𝗉𝗋𝗂𝗆𝗒𝗍𝗁𝗂𝗈𝗌

Henry got to opt out of standardized testing because unis and colleges weren’t requiring it (also one of the things that helped Bunny get into the school).

The class only has zoom classes for a few weeks before Julian is able to convince the school to let them be in person (both he and Henry hate the online schooling with a burning passion, the rest of the Greek class do too, but Julian and Henry much more). Richard still has to do online classes for French.

The twins experiment with cooking together because of boredom. Charles begins to play the piano more often, and Camilla gets into origami (don’t ask me why I just feel like this makes sense).

Bunny’s an anti-masker, this freaks Francis out a lot, considering he will not leave his place without hand sanitizer, masks, and a prayer (even though he’s not the biggest science believer, he’s still superstitious and a hypochondriac).

Charles and Camilla ask Richard for advice on how to cut their hair themselves, and considering they have each other to make sure it doesn’t go too poorly, it turns out alright for them. Bunny tries to cut his because he doesn’t want to let it grow too long and look ‘girly’, it goes about as well as anyone would expect and gets an actual laugh out of Henry. Francis just grows his out, being too lazy and not caring enough to cut it. Henry’s hair somehow stays looking the same, and it makes them wonder if he’d been cutting it himself beforehand or if he’s got some personal barber who will still take him.

Bunny, being on his own and insanely bored (which he makes very clear in the class group chat (that does not include Henry, who only has a landline, but Bunny just calls him to blab), and to his other friends like Cloke), starts to draw more.

Bunny’s more prone to getting sick because of his asthma (weakened immune system), and when he does get sick, the twins bring over some soup, and Marion goes over to help him out sometimes. Bunny milks it, of course, but actually doesn't feel well, and when there’s an actual scare, and Bunny ends up in the hospital, Henry gets called because he was Buns emergency contact. When Bunny recovers, “Of course I’m alright! I drank a lot of milk when I was growing up, still do. Grew up a strong boy, just like my Dad said I would!”

Judy gets really into the whole ‘whipped coffee’ thing that was going around, and experiments a lot more with makeup.

Richard spends a lot of time binging movies.

Charles and Francis end up on a lot of late night calls, which often end with actual admittance from both ends on missing each other, it could mean something different for both of them, they don’t talk about it.

Henry’s still getting dressed as usual everyday, Francis is just lounging around in a robe, Richard is wearing his older clothes that he usually wouldn’t wear in front of the class, Charles and Camilla just gave up on any separation of their clothes and just wore whatever, and Bunny was in his pajamas practically every day.

The isolation hits them all hard, even Henry, and especially Bunny. At some point, after Francis insists on multiple tests beforehand, they go out to the Country house and everything feels just a bit better for that week or two.

Personally, I never saw that scene as anything romantic or sexual.

It was called a ‘businesslike kiss’ (can’t remember if it’s even specified if it was on the lips or not, but I can’t check right now because I don’t have my copy with me :(). Henry said he loved Julian more than his own father, he saw him as family. At the very least, they were close and Henry looked up to the man.

It’s not entirely uncommon for people to kiss their family/parents on the lips (definitely not uncommon for on the cheek), especially in older generations. I think the kiss was meant to show how close they were. They were closer than Julian and the other students in the greek class were, and most definitely closer than most professors are with their students. I think it was meant to show how much Henry put Julian on a pedestal, how much he cared about him, his opinions, his acceptance (Henry’s got daddy issues, but not going to get into all that right now).

This also makes Julian leaving later and Henry crying about it in front of Richard (he was likely more visibly upset in private or with the other members of the Greek class, because that’s just what Richard saw) hit harder.

I do think there was some weird sort of grooming situation happening with Henry (+ the Greek class), but I don’t think it was anything sexual. I mean, Julian had these already messed up kids in classes together, which only he taught, that were divorced from the other students and professors of the school. Whether he meant to or not (I don’t think he necessarily knew how odd this was (other than knowing other people viewed it as odd), he was just… Julian. Could get into that way more too but not now), Julian fostered the sort of environment that let them keep moving forward in life without being grounded in reality, without understanding that they were not superior to other people (definitely helped that Julian seemed to believe this too (?)).

THE SNOW in the mountains was melting and Bunny had been dead for several weeks before we came to understand the gravity of our situation.