Chapter 29: Winter Interschool Festival (5)

"Leave me alone! I don’t need any help!" Ryan snapped.

He suddenly swung one arm out, shoving away the teacher who had tried to help him back to his feet.

News of the fight — and of the brutal beating Ryan had taken — had already spread throughout the festival.

The people who had witnessed the clash had scattered a few minutes earlier, but their stories had drawn plenty of others.

Before long, a veritable wall of students and teachers from every school at the festival had formed around the stall.

"Wait, is that Ryan Foster? What happened to him?"

"Apparently he got into a fight with some guy working at that stall."

"Yeah, I heard they served him a burnt cheeseburger. When Ryan asked them to remake it, that black-haired guy jumped him."

"And none of the organizers did anything?"

"Apparently they were fine with it. Guess remaking one burger would’ve blown the whole budget."

Voices overlapped from every direction.

Every new version of the story seemed different from the last, and all it took was for someone to add a single detail for the crowd to immediately pick it up, twist it, and spread it again.

Eyes shifted from Ryan to the stall, then from Lars to Emily.

Some people pointed.

Others laughed.

A few shook their heads in disgust.

Before long, curiosity turned into judgment.

In the front row, Niall Al O’Tep watched the scene with his arms crossed and the faintest hint of a smile on his lips.

Amid all that noise, he was the only one who didn’t say a word.

Even more unusually for him, he didn’t seem to have any intention of doing so.

Whether that smile expressed amusement, satisfaction, or something else entirely, though, was impossible to tell.

At the center of the crowd stood Ryan, who had only just managed to get back on his feet; Lars, completely indifferent to everything happening around him; and Emily, who didn’t say a word.

She stood there motionless, almost crushed beneath the weight of all those voices, her face pale and her eyes red.

Ms. Whitmore hurried over to Lars.

"I demand an explanation! What the hell happened?"

"Only the natural course of events."

The woman stared at him in disbelief.

"What kind of answer is that?"

"He went looking for trouble with someone out of his league and found it. That’s all."

Ms. Whitmore let out a long, exasperated huff.

"Forget it. I don’t have time to argue with you right now."

She pointed sharply toward the stall.

"The festival isn’t over yet. Get back to work and don’t move from there. We’ll deal with this later!"

With the same urgency she had shown when rushing over to Lars, Ms. Whitmore hurried to Ryan to make sure he was all right.

But the treatment she received was no different from what he had given the other teachers.

"I said I’m fine! Quit busting my fucking balls!"

Ryan roughly shook off the hands of those trying to support him and walked away, stiff and hunched over, one hand pressed against his ribs.

A couple of teachers tried once more to convince him to stop and let them take him to the nurse’s office, but Ryan ignored them and kept going.

"Big broooo! Big broooo!"

Camila’s shouting managed to rise above even the murmur of the crowd.

Lars let out a long huff.

...Just what I needed...

"How are you? Are you okay? Are you hurt?" Camila shouted as she ran toward the stall.

Lars gave her a puzzled look.

"Why? Did you have doubts?"

"I wasn’t asking you!"

Camila rushed past him without slowing down and reached Emily.

She grabbed both her hands and looked her over from head to toe.

Then she let out a sigh of relief.

"Phewww... thank goodness. I’m so glad you’re okay... The second I heard there’d been a fight at your stall, I feared the worst..."

Emily stared at her.

For a few seconds, she said nothing.

Then her eyes filled with tears again.

"...How can you say I’m okay...?"

Camila blinked, confused.

"Uh...? Why are you crying now? Does something hurt? If it does, tell me right away and I’ll take you to the nurse’s office!"

Emily abruptly pulled her hands free from Camila’s.

"I told you, nothing hurts!"

Camila looked baffled.

"Then I don’t get it... what’s wrong with you?"

"H-How can you not understand...? This festival is going to be remembered as the one where a member of the staff got into a fight with the captain of the team that just won the rugby tournament!"

She lowered her gaze.

"A-And how can you even ask me what’s wrong...?"

No matter how hard she tried, Camila still couldn’t see the connection between Lars and Ryan’s fight and Emily’s tears.

"Don’t tell me you’re this upset just because of that..."

Emily’s head snapped up, and she stared straight into Camila’s eyes.

"...Just because of that?! JUST BECAUSE OF THAT?!"

Her voice exploded so loudly that even the murmur around the stall died down almost instantly.

"Y-You... YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW HARD I WORKED TO MAKE SURE EVERYTHING WENT WELL! NO IDEA!"

