Read Novel Full Chapter 399: A Night Out [III]
Chapter 399: A Night Out [III]
Five minutes later, poor Kyle returned with a tray full of some very expensive, premium drinks. Expensive enough that even I had to acknowledge the effort.
Well, credit where it’s due. The man had committed to impressing the girl. Unfortunately for him, this girl in question was a demoness incarnate.
After relieving him of all the shots, whiskey, and cocktails, Juliana gave a subtle nod to the guards scattered around in disguise. It was a silent gesture asking them to take out the trash.
Right on cue, the guards quickly surrounded Kyle, providing him with polite but firm guidance toward the exit.
He struggled a little, first smiling nervously, then throwing a predictable tantrum and yelling, "You don’t know who my father is!" or "You’re messing with the wrong guy!"
Finally, my Shadow’s latest victim disappeared into the crowd.
That... was a hard watch.
On the offside, the free drinks indeed tasted so much better!
•••
Juliana and I talked about all sorts of different things.
It had been so long since we just sat and talked without any sort of pretenses, ulterior motives, or a sense of danger hanging over our heads.
There was no psychological tug-of-war or philosophical push-and-pull of ideologies. We didn’t wear any masks or probe for chinks in our armor.
It was just a simple chat. Sometimes we bantered, but mostly we just talked.
We talked about everything. Small things. Trivial things. Things that didn’t matter. Things that did matter. And yes, we also bitched about strangers.
I had somewhat missed the feeling of talking with someone who knew you inside out... maybe even better than you knew yourself. That was Juliana to me.
It was easy to forget, due to the walls we had built between ourselves over the years, that she was the first person I ever opened up to after my mother’s death.
I used to chat with her a lot back then.
She herself wasn’t very talkative. All her answers were either one word, a nod, or a shake of her little head. So it usually fell on me to fill the silence. And boy, did I overdo it sometimes.
I used to find her and babble on and on, telling her about my day — the things that annoyed me, the things that excited me, and the things I didn’t understand but pretended I did. Like the people I met, the training I failed, or the spars I couldn’t win against Thalia.
I used to talk and talk and just talk.
And she always listened, even when she didn’t say anything.
I suppressed a smile at the memory and decided to bring it up. "You know, you’ve actually learned how to hold a conversation. I remember when you used to sit there like a silent statue while I spoke to you."
Juliana gave me a look. "I was sitting normally."
"No, you weren’t."
"I was."
"I’m reasonably sure you were judging me half the time. I remember catching you once trying to hide a chuckle by stuffing your face with one of those raspberry pastries I used to bring you."
Juliana turned her head away. Maybe it was just me, or maybe it was the low lighting, but her ears were beet red. "That’s a fabrication. I was listening attentively."
"You were judging me while listening. There’s a difference."
She didn’t deny that.
I huffed a small laugh.
The music pulsed in the background, but it might as well not have been there because all my attention was elsewhere.
"You talk less now," she said suddenly.
I blinked."I do not. I’ve literally heard you mumble complaints about how much I talk. Don’t think I don’t catch your shade. I have excellent ears!"
"I mean you talk with less substance now," she corrected.
I gasped, clutching my chest as if gravely wounded. "Are you saying... I’ve grown shallow?"
"Yes," she replied without a hint of hesitation.
The back of my hand flew to my forehead. "Stab me instead! It would hurt less!"
•••
So yeah, I was enjoying my chat.
I would’ve enjoyed it a lot more if we weren’t regularly being interrupted by men, and sometimes even women, rudely jumping in to hit on Juliana.
She, of course, was in her element, naturally preying on them all like a shark in a neon-lit tank.
I was annoyed. Not because she was getting all the attention, but because I was getting none! More than once, I was tempted to disable my illusion and revert to my real appearance just to remind the room that they were in my noble presence!
But I reminded myself I wasn’t as petty anymore.
I had grown emotionally mature.
