Seymour stared at the titration he was attempting to do in frustration, embarrassed that he was probably going to end up messing it up for his lab partner… Arthur, he thought his name was? even as mental images of Orin's body at the awkward angle it had fallen to below him intermittently flashed through his mind, distracting him and sending further anxiety searing through him. The sudden harsh knock at the door to the classroom behind him certainly didn't help, causing him to tense up before swiveling around to face it. …And now a police officer was standing at the door, saying something to Mr. Bernstein that Seymour couldn't hear over the ringing in his ears… yep, he was dead, he was so dead, they had figured it out somehow, oh God… He felt Arthur nudge him in the shoulder through his haze and eventually realized that he was trying to bring his attention to the fact that the officer was asking him to follow her… welp, he couldn't exactly say it had been a nice life, but there had been some good stuff in there… at least he had saved Audrey from Orin… Seymour dazedly followed her into the hallway and to a conference room that was bereft of people, trying and hopefully at least partially succeeding in ridding his expression and demeanor of potentially incriminating guilt. She sat down at one of the chairs surrounding the room's table, gesturing for him to sit at the one next to her, which he gladly did, trying to hide the shaking of his legs.
Her expression seemed almost… kind? gentle? like maybe, just maybe, he wasn't a suspect, at least not yet… "Seymour, is it? I was told you might know something about the disappearance of Orin Scrivello, as one of his close friends." Despite the horrificness of the situation, Seymour couldn't help but feel a tinge of satisfaction that Orin was not being remembered by his fake D.D.S. title. The fact that he was now apparently being remembered as one of his friends, on the other hand, was the opposite of satisfying. "...He's… he's missing?" And he had apparently decided to go with the strategy of playing dumb… he was surprised at the fear for Orin's safety he was able to pretend to have. The officer nodded sympathetically, sliding him a plastic bottle of water before writing something in her notepad. "When was the last time you saw him?" Shit. Seymour took his time opening the bottle and drinking from it, trying to think through his response and keep his persona of the concerned friend up. At least he had thought to clean up and move his motorcycle to an alleyway away from the shop afterwards… "We… uh… we were working on a project for Botany together last night, at Mushnik's Skid Row Florists, and afterwards he got in this car that drove away…" The officer nodded contemplatively before responding.
"What do you remember about the car?" With barely suppressed and rapidly increasing panic coursing through him, Seymour said the first thing that came to mind. "It was a white Toyota Corolla…" Seymour didn't hear her next question as he realized with horror that he had just accidentally said what kind of car Mr. Mushnik had, and she repeated it a moment later. "Any other details you can think of?" Please just let the Earth swallow him now… he clearly couldn't do anything right… please don't let them connect it back to him… "...No… sorry…" He barely registered the officer writing something down in her notepad before promptly standing up, prompting him to shakily do the same. "Thank you, Seymour." She held out some kind of piece of paper to him, which he took after a moment. "Here's a number for a free counseling service; it might be helpful if you have difficulties with this situation." Unless they could knock some sense into him he wasn't too sure about that… He dipped his head to her respectfully, somehow managing to follow her out of the room and back to the room for Honors Chemistry even as his legs seemed to have been transformed into lead that was threatening to drag him into the ground where he belonged… transforming something into lead might be next week's lab, actually…
Despite his best efforts to hide his anxiety from Audrey, she was apparently able to pick up on it the second they had settled into their seats for AP Environmental Science… she had also picked up on it in AP Calculus AB, probably due to some combination of her being that empathetic and him being that obvious… "...Seymour, are you okay?" He could just tell her that something was up now… if he was stupid! "...Uh, yeah, I'm fine." She looked at him questioningly, almost asking him a question after a long moment before stopping and pivoting to telling him about her upcoming away game before asking him how the play was going. Seymour attempted to give her a platitude about it being fine, trailing off as Mr. Mushnik entered the room, checked to make sure she was in her seat, walked to the front of the room, and started class. Their conversation before class in the room for Botany was punctuated with small pauses whenever the door to the room opened where Audrey looked behind her to make sure it wasn't Orin as always, and a confused, hesitantly relieved look crossed her face when the bell rang and he still wasn't there. Seymour's heart dropped as he heard a knock at the door soon after the start of class and realized what was going on. He could barely hear the officer's conversations with Mrs. Luce and Audrey over the ringing in his ears or hold her gaze as she looked at him confusedly before moving to the door and exiting the room.
