Chapter 128: Nothing!

LEO

I was still buzzing when I headed to eat the beef patty in buns for my breakfast for the third day in a row (I almost didn’t mind anymore that they didn’t have the festival skewers or pork pies that the seniors told me it was a pity I didn’t get to try). When I got there, I found that Thomas wasn’t there, but because I had been visiting their stall every day—for pretty much every meal!—the members of the cooking club recognized me and greeted me nicely.

“Hi! Congratulations on your award!” a friendly girl said.

“You are Leo, right? What was the mission like?” another boy asked.

“Heh, it wasn’t anything special,” I said, trying to be modest while itching to show off.

“Tell us about what happened!” the girl said, handing me the buns.

“I’m sorry, but I was told that it was supposed to be coincidental…”

“Eh?”

“He means ‘confidential’,” I heard Briant’s voice, upon which both the boy and the girl from the cooking club laughed.

“Oh, hi, Briant!”

I saw that Dimitri and Alexis were next to him as well.

“Congrats again. From a village boy to a hero, quite a feat, eh?” Dimitri joked, poking me in the ribs.

“Aw, stop it,” I laughed too.

“No offence to you, Leo, but I’m a little surprised that you were picked for a mission,” Alexis said.

“Yeah, I know, right? I think I just got lucky,” I said.

“Luck or not, you did your job when called upon. That’s all that matters, isn’t it?” Briant said, giving me a thumbs up.

“Hehe, thank you.”

They all grabbed food from the stall as well, and I asked them,

“You guys haven’t been to our exhibition yet, right? You want to come and have a look?”

“Sure. You came to see us all in our activities after all,” Alexis said, nodding.

On our way to the exhibition hall, I saw Mario, Isabelle, and Thomas heading somewhere.

“Oh, look—they are there,” I said, pointing.

“Marius is amazing, isn’t he?” Alexis said.

“Aye, I wish I was there to smash some criminals too,” Dimitri said, cracking his fingers.

Briant remained silent, though, his eyes following the three, but I read that he looked a little concerned.

“What’s wrong?” I asked him.

“Did anything happen on the mission? I just get this feeling that they aren’t happy with something,” Briant said.

“Well, it was REALLY dangerous. Some of them had weapons!”

“And you guys beat them all!” Dimitri exclaimed.

“Er… something like that.” I couldn’t quite tell them I fainted and didn’t see the whole thing… I didn’t mean to lie, but now that I wore the badge, I shouldn’t disappoint those who looked up to it, I thought.

Briant still seemed deep in thought, but he didn’t probe any further, thankfully.

When we arrived at the exhibition hall, I saw that there were only Liesel and Blanche.

“Hi!” I greeted them cheerfully.

“Oh hi, Cheese Boy,” Blanche said.

“Cheese Boy?” Alexis asked me.

“It’s a long story… from a VERY long dream,” I said.

“It suits you somehow, ha!” Dimitri said.

“He’s not here, but I will show you Fabian’s sculpture first. It looks awesome!”

I then brought them over to Fabian’s nine-headed dragon.

“Woo, I like it,” Alexis said first.

“The fabled nine-headed dragon, eh?” Briant added.

“Ah, I didn’t think I’d see the Great Vlad here,” Dimitri said.

“The Great Vlad?” I asked.

“This one,” Dimitri pointed at the second head from the left on the dragon, “is the Great Vlad.”

“What’s that?” Alexis and I asked at the same time.

“We Moraviks in the North consider the Great Vlad as part of our ancestry. He settled down in the mountains and married a Moravik girl,” Dimitri explained.

“Huh? I thought all the slain heads were still monsters!”

I was surprised.

“If they look like humans, walk like humans, and talk like humans—are they still monsters?” Dimitri asked.

That was a tough question to answer.

We then moved to look at Liesel’s picture of the Perfect Knight.

“MARIUS!” Alexis recognized him immediately.

“Gees, is it that obvious?” Liesel said, grinning.

“I can tell him from miles away!” Alexis said and continued, “What a fantastic painting. You captured his look perfectly!”

“The title ‘The Perfect Knight’ is very apt, I must say,” Briant praised Liesel as well, who answered with a grateful smile.

“What are you going to do with this painting after the exhibition?” Alexis asked.

“The Dean said he’ll hang it in the hallway,” Liesel said proudly.

“Oh, that’s very nice,” Alexis said.

“I’m sure Marius would be a little embarrassed by that, haha,” Briant remarked.

After that, I brought them over to see Blanche’s super cool picture.

At first, they all looked a little confused by the picture, although they all seemed to find it interesting. I was proud on behalf of Blanche. I knew her pictures were special. They didn’t always make sense, but they had that special power to capture people’s attention and make it hard to look away once you set your eyes on them. But while we all looked at the picture in silence, Blanche, who was standing next to the picture quietly, ready to answer any questions that might arise, spoke first—her eyes widening.

“Briant?”

Briant flinched, blushed (?!), then asked,

“Do… do you remember me?”

“Sure, I do. Good to see you again!” Blanche said, theatrically bowing her head as if she had met royalty.

“I…I’m impressed that you do,” Briant said, bowing his head even deeper than Blanche.

“It’s been like what… how many years? Definitely more than ten years! Oh boy, you’ve grown a lot,” Blanche said, stepping forward to stand next to Briant, using her hand above her head to measure her height against his.

“It has…”

“You guys know each other?” Dimitri asked.

“Yeah, my Mom and Briant’s Mom know each other, although we only met a few times,” Blanche said.

Dimitri and Alexis didn’t say anything, but I saw cheeky smiles break out on their faces as Briant was still blushing (I’ve never seen him do that before!).

I then remembered Briant saying that he saw Blanche ‘once’ when he was young, and very strongly denying that she was his ‘childhood crush’ when Thomas joked about it.

“Heh~hehe… hehehe,” I laughed as things finally clicked in my head.

“What are you laughing about?!” Briant suddenly yelped.

“Nothing!” I said and got Dimitri and Alexis to move along to look at my picture together, leaving Briant and Blanche behind together.