Chapter Text
[Posted 3 hours ago]
@gothamtittysirens Me and the girls getting lit tonight 🔥 🔥 🔥
@sweettoothgauis Oi
@gothamtittysirens mhmm i guess you can come too 😘
A year ago if anyone told her she’d be halfway across the country and stuffed inside a bus full of sweaty gamers and confused-looking academia, she wouldn’t have laughed in their face (that’d be awfully rude), but she would have definitely thought that person was out of their mind.
She grips the front of the seat in front of her, steadying herself as the bus comes to a sudden stop. She still flies forward a little. The man squeezed in next to her glances at her with more than a little curiosity. Does he know her? That wasn’t possible—she was hours away from home. She curls into herself a little, hoping her own skinny shoulders would shield her from his interest. She turns her face towards the window to escape his notice.
“Hmm,” he says. His voice is deep, dark and washes over her like oil on water. Come to think of it, he does look a little familiar, and she’s definitely heard his voice before, somewhere…
“Be careful,” he says. “The roads here are bumpy.”
“Ah-hh,” she stammers. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome,” he tells her. She’s lucky he is a person of few words just like her.
They ride the bus for the next few stops and Bernie prays that he doesn’t get off at the same stop as her. She’s sure he’s laughing silently at her inability to sit down properly—he keeps glancing at her judgmentally whenever a bump on the road makes her jerk like an awkward duckling. Goddess, she was so hopeless. She looks at Mr Hedgehog, sitting on her bag in all of his plushie-keychain glory. Mr Hedgehog, we’re really in for it now.
There’s only one stop next—Garreg Mach University. Great. It’s probably not the worst case if the scary man does get off at the same stop as her—he looks like a strict tutor, or maybe a maniacal lab tech. With black slacks and a crisp dark button-up shirt like that, there’s no way he’d be going to the LAN, right?
The bus rolls up to the university, queuing up in the little bus bays. Considering how there’s no train line nearby, it's a little ridiculous that they don’t have longer bus bays and more bus lanes. There's a sort of feral energy that fills the air as they wait to disembark—a few LAN attendees with conspicuous lanyards are already standing up and clogging up the exit.
Since they’re sitting at the back of the bus, Bernie and her seatmate have to wait for everyone to move before they can stand. Which means that when Bernie does stand up and trips over the weird step between the seats and the hallway, there’s no one to catch her except for the scary man. He grasps at her elbow and steadies her while she swallows down a yelp.
She almost immediately tears herself away and takes a couple of steps back. She knows she must look ridiculous like an affronted maiden or a shocked deer.
“I did say to be careful,” he says, and then chuckles menacingly. It should have been funny (who chuckles like a discount Disney villain??) but the man does manage to pull it off, so it’s just mildly terrifying instead.
There’s not much Bernie wants to do more besides scream and run away but well, she’s trying this manners thing out, so she stands her ground and stammers out a, “Th-hanks for the assist.”
He raises his eyebrows. “Don’t force yourself. It wasn’t a problem.”
He quickly bends down and picks up a piece of paper—it's her ticket, which she printed out in case her phone died on the way to the LAN. It must’ve fallen out of her bag because she hadn’t zipped it up properly. Goddess, she wants to crawl into a hole right now.
He hands it back to her. “Well. I guess I’ll see you at the LAN.”
[Posted 14 hours ago]
@theathea Just landed in Garreg Mach with @IAmFerdinand for @WhiteCloudsLAN. Can’t wait to see the rest of my loser team 💖
Cautious is her middle name. Bernie is the kind of person who plays strategy games, games that have long time phases, games where you can take a breath and reevaluate what you’re going to do. Crest of Flames 3 is not like those kinds of games.
Before launch, the game trailers caught her attention. She has the attention span of a psychedelic goldfish. If something has cute animation, flashy graphics and good gameplay, she’s probably going to buy it.
But the cutesy, fantasy-driven world of Crest of Flames 3 belied a steep difficulty curve. She sucked at first; she had never played anything with a moving camera before. A fast-paced, third-person shooter felt beyond her abilities.
But something in her refused to give up.
