Despite his insistence, Étienne’s butlers didn’t let him help me bring in all my boxes. So by the time I was done, Louis told me apologetically that Étienne had been ushered off by some teachers.
“I don’t have anything going on until noon,” Louis said, hugging his clipboard to his chest. “If you want, I can show you around campus?”
I glanced back into the room. Antoinette had returned to her whitewood desk, noting new listings in her planner for this month: October. She hadn’t looked at me once as I placed all my boxes, but had said when I tried to open the closet, “My things are in there. Don’t touch them.”
Girl, it was my closet.
I took a deep breath, clearing out the awkwardness of the whole interaction from my system. “Sure, lead on.”
“Wait, um.” Louis sidled past me to stick his head in the dorm door. “Antoinette?”
“What now?”
“My sister wanted to tell you that she’ll meet you before dinner in the gardens? She has something to give you.”
The first sign that if you want to romance Louis, you’ll have a bigger challenge than just winning him over.
Louis and I headed out into the hall. If I’d run into Lou outside of this scene I knew so well, it might have taken me a minute to recognise his real-life self. The superficial similarities were all there—the curly reddish-blonde hair, the freckles spattering him from head to toe, the weirdly specific-to-him uniform with the knee-length shorts and colourful pins on his tie. But seeing this little brother type in the real world sure got rid of the most uncanny parts of him like the huge eyes and the adolescent thinness to his limbs.
I’d only romanced Louis in my second play, desperate to get more information on Antoinette via his route and practically skipping through all his dialogue and events. Still, he was a nice guy. Antoinette was sorta-friends with one of his sisters. That gave me an in, if I decided to pursue Antoinette and Louis together. She always had more of a sisterly protectiveness over him. Maybe that would be easier to leverage than romance?
True to his word, Louis gave me the whole tour. This part was skimmed over in the game, replaced by a slideshow of graphics and a vague paragraph, so I was happy to take in all the details I could.
The campus was split into four buildings–the classrooms, the dorms, the administration and laboratories, and the sprawling tower of a greenhouse. They were all styled beautifully: I couldn’t place their time or location, but I could marvel over the intricate detailing in everything from the cobblestones to the doorframes to the stained glass windows. The rivers of students were split by statues of heroic figures and about a thousand renditions of Demeter and Persephone’s Love Blooming stand-ins.
Potted plants (and even trees growing right out of the floor) grew flowers and released bubbles of glowing seeds when students laughed and smiled on their way past. I was sure to steer Louis clear of them, in case they reacted like the lavender pearls.
I was staring up at the overhanging willow trees on one of about a kajillion garden paths when I bumped into Louis.
He’d frozen, finger extended in a point to our left. Phasing through my forehead was a non-dialogue choice.
[https://64.media.tumblr.com/c535ec5be1cd6c650a465ff92ccd9913/b14746711d0a76ae-13/s2048x3072/b031c22e35a33c3457ecf5bebf714bfd7176847e.jpg]
Right…these paths led you to one of the remaining two love interests, and you couldn’t circle back before Marie’s free morning was up.
2. Without a doubt.
If there was one character I didn't want to meet yet, it was him…
Louis happily led me through the grounds, taking the winding paths with ease. Students didn’t even notice my existence, now that the prince was gone. We were nearing the courts when–
“Heads up!”
WHACK!
Something banged hard off the side of my head, nearly toppling me over like any good, self-respecting, clumsy protagonist.
[https://64.media.tumblr.com/606504531059525f427196d52c72009d/b14746711d0a76ae-53/s2048x3072/42db5e974624fdcdafc4f4885cc898d57199b912.jpg]
If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.
Marie's disjointed memory and narration carried a tidal wave of terror and trauma that actually landed me on my ass in the dirt, even as I blindly swept at a tree to catch my balance. My hands scraped on the rough bark. Someone I didn’t recognise was running towards me.
[https://64.media.tumblr.com/413d733addafdaf8cf541c32683b5a15/b14746711d0a76ae-d3/s2048x3072/aae656f428d59fafad7da9d788de98a273d5784f.jpg]
Magic burned through me. Without asking, and definitely without my control.
I opened my eyes and screamed almost as loudly as Rémi, the third love interest, as the tree caught him by the ankle and yanked him off the ground.
