Watching his reflection through green irises, Sebastian eyed the tiny cuts of hair drifting onto his shoulders more closely than the man behind the action. He had grown out of wincing as the barber glided around his ears, instead, trusting the actual cutting entirely— he was strict about the stylization however. Not too much there, but just a bit there, and how far into the season was it? How long would he allow his hair to get? In the cooler months, a longer haircut was fine, he would just wear a headband while playing tennis, but in the summer, the heat made anything past the top of his ears nearly unbearable.

The barber was reliable, an old friend of the family and one of the only people who had ever come near Sebastian's head with a pair of scissors. The man cut his father's hair, and by the tremble of his hand, he wouldn't have been surprised if he would have been around long enough to have cut his father's father's hair— not that Emmett was originally from Ohio, but the barber was a staple of their experience in Lima.

The Sawyer's, Tierney and Sarah, were originally from Toledo, their father was a retired professor from an ivy by the time he met their mother, a wealthy Southern implant trying to make it as an actress in New York. She wasn't great at acting, but she was phenomenally talented with agriculture, botany and the like— within a few years, they helmed multiple privately owned farms in the midwest— and within the decade, they had corporatized. Tierney and Sarah had absolutely no memories of acres of corn and soybeans, but they had, more than anything, seen the wealth produced by the tiny seeds sown. The sisters would be rich beyond their years, as they were the only heirs to the enterprise, and their father's intelligence, their mother's wit and the family's wealth projected them to the ranks of some of Ohio's finest, which, in Tierney's mind, meant very little for someone who thought they should have ended up somewhere flashier, but in Lima, it was easy to be the best. She knew that.

Emmett was a Seattle native, and Geordie, Hunter's father, had been a British soldier turned diplomat turned dual-citizen. The Clarington's spent a considerable amount of their year, usually the summer months, in some one-off English coastal town, which Hunter hated, but added prestige to the Smythe-Clarington houses— association. There were aunts and uncles spread out along the west coast and across the Atlantic, but both families had doubled their own wealth a sizable amount and focused on what was near and what was pressing. Sebastian had only met his relatives on his dad's side of the family a handful of times, and Emmett never spent any time reminiscing on his childhood. It was hard for Sebastian to imagine that the man had ever been young or jovial, and he recognized that the relationship between his father and his family seemed stifled, but the Smythe's were emotionally repressed people anyway. It wasn't a surprise.

As for the Sawyer's, Sebastian saw his grandmother as often as one normally sees a grandparent, but she had taken to older age and vacillated from shrewdness to incoherent tangents about her late husband.

The Clarington's were nice enough, Geordie was kind and soft-spoken, and Sebastian would describe Sarah the same way. The sisters weren't particularly close, but no one got particularly close to Tierney anyway.

A few years prior, Tierney had a revelation or midlife crisis that prompted her interest in yoga and meditation, and as the wealthy often do, she embedded thousands of dollars into her interests and opened a few yoga studios in and around the Columbus area. Obviously, that interest didn't last long, and the company was shoved off onto Sarah, who didn't particularly like yoga, but wasn't inclined to ever reject a cry for help. If they spoke, it was usually about the company, because while Tierney had been entirely hands-off for years, her name was still plastered on a weathering sheet of paper with her portrait next to the word 'CEO'.

The barber patted his shoulders. "All done."

Sebastian paid the man and returned to his car, turning the heat on instantly, but cracking a few windows to keep a bit of air flow. He considered stopping to get something to eat, but he wasn't particularly hungry— either way, it was later in the evening, and he figured he'd probably go to sleep very soon. He wanted to avoid his father who would know Sebastian hadn't practiced tennis that afternoon by just looking at him. It shouldn't have been a big deal, but everything was a big deal to Emmett (or everything meant nothing, there was no in-between). He didn't have a good excuse either— just that a girl was upset with him, and he had to go talk to her, and that was more important than tennis, a scholarship, college or becoming a successful, responsible adult. That was how things would escalate, so he gave a sigh of relief when he got home and the lights were off.

He took a shower and thought about his day, first about the better things, because there was enough bad to play on until he slept. Conditioning his hair, his head tossed back on his neck and the water from the shower head falling from his tall stature onto the white bathroom tub, Sebastian thought about the girl and the growing cold creeping in that month.