"Why don’t you stop wasting time with this uggo and come dance with me, beautiful?" one of the nth guys said to Juliana upon approaching our table, vaguely gesturing in my direction.
I quietly signaled my guards to drag him out to some back alley and politely explain to him the correlation between actions and consequences.
...What?!
At least I didn’t beat him up myself right there! That was definitely an emotionally mature way to handle the situation!
•••
While all that was going on, Michael had begun his inevitable descent.
I saw it coming from a mile away. We gave a heartbroken man unlimited access to alcohol. It was bound to happen.
It started with a series of quiet, "I’m fine"s at 10:00 PM.
By 11:30 PM, he was befriending a group of commoner girls outside the VIP lounge by the bar, telling them — with great dramatic flair — about the emptiness of the void that is life itself.
...Or something along those lines. Honestly, I had no idea what nonsense he was spouting at this point.
"She never loved me," the supposed hero of this world wailed like a child, leaning heavily on the shoulder of a confused young woman who was clearly just trying to question him about his eyepatch.
"Is it... from a dragon?" she asked, leaning in closer to his face and breathing heavily.
Michael had always been good-looking. Of course, he never held a candle to me, but he was still enough of a heartthrob to make people stop and stare.
He had a fair, creamy complexion, to the point where I would compare his skin to actual alabaster under the right lighting.
Now add in his wavy hair and deep eyes, both as dark black as the darkest shade of a raven’s feather, onto a lean physique and sharp jawline... and you’d get a broody stud that left every girl swooning in his wake.
To top it off, his current depressive vibes only added to his mystique. Because in the eyes of a common observer, he wasn’t a drunkard crying into his beer jug after a bad breakup.
No, no.
He was a dark prince mourning a tragic loss.
"It’s not from a dragon. It’s a hole where my soul used to be!" Michael cried. "Do you think I’ll die alone? Surrounded by nothing but rust and regrets?"
"I think you’re really hot," the girl whispered, her eyes half-lidded and voice hushed in blatant attraction.
Yeah, it was clear she was making a move on him.
Clear to everyone but him.
I clicked a picture of that girl practically throwing herself into his arms before walking over to them.
"See!" Michael turned to me as I neared, pointing a shaky finger at the brunette at his side. "She’s making fun of my depth perception! The cruelty of this world knows no bounds!"
I stepped in, placing a hand on his shoulder. "Okay. Michael, buddy. You’re not dying alone. You’re just dying of embarrassment. Come on, let’s move."
The girl and her friends stepped back as I took over.
"Sorry ladies," I told them over my shoulder. "He’s far too drunk to give you the time of day."
I had to nearly haul him over my shoulder. For a dark prince, the man was surprisingly heavy — all that lean muscle and soul-crushing baggage, I suppose.
As I dragged him back toward our table, Michael continued to mutter about the ’inevitable decay of all things’ while trying to high-five a decorative fern.
"There, there. You’re doing great, buddy. Who’s the prophesied one to defeat the Spirit King? You are. Yes, you are," I muttered, shoving him into the plush velvet booth next to Juliana. "Mark my words, he’ll someday be the beacon of hope for the masses."
Juliana didn’t even look up from her drink. She just leaned away as Michael’s head hit the table with a dull thud. "Is he dead?"
"Spiritually? I think so. Physically? He might have a few days left if he stops marinating in self-pity," I slid into the seat opposite her.
She finally glanced at the slumped form of the black-haired boy. A flicker of something that looked very close to pity crossed her face. "He is pathetic. You should do something."
"He’s heartbroken, Juli. Not everyone deals with heartbreak by sending a hit squad to ’escort’ their problems to a back alley," I said, pointedly glancing toward the exit where our latest intruder had disappeared.
Juliana gave me an ’are you serious?’ look. "That was all you. Why are you making it sound like it was my fault?"
"You knew exactly what you were doing, you gold digger."
"Eh...?"