The players on the volleyball court rushed him. They were all college guys, though, so obviously they weren’t worried: they were practically falling over themselves with laughter. Louis, meanwhile, looked like I'd just told him to swallow a roach.
“What did you–?!” he squeaked.
“I don't know!” I cried.
Rémi, upside down, folded his arms over his chest and hit me with a cocked eyebrow, perfectly cool as always. A slick, sly, delinquent type, right there.
“Now that,” he said, “is a foul.”
“Don’t hit a girl in the head and not expect some revenge.” I got shakily to my feet. Louis helped me. “I’m sorry. Let me, uh, I need to think for a second.”
Despite my embarrassment, I felt some kinship with Marie. It was her terror that flooded through me, making my (our?) magic go crazy. In the game, the DS screen flashed black and gave off a whiny, tinny ringing noise whenever Marie recovered a fragment of a memory. I used to turn the sound off because the noise was so annoying. Guilt panged through me. I hadn’t even been listening to her.
Well, no shit. She wasn’t real.
Luckily, another volleyball player went up to the tree, touched it, and after a minute, the tree let him go.
Rémi deftly landed in…well, less of a heap than he should have. He landed like an Olympic gymnast off a crappy vault: safe, not pretty. The guy who helped him down (I was super lucky that a fellow magician was nearby; Étienne had told me they weren’t common, even in this school) pounded Rémi's shoulder in that weird boy way to check if he was hurt. Rémi swore.
There was a laugh in his voice, though. That mix of humour and roughness was reflected in his look. He was the tallest love interest; his brown hair was shaved along the sides, with a longer middle sweep tucked back under a pair of glasses (sunglasses would be too period-inaccurate but god forbid we have a non-nerd wearing glasses). His uniform jacket was tossed aside, the button-up rucked up around his elbows, and clearly he’d been diving for the ball: now that his appearance wasn’t limited to some stock assets and whatever the exposition could give me, he was free to have grass and dirt stains all over his forearms and white shirt.
Rémi reached for the ball, which had rolled near my feet. “You girls call this kinda thing a meet-cute, huh? I’m Rémi.”
“Chloé. And this is–”
“Louis, yeah, Duke Chapelle’s kid. The underachieving one.” He smirked playfully at Louis. When he looked back at me, his gaze lingered. “Do I recognise you from somewhere, Chloé?” He leaned on the name, like testing if it could hold his weight.
He was the only love interest who had any drive-by contact with Marie pre-amnesia. Clearly she didn’t make an impression.
“No, you definitely don’t,” I said.
He quirked a dark eyebrow. His face was so animated, especially now that he wasn’t, uh…animated. “Are you sure?”
“Don't you think you'd remember a girl who can control trees?”
“I dunno, you—“
Louis stepped in, dropping his voice to a hiss. “She doesn’t remember anything, okay?”
Wow, tactful, Lou. We’d slid back on-script, though; I remembered this moment of indiscretion.
Marie was shy about it. I’d gain nothing from being shifty. “He’s right. I got into some freak accident and I lost my memory. We’re hoping being here will jog something. And teach me a little about how to control all this magic. Which I think you can see I need.”
He laughed, studying me like I was extra fascinating. “Well, if you need some extra tutoring, you just let me know, Miss Chloé.”
With that, he jogged back to the court with the volleyball in hand. He gave me one last wink over his shoulder before tossing the ball to the opposite team.
“They’re always around here before and after class, playing or loitering,” Louis said. “I mean, if you really do want to talk to him again.”
I innocently shrugged. Rémi didn’t interest me at all. His design wasn’t pulled off that well in the game art, so he was usually disregarded by the fanbase, and his flirting was often stiff and kinda cringe. However, so many “underrated Love Blooming opinion” posts extolled his virtues that I’d played his route to see if they were right. I found his scenarios to be the most bonkers and exciting…and Antoinette was her most animated and fierce when she was competing with Marie for Rémi’s affections.
Hmm…another contender enters the field…
Lou said, “Now that you’ve seen the courts…how about the library?”
There was one last boy who I could potentially match with Antoinette. One who I wanted absolutely nothing to do with.
Sylvain Laflamme.
The aloof, smart type. Tragic backstory. All-around asshole. Fandom’s favourite, because yeesh, is fandom dumb sometimes.
“No,” I said before the dialogue choices could shut me up. “Let’s just get going to lunch.”