By then, Emily was crying openly, no longer even trying to hold back her tears.

"...And what hurts the most is that I have to be the one to tell you! That you didn’t notice it on your own!"

Her voice dropped to barely more than a whisper.

"...And we’re supposed to be friends..."

"W-Why would you say something like that...? You’re one of my closest friends. You shouldn’t even have to question our friendship!"

Emily lowered her gaze even further.

"...I just wanted to feel like one of you."

Her lips trembled as she spoke.

"I wasn’t asking for anything huge... just, for once, not to feel like the one who’s always a step behind. The one everyone only sees as ’the Wonder Trio’s friend.’"

She swallowed hard.

"I watched you win, laugh, celebrate together... and I was happy for you. I really was. I admire all three of you so much. But..."

She hesitated.

"...But part of me wished that, just once, you’d look at me with that same admiration."

The tears started falling more heavily again, streaking her flushed cheeks black with makeup.

"Maybe it sounds selfish. Even pathetic. But I worked this hard for this festival because I wanted to hear you tell me I’d done a good job too."

Her voice broke.

"...Just once, Camila... I wanted to be the one you were proud of."

Lars’s eyes widened slightly when he saw thin trails of tears running down Camila’s cheeks.

In all those millennia, it was the first time he had ever seen one of his vampire wives cry.

Over time, he had even convinced himself that, after being turned, they were no longer capable of it.

Apparently, he had been wrong.

For once, genuine surprise managed to crack the perpetually cold, unreadable expression on his face.

Camila has always been different from the others. She never cared about appearing perfect or flawless in my eyes.

Lars continued watching her in silence.

She’s simply... herself.

An almost imperceptible smile curved his lips.

...Right. Now I remember exactly why I chose her.

But Lars’s surprise at seeing Camila cry was nothing compared to what he felt a moment later, when he watched her drop to her knees at Emily’s feet.

"Y-You’re wrong, Emily... you’re not the selfish one. I am..."

Tears kept streaming down her cheeks.

"...I got so caught up in the Winter Interschool Festival that I didn’t even notice how hard you were working... I was such an idiot..."

"C-Camila... please, get up... there’s no need to—"

But Camila kept talking over her, unable to stop herself.

"...I don’t want to lose you, Emily. Not for anything..."

She took a long breath, trying and failing to pull herself together.

"I promise... I’ll quit volleyball! I swear! I don’t care about winning if I can’t celebrate it with my closest friend afterward..."

"C-Camila..."

Emily dropped to her knees in front of her as well.

She gently cupped Camila’s still-lowered face in her hands and slowly lifted it.

"...I-If you even think about quitting volleyball, I swear I’ll really get mad... okay?"

Camila quickly wiped her cheeks with the sleeve of her jacket.

"...O-Only if you promise you’ll still be my friend..."

At last, a wide smile spread across Emily’s face.

"...Deal, then."

Camila immediately threw her arms around Emily’s neck and hugged her tightly.

"...I-I love you so much, Emily..."

"I-I love you too, Camila..."

The two stayed like that, kneeling on the grass and holding each other.

Then—

Flash.

Flash.

Flash.

A barrage of camera flashes came from every direction.

They were members of the journalism clubs from the various schools, all with their cameras aimed straight at the two girls.

Apparently, they had just found the perfect photo for their festival article.

Camila lifted her head.

Her expression instantly went from moved and happy to deadly serious.

"If any of you dare publish those photos, I swear I’ll come after you one by one."

The flashes stopped immediately.

A moment later, the aspiring journalists were already scattering in every direction, whistling with exaggerated nonchalance.

"That hamburger you made me earlier was amazing! The best I’ve ever had in my life!" Camila exclaimed.

"I-I’m really glad you liked it. If you want, I can make you another one. What do you say?"

Camila looked away, a little embarrassed.

"...I was hoping you’d ask. I was too embarrassed to ask for another one myself... I didn’t want to look like a pig."

"A girl with a figure as gorgeous as yours can afford to eat even— huh?"

Emily abruptly cut herself off.

She had just glanced back toward the stall.

Lars was gone.

The only thing he had left behind was the kitchen apron, abandoned on the counter.

"...Where did your brother go? Don’t tell me he left! Oh God, Ms. Whitmore is going to be furious..."

Camila shrugged.

"Oh, well. He probably got fed up. Knowing him, it’s already impressive he stayed this long."

Then her eyes lit up again.

"More importantly, back to serious matters: I want my burger with a double patty and double cheddar!"

Emily let out a small laugh.

"Coming right up, miss!"