Chapter Text
Seraphina had a way with understanding people even when they didn’t want to be read. It had become one of her greatest assets. And throughout her friendship with John, it was one of the things that held them together. Their ability to understand each other, even without having to say anything.
And so, whenever John didn’t want her asking questions about why he was upset, he would start to avoid her. Because he knew that simply ignoring her would never be enough. He would have to hide from her to keep her from finding out what was wrong.
Because out of everyone, John had the hardest time lying to Seraphina.
It was like that all over again.
Before recently, he had just avoided her gaze, or rushed off before she could get much of a word in.
But now, she never saw him.
When she was in the hallways, she was looking for him. When she was walking across the campus, she was looking for him. She knew the routes he would usually take to class. She knew his habits. And all of them changed in one way.
To avoid her.
She went to the gym in the mid-early morning, right when he was usually leaving, and he was never there.
She made her way home from her club activities, passing by the library where John always sat at the window and studied. He wasn't there.
She sat by her window, the same as every night, where John would walk past her building and to his shared room with Blyke.
He stopped walking past her window.
In all the ways where she subtly checked on him throughout the day: where she glanced over him to make sure he was ok, to look at his clothes, or his expression, or to even check his posture.
Her only way of caring for him from a distance was gone.
She hadn’t even realized that he knew what she was doing. How would he have known to not sit at that window while studying? How would he have known not to walk past her room at that time? How would he know not to be at the gym at that time in the morning? It’s because he knew what she was doing, and he was letting her.
He was letting her care for him in the only way that made him comfortable, from a distance.
But that all changed, and she had no idea why.