It took months for her to be comfortable with the controls. By that time, she had cycled through all of the player roles to find The One. There are four main roles in the Crest of Flames 3, but none of them are official classes; they're just casual boxes the community have sorted themselves into.
Maybe it's a mark of her personality that the role that she had landed on was the most distant, the most strategic, the most cautious. She is the anchor of the team, the one on the back lines. Her job is to stay alive. As the backbone, she's meant to snipe any enemies who give her team a hard time, and build her them a path back into the game if they happen to fall.
But sometimes she doesn't feel very reliable at all. She dies a lot. She misses shots. She lets people sneak past her blind spots.
Sometimes, she wonders why her team puts up with her at all.
[Posted 5 mins ago]
@sly+vain Sun’s out, guns out
@nineknives Put on a fucking shirt
@syl+vain no ;)
@Berni3Bear sorry if I got it wrong but we were supposed to meet for lunch right??
@sly+vain THATS WHAT I FORGOT
@Berni3Bear …………….
@sly+vain im kidding! Woulndt miss it for the world. I’ll be there in 10
The Garreg Mach University campus is incredibly modern and unmistakably lavish, as expected of the country’s most exclusive university. Bernie looks in wonder at some of the more...unique buildings that dot the landscape. There are one or two mirror-like blocks, but also an unmistakably paper bag-like building. Abstract architecture sure is something else.
No one else seems to be gawking at the eye-catching buildings.
The hustle and bustle sweep her up—the crowd seems to be moving in the westward direction, which matches up to the location of the venue she had scrutinised on Moogle Maps for two hours the day before.
She had foolishly hoped that there would be fewer students around on the Friday of a long weekend; why did people like going out so much? Why couldn't they just enjoy some nice quiet alone time at home?
In truth, the spectacle of White Clouds, the country’s biggest LAN still hasn’t properly registered for her.
She had gone to smaller meet-ups before. Those were terrifying, mostly because she didn't know anyone there and everyone else knew each other. Awkward. White Clouds is infinitely worse; people are lining up and chatting with each other and roaming around in packs like wolves. They take up whole pathways—walking next to them makes her feel like a cyclist squeezed between laneways full of semi-trailers.
She had miscalculated. White Clouds didn't just host Crest of Flames 3. It also housed tournaments for other big competitive games like Battle Bash Brothers, Tapamon and Undersee. When she tries to walk forward, she feels like she's looking out into a sea of sweaty gamer bros and e-girls.
She manages to shoulder her way through the crowd and into a smaller alleyway, wedged between a forlorn auditorium and a dinghy storage building.
She's out of the fire now, but her stomach feels off. She feels bubbly and nauseous and full of apprehension, teetering on the knife-thin edge of dizzy and dazed.
She's not hungry anymore.
But she has to go to their team lunch. Her team wouldn’t give her a hard time if she ditches them but it’s not like skipping out would make her feel better. She's so far away from her hotel, and foreign universities are always hard to navigate. You need a key card to get into some buildings. How would she find a nice, cozy space to realign her thoughts? She can’t go into the LAN venue by herself. She would actually die.
Wasn't it silly that she flew halfway across the country to see her friends only to consider avoiding them? Wasn't that pathetic?
A jaunty tune starts ringing, startling her. It's a discord call from their LAN group DM, but Thea is the only one currently in the call. Biting her lip, Bernie presses ‘accept’. She can't leave her hanging.
"Helloooooo?" drawls a familiar voice.
"...Thea? Why are you calling on Discord?"
"Sylvie's not answering DMs, and I never got his number. I can't find the restaurant—"
"He did share the Moogle pin."
"Babe, you know I have no idea how to use those."
"Where are you right now?"
"Bus Stop D on Gideon Parade."
That was by the bus stop Bernie had gotten off at before she had gotten swept away by the crowds. It wouldn't be hard to retrace her steps. She feels grounded, somehow, and a little less alone. She's got the voice of a goddess in her ear, after all.
"Stay there," she says. "I'll come and get you."
"Bernie, you're a lifesaver!"
