Chapter 30: Friends

"You understand that I awakened an A-Rank Divine Rune, right?"

Frey had apparently decided that the best way to move past Jet’s strange behavior was to begin talking about himself.

He sat comfortably across the table with one arm stretched over the back of his chair, his earlier concern already forgotten as he wore the unbearably smug expression Jet remembered all too well.

Somewhere during the conversation, Frey had also decided that the plate of pastries Jet purchased belonged equally to him, because his free hand had been steadily emptying it without permission.

"A-Rank," he repeated while reaching for another pastry. "Do you understand what that means? Not B-Rank. Not C-Rank. A-Rank. Your best friend is officially a genius now. I think you should start showing me a little more respect before fame changes me."

Jet slowly looked from Frey’s face to the pastry disappearing into his hand.

"Yeah, yeah. You already told me," he replied, completely unimpressed.

He had heard the same thing during their phone conversation immediately after the Second Awakening, and judging by Frey’s expression, the idiot had probably repeated it to everyone who answered his calls since then.

Jet leaned farther back into his chair and folded his arms across his chest before a smug smile gradually appeared beneath the shadow of his cap. "Unfortunately for you, there’s one tiny problem with your grand rise to genius status. I’m ranked higher than you. S-Rank."

Frey’s expression collapsed so quickly that Jet almost laughed before he even continued. The pastry stopped halfway to his mouth, and the arrogance that had occupied his face only seconds earlier vanished beneath genuine resentment.

Jet pointed casually toward himself and allowed his smile to widen. "Which means you’re going to have to be obedient to Daddy from now on. I don’t make the rules, Frey. The hierarchy has spoken."

"You bastard..." Frey stared at him with wounded eyes before grabbing Jet’s coffee and taking a massive gulp without asking permission.

Jet opened his mouth to protest, but Frey had already shoved half the pastry into his mouth and was chewing miserably.

"Dammit," he mumbled around the food, swallowing before slumping deeper into his chair. "Now I have to call you Daddy. This world is too fucking unfair. I finally awaken an A-Rank Divine Rune, something most people would sell their grandmother for, and somehow the universe looks at you and decides, no, let’s give this broke bastard an S-Rank just so he can annoy me."

Jet immediately snatched his coffee back. "Unfair? I called you Daddy for three years in high school. Three entire years, Frey. Do you have any idea what kind of psychological damage that does to a person?"

"Three years?" Frey straightened immediately. "Don’t rewrite history just because you awakened an S-Rank. You weren’t some innocent victim. We had rules."

"Rules you abused."

"Rules we both agreed to."

Their so-called academic rivalry had been one of the least impressive competitions in the history of Zenith City’s education system. Neither of them had ever been remotely close to the top of their class.

In fact, they hadn’t even been fighting for the middle. Their entire high-school career had become a desperate, semester-by-semester struggle to avoid being the idiot sitting at the very bottom of the ranking board. In a class of fifty-seven students, Jet might finish fifty-sixth while Frey triumphantly secured fifty-seventh.

The following semester, Frey would somehow scrape together enough points to reach fifty-sixth while Jet fell into last place.

At some point, neither of them could remember exactly when, they had established the stupid rule that whoever ranked lower had to call the other Daddy until the next examination results were released.

Frey pointed accusingly across the table as though presenting evidence in court. "Let’s get the facts straight. First semester, you finished fifty-sixth and I finished fifty-seventh because Mr. Halden gave me zero on that chemistry assignment."

"You submitted a blank page."

"The instructions were unclear."

"It said, ’Answer questions one through twenty.’"

"Exactly. Very vague."

Jet stared at him before continuing, "Then the next semester you came fifty-sixth and I came fifty-seventh because you copied half my mathematics answers and somehow scored higher than me."

Frey immediately raised both hands. "That sounds like a skill issue. If I copied your answers and still beat you, that’s between you and God."

Jet couldn’t help laughing. "And then you got that final win before graduation and spent the next three years calling yourself my father."

"Because I earned it." Frey leaned forward and tapped the table with complete seriousness. "That final examination settled everything. The rivalry ended with my victory. History remembers winners, Jet."

"You came fifty-sixth."

"And you came fifty-seventh."

"By two points."

"Victory doesn’t care about margins."

Jet shook his head, smiling as he lifted his coffee. "You enjoyed your reign long enough."

"That wasn’t a reign."

"Three years."

"Historical revisionism." ℯℯ𝑙.

"Call me Daddy."

"Fuck you."

Their argument dissolved naturally from there, neither of them bothering to return to the subject of Divine Runes despite the fact that the Second Awakening had just changed the direction of both their lives. Frey complained about the academy classmates who had suddenly begun messaging him after learning about his A-Rank awakening, including several people who had barely spoken to him before. Jet laughed when Frey showed him the messages from one former classmate who had apparently rediscovered a deep childhood friendship that neither of them remembered existing. That led into an argument about old classmates, which somehow became a discussion about girls, which then shifted to food when Frey stole the final pastry from Jet’s plate and insisted that arriving in an expensive car gave him priority access to baked goods.

Jet eventually pointed through the glass wall toward the midnight-purple hypercar sitting outside. "Speaking of that thing, what the hell happened to you? You arrive in a car worth more than most people’s apartments, get out like you’re attending your ownmovie premiere, then start blowing kisses at strangers. Have you always been this shameless, or did the A-Rank awakening damage your brain?"

----

For Character and tattoo illustrations, please join the discord server.