreading a story that Chris and Noah did it."
Luna slowly nodded.
"So that's the plan."
Everyone looked at her.
"They keep Oliver scared enough to stay quiet, then let the rumor spread until nobody knows what to believe."
Kai gave a grim nod.
"Exactly."
Eris thought about it.
"It's clean."
She disliked the word the moment it left her mouth.
"I hate that it's clean."
Tyler finished the line he was writing.
"Section done?"
Eris leaned over, checked the page, and nodded.
"Yeah."
He turned to the next page.
Chris stared at him.
"Did you hear any of that?"
Tyler looked up with an innocent expression.
"No."
Chris's face fell.
Tyler smiled.
"I'm joking."
"Can you take this seriously?"
"I am taking it seriously."
Tyler tapped the pen once against the desk.
"Panicking just isn't part of how I work."
Kai studied him for a long moment.
"So what do we do?"
For several seconds, Tyler didn't answer.
Instead, he looked toward Oliver.
Then toward Danny's group.
Then back to the three boys.
"Why isn't he saying anything?"
Noah followed his gaze.
"I don't know."
Chris slowly turned toward Eris.
She was standing beside Tyler now, arms loosely folded, watching the three boys.
He raised his eyebrows.
Eris understood.
Instead of answering, she lifted one hand and held her thumb and index finger a short distance apart.
Chris stared.
Noah leaned toward him.
"What does that mean?"
Eris repeated the gesture.
Kai tilted his head.
Chris narrowed his eyes.
"Wait a little?"
Eris nodded.
"Oh."
That was apparently all the explanation she intended to give.
The classroom gradually settled back into its lunchtime rhythm. Students moved between desks, conversations rose and fell, and someone near the windows laughed loudly enough to draw a complaint from another table.
At Tyler's desk, however, the four of them remained focused on the same problem.
Tyler continued writing.
Chris watched the pen move across the report.
"Is that report really more important right now?"
"Almost done," Tyler replied.
Chris opened his mouth.
Eris immediately pointed at him.
"Don't."
"I wasn't going to say anything."
"You were."
"I was thinking."
"That counts."
Chris stared at her.
"How does thinking count?"
"Because I know what you were thinking."
"That sounds completely made up."
Before Eris could answer, Tyler's pen stopped.
The small movement drew everyone's attention.
He finished the word he was writing, added something beneath the final line, and leaned back to inspect the page.
"This part is done."
Eris immediately reached for the papers.
Tyler moved them aside.
Her hand stopped.
Eris looked at him.
"You said it was done."
"This part is done."
"That's the same thing."
"It isn't."
She reached again.
"Tyler."
"Eris."
"Give them back."
"Eventually."
Chris watched the exchange with growing confusion.
Then he quietly turned toward Noah.
"Are they always like this?"
"Pretty much."
"I heard that," Eris said.
Noah shrugged.
"Then you know I'm right."
Kai looked away, hiding a small smile.
Eris gave Noah a warning look, but Tyler neatly placed the report to one side and set the pen on top of it.
Finally, he turned fully toward Chris, Noah, and Kai.
The three boys straightened.
Tyler rested his elbows on the desk and loosely clasped his hands beneath his chin.
There was the faintest smile on his face.
Chris immediately noticed.
"What?"
Tyler blinked.
"What?"
"That face."
"What face?"
"The one you're making right now."
Tyler's smile grew slightly.
"I'm not making a face."
Noah glanced at Chris.
"He's making a face."
"Thank you."
Kai nodded.
"A little."
Tyler looked at the three of them.
"Before I give you any advice, I have three questions."
Chris blinked.
"Three?"
"Three."
Kai glanced at Noah.
"Why does that sound bad?"
"Because it's Tyler."
"I can hear you," Tyler said.
Noah nodded.
"I know."
Tyler ignored him.
"First question."
The three boys turned their attention back to him.
"Why did you get involved in the first place?"
