Yesterday is Gone

3/11/2023

Summary: Sebastian had his eye on the most handsome male at school.

AN: I'm hoping this one isn't so on the nose but maybe might be? :D

AN2: I had this idea back in March and I love this idea too but I'm debating about releasing a new story or updating an existing one. I'd honestly like to do both. So don't be too angry with me if this one gets released before an update for a pre-existing story does.

Chapter 1

Sebastian glanced up at the imposing building that was his school not for the first time in his life. Others just sloughed through it's doors and halls after the first week, not noticing it anymore, just another part of their day, decoration in the story of their life. If you asked them about it, they would either feign ignorance or would be able to tell you some secrets or things about it but no one knew it like Sebastian had.

Sebastian had been attending this school for two years now and he knew everything there was to know about the school. Or he thought he had until he caught the boy in one of the windows and he frowned slightly, he didn't know what room those windows were attached to.

He counted the rows, counted how many windows in it was and then did the same in the other direction. The room was nearly as mysterious as the boy. He knew all of the boys who attended this school. It wasn't a big class that attended this private school each year. He couldn't get a good look at the male in the window, just the general shape of him, small but not tiny and brown hair.

Was it a Freshman? The year had already been in motion for the last two months but mid-semester transfers weren't unheard of. The boy vanished from view and Sebastian counted the windows again, able to place every room with the windows until he reached those two. How had he not noticed that before? How had a new student found it before him? He tried to match it with the blueprints he'd memorized.

An arm wrapped around his shoulders and he looked over to his overly excitable friend and thoughts about the boy and the room disappeared for the time being and they headed in for class.

It was only as he got dressed for the club that night and thinking about his escape routes that he remembered the windows and the boy. The boy wouldn't be there, but the room weighed on his mind. Should he use his knowledge of this place to find a room or to go out for a hook up?

Sighing, he changed again into his sleepwear and thought up a plausible excuse if he were caught before he slipped out of his room, shutting the door behind him on his sleeping best friend's snores.

This place was filled with secrets and hidden gems and he knew all of them, well, almost all of them. He pressed on a corner of the decorative crown molding and part of the wall, no wider than Sebastian moved back and with a press against the edges, it moved out of Sebastian's way enough to allow him to slip through.

It was dusty and incredibly dark in the new space and he moved the hidden doorway back into place. The oil in the lanterns had evaporated, the sticks wrapped in cloth had been burned through nearly a century ago. The only source of light in the narrow pathway between walls was Sebastian's phone illuminating the way.

Some would say that it wasn't a pathway, but Sebastian knew those were uninformed individuals. The path was just big enough to allow someone to get through without tipping anyone off about the dimensions, they were just slightly thicker walls to an unobservant person. It was not just rafters or crawl space, it was an evacuation route. There weren't many but they were smartly placed for the most commonly traversed areas for the family that had built the place to start with. When they remodeled it to home boys of other wealthy families, they'd destroyed some of the paths. Sebastian hadn't ventured through some of the rubble before, unsure if it was safe, unsure if it was a real path or an accidental one that was created in the remodel.

There had been other remodels both before and since the conversion into an all boys' boarding school and he had contended himself with the knowledge that he may not know everything about this place. He thought he had gotten most of it down, had found all the important nooks and crannies. Now he realized he was missing a very big piece of the puzzle.

How had that boy found it so easily? Sebastian had spent years exploring the place and that kid was just hanging out there. The windows looked the same as the others, clean on the inside and out. Maybe someone had access to it from the outside? He would test that theory.

This staircase of the tiniest of steps that would be so easy to slide down if not careful and lead to a broken body part, led up to a classroom on the fourth floor right next to the strange windows. It wasn't an often used classroom, teachers seemed to avoid it if possible. New teachers were given it but they often moved out of it the moment another classroom opened up. It was devoid of anything interesting, new teachers always attempted to spiff it up in their enthusiasm but that enthusiasm waned quickly and the decorations either moved out or were left in disrepair.

Sebastian himself had never had a class here, he'd come in too late for such a beginner's level class. Years 6-12 attended these halls and this was more year 6 and 7 that got stuck up on the hot 4th floor. They slept on the fifth floor, so perhaps the fourth floor was a bit of a relief. The staff who were unlucky enough to draw the short stick of staying on property slept in the basement. Both of those were trade offs depending on the time of year. The higher levels got more choice accommodations.

Right now, this classroom was neglected more than normal, they were unable to obtain a teacher to use this room this year and so dust clung to the place but not nearly as bad as the secret route he'd used to get there. He knew exactly where to press to open this door behind the chalkboard and he slipped through the gap between the floor and the chalk holder.