Thea is the epitome of glamorous, the kind of person who makes your hands feel clammy. Bernie's lost count of the number of guys and girls who've complimented her on her voice during pick-up games and scrims—the sheer magnetism of it pulls in hundreds of viewers on her weekly twitch streams. Before Bernie knew Thea, she thought she was terrifying. Now that she does know her she still finds her terrifying—but also kind and dependable.
Bernie has known Thea for almost a year now; she knows what Thea looks like, and is fully prepared for flawless make-up, perfectly-coordinated outfits and the general air of a Popular Girl, the likes of whom Bernie had avoided all through high school.
What she's not expecting is—well, she thought she'd be taller. Thea has always been a huge figure in Bernie’s head but she isn’t much taller than Bernie herself, if at all. Neither of them are wearing heels; Sylvain had advised them to wear comfortable shoes since they had long days ahead of them. Not that Bernie would; she would live in her fluffy slides if she could.
Bernie walks up to her and takes a deep breath. "Hey. It's um, me. Bernie."
Meeting a stranger who is also your best friend is the strangest thing. She's wanted to hug Thea through the screen before, but now that she's here, she's second-guessing herself. Would that be too much? Too friendly? Too sudden?
Thea takes the decision out of her hands. She smiles and places her hand on Bernie's arm. When Bernie doesn't tense up, she places her other hand on Bernie's other arm. "It's good to finally see you, Bernie."
"It really is," says Bernie, and she means it. She means it so much that she feels a burst of courage which pushes her forward to offer Thea a real hug. Thea clasps her back gently.
“You’re taller than I expected. Cuter too,” Thea says with a wink.
“Oh goddess, please don’t start,” says Bernie. She hides her face in her hands and blushes to high heaven. The only thing worse than a Mean Girl is a Nice Girl—they would use any small excuse to give out compliments, and it was actually the worst. That’s such a cute outfit, did you get a haircut; it’s a great look on you, and are those new earrings, where did you get them? Compliments are worse than insults because you have to play nice and accept them, or else people think you’re being falsely modest or are stuck up and think you’re better than them.
But how are you supposed to accept compliments when you don’t think you deserve them?
Bernie’s sure that the cloudiness of her thoughts is showing on her face because Thea’s looking at her in badly-hidden concern.
“It’s pretty crowded, huh?” asks Thea. “Worse than the Crimson Flower LAN. But I guess it makes sense since that's just for Crest of Flames 3 players.”
Bernie nods.
Thea smiles. Gah, it’s bright. “Well, didn’t you offer to be my Lady Knight in shining armour? Save me from Moogle Maps.”
They make their way to the Moogle location Sylvain had beamed to them—at least it was off-campus and away from the crowds. In her experience, campus food wasn’t so bad; just a bit basic and bland. Sylvain had hyped up his local nooks for weeks in the team chat.
This is one of the main parts of the trip she's looking forward to; there aren’t many nice Japanese restaurants in her campus city; there's mostly just South-Asian and Middle Eastern food, which, while absolutely delicious, isn’t the same thing.
The frontage of the restaurant is lined with huge glass-windows; peeking in, she can see classic booths and a bar counter. The decor has an airy, cafe-like feel, with walls lined with indoor plants and fairy lights.
She opens the door, startling herself as the bell attached to it jingles and signals her arrival. There was a familiar mop of red hair by the bar counter—it wasn’t really her preferred spot to sit, but it’s not like the booths built-in against the glass windows were very private either.
She holds the door open for Thea.
“This is cute,” says Thea. That’s not a surprise; she says everything is cute.
“It’s nice,” says Bernie. She’s trying. “Not too crowded. Is uh, is that him?”
“It’s got to be,” she says. She gently links her arm with Bernie’s and saunters up to the bar. “Hey, Sylvie!”
Bernie tries not to dig her heels in—she even pastes on a smile. Sure it’s a little stiff, but it’s the thought that counts.
Sylvain stands up at Thea's call. He’s tall and broad, with wide-set shoulders and a grin to match. She’s watched him stream before, and had assumed that his sunniness was a persona for the camera. He’s intimidatingly hot, just like Thea is, but he’s got a slightly more approachable air. Bernie would be intimidated if she didn’t know him, his 13-step skincare routine, and the way that he whines whenever she updates her fics late.
