Clue barely knew his classmate, and indeed said classmate barely knew him, and what was more Clue did not really know how to make friends or reach out — and thus he wasn't equipped to outwardly empathise with Nichols. Perhaps he might one day learn to. But in the meantime, all Clue could do was gaze at him with his cold grey eyes, interested, attentive, quietly sympathetic.

Clue was an oddity, and thus had unconventional ways of doing things. Hence his next suggestion:

"I like to sketch, and draw. Sometimes I don't think before I sketch, and so what I'm feeling is expressed on the parchment. Maybe it would work for you if you tried that. Or some other means of expression... like writing. You could start putting quill to parchment and see what the ink makes of your feelings."