Interlude: Gwen
Hovering with a single flower in hand, Helios positioned himself in front of a particular window. He approached the window and knocked on it, but a minute passed with no response. He knocked again, and finally, the door opened, revealing Gwen, who appeared both angry and unhappy.
"H-Hi..." Helios chuckled awkwardly.
"You didn't answer my texts and calls, and now you're here, only saying hi," Gwen frowned deeply, clearly annoyed.
"I-I was busy..." Helios stammered.
"Busy with what? Demolishing warehouses that I told you not to go to?" she asked, raising her brow.
"In my defense, it was Peter's idea," Heliosshrugged, though it wasn't true.
Gwen snorted. "Liar."
"Hey, come on," Helios groaned, extending his hand and offering her the flowers. "Here, for you."
"Flowers?" Gwen was taken aback. "You bought flowers?"
"Yeah, why?" Helios replied. "I thought you liked flowers?"
"That is so unlike you," Gwen rolled her eyes, but she accepted the flowers anyway.
"So... Rooftop?" Helios suggested.
Gwen sighed and climbed out of the window, joining him on the roof of the house. Helios sat beside her, both of them basking in the moonlight.
Gwen remained silent, hugging her knees and resting her chin on them. "I was worried, you know?" she said quietly. "I thought something happened to you."
Helios scoffed. "That's not gonna happen. It's just some gangs, Gwen."
"Well, my dad's a cop, so those kinds of guys sometimes make me worried. After all, my dad has to deal with them," Gwen explained.
"Oh wow, I'm equal to your father now?" Helios joked, and Gwen playfully elbowed him in response.
"Seriously though, just be careful."
"Alright, Gweny," Helios teased, using the nickname from their long friendship.
Gwen chuckled at his use of the name. "Why are you still calling me that?"
"What? You don't want me to call you that anymore?"
"No... it's just— why?"
"Because it's cute?"
"Cute?" Gwen laughed.
"Yeah, you've been my friend since forever," Helios said. "I'm allowed to call you 'Gweny' once or twice, right?"
"Just not in front of others," Gwen hummed.
Helios noticed some paint marks on Gwen's arms, which piqued his curiosity. He gently held Gwen's hand to take a closer look.
"What's this?" he inquired.
"Oh, it's just homecoming stuff," she said. "It's been quite fun, painting the decorations and signs."
"Oh yeah, homecoming, forgot about that," Helios admitted. "When is it?"
Gwen groaned. "It's literally two days from now, Theo."
"What?!" Helios nearly screamed, but he restrained himself in fear of Gwen's father overhearing. "Do you have a date yet?"
Gwen raised her brow. "What do you think?"
"You do!?"
"Of course I don't have a date yet," Gwen rolled her eyes.
"Oh." Helios simply said. "You want to come with me?"
"Depends," she said, an innocent smile on her face.
"Depends?" Helios was confused.
"As what? Are you taking it as an actual date? Or just friends?" Gwen asked.
"W-Well..." he stuttered. "Up to you?"
Gwen raised her brow. "Up to me? Seriously?"
Helios looked away, rubbing his neck nervously. "What do you want me to say?"
Seeing this, Gwen seemingly gave up. "Whatever."
She stood up, slowly making her way back to her window, ignoring the confused look from Helios.
Helios also stood up. "Wait! So is that a yes?"
The girl just groaned, rolling her eyes as she entered her room. "Yes. Dumbass."
Sorry I broke my promise last time, honestly, writing Helios sophomore arc is just such a slog. This is probably the worst arc in this book yet, and it made me just stuck and burnt out(just look at the word count in this chapter). I'll be honest, I don't think I can continue this, even though I already had an outline and an ending in mind, realizing it to words is harder than I thought, the most I could do is just writing a sort of 'outline chapter' that describes what's going to happen after this arc, but that's it, I'm done with this story, maybe I'll continue another story of mine, like Harry Potter: A Thread of Fate, but we'll see. Again, sorry if I let you all down, let me know if you want that 'outline chapter', otherwise, this is going to be the last chapter.