“Hey ladies,” he says, in a comically fake casanova voice.
Thea swats him on the shoulder. “Oh my god, stop it. You do realise we’re not halfway across the country now, right? We can make you stop if you’re going to be embarrassing.”
“I’m kidding, geez.”
“You need to work on your jokes,” says Bernie, but she’s smiling a little. “So uh, what’s good here?”
“The shio butter corn ramen,” he says without hesitation.
“I guess I’ll get that,” says Bernie. She hasn’t eaten anything all day, and her nervousness has subsided a little.
“Look over the menu, Bernie, there might be something better,” says Thea. She glances at Sylvain. “Any word from Ferdie?”
“I thought he came in with you,” says Sylvain.
“I went for a walk after we helped set up the venue. Seriously, that paper building is something else. He said he wanted some boiling water or something.”
Bernie looked at her in confusion. “Why would he—”
“Tea,” Sylvain says.
“Ah.”
He shrugs. “It’s Ferdinand. Remember the time he almost missed a match because he wanted to get iced tea?”
“Never forget,” mutters Bernie.
“God, I’m hungry,” says Thea. Bernie pats her shoulder gently.
Ferdinand arrives ten minutes later in a flustered flurry. His hair has escaped its ties so he looks little unkempt. Ferdinand isn’t intimidating at all; he can’t be when he’s wearing a pink Hawaiian shirt over a yellow crew neck. It’s a great departure from the photos he’s shared of himself; prim and proper, properly dressed in sweater vests, cashmere jumpers and pressed slacks. He feels more approachable this way. Softer, as if he’s let his guard down.
“Sorry,” he says. “I tried to find hot water for my tea flask and got sidetracked.”
“Rude,” says Thea. “You've been keeping poor Bernie from her lunch.”
“I guess this confirms that Bernie’s your favourite,” says Sylvain.
“It’s not like there was any competition,” says Bernie. It bursts out before she can remember to feel shy. This feels familiar, like the late-night snark-offs they have at 3 AM.
Ferdinand sniffs. “Now that’s rude.”
Sylvain reaches over and pats him on the shoulder in a solemn there there.
They order their food quickly, even though Ferdinand squawks at how little time they give him to peruse the menu.
The food is amazing—Bernie opts for the shio butter corn ramen which is a nice, hearty choice. The others are more adventurous, picking out Tantanmen, Black Garlic Tonkotsu ramen and the Chef’s Chashu Special. The broth is rich and the toppings are lovingly prepared—the marinated soft-boiled egg warms her to her toes. Sylvain ruffles her hair when she gives him her compliments on the venue.
When they’re close to finishing, Thea turns to them and says, “I’ve got a surprise for you.”
“What kind of surprise?” asks Bernie, nervous.
Thea smiles. It’s a little scary. She pulls a piece of paper and a bunch of coloured pens out of her magical bottomless bag, lays it on the table, between Bernie and Ferdinand and smooths out the crinkles with her perfectly manicured hands.
Sylvain whistles. “What’s this?”
Her smile widens. “The tournament bracket.”
The bracket wasn’t supposed to be released yet. Bernie looks at Thea in doubt. “You didn’t steal it, did you?”
“What? No! We helped Seteth and Flayn set up the room this morning and I took one of the spare schedules.”
Ferdinand leans back into his chair as if putting as much distance as he could between himself and the illegal contraband. “Isn’t that against the rules?”
Dorathea gently shakes her head. “The tournament hasn’t started yet, but Seteth let people in to warm up already. Which means they’ve all got access to this schedule, so it’s not that unfair. We might as well try to scope out these teams while we’re out of their earshot. Sylvie? Ferdie? Got any intel?”
