--- [Lucas’s perspective]
Holy shit…
What was that power just now?
He stopped a charged attack…
“What the hell did you sacrifice?” – Lucas
“…” – Isaac
Why isn’t he responding?
“Wait, can you not hear me?” – Lucas
He shakes his head.
“Was that a no?” – Lucas
He nods.
“Wait… No as in you can’t hear, or no as in you can hear?” – Lucas
He neither nodded nor shook his head to that; he just looks confused.
Honestly, so am I.
He points to his ear, and gives me a thumbs up.
I think that’s supposed to mean he can hear…
I think…
He can tell I’m still somewhat confused, and just gives up.
“Wait, I know! If you can hear, give me another thumbs up.” – Lucas
And he promptly does, but still gives me a weird look.
…
“Is that code for ‘how the hell would I respond to your first question in the first place if I was deaf?’” – Lucas
He slowly nods.
“Well for all I know, you could have just been good at reading lips!” – Lucas
Yeah, that’s a stretch…
I’m dumb.
“I guess that means you gave up your ability to speak then.” – Lucas
He yet again slowly nods his head.
Alright, I get it.
“Let’s just go get the flag already…” – Lucas
We pick it up, and head back to base with it.
With both flags now here, we’ve officially won.
Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.
Suddenly, the host appears before us.
“Congratulations, you guys won!” – Leanne
--- [Jade’s perspective] A few minutes later, just before the next round begins
“So, everyone understands the plan then?” – Peter
“Yup! We all wait here until the enemies come, then take them out together. After that, when their numbers are low, we launch our counterattack.” – Lucy
“Perfect!” – Peter
I won’t say anything, but I have a feeling that…
Whatever…
We’ll see soon enough.
The giant pillar of stone finally starts falling.
And with a loud bang, the third and final match of the first round begins!
“Wha-?!” – Peter
He reaches his hand out, trying to stop a certain someone…
“Where the hell are you going?! What about the plan?!” – Peter
Yup.
Just as I thought; Rin completely ignores the plan and does her own thing instead.
I start running after her…
“Hey! Not you too!” – Peter
“Sorry!” – Jade
“…” – Peter
And just like that, the plan has already been rendered irrelevant.
It’s just like her to do something like this…
She never follows plans, and always does things her own way.
It reminds me a lot of the time we first met…
---
It was shortly after she became a hunter…
I heard there were two new members, and like always, I went to greet them.
I love meeting new people, so whenever people choose our guild, I get excited.
The higher ups are not too picky with who they invite, so that usually works out great for me.
Since they know I like talking to new people, they tend to assign me the job of showing the newcomers around.
There are some bad eggs every now and then that makes it annoying, but for the most part, I love that job.
The two new hunters that year were Dan and Rin.
The most talkative one was Dan.
He’s a truly kind person, and we’re still good friends to this day.
However, the one who captivated me the most was Rin.
While I was giving them a tour of the guild hall, I suddenly noticed she was missing…
Our HQ is very large, the largest out of any guild in fact.
If you don’t know where you’re going, you’re bound to get lost.
We went looking for her, but it wasn’t easy finding her.
She’s small and nimble, combine that with being lost in a place she’s never been before, and it was practically impossible to find her.
Eventually though, we did find her…
She had somehow made her way to the janitor’s closet of housing bracket C…
Confused as to where the place she was looking for was, combined with being tired from the exam, she decided to go to sleep.
Not far away from there was the public indoors area for that housing bracket.
There were sofas she could have slept on there, but she stayed in the closet instead.
When we found her, she was curled into a ball on one of the shelves…
I later found out the reason why she stayed there was because she found the public area too loud…
When we woke her up, she told us where she actually wanted to go…
The mission board.
She didn’t want to waste any time, even if she had just finished an exam, she wanted to go on a mission.
She felt she was too weak to be a hunter; apparently, she had gotten a lot of help from people other than her teammates during the exam.
Even though I hadn’t finished the tour yet, I dropped it to go clear a dungeon with her.
There was just something about her that made me not care about anything else…
Was it her infectious smile?
Her adorable attitude?
Her weird quirks?
I don’t know…
But since then, I’ve been stuck to her like glue.
I tend to flirt a lot with people I find cute, she’s not an exception.
That’s just how I am.
It doesn’t really mean anything, I just think it’s fun.
But with her…
I think there might be something more to it…
Sometimes she seems oblivious to how I really feel, and other times not.
She will in one breath tell me to stop flirting with her, then in the next seemly get jealous when I do it with other people.
I can’t really get a good read on her, but maybe that’s why I find her so intriguing…
She doesn’t care about conforming to society or changing her ways to better fit in with people.
She’s just…
Herself.
Like it or not, Rin is Rin.
I couldn't do that…
Because despite flirting being in my nature, if she ever told me to stop doing it with other people, I’d listen.