“I accept Mr. Va-an’s proposal for marriage!”
“…Wait what?”
“I accept Mr. Va-an’s proposal for marriage!”
“…Wait what?”
“…”
“Can you please stop repeating that, Ms. Angela?”
“Pft. We should have had one of these back in Unique Class-1.”
Back in Van’s hotel room, Angela was currently leisurely lying on the bed, holding some sort of black box. A remote, she said. She was using it to replay the moment when Adia raised Van’s hand, proceeding to accept her loss as well as answering Van’s proposal with a confident smile on her face.
Van’s face was a different story, however. The utter shock and confusion on his face were obvious for everyone to see, and this was the moment that Angela kept repeating over and over again as she let out tiny chuckles for almost 30 minutes now.
“…You seem to have gotten to know how to control the television a whole lot better while I was gone, Ms. Angela.”
“I asked the people downstairs,” Angela waved her hand as she finally changed the image being shown on the television, “Most of them know our language, anyway.”
“Hm,” Van slightly squinted his eyes as he continued to look at Angela, who seemed to have already made herself home in his room, “Good thing they didn’t ask where your parents are,” Van then said, a small smirk slowly appearing on his face as he sat on the sofa.
“…” Angela, however, ignored Van’s obvious teasing statement about her height and just continued to browse whatever it is being shown on the television.
“What did you really come here for, Ms. Angela?”
After a few minutes of silence, Van once again asked Angela the same question he had been asking her since she arrived.
“I told you, I am just here to watch and follow you,” Angela said as she jumped off from the bed, proceeding to get a beverage on the refrigerator, “Do anything you want, I am not to interfere or anything.”
“…” So she has been saying from the start. Van could only let out a sigh as he walked towards the window, pushing the curtains to the side and looking at the scenery below. Ever since his race with Adia, there had been a lot of people wanting to get inside the hotel, wanting to talk with Van.
An interview, they said. Van, however, had no interest in partaking. He was just waiting for Charlotte to finish talking with King Badru so that they would be allowed to go to the Deadzone. If it was up to Van, then he would have just run through the Deadzone and tried to find the Portal himself. It was going to take a while, but he was sure he would be able to–
“Pft, why are you and your mother so different?”
Van’s thoughts were suddenly disrupted as Angela once again let out a small chuckle, “Based on my investigation, this place has one of the biggest Deadzones in the world, much bigger than the one we have in our country. You don’t even know what’s out there and you’ll just blindly run through it? Pft, hopeless. Really hopeless, did you hear that? The boy wants to go to uncharted territory in a foreign country he has no idea what awaited him.”
“…” Van could not help but furrow his eyebrows as he looked at Angela. Did she just read his mind? So one of the Skills she had saved was the Headmaster’s skills.
“You just figured that out now? Hopeless, really hope–“
Before Angela could finish her words, a knock whispered into their ears, coming from the door of Van’s room. And as soon as the third knock echoed, Angela was already nowhere to be found.
“…Are you still here, Ms. Angela?”
“…”
“…”
“Please turn on, mister TV.”
“Pft.”
“…”
Once again, Van could only let out a sigh as she heard Angela’s breaths whispering into his ears from somewhere. Angela Elton most probably had copied a skill to turn invisible and erase her presence completely.
Van would lie if he said he wasn’t a tad bit conscious that Angela was watching her from somewhere. But since she had been doing it ever since they left America, she had probably already seen him do anything anyway. Probably even watched him while he was taking a bath.
“…Bitch,” Angela worded out from somewhere.
Finally, after considering it a win, Van opened the door to see who it was that knocked. And to his surprise, it was princess Adia, her hair no longer in braids but instead in curls. This was the third time Van was meeting Adia, and this was also his third time seeing her with another hairstyle.
There were two other men behind her, wearing sunglasses even inside the hotel.
“Ms. Adia?”
“Good morning, Mr. Va-an,” Adia slightly bowed towards Van.
“Did… you need something from me?”
“I was hoping maybe we could go on a walk, you and I.”
“…A walk?” Van blinked his eyes a couple of times, “…Where?”
“You don’t need to be so serious, Va-an. I just want to tour you through the city,” Adia let out a slight chuckle as her now curly hair bounced with each of her breaths, “I heard from the receptionist and the guards that you have not even once gone out of your room.”