Sylvain is a Crest of Flames veteran; he dominated the Crest of Flames 3 scene with the perpetual second-best team in the league, the Blue Lions. According to Ferdinand, the team mysteriously split two seasons ago, and Sylvain had quietly retired until Bernie had bribed him to return with early-release chapters of her fic. While Ferdinand and Dorothea are more informed of recent happenings in the scene, Sylvain has an encyclopedic knowledge of the stats and traits of all established players and is a fount of strategic knowledge.
Ferdinand is even more of an enigma—he was the support-style player for the undisputed champions of the league, the only team with sponsors: The Black Eagles Taskforce, until he quit a season ago and convinced Thea to make a new and totally unproven team with him. While Sylvain still regularly talks to and about his old teammates, Ferdinand doesn’t; he clams up whenever they’re bought up. It's basically impossible to shut him up otherwise.
Between the two of them and Gossip Queen Thea, their intel on Crest league players was possibly unsurpassed.
Ferdinand taps the name closest to theirs on the schedule and circles it with one of Thea’s sparkly gel pens. “I’m afraid I’ve never heard of the Gotham, uh, Titty Sirens.”
Sylvain freezes.
Bernie’s not the only who notices. Thea glances at him out of the corner of her eyes. “Oh? Sylvie, do you know ‘em?”
“Well, I’ve never played against them,” Sylvain says after a moment.
Thea taps her nails against the table. “But?”
“I might have a little history with them.”
...What’s that supposed to mean?
“Perhaps we should pull up their Twitter and take a peek of their roster,” Ferdinand suggests.
They pull up the @GothamTittySirens Twitter. It’s very purple. There are shirts with titty windows on their banner. Bernie doesn’t get it.
“I guess the girls are getting lit tonight. Let’s give them a reason to drown their sorrows,” says Thea, amused. She pulls out a paper from underneath the schedule and writes out the names. “On the roster is Queen Rose, Dreamer, Unmasker, Prokiller—yikes—and Sweet Tooth.”
Ferdinand hums in thought. “These names are a little familiar.”
Sylvain looks like he’s sweating a little, which is odd, given that the restaurant is air-conditioned.
“Queen Rose used to be on Team Noir right? That cutthroat sibling team,” Thea.
“Team Noir is Team No More,” says Sylvain.
“Oft. That was bad,” says Bernie, but he grins.
Ferdinand frowns. “Queen Rose, uh, Camilla—didn’t you go out with her? A little?”
Sylvain’s grin dies down. “I mean we hooked up a few times.”
That wasn’t surprising; Sylvain had a reputation for enjoying casual, fun encounters. She’s glad she’s not him though; it must be awkward to encounter an old hook-up during a competition.
Ferdinand squints at his phone. “This Dreamer, she was on Awakening Kids, right? Didn’t you—”
“It was a one-time thing,” says Sylvain, sounding more defensive.
Bernie decides to be kind and changes the subject. “I’ve never heard of Unmasker,” says Bernie. She taps on Unmasker’s profile. “Oh, they used to play comp Tapamon. Didn’t you play that, Sylvain?”
Sylvain’s brow furrows, and he looks even more guilty.
“Oh my god. You didn’t, did you?” Bernie asks, with glee.
“It was a blind date,” he says helplessly. “It didn’t even go well.”
Thea laughs. “Alright, we’ll let that one slide.”
Ferdinand ignores them and taps around on Twitter. “Sweet Tooth is one of the Shepherds, from the old Crest of Flames 2 scene. He might be dangerous if he’s that experienced. Sylvain, have you played against him?”
“A few games, here and there. Mostly casual stuff. The Blue Lions never formally entered the Crest of Flames 2 league, and Gaius’ team only played one season of Crest of Flames 3.”
“Gaius, huh? You sound familiar,” says Thea.
“He goes here and we have the same major. And uh, we might have dated for a month or two,” Sylvain admits.
“Wow,” says Thea. “Get it, Sylvie.”
Ferdinand frowns. “Is there anyone on this team you haven’t gotten with? Please tell me you didn’t hook up with this ProKiller person, she looks like she wants to stab someone.”
Sylvain doesn’t say anything and instead takes a chug of barley tea.
“Sylvain,” Ferdinand presses.
He sighs. “Once at a LAN afterparty, we played spin the bottle and got locked in a closet together.”
