“Of course. Exaggerated comparisons like that are your specialty, after all. It’s normal for someone’s head to go a bit wild when it’s constantly full of birds.”

“Exactly! And let’s not even talk about how demanding those birds are, always requiring new sources of inspiration.” Julien sighed —it must be exhausting feeding imaginary birds every day— though he recovered his good humor quickly. “Besides, how could I not pay for your ransom? I’m the one who asked for you to be here in the first place! Of course I want to spend the rest of the night with you.”

“The rest of the night?” Francis repeated, visibly amused.

“Ah— I mean… from now until after midnight, maybe?” he suggested, as though testing the waters. “I suppose you’ll have to return to your friends at some point.”

“Probably, though I don’t think they’ll miss me that much.”

Maybe in a while they would, but right now, Théo and the others were perfectly content chatting and dancing with all the guests in the house. If Francis disappeared for a couple of hours, it seemed unlikely anyone would notice.

“Then it’s settled. How would you feel about accompanying me somewhere far away from all this noise and people? I know a special corner of the village I’d like to show you.”

“Does this place involve trees or hills steep enough to slide down on a sled? Because I think I’ve had enough of both.”

“Uh… no?” Julien hesitated for a second, and Francis could have sworn that was exactly the kind of place he meant to take him, but Julien quickly recovered his conviction. “Though I can promise I won’t make you climb a tree to rescue another defenseless kitten, nor push you downhill in a questionably safe vehicle… Mainly because at this hour I doubt we’d find any of that out in the fields. But let’s pretend the possibility exists and that my excellent intentions are all that matter.”

“I don’t believe a word, but I’ll do you the favor and go with you anyway, since you’re lucky I’m already tired of so much celebration.”

Which was only a partial lie. Julien could be overly excitable at times, to the point of being exhausting. But in that moment, Francis would have gone with him regardless of what excuse he used to justify it.

After all, Julien was right: there was only one reason Francis agreed to come.

Having agreed to leave as soon as possible, they both began to walk toward the door. And just when they had it in sight, someone made them stop abruptly.

“I’ve finally remembered!” the elderly woman exclaimed triumphantly, addressing Francis exclusively. “I knew I had seen your name written somewhere —no one fools me.”

“Grandma, do you mind? We’re busy.” That must have been the closest Julien could get to sounding annoyed and, even then, it came across more like a plea than anything else.

“Francis Thierry, from Le Gaulois, wasn’t it?” she continued, completely ignoring her grandson.

“Yes, but I thought we had already established that,” Francis replied, thinking with a hint of irony that this was the first time he consciously wished to be alone with Julien once and for all.

“That’s the point! You’re that journalist whose articles Julien used to collect non-stop, for years.”

“Well, it’s true that with a rivalry, it’s normal for one to collect the other’s articles. To be better informed about what one is up against, and all that.”

“Maybe we should go…” Julien murmured, tugging at his sleeve at the same time the woman said:

“What rivalry? He admired you. He spent who knows how many hours reading your blasted articles instead of studying. He even had a space on his bedroom wall dedicated to hanging them!”

“Oh, really?” Francis smiled, as friendly as could be; suddenly he was not in such a hurry to escape. “Go on.”

“N-no need!” Julien protested, flustered. “Those were different times —I was young and impressionable.”

“So you admit it happened?”

“No… Well, yes. But thousands of years have passed since then! One can’t go around getting obsessed with everything one likes. There’s dignity at stake now.”

“Of course there is,” Francis replied, immediately continuing to tease him. “Does that mean if I walk into your old bedroom I won’t find my articles hanging around as if they were portraits of a beloved family member?”

“Of course not, I told you I don’t do that anymore.”

He sounded confident —and Francis might have believed him, if not for the fact that the elderly woman added:

“I don’t know how he’s organized his room now that he lives in Lyon, but I can confirm he didn’t throw your articles away. He put them all in a box and took them with him.” After checking the time on a nearby wall clock, she added, “Anyway, now I’ll leave you two alone. I have far more interesting things to do than stay here debunking your nonsense.”

And indeed she left —finally— a couple of seconds before Francis turned to Julien and realized he was so red he might spontaneously combust.

“Since when?” Francis asked, amused —it would have been absurd at this point to debate whether it was true or not.

“You heard her —a few years,” Julien replied, clearly reluctant to confess more than necessary.

“How many, exactly? Two? Three?”

“Not many… Maybe since ’67 or ’68.”

“That was before the war.”

“Yes, wasn’t it? Must have been.”

“Long before I wrote anything in the paper directed at you, too.”

“What a coincidence, don’t you think? Someone enjoying your writing for seven or eight years. Such a thing has never been seen.”

He was clearly trying to play it down. But Francis wouldn’t fall for that. In fact, he had just realized something fundamental:

“Julien, have you been following my career since I started?”

“Me? What nonsense! How would I keep track so closely that I’d know what you write and when? I only bought Le Gaulois one day because one of my uncles asked me to, and that’s when I read one of your articles… Then I found it interesting, so I kept reading more.” After thinking a moment, Julien added, “But it’s not because I’m obsessed with you specifically. It’s because I have good taste and can tell good prose when I see it. If I had read an article by someone else —I don’t know— who wrote masterfully about how to mend holes in stockings, I would have collected their writing too.”

“And have you?”

“Have I what?”

“Collected articles by other journalists as talented as, or even more talented than, me?”

Silence fell, and with it, the answer was painfully clear.

“I see…”

“If I haven’t collected anything from anyone else, it’s only because I’ve been incredibly busy with my own things and…” Julien stopped here. “This is going to inflate your ego, isn’t it?”

“And there’s nothing you can do to stop it,” Francis confirmed with a smile he didn’t bother to hide anymore. “Come on, show me that place you mentioned before you faint and we end up stuck here until next year.”

That must have been a relief for Julien, who immediately resumed walking. And yes, Francis was satisfied with everything he’d learned in the last few minutes.

Satisfied, though also a little ashamed: he was beginning to realize that not only had their feuding started for a ridiculous reason —but of all the people writing for national papers, Julien was probably the one who least deserved to have the person he admired throwing poisoned barbs at him.

And no matter how hard he tried to pretend otherwise, that did affect Francis.