"We're fighting, or we're okay?"

Sebastian crossed his arms across his chest and leaned back onto his car. "We're okay, Jones."

Both hesitated for a while, watching their breath in the cold, autumn air.

Mercedes spoke next. "I'm sorry for doing the thing."

"What thing?' Sebastian asked, knowing fully well. He wanted to hear her admit it though.

"Throwing stuff back in your face— being judgy. I know, only God should judge, and I don't feel like I judge you… it's just: sometimes, I think I have you figured out, and then I realize I don't at all."

Sebastian laughed and shoved his hands into his pockets. "I don't have myself figured out… no worries. I appreciate your apology. You can make it up to me."

"Oh, God,' Mercedes leaned forward on the tips of her toes. "Please don't make a sex joke."

He flatlined and shook his head with a deflated expression. "I was going to ask you to come over for Halloween this weekend, but,' he followed her guilty eyes. "If you're going to do exactly what we just talked about,' he sucked his teeth.

"I'm supposed to act completely oblivious to everything I know about you,' Mercedes asked, exasperated but well-intentioned and jovial.

"At least give me a chance to be that thing."

She smiled. "You're not, like, having a party or getting super drunk?"

"And in the mood,' Sebastian teased while Mercedes blushed. He shook his head. "No, probably going to just hang out, pass out some candy. My parents have a few storage bottles of Château Margaux that I've been wanting to get my hands on, and they won't be there, so it's all ripe for the taking… I'm not a big costume guy, its always felt a bit dollar-brand Carnival in Rio to me, but… I like to get festive."

"Festive…' she lingered. "Something tells me your festivities look a whole lot different from mine."

"You gonna judge me or you gonna let me show you?"

Mercedes twisted her mouth from side to side and locked eyes with her shoes. "How late am I getting home?"

"Does it matter? It's the weekend."

She released a heavy sigh. "I don't know about your parents, but my mom is black. There's a strict 'in before street lights are on' rule in my household."

Sebastian raised an eyebrow. "If that's the only caveat, you can stay the night at my house. I mean… we have two guest bedrooms."

Mercedes raised her eyebrows and shook her head in shock. She knew he was wealthy, but she'd never taken the time to think about just how much money he and his family truly had. "Maybe,' she began, thinking about it. "I'll let you know tomorrow."

"That's fair,' he said quickly, licking his lips and turning to get into his car. He was, minutely, irritated by her hesitation, but he knew the trouble was with the logistics and not him, or so he'd liked to think. Usually, they'd hug and make a bid on who would call first and when, or he would tell her why he wouldn't be calling and how long that excuse would stand, but the air was growing colder, and truly, he did still feel a bit distant from her and upset about most things. Sebastian's mind trailed from his car, and her driveway and the road right back to where it had been on the drive to her house that afternoon. He stopped short.

"Mercedes,' he called.

The girl turned, halfway to her front door, hands tucked tight underneath her arms. "Yes?"

"Has anybody… has anybody from school said anything to you? Any of my friends?"

Mercedes took a few steps towards the boy, her face drooping. "No, not that I know of… why?"

Sebastian shook his head, attempting to assuage any of the girl's worries. "Nothing. Are you sure? You'd tell me if anything was said, right?"

"Yes,' she was frustrated. "I would tell you… what's wrong now?"

He shook his head. "Just curious."

A beat.

After a few seconds of silence, Sebastian walked over to the girl and hugged her slowly. She acquiesced soon, wrapping her arms around him and letting him sway her gently. He looked down, smiling before moving his hands to her cheeks.

"Hey, we're going to have so much fun this weekend. Just wait. All of your days after this Saturday night are going to be just a shadow of the glory I'm about to bestow upon you."

Mercedes shook her head but began to giggle. "You're crazy."

Letting go of her, he took a few steps backward and cocked his mouth. "About you,' he said, pointing at the girl slyly. He turned around to walk towards his car quickly. "Not even going to wait for your reaction!"

She just laughed and walked back into the house after the red lights of his car faded down the street.

He dried off, ran a comb through his hair and put on clothes for the night. Sebastian kept thinking, which hadn't always been a pastime of his, the scheming and machinations, of course, but thinking, meditating, contemplating wasn't his forte, he had spent most of his adolescent years in the company of others.