“And you made out?” Bernie asks, intrigued.
“No, not really. But we, like, wrestled a bit while we were in there. And I mean literal wrestling, she’s a violent little thing and kept getting annoyed at me because my knee was stuck in her back. But we were red and puffed out when we got out, so everyone thought that we had done something. She didn’t like that.”
“So this entire team is full of your exes, and another person who probably hates your guts?” asks Thea.
“That’s the gist of it.”
“I can’t believe you tried to glaze over this by saying you had a little history with them. They’re not going to play any dirty tricks on us, are they?” asks Bernie, worried.
“Seteth’s going to be watching. He’s one of the strictest admins in the league,” Thea assures them.
“Still, they’re going to try their best to take us and Sylvain down,” says Bernie.
Sylvain smiles. “They’ll be doing that anyway. They’re respectable competitors. Sure, this is a little…messy, but it’s not going to change anything.”
That’s easy for him to say, but there was no way of knowing until they got there. Besides serious tricks and actually cheating, there’s more than one way for an opponent to get to you. Bernie’s sure that all-consuming awkwardness could affect anyone’s ability to play.
“If you know them, does that mean you know anything about their playstyles and teamwork?” asks Ferdinand.
Sylvain nods. “Queen Rose is the biggest threat. She’s the most experienced out of all of them, even Gauis. He hasn’t played comp for a couple of years, but Rose’s old team has only been disbanded for a season. She’s got a really heavy, aggressive style but she’s got the mobility and survivability to make up for it. She’s probably carrying their entire team if I’m going to be honest. I want to say that if we target her, we’ll have an easy time, but—”
“Someone experienced like that will be hard to bully,” says Bernie.
“Exactly.”
“What position does she play?” asks Bernie.
“She’s a flex. Switches between front and backline, so we’ll have a hard time trying to counter her. But no matter what position she plays, she values her mobility above all else—bringing a speed-affecting sub weapon and a special attack which helps displace the enemy would help us deal with her,” says Sylvain.
Dorothea writes out notes on the paper she pulls out. “What about the others?”
“Gauis plays on the front line. He likes fast, slayer-type weapons. He’s good, but he might be rusty.”
“We can’t count on that,” says Ferdinand. He’s always cautious. Bernie likes that about him; it was rare to find a teammate who could be dependable and clear-headed during a game.
Sylvain makes a thinking noise. “He’s not an independent player; the few times I’ve played casually with him, it was clear that he needed clear directions from a leader. If we can fluster Camilla and stop her calls from coming in, that’ll stop him in his tracks.”
There are two parts to a successful esports player; technical skills and mental fortitude. Knowing when to push the objective comes down to both of these aspects; you need to have the capability to read the flow of the games to find or create the perfect moment to strike, but you also need to be confident in your own judgement, and patient enough not to panic under pressure and strike too early. Being too aggressive and too passive are two sides of the same coin; panic.
It’s not uncommon to have a team leader who calls the shots during the game to ensure that their team isn’t too scattered. Doki Doki is a good team, but she’s not sure if they’d be where they were without Sylvain’s meticulous strategizing and calls.
Thea smiles— she’s probably having fun plotting the downfall of this poor team. “Sweet. And Dreamer?”
“Dangerous slayer. Same deal as Gauis on needing calls. But we shouldn’t get complacent. I can’t remember much about playing against ProKiller or Unmasker and the less we know about them, the more nasty surprises they’ll have for us.”
“Yuck,” says Bernie.
Thea jots down more notes. “So they’re a fast-paced team, with more emphasis on short-range and aggression. Bernie will be bringing a backline weapon either way, but we can capitalise on their lack of range by bringing two midline weapons.”
“You’ll have trouble with speed if you’re using a middleweight weapon,” reminds Sylvain. The size of their wand weapons determines their range, but it also determines their speed. “We should bring our normal range of comps—front, front, mid and back. But pick out special attacks which will displace the enemy. If we can scatter Camilla, that’ll give us an edge. It’s less of an all eggs in one basket deal too since those attacks can be helpful against any of their members.”
