Continued evolution.

Mila, Alice and Noelle had actually gone to buy drinks just before that whole fiasco. They came back and we had to fill them in on what happened. We convinced Fernanda to stay for a bit so she could tell us how it looked to her. Mila offered her a can of juice and Fernanda nervously accepted.

“...Diana slapped his hand away and I feared he would get more aggressive, but that was when Fernanda brought the guy’s girlfriend,” I said looking at her.

“Lucky…” Mila sighed in relief, but kept a worried frown. “I’m a little worried about the girl, though.”

Fernanda nodded in agreement. “Y-Yeah. He looked like the type to gaslight someone into trusting them again…”

“Yeah, he looked that way to me, too,” Grace said. “How much of that did you see?”

“Um… S-Since he started talking to her, actually…” Fernanda said shyly. “I came here to draw people and eventually saw Diana. Then I saw things were getting heated and remembered I had seen him part ways with the other girl on my way here. I happened to see her walking by and… Well…”

“I’m surprised you even remembered them being a couple,” Alice said, smiling. “With the amount of people around…”

“It saved us a bigger scene, so really, thanks again, Fernanda,” Diana said.

“I’m surprised you two didn’t step in,” Mila told Grace and Sarah. “Were you just watching from afar?”

“I wanted to jump in but Grace held me back,” Sarah said, crossing her arms.

“You were about to start screaming at him,” Grace said. “Oliver handled it well and Diana couldn’t have been clearer. Now, if he really had gotten more aggressive…”

“What I’m surprised by is that he apparently wasn’t scared of Oliver,” Alice said.

“Oh yeah, now that you mention it…” Noelle muttered with a nod.

“Scared?” Fernanda asked. “He didn’t really try to scare him off.”

“Yeah, but most guys are scared of him regardless,” Sarah said. “At least in school it was like that.”

I sighed. “The dude towered over me, he didn’t have a bad physique and was older. You could tell he didn’t take me seriously.”

Mila smirked and poked me on the side. “Upset?”

“A bit,” I admitted with a frown. “It’s not like I have a complex for being short but… I did feel a bit ridiculous at one point.”

“I wouldn’t have said no to making out in front of him to make a point,” Diana said. “But I admit it seems like a childish answer in hindsight.”

“After all that, I don’t know if even that would’ve made him back down,” I said. “It felt like… Like in the middle of that it became less about you and more about proving he could have you.”

Fernanda frowned, confused. “How would you know that?”

Oh shit. Forgot Fernanda didn’t know about my powers.

“He has a knack for reading people,” Grace said. “He’s right more often than not.”

“I see… W-Well, if that’s all, I’ll leave you all alone. Sorry to butt in.”

“No, don’t worry. Thanks again,” I told her.

We watched Fernanda leave without saying anything else to her. She’d been getting along with Sarah, Grace and Diana, but it’s still awkward to be the outsider in an established group. Kind of like how I felt when the girls first introduced me to Lena, Amanda and Mark.

“So… You were saying,” Noelle said, returning to the main topic. “You felt something from that guy?”

I nodded. “Yeah, like with that girl in the mall, remember? It was a sense of… incompatibility, but not in the sense of relationships. It was like… Like he’s exactly the type of person I dislike the most.”

“Is it just me or are those powers of yours getting stronger?” Alice asked me.

“Maybe,” I answered. “They’ve always been getting stronger, little by little. Before I used to get strong headaches even trying to understand what you all felt, but now…” I could even feel stuff from people I didn’t have a connection with, people I didn’t even know. That said, maybe Frey had decided to put in extra effort here since we were dealing with a weirdo.

“Mmm…” Diana held her chin, deep in thought.

“What is it?” Sarah asked her. “Worried about that guy, still?”

“Hm? Oh, no, I couldn’t care less. If anything, I only feel like I should’ve slapped his face instead of his hand. No, I was thinking that what Oliver just said… could be very useful.”

“I mean, yeah, in many ways,” Grace said. “But you have something specific in mind?”

Diana nodded and turned to me. “You’ll start working with me at the hotel’s bar soon, right?”

“Yeah. I think I know where you’re going, but continue.”

Diana smiled, and seeing we were on the same page, she turned to the other girls. “The thing about working at a bar is that it’s actually really dangerous. Not exactly for us, the employees, but for some customers. It goes doubly so in a hotel of this nature.”

Alice grimaced. “You’re talking about spiked drinks, aren’t you?”

Diana nodded. “That and when someone tries to get their date drunk out of their minds. Things like that. We’ve already had a few cases like that. A woman goes to the restroom while in the restaurant and her date puts something in the drink. We’ve caught most before they happened, but a couple have slipped past us. Luke made sure to follow up on such cases, but it’d be better if they never happened at all.”

Noelle’s eyes widened. “Oh, so you’re thinking that, if Oliver can catch someone thinking along those lines…”

“I’ve been offered money before to spike the drinks myself,” Diana said. “I know I won’t have to worry about that with Oliver, but being able to detect problem customers would be huge.” She chuckled. “You’d be an even bigger asset to him.”

“I just want to do proper work,” I told her. “I get the elixir stuff is a big deal and that my part in it is vital, but I still feel like all I do is sit down, watch what the pros are doing and then touch a flask once in a while.”

“Sounds like paradise to me,” Mila said.

“Ah, that reminds me…” Noelle began, smiling shyly. “I’ll be having my debut stream under AniLove this next Wednesday. You guys better not watch!”

“I… Uh… W-Why tell us when it happens if you don’t want us to watch?” Mila asked, arms crossed and head tilted.

“Because hiding it would be wrong, but if I know you’re watching me I’ll get embarrassed!"

“Sorry, I’m watching it,” I told her. “What will you play? Are they forcing you into something specific?”

“No, but they did make several suggestions of popular games. I do think it makes sense, though. It won’t be very interesting if I play a farming game for the big debut. There was a big open world game released last year that I have yet to play, so I think I’ll go with that.”

Alice moved behind Noelle and started massaging her shoulders. “Nervous?”

Noelle nodded. “Yeah. Very.”

“You’ve done this plenty of times before, right?” Diana asked her. “If so, just do what you always do and try to enjoy it. For now, though, I’d say don’t think about it. Have fun now, rest when you get back and you’ll be ready for the big day.”

In just a few hours, our second day of vacation would be over. One more day and we’d have to go back. But yeah, Diana was right. Better have as much fun as we can here, weirdos like that previous guy be damned.

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