“You guys hungry?”

Captain Harumi walked up to them from the direction of Frerin’s office. After everything he had shown them, he had pretty much just dumped them in the research facility’s cafeteria and left to discuss some things with Frerin in private.

“Are you?” Seren responded dryly. “After everything you just… took in.”

The Captain burst out laughing. “It’s called absorbing, and it’s not exactly the same as having a meal. Ask Hyrin, she slept in a hospital bed for three days straight after she did it.”

Hyrin wasn’t exactly sure how she expected Seren to react, but it definitely wasn’t the pitiful glance he threw her way.

“You don’t seem surprised,” the Captain noticed as well.

Seren glared up at him. “Because I…” He tightly pressed his lips together.

"I saw?” The Captain finished his sentence with a raised eyebrow.

Seren clenched his jaw, but then turned to Hyrin.

“I entered that alley right at the last moment, and I saw…” he swallowed. “I wasn’t sure. It was like something dark flowing into your hand as you just stood there completely still.” He lowered his head. “I wasn’t sure what to do until you suddenly collapsed and I ran over to you. I’m sorry.”

She shook her head. “It’s okay. Why didn’t you tell me?”

He sighed, clearly too relieved with her words to respond immediately. “Because I had no idea what had happened or what was going on, all I could tell was that you were trying to keep it to yourself.” He gave her a little smile. “I didn’t want to force you, I just figured it’d be better to wait for you to be ready.”

He glared back at the Captain. “Since it was your secret to tell, Hyrin,” he added coldly.

The Captain snickered. “And now it’s all our secret. Fun!” He nodded over his shoulder for them to follow him. “Let’s go, I know this really awesome place in the outskirts of town.”

Hyrin had her doubts about any place the Captain called awesome and about forty minutes later, her suspicions were confirmed. They followed him into the cutest looking café she had ever seen, filled with men and women walking around in exorbitant costumes, none of which she recognized. Correction, she immediately thought to herself as her eye fell on a woman dressed in a red dress with four red wings, one of which she recognized. It was an almost exact copy of the Lillian figurine the Captain had given her before.

Seren unconsciously moved closer to Hyrin, his shoulder bumping into hers, and she hid a chuckle. She could only imagine how out of place someone as serious as Seren felt in a place like this. Captain Harumi, on the other hand, didn’t even bat an eye as he got approached by his favorite and asked her for a table for three. She fed them what could only be a line from her show or comic, Hyrin wasn’t even actually sure what it was the Captain was such a fan of, and then sat them down in a booth next to the window.

“I recommend the heart enlarging sparkle shake,” the Captain told them with a completely straight face. “Imma go to the toilet for a moment. Order one for me, and some angelic mash with heart throbbing flying miracles.”

Seren leaned closer to Hyrin as they watched the Captain walk away. “Is he serious?” he whispered.

Hyrin shrugged. “I didn’t tell you before because I wasn’t sure if this was something he wanted to hide, especially from the public. But I guess he’s fine with it, so…”

“So,” Seren repeated, “I seriously have to say all this stuff out loud to order?”

Hyrin covered her mouth so as not to burst out laughing. “Well, you’re not going to make me do it, are you?” She asked with a bit of a pout and he rolled his eyes, but still ordered for the three of them with a bright red face.

Not long after they had put the food down, the Captain sat back down opposite of them.

“Sorry,” he said and pulled out his phone to take a picture of the hearts drawn in sauce on his mashed potatoes, “Ley called me all upset so I had to explain the situation to her and then she got mad that I told you two everything.”

Hyrin swallowed. “Why did you?”

He took a bite and closed his eyes with a groan. “This is so good,” he told her, pushing her own plate closer to her to force her to eat.

“Honestly,” he continued after she took a bite, “it’s kind of a miracle that you didn’t end up a drooling vegetable after you absorbed that brick class without any training.”

She nearly choked in her food and he burst out laughing.

“But now that you’ve done it before,” he continued after calming down, “you’ll probably end up doing it again. And if you’re going to do it anyway,” he gave the both of them a crooked grin, “I'd rather you be safe.”

Seren immediately turned bright red, but Hyrin just frowned.

“If you knew, then why did you keep pretending not to?” She asked flatly. She must have looked like such an idiot in his eyes all those times she tried to lie to him.

“I guess I just wanted to see if you would trust me enough to tell me the truth in the end,” he answered with a fake sob and then showed her a mischievous grin. “Guess all that courting I did still wasn’t enough, huh?”

“What courting?” Seren snapped before Hyrin could even respond, his knuckles white around his pink cup.

The Captain leaned back with a satisfied look on his face, having gotten the exact reaction he had been aiming for. “Why do you care?”

“What did you mean it’s a miracle I didn’t end up a drooling vegetable?” Hyrin asked before he could turn that into a whole thing again.

“I mean that the stress it puts on your body and mind is, well,” he gave her a surprisingly sincere look of understanding, “you were out for three days. And you must have been seeing things, or having nightmares, am I right?”

Hyrin clenched her jaw, lowering her gaze to the plate of fries in front of her. “I keep dreaming I’m running, trying to look for a place to hide,” she confessed softly. “And if I don’t find a place fast enough, I just… feel a lot of pain.”

Next to her, Seren flinched, although he didn’t say anything.