Ferdinand shakes his head. “Bringing only displacement special attacks means we won’t have anything to make our pushes with.”
He’s right; they only have one special attack each, too.
“I’ll take one pushing special,” says Sylvain. Bernie can see that Ferdie and Thea look a little uneasy at the idea. Their team is already naturally defensive because of their weapon preferences. If Sylvain is the only one with a special attack that could help them push the objective, that decreases their offensive power a lot.
“With only one pushing special, we’ll need to coordinate our pushes a lot more. Bernie, you might have to step it up with your calls. Displacement specials can still help us clear the way and push,” says Thea.
“I’ll try,” Bernie says. She grips the fabric of her skirt.
“We’ve dealt with more aggressive teams,” says Ferdinand. “You have my utmost confidence.”
“The main thing is that they’re going to try to scatter us with their aggressiveness. Don’t wander around alone. Safety in numbers,” says Sylvain.
Bernie snorts. “Right, we’ll try.”
Thea circles the next team on the list. “What about Mystic Malice? They’re the ones we’ll fight next, right?”
“That’s only if we beat the Gotham, ah, Sirens,” says Ferdinand. “And I’d rather not count our eggs before that hatch.”
“Also they’re sitting right behind us, so it might be awkward if they hear,” says Sylvain.
Bernie turns around as inconspicuously as she can. Sure enough, there’s a table of eye-catching youths in the booth by the window. There’s like, eight empty bowls on the table, and one of them seems to be sleeping with a book on his face. Wow, he’s even more of a bookworm than her!
The blond man currently slurping down what seems to be his fourth bowl of ramen pauses and jauntily waves her. Blushing, she immediately turns around.
“That’s them, huh?” asks Thea.
“They’re interesting, but honestly they won’t be as much of a threat as the Sirens. Let’s just take things one thing at a time,” says Sylvain. “Any questions?”
Ferdinand raises his hand. “Is there a good bubble tea store nearby?”
[Posted 15 minutes ago]
@horsegirl9000 nothing like getting parfait with your lovely teammates and token uncultured sword gremlin
@nineknives im never getting dessert with you psychos again. I need to brush my teeth.
@misswitch you really have NO taste felix
They head to a little shopping alleyway near the campus, a few minutes walk from the restaurant. From there, Sylvain herds them into a trending looking boba shop.
Ferdinand commiserates between the difference between Assam milk tea and Ceylon honey milk tea for at least 15 minutes; Thea picks out an aesthetic peach green tea with peach star jelly and ropes Sylvain into taking photos of her with the admittedly pretty drink.
Bernie picks out a toffee oolong drink and heads to the main street out of the crowded alleyway for some breathing room.
Once out on the open street, Bernie fumbles with her boba straw, trying to thrust it into the plastic. It’s slippery; her fingers aren’t made for this kind of fine mobility.
As she concentrates on this highly important task, she rocks back and forth on her heels and accidentally stumbles into a pedestrian.
The guy was walking with some force, causing her to lose her balance. She falls down and scrapes her knee a little—luckily, she’s wearing thick tights. She manages to keep a hold of her drink, but her straw drops from her fingers.
“Fuck, don’t stand in the middle of the path,” the guys says.
She doesn’t respond for a moment, stupefied. She looks up at a somewhat familiar face. She’s seen this man before on Sylvain’s streams, and occasionally on his Instagram posts. If memory serves her right, he’s Nineknives, the cutthroat slayer of Starry Midknights, and one of Sylvain’s old Blue Lions teammates. Bernie doesn’t know much about the people in the Crests league, but even she knows that Knive’s temper is legendary. He looks furious. His furrowed brow could rival mountains.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to stand in your way. Please let me go!”
His frown softens infinitesimally. His tone becomes a little less harsh. “Do you uh, need a hand?”
“No! No, I’m fine,” she says. She scrambles up and cradles her drink. She needs a new straw. “I need to—I need to straw. Goodbye.”
She quickly makes a beeline for the bubble tea store, away from Knives. The further away you were from angry people, the better.
“Wait!” she hears him shout behind her. “Why are you running!?”