*(Is this all we see?)*

~*Chapter 43*~

"Midnight you need to concentrate." Cedar huffed. "This is serious training time, I can't have you being distracted like this."

Midnight stood in an almost crouching position, one of his legs ahead of the other. Like he was in PE doing a stretch (he was glad he was almost done one semester of PE). Even if he still had another to do since he had no record of his 'previous' school.

"I'm not distracted." He argued catching his breath. "I'm just thinking while doing these pointless stretches." He stood straight up to look at Cedar. "Why do I need to do this anyway?" He could hardly talk. Cedar had made him do a bunch of stretches, running back and forth, jumping to the tree, and trying hard to get a vision. It brought him down, and he just wanted to sleep. After school. And after Nick's issues.

"They're not pointless Midnight. It's needed for your training. It will help greatly when you need to help your fellow guardians battle." She held her hands to her hips. "You must be limber. You must be fast and act quickly." She turned over to hold his shoulders behind him, her head by his neck. "There is no thinking. You must act." And he felt the grip release. She was gone.

He looked all around him. She was gone. Completely gone. 'Why does she have to do this?'

"Act fast Midnight. Remember that." Her voice loomed over him. The tree. He slightly looked up above his hair. He could make out her figure from the branch he was on before. "If you don't people could get killed."

"Yes yes, I know. Act fast I get it." He sat on the tree stump, grunting as his legs finally got a rest. His phone and hoodie next to him. Midnight felt drip down his forehead. "You did very well today." Cedar was now sat next to him, her teleportation making him jump. "Jesus Christ." His hand clutched his chest. "I hate when my family does that, why do you have to?"

"I was just trying to get you to laugh after all of that training." She pat his back but soon stopped her breath as she eyed his arms. She removed her hand and cleared her throat. "Did you enjoy training?"

"Somewhat." He shrugged. "Besides the stretching. It was like yoga but worse."

Midnight picked his phone up from the edge of the trunk. As soon as the screen turned on he saw the green icon of the messaging app. Dawn, Kurt, Nick. 'Of course.' He rolled his eyes in annoyance. After tapping the message icon he saw how many messages. '15?'

He scrolled down to look over all of them. 'Midnight I'm sorry you know I didn't mean to bring that up.'

'I care about you man please listen to what I have to say.'

'I just don't want Kev and Levi to hurt you.'

'I will explain everything just answer my call.'

And with his message were at least 10 calls, but that was all he could see on the lock screen. He felt Cedars breath looming over his shoulder. "Who is that from?"

"Can you not invade my privacy?" He glared as close as he could to his mentor.

"I'm not trying to."

Midnight took a breath. The cold air around him felt thick, thick enough for him to feel like he couldn't breath. He slapped his phone screen down to his thigh. "Okay." He faced Cedar. "Have you ever had to deal with--troublesome people."

"Always." Cedar sarcastically said. She let out a small chuckle shortly after. "I've been the leader of the nature guardians for over 20 years, when have I not?"

"Well this friend I have--he's kind of--we just became friends again after he got angry and now he's telling me we can't tell anyone that we're friends because his friends might hurt me. Which I don't believe but he says it's true."

"Hmm.." She blinked, seeming to be confused, she looked at him. "Well. First off you have some weird friends." She huffed. "Second, I don't know what you can do about that Midnight. As I have said before you have to choose what world to settle in. Being a guardian and a human is a huge balance. But to avoid that--" She swallowed and straightened herself. Her shoulders rolled anxiously. "You could go back to the guardians. I know you're under a lot of stress and sometimes it's best to choose what's best for you."

He stood up, inhaling deeply. He leaned over to grab his sweater. "Cedar I know you're trying to help." He stated, trying not to sound annoyed. Even if he was. He stood above her. "But I'm staying where I am."

"You still need to lead us."

"I know. Stop reminding me." He felt angry of the repeated reminder. He felt the dark purple sparks appeared again. Looking around, he wasn't outside. He was in his room. The thick smell of laundry was fresh, the clothes were there on his bed when they weren't before.

His head turned over to his bedside table, the blade was there, like always. And it felt like his stress was shaking him. 'Not again. You've been clean for a long time.' He sat on his bed to look away. 'You can't break everything now.'

Thinking maybe his phone would distract him, Midnight picked up his phone. The huge list of texts from Nick. A few from Kurt. Some from his mom but she probably knew where he was. He opened up his phone and tapped on Nick's contact.

"What do you want right now?"

He scrolled over to the home and moved on to Kurts messages. "Hey. Wanna hang out. We need to talk about something."

Midnight: "like what?"

Kurt: "Something important."

Midnight stared at the message for a minute with his eyes repeatedly blinking. Of course he had to be vague. "Like?" Midnight asked.

Kurt: "I can't text it. Please can we talk?"

Midnight didn't know what he wanted to talk about. Was it about the Christmas reunion? New Years? Any other time they met up. Which, recently had been hardly anytime. He would walk past him during training but they wouldn't talk. Midnight turned his screen back on to type. "Fine. Where are we meeting?"

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