“It’ll be like that for a while,” the Captain told her. “And it’ll be like that every time. The bigger drakes you absorb, the worse it gets.” He suddenly leaned forward, placing his elbows on the table and entangling his fingers. “Here’s the question, though,” he said in a low voice. “You, Hyrin, have potential. And you have an incredibly handsome expert right here who can teach you. If you keep absorbing more drakes, bigger and more dangerous ones, you’ll reach my level in no time. But the price will be steep. What do you want to do?”

”I’ll do it,” Hyrin answered without a second thought. “Teach me.”

”Me too.” Seren jumped up, slamming his hands on the table on both sides of his plate. All heads in the café turned to him, but he didn’t even notice, his ice blue eyes only stared down at the Captain.

Captain Harumi glanced around with an awkward grin. “Hey, people know me here,” he whispered, gesturing to Seren to sit back down.

"I don’t mind you sitting in,” he added after Seren had obeyed, “but I can’t promise you'll ever be able to do it. Not to sound racist, but usually, people who came from the same place as you and Ley don’t have any potential for this, despite being reincarnated too.” He lowered his voice. “Don’t ever tell anyone because she hates it, but Ley only ever managed to absorb one, a brick class like Hyrin, and it took her an entire month to recover.” He stirred his shake with a sigh. “And that was only after I spent over a year preparing her. Any other reincarnates like you and her I’ve heard about who tried ended up way worse.”

He looked up to meet Seren’s eyes. “Like I said, I don’t mind you sitting in and learning or supporting Hyrin or whatever, but I don’t recommend you trying to do it yourself. It won’t end well.”

 Seren’s face sank, as if those few words had made his entire world come crashing down.

"So, reincarnates who came from the same place as you and me…” she asked softly.

The Captain shrugged. “There’s no telling for sure if we came from the same place and we don’t have names for them anyway, all I can do is guess, but I’m not usually wrong about the kids I think have potential.” He gave Seren an almost pitying look. “Or not.”

Hyrin swallowed. “Well, you’re wrong this time.” She pushed her friend with her elbow, forcing him to sit up straighter. “Teach both of us. We’ll figure out a way to do it.”

The Captain turned to Seren with a raised eyebrow, but Seren just nodded shortly.

"Fine,” Captain Harumi sighed with a shrug, “my own fault for dragging both of you into it from the start.”

"What, you’re not smiling like a moron today?”

Seren and Hyrin walked up to the mess hall, hearing a voice they recognized as Niri, one of the other trainees.

"Your food not making you happy?” Niri continued mocking in the stupidest way Hyrin had ever heard.

"Or can you only pretend to smile like that when your new bestie is here?” They heard a chair scrape over the floor. “I bet she died on that roof with the rest of team One. So much for the hero reincarnate who claims she killed a dragon even though she can’t even run a single kilometer without throwing u-”

"Shut up!” Lily’s voice rang through the mess hall, followed by a loud clattering. “Don’t talk about shit you know nothing about!” Her voice sounded stifled, as if she were desperately trying to suppress a sob.

"Hyrin is a hero! She tried to sacrifice herself for all of us! She’s braver than you’ll ever b-”

She got cut off and Hyrin moved closer to the door, but still couldn’t hear whatever Niri whispered to her in response.

“Y-you’re wrong,” Lily stammered weakly. “Hyrin wouldn’t do that. She’ll come back. I would’ve known by now if… if…” She stopped and Hyrin could feel her heart painfully pounding in her throat. How stupid had she been? Why hadn’t she even given Lily and the others a single thought? The entirety of team One had been annihilated, including their strong lieutenant. How could Lily and the others not think that the two of them had died too? Why hadn’t she even tried to give them any sign of life?

She put her hand against the door and pushed it open, casually walking inside under the sound of several loud gasps. She walked up to Lily, who stared up at her in tears, surrounded by Niri and her little group of minions.

She stopped right in front of Niri, glaring right into her dark eyes, eyes that told her somehow that this girl came from the same place that she and most likely Lily too had come from.

"You done?” Hyrin asked her in a cold voice.

Niri gasped softly, unconsciously moving back.

"H-how did you survive that?” She muttered.

"Not by having run a kilometer, I guess we can all be sure of that,” Hyrin answered dryly. “Now, can you get lost? I’m hungry.”

Niri hesitantly glanced from Hyrin to Lily and back, but then suddenly scoffed and walked away, bumping Hyrin against her shoulder in the process like some high school bully.

"Hyrin!” Lily threw herself against her friend, hugging her so tightly that Hyrin could barely even breathe. “You’re alive!” She reached out, grabbing Seren’s shirt behind Hyrin and pulling him in on the hug too. “You’re both alive! I can’t believe it!”

Seren awkwardly reached around and patted her on the back.

"How did you survive that?” Lily repeated Niri’s question after letting go of them.

Hyrin felt Seren tense up next to her, but she just shook her head. “I don’t really want to talk about it,” she said softly, which wasn’t a complete lie. They had promised the Captain not to repeat anything of what he had said to anyone, but the memories of everything that had happened before that were still fresh in her mind too, and she didn’t want to relive them for any reason.

"More importantly,” she quickly continued, “does that happen a lot?” She nodded over her shoulder, referring to Niri who had already left the mess hall.

Lily froze, but then forced herself to give the both of them a dazzling smile. “It’s okay. Niri’s been like that from the start. It doesn’t bother me.”

Hyrin narrowed her eyes. It didn’t look like it didn’t bother her, but she decided to let it go for now. It would be easier to just keep an eye on it and figure out how to deal with it later. For now, she just let Lily sit her down and bring her a bowl of hot soup for some reason while she called Row and told him to hurry up and come see them.