“But I am waiting for Ms. Charlotte. She might be back anytime soon.”
“You don’t have to worry about that. I have already called grandfather and it would seem their talk would last until dinner. You can’t just lock yourself in this room until then, can’t you?”
“Hm,” Van slightly let out a breath as he looked behind him as if trying to look for the invisible Angela, “…I suppose, let me change my clothes then.”
“Oka–“
“…”
Before Adia could even say a word, Van closed the door on her. If the one who did that was someone else, then the guards would have probably already rammed the room of the door down.
Adia waited for a few seconds before Van finally opened the door once again and stepped outside.
“That’s…”
“Miss Charlotte gave it to me last night.” Van, who noticed Adia was looking at the clothes he was wearing, quickly commented. He was now wearing one of the formal clothes that the people from Africa wear, similar to what Adia’s brother was wearing when he first met them.
Long-sleeved, with a sort of vest that adorned a high open collar that almost reached Van’s jawline.
“I… I see,” Adia could not help but let out an awkward chuckle as her eyes reached the bottom part of Van’s outfit. Instead of wearing pants like how the adults do, Van was wearing shorts that were usually reserved for children.
True, Van was shorter than most people, but according to Charlotte, he was already 17 this year. Her brother was already married at that age.
“Well… shall we go now?” Adia tried her best to conceal her thoughts as she started walking. The two guards remind behind the two of them, seemingly talking to someone through a small box. Van had seen that different videos being shown on television, and this country truly was different from America.
The things they had were a sort of fantasy for Van. And the most surprising thing of all was that he recognized most of these so-called technologies in the Relic Graveyard. It made Van question why the Relic Graveyard existed in the first place. Was the Circle trying to deliberately round up these technologies and destroying them?
Why would the Circle even deprive the people of these things, which obviously made the life of the people that held it better?
Van had so many questions, none of them answered, and yet, even more, came his way.
“They’re here! They’re outside!”
As soon as Van stepped out of the hotel, they were once again bombarded with cameras, the people that Van was seeing from his room were now once again in a craze.
“Princess Adia, is it really true that the two of you are getting married!?”
“We’ve received in our sources that Mr. Va-an is actually already 17 years old, is that true?”
“Mr. Va-an, why are you and the White Imvubu here in Africa?”
“Was it true you were holding back in the race? We’ve received intel that you could go faster than the speed of sound.”
Faster than the speed of sound? Van blinked his eyes a couple of times as he looked towards the man that asked the question. He was about to talk to him, but before he could do so, Adia’s guards pushed them away.
“Sorry about this, Va-an,” Adia could only shake her head, “But with both of our status combined, the media won’t just let us have a day to ourselves. I’m already used to it and didn’t think of what you would think.”
“…I’m alright,” Van replied, “I am also used to people fawning over me.”
“…”
“Hm,” Adia could not help but let out a slight chuckle as she saw Van saying that statement with a straight face, “Let’s go then!”
Adia then grabbed Van’s hand, pulling him away like a ragdoll as she leaped through the air, leaving the bodyguards to fend off the so-called media people by themselves.
“Is it alright to just leave them like that?”
“It’s fine, they can just find me via GPS.”
“…GPS?”
“Right, it’s…”
The two started their walk, but with Adia mostly pulling Van from one place to the next. There were a lot of things that Van was seeing for the first time, it almost equaled what he felt when he first walked into the Academy.
The world… truly was a wonderful place, Van thought. After a few hours of Van being dragged, Adia finally found a place to settle down, her favorite coffee shop, she said.
With them going inside, the entire shop was completely filled with gasps. Van was expecting another downpour of people, but to his surprise, not even one of the people in the shop approached them.
“Find us a seat, what drink do you want?” Adia said as she gestured to Van to just relax.
“…Anything you can recommend,” Van said after looking at the list of drinks. He absolutely had no idea how they tasted anyway, so it wouldn’t make a difference.
“Hm, okay.”
Van found a spot on the corner. And as soon as he did so, the people that were nearby all changed to another table.
“…” Van could not help but wonder why the people here seemed to be avoiding them, but as soon as Adia sat in front of her with their drinks on hand, his question was quickly answered.
“…This was my mother’s favorite coffee shop.”