He wondered what this room was to begin with. Before it was a classroom, it was a sick room for those who were likely to recover from their injuries or illnesses. The ones less likely to survive had been stationed near the backdoor of the first floor so it would be easier to move them out. Perhaps it was the nursery? Or maybe where women had their babies? It would explain why the gap was so close to the floor and not that big.

Sebastian shook his head, not wanting to think too closely about babies and pregnant women. That's less interesting than trying to find a way into a room he hadn't realized until now existed.

He pressed his ear against the wall and knocked on it but those walls sounded typical, normal, especially in the later remodel. He knocked on every foot he could from wall to wall against the one that would separate him form the unknown space. Finding the sound difference was the first step, finding the latch would be the second.

Frowning when he couldn't hear a single foot of wall out of place, he debated his next move. The classroom on the other side of this wall was a little more commonly used but at this time of night would be empty. The teacher who taught in it though was not as understanding of those who messed with his space as some of the others. Sebastian didn't usually flinch when it came to upsetting a teacher but this one was particularly creative with his punishments and even Sebastian toed the line with him.

Still, the question burned in Sebastian and he glanced at the time. He still had two hours before the most dedicated teacher would be up for the day.

He went into the hallway and then tried to enter the classroom but found it locked. He quickly picked it and then slipped in and locked the door behind him as an extra safety precaution. He hadn't found an escape room from here. Maybe that's why the teachers didn't like the other room, maybe there had been enough kids throughout the years using that passage that the teachers thought the room was haunted?

Sebastian bypassed most of the wall, just standing by the door and looking along it, trying to figure out if it bowed oddly out and wished he'd done that in the last room too. There was a bit of a deceiving curve to the wall. If you spent long enough in the room or purposefully looked for it, you would see it. Sebastian hadn't had the opportunity for either of those and he was certain the same was true in the last room without even confirmation.

The room was bracketed by new walls. Why would they do such a thing? Why put so much care into curving the walls around a space nowadays and losing two windows in the process? Was there even an access point inside to that space?

Sebastian spent some time and found a panel that came off the wall but only found pipes and wires behind it. It was an access point to the bones of the house but it still didn't explain the windows, right? Or maybe they had no where else to house these tubes and pipes in a logical place and to leave that part of the wall blank would have seemed odd for aesthetic purposes. It wasn't unheard of, fake windows were definitely a thing.

Sebastian might have left it there if he didn't recall the boy on the other side of the window panes. He put the panel back into place, more sure than ever there was a space there. Maybe the boy was squatting. It wouldn't be the first time for that either and maybe he was smarter than others by choosing such an auspicious spot. He wouldn't have expected to be caught by a keen gaze in the middle of the day, knowing that it wasn't a real room he occupied. Anyone else would have glanced away without a second thought, not knowing there was something wrong with the picture.

He could even add to the haunted feeling of the place, moving around in a space so small that it could only be a mouse. Sebastian was expecting to find a sleeping bag and a few goodies in that space and he didn't bother going back to the unoccupied room, just opened the window of this room. A boarding school filled with boys and they didn't have bars or blocks on opening the windows big enough to slip out of. He supposed there was a bit of a safety precaution in each option – able to escape if there was a fire vs boys accidentally falling to their ends. If a boy was really determined, he'd be able to get beyond blocks and bars.

Sebastian slipped onto the small walkway underneath each row of windows, not deep enough to block a clear view of all the windows when looking upward close to the building, but enough for someone to walk across with some precaution. It made it easier to clean the windows.

The two windows between the rooms were easy to open and Sebastian slipped in but groaned in frustration. The room was even smaller than he'd anticipated. He could make a complete turn without hitting anything if he kept his arms by his sides but even holding up the phone like this caused him to run into the piping and walls. It was not a space anyone could sleep in, not even a 6th year.

Why would that boy hang out up here? Just because he could? Sitting and squatting in this space would be highly uncomfortable and extremely hot. The hot water pipe made it stifling. Still, Sebastian investigated the space, knowing he was unlikely to come here again. There wasn't any crawl space beneath the piping and to try would be problematic as you'd probably burn your skin off.

Giving up on the notion that someone was hiding up here for more than a few minutes, Sebastian crawled back out again and closed the windows. Perhaps this would be another mystery that he would not solve. He moved back to the open classroom and slipped into the room again, closing the windows behind him and hoping nothing was out of place, locking the door behind him.

Then he headed back to the classroom he'd arrived in and carefully made his way back down to his dorm. He made it through without being caught, as always. He thought he saw maybe a shadow of movement out of the corner of his eye at one point but when he turned to look there was nothing there.

He was letting his brain stew in all those stories he'd read and were now playing tricks on him.

Sebastian slipped back into his room and didn't regret a sleepless night as he headed for a shower and threw his dusty sleepwear into a hamper. He'd let the others think it was for an entirely different reason when he was falling asleep in class. They'd never know the truth.