“Hey, hey, did you hear?” Harriet reeled the group in, “Apparently, the missing persons case last year was actually a serial murder!”

“Yeah, I did, it’s common knowledge at this point,” Nero replied, “the one where that Nwier guy solved the case?”

“It’s Neuire,” Injaius, the quiet one in the group, corrected, “Nwier is what one of the murderers called him.”

“Yeah, yeah, Neuire or whatever,” Nero waved it off, “what’s so special about him anyways?”

“Come on, didn’t you hear?” Harriet countered Nero’s uninterest, “they burned down his house, and he forced them all to confess in return! Like, isn’t that at least a little bit cool?”

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“I’m not saying that it’s not cool,” Nero defended, “just that it’s common knowledge now.”

Gentrei watched her friends, slowly slurping up her pancit noodles. She didn’t know a thing about what her friends were talking about, and the feeling of being left out began to plague her mind.

“Neuire Moddes saved lives!” Harriet pointed out, “I don’t get why he’s not the talk of the year.”

“Because he pulled off his maneuvers last year,” Nero retorted, “can we talk about something else? Look at Gentrei, she doesn’t even find this stuff interesting.”

“That’s not true,” Gentrei told them, “I just don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Oh, then what’s something you do know?” Harriet quickly put down the previous conversation, “Maybe you can tell us what that is you’re eating?”

“This? It’s something my mother made,” Gentrei answered, “pancit, want to try?”

And that is where the talk of Neuire Moddes stops.