She arrived back what could've been five or thirty minutes later, he didn't know anymore, in a bewildered daze, looking over at him confusedly again before shakingly sitting in her seat. He didn't fully register the end of class until she gently tapped him on the arm, causing him to jolt to attention. "Seymour, that officer just told me that Orin's… disappeared…" Seymour stood up to join her, not knowing how to respond. "...Uh… yeah, I dunno what happened…" After a moment, she looked up at him from the floor, overwhelming him further with her brilliant, warm brown eyes. "...Are you sure?" After a moment of him struggling to figure out how to respond and trying and failing to fight back panic, she continued. "...It's okay if you do." …What did she mean by that? He looked away from her and at the floor. "...Yeah, I'm sure. I really haven't seen him since… yesterday's rehearsal…" Audrey nodded contemplatively for a long moment before almost completely short-circuiting him by taking his hand in hers, and he followed her out of the room. They paused at the entrance for a moment before she looked up at him, squeezing his hand. "Good luck with today's rehearsal." After he had managed to say something in response that hopefully resembled "Good luck with your game," she smiled oh so beautifully before leaving… good thing she had transportation to that game, since Orin obviously wasn't available to drive her home like usual…
Seymour shakily walked towards and into the auditorium, trying and failing to mentally prepare himself for taking on Orin's role as Tevye. He had wanted this, to impress Audrey and to lay claim to a character he felt connected to, but that didn't mean it wasn't nerve-wracking on the level of rivaling last night's confrontation with Orin… he knew his lines and Orin's blocking and characterization for him, he had obsessively gone over the script and his notes and practiced it all deep into the night many a time even after completing his customary mountains of homework and studying on the off-chance that he would need to get on stage in front of all of those inquisitive, damning eyes, but actually putting that knowledge into action was another matter entirely. And then an all too familiar knock at the auditorium's central door made everything even worse somehow. The officer entered the auditorium far before Mr. Mushnik had even started getting to the door, nodding briskly to Seymour as she passed him, and met him at the base of the stage while he stood above her. Seymour couldn't make out anything they were saying over the ringing in his ears… he could certainly hear the suspicion in Mr. Mushnik's voice, though… and they passed him what felt like hours later but had probably been minutes. Mr. Mushnik paused near him, nearly giving him a heart attack, before digging some bills out of his wallet and extending them to him.
"Seymour, get an Uber back to the shop if I don't get back before the end of today's rehearsal." Seymour took the bills with a stuttered "Thanks," flummoxed by the kindness he was showing him especially as it had a monetary component to it, and he gave him a contemplative look, continuing a long moment later with an almost friendly resting of his hand on his shoulder. "...And break a leg." With that, he and the officer left the auditorium, and Seymour eventually managed to force himself to get on stage even amidst the enthused speculations on Orin's absence and Mr. Mushnik's disappearance on the part of the other members of the cast. Said speculations only grew in intensity as Seymour answered questions about what had happened, mentioning that Mr. Mushnik might not be coming back for this rehearsal. Eventually, one of the more forceful students in the play, Crystal, who, fittingly enough for her role as Golde, had never really gotten along with Orin to say the least and now seemed to be vindicated by his absence, got everyone back on track to rehearse the first scene they were supposed to do today, which, ironically, was the one including the Chava Ballet Sequence.
That at least wasn't one of the worst ones he could've started with; Seymour could certainly act sad and contemplative now. Surprisingly, he found himself able to slip back into that role he had practiced so many times relatively easily, even with all of these people around. After those long, stressful days of dealing with Orin, school, and his feelings for Audrey, it had always been nice to take on a more self-assured, confident, sociable personality for a while, and now it had apparently turned out that Tevye had become more than a coping mechanism and was almost… a part of him? in a way? Well, he would certainly take being anyone besides himself or Motel in any form that took, even if that involved eventually doing it in front of a packed auditorium. The moment Chiffon, the actress for Chava, mentioned that the time at which their rehearsals ended had arrived, Seymour's extremely unwelcome reality came crashing back onto him, and he longed to have Tevye's back again despite it objectively being even more depressing. …Maybe the officer had just wanted to talk to Mr. Mushnik because he was Orin's director, but they had been gone so long…
Seymour barely registered Ronnette, the actress for Fruma Sarah, offering him a ride home through his panicked contemplations, managing to nod and let out something hopefully resembling a "Thanks" before following her. In better times, he would be pleasantly surprised that someone cared enough about him to offer him a ride and to know that he would need one since Mr. Mushnik hadn't come back, but mostly now he was just dreading what the end result of it would be. They talked about the play on the way to the shop, with her much to his surprise complimenting his acting that day and him in turn complimenting the acting she had done on the days her scene had been rehearsed, and all too soon they reached the shop, which looked like it had been flipped upside down since the last time Seymour had been there. His heart dropped and felt like it had stopped beating entirely as he registered Mr. Mushnik, standing in front of the front door with his arms crossed, looking like he was ready to kill him.