Chapter 34: Pastry Pals

  Felix sighed and tapped his foot against the ground. Whatever he had bought for Leonhart was still hanging on the handle, untouched. He took the old food off the handle and pouted slightly. “At least my lunch is settled,” he muttered to himself as he hung the latest addition to the collection of ignored goods: a box of tarts and chocolate eclairs.

  He pushed down the handle to test the waters. He fully expected it to be locked, but this time, it sank. Taking a deep breath, he knocked on the door. “I bought your favourite. Popped by France to get it,” he said as he slowly eased the door open. “Eulie, I’m coming in…”

  Felix stepped in and was immediately greeted with a dozen knives to his face. Gauss growled at him as the knives inched closer to him. “Come on,” he cajoled, pushing away the tip of a knife with the pad of his finger. “It’s been three days! You must be starvin’. I’ll put this here and leave, okay?”

  “Stay.” Leonhart’s eyes peeked from under her pillow fort. Felix heard her huff as she turned away angrily. The knives retracted back into Gauss, and it lay down on its belly. He grabbed a chair and sat down next to her. The box of pastries was slipped into the fort’s opening like an offering.

  At first, there was silence, but as Felix put his head closer to the fort, he could hear soft chewing. “About Ace…” he started, but Leonhart cut him off.

  “Big Sis Meng told me about it,” she grumbled with her mouth full. “So did Jude.”

  Felix inhaled sharply. He had received plenty of earfuls from many people, especially from Dr. Farid, whom he had lied to. He had told Dr. Farid that Dante was training his students, not just Ace. It had been a long time since the shelves of the Athenaeum shook, and he was fully prepared for something similar with Leonhart. “So, have you made things up with Jude?” he broached.

  “She’s forgiven,” Leonhart said. “But you are not.”

  Felix’s shoulder slumped. “Maybe if she didn’t find out, I could have been less pissed, but you decided to leave her with such a huge burden,” she went on. “So, here’s another ‘Fuck you’ on behalf of her.”

  Leonhart stuck out a middle finger and withdrew it back into the fort. “Look, I’m really sorry,” Felix said as he tried to pluck away a pillow, only for Gauss to growl at him.

  “You just find me a hindrance, right? Not being able to understand the stakes, blah blah…” Loenhart griped, making the occasional pouty noise.

  “No, I just needed some time to sort things out,” Felix explained. “It’s complicated. I’m sure Meng Meng has explained it to you.”

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  Leonhart did not say anything. “W-Well, not only that,” she said. “But everything else, too. Your love life-”

  “Are we really digging up old debts?”

  “Yes. I was a very good cockblocker, wasn’t I?”

  Felix raised his hand in surrender. “Fine! On your ninth birthday, I was out clubbing and forgot,” he admitted, taking out a list he had made in a small notepad he stole from Lady Meng. “I was out partying and fucking when you wanted me to bring you to the zoo to make up for it and uh… I accidentally fed your late goldfish, Shimmer, my vitamin tablet. Look, I was tired and I mixed stuff up, okay? Being an Elder sucks.”

  Leonhart remained silent. Felix leaned back into his chair and sighed. “You know… I have stopped going to nightclubs for years. Wanna know why?” he asked.

  “Big Sis Meng beat you up for leaving me alone,” Leonhart retorted.

  She did, but that wasn’t it! Felix blushed. “I admit that I wasn’t the happiest. I was going through a rough patch,” he paused. “I tried to cope by using other people as an outlet, but I became unhappier.”

  "How do I know that you are telling the truth?"

  “Eulie, I know you think that I’m trying to make up sob stories. I’m telling the truth when I say that you’ve changed me.” Felix pulled out the hairpin from his bun and let it down. “The more you asked me to read stories, the more I realised that I was sleeping earlier and felt a lot better. A-and since you liked playing with Meng Meng’s hair, I thought that if I grew out mine, you would play with it instead of making me read complicated books.”

  “Really?” Leonhart’s tone softened.

  “I would never lie about such things.” Felix shifted closer. “I know I did many things that hurt you, and I don’t think I can ever make it up to you. But first, I promise that from today onwards, I’ll always be honest with you and never keep things from you.”

  “Pinkie promise?” Leonhart stuck her fist out. She stretched out her pinky and flexed it.

  Felix hooked his pinkie around hers, shaking his hand gently. “Pinkie promise. And I will do whatever you want.”

  Leonhart stuck her head out of her pillow fort and snickered. She handed him a long bill. “Pay for these and also…” she stopped, taking out her notebook. “You gotta do this on video.”

  Felix took one look at the page Leonhart showed him. It was a crude drawing of a stick man nailed to a target board with a cannon aimed at its crotch. “For Gauss’s target practice,” Leonhart said. “Don’t worry, it won’t hit, but as for the deviation…”

  “No.”

  “I don’t care. Also, you promised that you would do anything.”

  “Immature.”

  “As you were back then.”

  “What if I want kids in the future?!”

  “You have me!”

  “But...”

  “Would you prefer a knife launcher instead?”

  Felix glanced at the drawing and then at Leonhart, who had a twisted grin on her face. There was no getting out of what he had set himself up for.

  “Fine,” he conceded meekly, but immediately regretted it when Gauss pounced on him.