Vincent couldn't believe what he heard that he stayed speechless for some time. Gloxinia tilted her head when he wouldn't say anything.

"Come again?" Vincent finally blurted out.

"Be my friend?" Gloxinia said again.

Vincent studied her expression. She was looking straight at his eyes with stable and clear pupils indicating that she wasn't lying or forcing herself. She sincerely just wanted to be friends.

"Why?" Vincent asked. He glanced at her hand which was grabbing onto his shirt. He wanted to push her hand away, but he thought it would be rude. It wasn't as if she were a germ.

Gloxinia blinked as her mind started to think of a reason.

Why?

"Because you're the only one who would talk to me?" Gloxinia said, strangely with a little questioning tone at the end.

"…"

"..."

Both of them fell silent. Vincent was being confused at Gloxinia and Gloxinia was being confused at herself.

"I don't really need friends." Vincent was the one who broke the silence first.

Gloxinia frowned at his words.

"But friends are important for a school life," Gloxinia said, looking up at him straight into his eyes as if she was challenging him. She couldn't fathom why Vincent wouldn't want friends in school.

"Who even told you that?" Vincent said with a frown. Gloxinia noticed a change in his expression for the first time - an expression that she didn't know the meaning. One thing for sure was that it was not a happy expression.

For Vincent, what she said made even less sense. Vincent didn't need such a vain thing called friends. Not after what he'd been through.

He stepped backwards in a sudden to yank off Gloxinia's hand without touching her before he walked back into the building.

"If you really want friends," Vincent said as he passed by Gloxinia. "Just look around."

Gloxinia watched as he went inside the school building. She wondered what he meant by 'look around'. Were there other people that could be her friend?

Gloxinia followed Vincent back into the school building, but once again she already lost sight of him even though he was just gone a moment ago. She decided to just shrug it off and make her way to the classroom.

She was about to walk down when she noticed someone passing by carrying a bunch of things in his arms.

Somehow, those things looked like her missing things.

"Oh!" Gloxinia exclaimed. Her loud voice startled the guy and he stopped moving.

Gloxinia hurried down the stairs and approached the guy with her eyes stuck on the stuff he was carrying.

"Are those mine? Are you the one who found them?" Gloxinia asked with sparkling eyes.

"N-no, I mean, yes…" the guy stuttered.

Gloxinia looked up to look at the guy's face and raised an eyebrow. She felt like she'd seen the guy before. His face didn't have any feature that stood out--black hair, two round eyes, average nose length, lips… But the way he averted his eyes from Gloxinia seemed familiar.

"Ah," Gloxinia said. "Didn't we meet yesterday?"

She was talking about the one she and Vincent met when they were going back to class.

"H-huh? D-did we?" the guy's eyes shook as he said that.

"I think so! Did you want to return them to me yesterday?" Gloxinia asked.

The guy gaped and it reminded Gloxinia of the fish back in her lake.

"S-something like that, yes…" the guy muttered.

"Thank you," Gloxinia said while opening up her palms, ready to receive her stuff back. The guy glanced at her open hands and at her face back and forth. She tilted her head, wondering why he wasn't giving them back yet.

The guy reluctantly placed the stuff he was carrying on Gloxinia's palm. They were all small stuff--her ruler, handkerchief, pencil…

But her eraser and student card weren't there.

No matter how much she looked for it, it wasn't anywhere.

"I…" the guy said while Gloxinia was busy glaring at the stuff, thinking her eyes missed something. She looked up. "I know… where your other stuff are."

"Really?" Gloxinia said, her eyes sparkling. She didn't notice it, but being stared at like that by her made the guy blush.

"Y-yes," the guy said with a slight smirk, but Gloxinia couldn't see that since he was hanging his head down. "If you go home with me after school, I'll give them to you."

Going home together after school! Gloxinia widened her eyes. According to Lilly, that was one of the things that friends do with each other.

"Okay," Gloxinia said while nodding.

"See you later then," the guy said while scampering away.

Gloxinia made her way back to her classroom. She felt ecstatic about getting one step closer to her goal that she didn't realize she was skipping along the way.

She entered the class right as the bell rang, indicating the class was starting again. She made her way back to her seat and noticed that Vincent was already sitting on his.

Vincent watched her coming in, carrying a lot of stuff in her thin hands. He squinted at them, but they were just a bunch of trifle items like a ruler, pencil, handkerchief, a charm, and some others he couldn't see.

Gloxinia sat down in her seat in front of him. He wondered what all those items were but he wasn't curious enough to ask her, so he just let her be.

"Guess what," Gloxinia suddenly turned around and said. It startled Vincent a bit but he quickly regained his composure.

Honestly, he thought she wouldn't talk to him anymore after what he said in the rooftop earlier.

"I got a friend!" Gloxinia said.

Vincent was a bit taken aback at how enthusiastic she seemed. Her eyes were visibly sparkling and her tone of speaking was a bit chirpier.

"You were right, I could get a friend if I looked around, after all!" Gloxinia beamed. She was already treating that guy earlier as a friend.

"..."

"..."

Both Gloxinia and Vincent just stared at each other without a word. She was waiting for his response, but he just didn't know how to respond to her report that came out of nowhere.

"Good for you?" Vincent said, after deciding that that was probably what she wanted to hear.

Gloxinia nodded fervently.

"Yeah! Look, he helped me find my missing stuff," she said while showing the items she was holding.

"Congrats," Vincent said, sighing. Part of him was glad Gloxinia didn't hold it against him, but another part of him wished she would just leave him alone.

"You know him too, we met him when we were on the way back from the laboratory yesterday," Gloxinia said.

Vincent's brows twitched.

He remembered that guy, of course. He was too suspicious to be forgotten. The guy was not in their class, so Vincent thought it was weird that they met him at the hallway when it was still class time. The restroom was nowhere near their classroom either.

Vincent opened his mouth, about to voice out his suspicion, but closed it again.

Who am I to judge? She at least doesn't seem to deem him suspicious, Vincent thought.

"We made a promise to go home together after school," Gloxinia continued. Her eyes turned soft as she cast her gaze downwards, making a somber look that just enhanced her beauty. "Isn't that very friend-like?"

Just what did that friend of hers teach her all this time? Vincent wondered.

Fortunately for Vincent, the teacher of the next class came in and started the lesson, forcing Gloxinia to face front again to pay attention to the class.

Gloxinia was reluctant, but she still had to pay attention in class. It was one of the things that Lilly wanted her to do: study.

■■■■■

After what seemed like the longest class in Gloxinia's life, the last school bell finally rang. She tidied up her stuff and carried her bag.

"Hey," Vincent called out before she could start walking. Gloxinia turned to face him, but he didn't say anything and just stared at her.

"Nevermind," Vincent said.

Gloxinia tilted her head, wondering what he wanted to say. But she thought it was probably not important after all since he didn't say it.

"See you tomorrow," Gloxinia said. She went out of the class, but then she remembered she didn't ask the guy which class he was in.

Just as she was puzzled on which way to go, left or right, she saw her new friend coming over from afar.

"Hi, did you wait?" the guy said with a big grin on his face. He seemed like he rushed to get there.

"No, I just got out," Gloxinia said.

"Let's go. My house is within walking distance too. I'll take you home," the guy said.

Both of them started heading out of the school building together.

It was Gloxinia's first friend-like activity, and she couldn't be more excited.