Sebastian couldn't put a finger on what he thought had been the genuine catalyst of his current debacle; he could blame Mercedes, but if Madison had said something about him that night, which he didn't care to hear about, he didn't want to know what else Mercedes knew of him, then he couldn't be sure exactly where the mutiny had began. He had always been well liked, loved even, but he also remembered that he had very nearly sat alone at the welcome ceremony in the auditorium on the first day of school— something that would have never happened before.

So, the imperfections were rising to the top, and he was having sincere insecurities for the first time. Of course, he loved his friends— in a way. In the way that a king loves his people, but he wasn't that arrogant; he just knew what he was and what he had. A part of him was furious that anyone had anything to say about him behind his back, but moreover, he wasn't sure who he was without them— that was the problem. Sebastian was tired of them, sure, they were shallow and rude, but he had been shallow and rude. He would have continued being shallow and rude had he not realized he couldn't ever be anything like his father, or that Savannah, as bad off as she was, was right about a lot of things or if he hadn't met Mercedes, the first person he had ever let close outside the sphere of his impenetrable bubble, and had her look at him with utter disgust.

He was becoming better, and if not better, different, and he couldn't see how that improvement (or transition) was looked down upon by his peers. Well, he could, he very well could and did, but he thought his power over them, wholly, was transcendent— that they would have applauded him for his progressive behavior and his condemnation of poor character instead of holding a mirror to his many faces. He flirted with the idea that, perhaps, he was that arrogant.

Sebastian felt as though he was being ousted, and he had no one to turn to— Mercedes wouldn't understand, Hunter wouldn't empathize, and he refused to let anyone else see him sweat. He didn't even want either of them to see him compromised, it was unnerving.

He knew one thing, and that was that there was no fucking way he was ending high school at the bottom of the food chain.

"No,' his father said sternly.

Sebastian gulped, having expected a rebuttal but not entire dismissal. "It'll give me more time to focus, they won't be expecting me to play on the school's team."

Emmett cleared his throat, looming around the kitchen for a utensil. "How are you going to get scouted if you're not on a school team, do you think?"

"I practice every day,' he idled.

"You're going to invite scouts to the country club, Sebastian?"

Silence.

"This isn't like you,' his father confessed, picking a spoon out of a drawer and returning to the kitchen's island. He poured a bowl of cereal. "What's wrong at school?"

Sebastian had concocted a plan to ask for a transfer out of McKinley and to the local boys' private school, Dalton Academy. They had sent him plenty of interest letters over the years, but Emmett thought it made the most sense, politically, for his children to go to public school. During the campaign, Sebastian planned to mention that he would have his mind less on distractions and more on playing tennis and performing better.

Naturally, Emmett had seen through the facade quickly.

Sebastian figured that the easiest thing for him to do was to pull out of the situation entirely— he had no ability to accurately assess what problem to even face, let alone how to face it. It wouldn't be difficult to pretend his father had transferred him out to a private school to focus on tennis. He would be able to keep most of his friendships on the back burner and appear aloof and focused. It was the perfect solution, albeit a bit impulsive.

"Nothing. School's okay, I just want to be better. Competitive."

Emmett nodded, "Good… Keep that edge. You're good, but you can be better,' he paused for a bit, taking a bite of cereal and reaching over the counter for a newspaper. "You're going to need to start practicing more soon."

"I know."

"I've noticed you've been coming straight home after practice more often now,' his father admitted. Emmett had a way of watching closely and appearing to not watch at all; while his father thought his increased presence in the household was a good and dutiful thing, Sebastian knew it was because of his growing distance and disinterest with his friends.

"Homework and tennis,' he trailed, his eyes playing lazily around the kitchen. He wanted to leave. Picking up his backpack, he silently cursed himself for even bringing up the idea. Even if his father had relented, did he really want to transfer schools with his tail tucked between his legs? Was that his move— would his classmates see his exit as anything other than cowardice?

"I'm going to practice for a few hours before I come home,' he informed his father, the latter nodding and returning his interest to the newspaper. There were only two more days until the weekend when he'd have more time to think and time to spend with Mercedes, who, surprisingly, was the only person not causing him stress.

Pushing his keys into the ignition, Sebastian looked himself over in the rearview mirror and smiled.