Chris frowned.
"That's easy."
"Go ahead."
Chris glanced at Noah, then Kai.
"Danny and the others were bothering Oliver."
Tyler nodded.
"They were making a big deal out of something that wasn't even their business," Chris continued. "Oliver told them to stop."
"But they didn't," Noah added. "So we stepped in."
Kai nodded.
Tyler remained quiet.
"And?"
The three looked at him.
Chris frowned.
"And what?"
"Is that all?"
Chris leaned back.
"What do you mean?"
"You saw them bothering Oliver. You stepped in. I understand what happened."
"Then why are you asking?"
"Because I'm asking why you did it."
Noah looked at him.
"Because they were bothering him."
Tyler nodded.
"But?"
Noah hesitated.
Chris folded his arms.
"There isn't a but."
"There usually is."
"Why are you making this difficult?"
"I'm asking a question."
"That's what's making it difficult."
Eris shifted slightly beside him, watching the exchange.
Tyler looked back at the three boys.
"Was it your responsibility?"
Noah hesitated.
"No."
"Were any of you involved before Danny started?"
"No," Kai answered.
"Did Oliver ask you to help?"
The three exchanged a glance.
Chris answered.
"No."
"Did anyone force you to get involved?"
"No," Noah said.
Tyler nodded slowly.
"Then why did you?"
This time, nobody answered immediately.
The question had sounded simple at first.
Now it wasn't.
Chris opened his mouth, then stopped.
Noah looked down at his hands.
Kai leaned back, thinking.
They had known exactly what happened.
They had known who was behaving badly.
But Tyler wasn't asking what happened.
He was asking why they had chosen to involve themselves when they could have walked away.
Chris finally exhaled.
"Because we wanted to help."
Tyler's gaze settled on him.
Chris rubbed the back of his neck.
"That's the answer, isn't it?"
Noah looked at him.
Chris shrugged.
"Oliver wanted them to stop. Danny wasn't listening. Maybe it wasn't our business, but..." He paused. "We weren't going to stand there and watch."
Kai nodded.
"Same."
Noah was quiet for a moment before adding, "We thought they should leave him alone."
Tyler smiled faintly.
"There."
Chris frowned.
"There what?"
"That was the answer."
Chris stared at him.
"You could've just said that."
"Then you wouldn't have answered it yourself."
Chris narrowed his eyes.
"That sounds unnecessarily annoying."
The corner of Eris's mouth lifted.
Chris pointed toward her.
"See? She's laughing too."
"I am not."
"You are."
"No."
Noah glanced at her.
Eris simply looked back at him.
Tyler waited until the brief exchange faded.
"You got involved because you wanted to help Oliver."
His tone had changed.
The teasing was gone.
"Nobody asked you to. It wasn't your responsibility. You knew that. And you still got involved."
Chris's expression grew more thoughtful.
Kai looked down.
Noah rubbed his thumb along the edge of his sleeve.
Tyler tilted his head slightly.
"Right?"
The three nodded.
"Right," Chris said.
Tyler leaned back.
"Good."
Chris frowned.
"Good?"
"Good."
"That doesn't sound like advice."
"It isn't."
"Then what's the point?"
Tyler picked up his pen and rolled it slowly between his fingers.
"I wanted to know."
Noah gave him a doubtful look.
"You already knew."
"I had an idea."
"That's basically the same thing."
"Not really."
Chris groaned.
"Here we go."
Tyler ignored him.
"You're the ones dealing with this. If I'm going to tell you what I think, I need to understand why you did what you did."
Kai looked at him.
"And now?"
Tyler placed the pen back on the desk.
"Now I do."
For a moment, nobody spoke.
The answer was almost painfully simple.
They had gotten involved because they wanted to help Oliver.
That was all.
And somehow, that simple decision had grown into rumors, threats, and a problem none of them could solve by pretending it wasn't theirs anymore.