Pride and Prejudice

Akira's POV

"Hey there, Knight in newly bought Yukata, look! Your damsel in distress is here. That too with the wanna-be generic second wife of the rich and dying," Naeem, very graciously pointed out to the other side of the crowded hallway where Isolde and her friends were sitting with Esmeralda.

Damsel in distress? She is more like a damsel who gives stress.

 "Thanks, Naeem. But she's not a damsel in distress, she stomped him twenty-four times, remember?" Kishar also showed grace in recalling the particular embarrassing information they had interrogated out of me.

Funny how she can't remember the names of simple cold medicines but she remembers the exact number for this.

"Oh yes, he was limping. It was hilarious." They all snickered at Amad's words.

Thanks, brother. Everyone deserves a cousin like you.

"So did you apologize to her as I told you to?" Kishar asked, looking at me with hopeful eyes.

"Why should he apologies to her?" Louis asked in surprise.

"Because we have falsely accused her, obviously. Is all that hanging upside-down getting to your wits?" Amad says in his usual nonchalant tone.

"Anyways, so Akira?" Kishar continued with her investigation.

"Um, well not yet. I hadn't really got to talk to her lately," I tried to come up with a good excuse but I guessed it failed from the looks of her frowning face.

"Is it because you've been avoiding her lately?" Cephas spoke up from my side and everyone looked at him in shock.

He was here? Since when? 

"You've been avoiding her? why?" Eboni asked with a confused frown.

"I'm not avoiding her. Stop lying, Cephas" I said, trying not to make the lie in my words noticeable.

"I am not lying," he looked offended at the accusation. "Yesterday, you even made us take the long way towards class because you saw her on the way."

"We know you're not lying, Cephas. And we know you too, Akira. You'd rather die than apologies to someone," Eboni said, stilling her sharp gaze at me.

"But I don't want to apologize. What if she refuses to forgive me?" I sounded like a whiny child.

Great, now everyone was looking at me with the grow-up-how-old-are-you look.

"You will apologize to her, Akira. I will too. It was partly my fault too," Eboni said looking down at her untouched breakfast.

"It's not your fault, Ebi. You were in too much distress to think properly. If anyone should apologize, it should be Naeem," Gunhild said, glaring at Naeem who was trying to feed a piece of bread to his snake.

"What? Why me? I just saw her holding the rope and thought that. Anyone in my position would come to the same conclusion that she was the proprietor," he loudly proclaimed.

"But the problem is that she wasn't the culprit. So we did indeed falsely accuse her. And for that at least, we shall apologize," Kishar was strong in her stance, leaving no room for arguments.

"But she's a commoner!" Louis emphasized on the commoner part.

"And we are noble. We have honor," Gunhild said with a hardened face.

"And that honor will not let us bow down to a commoner!" Louis said again.

"If you think not owing an apology to someone we have wronged is honor, then I am afraid you never had an honor to begin with. What you, my friend, are talking about is called Arrogance," she says looking straight into Louis's eyes. 

Louis glared at her.

"And we also should try to befriend her since she's going to be Akira's lover, after all," Amad says quickly coming in between Louis and Gunhild, trying to defuse the tension.

But why did he have to throw me under the carriage?

"No, she will not be. Where do you guys even get these weird delusions from?" I shouted, feeling furious at their assumptions.

Sure, I like to rile her up since she has such interesting reactions to everything. And well, I also want to know why she makes me so uncomfortable. Maybe I also want to be friends with her but like her? Not a chance!

"I just used to sit next to her. That's it. So get rid of whatever bizarre ideas you are cooking in your empty heads," I made it clear. But I don't think it worked judging by their amused expressions.

 Sol, one these days, these morons will embarrass me badly. 

"I have an idea! why don't we go and sit with them? We can apologize and even become friends with her," Cephas said with a cheery clap as if he just discovered the cure to necromancy.

Louis grunted at that.

Why do they want to be friends with her??

She is supposed to be my friend! 

Well, I guess she was...

"Huh! As if I will ever sit with that wench with a personality worse than drawings made by my left hand!" Naeem immediately declined the offer.

Should've guessed that. His animosity with Esmeralda goes way back.

"I refuse to sit with commoner borns," Louis said while glaring at Cephas as if everything is his fault.

"Fine then, rot here," Gunhild hissed at him.

"I think that's a great idea. We'll just talk to Isolde and her other two friends. No need to interact with Esmeralda if you don't want," Gunhild said with a fierce glare aimed straight at Naeem. As a result, both he and his stupid snake cowered. 

"And Louis, I don't think your grandmother will approve that way of thinking," Kishar said with narrow eyes.

Louis glared at her too.

"I think it's a good idea too. It could be just for today," Eboni said, glancing at her rival sitting with Isolde.

'Honestly, I'm in," Amad said with his usual amused face. This boy gets on my nerves.

"Me too," with that Kishar got up and we followed.

"This is a bad idea, I'm telling you," Naeem whispered in my ears, making sure Gunhild didn't hear him while pulling a reluctant Louis with him.

"Hello there, do you mind if we sit with you today?" Kishar took the lead as usual with her charm activated to the fullest. As if in a daze, the boy closest to Kishar nodded. 

Sol, was she channeling her blessing? She could get expelled for that!

She turned back to us and signaled us to sit down. The boy woke up from Kishar's blessing and frowned in confusion. The others on the table looked equally as confused even though I'm pretty sure no magic was used on them.

Isolde was gawking at me with those sapphire eyes. And so was everyone else in the hall. The bustling hall was full of poorly concelled whispers and curious glances aimed at us.

"So what's the occasion? How did your noble majesty stop to talk to us, mere commoners?" Esmeralda said with a mock respectful tone to Naeem sitting opposite her.

"Not willingly," Louis mumbled.

"It's the duty of a noble to look after peasants, after all," Naeem said with a grin before we could stop him. 

His comment was quickly followed by a yelp which I am guessing was Kishar stepping on his foot.

"We just wanted to apologize to Isolde for accusing her," Gunhild said in a diplomatic tone.

 "Yeah, we are very sorry. We should've let the teachers investigate instead of humiliating you by pointing fingers," Kishar soon followed with her own apology, and one by one we all apologized.

Even Naeem after Kishar aimed a particularly strong kick to his shin.

And Louis mumbled something I didn't quite understand after getting hard glared from the girls.

"It's okay," Isolde said in a quiet voice after overcoming the initial shock.

For some reason, she looked as if she wasn't expecting an apology at all. Her mouth was opening and closing like fish the whole time.

Huh! I told you her reactions were amusing.

"I hope we can be friends," Eboni said with a smile aimed specifically at Isolde and her two friends. She completely ignored Esmeralda.

The midget just nodded without saying anything. Being quiet today, are we?

"Oh sure, why not?" the girl beside Isolde said shyly.

"Friends with who? This chimpanzee?" Esmeralda said, now glaring at Naeem who was also glaring back.

Here we go again. At least they were providing amusement for the shameless onlookers.

"Says the one who acts like a distant relative of a Gorilla, always stomping around and pounding chest to declare dominion," he retorted back.

"I am the queen here, you and your street urchin-looking face won't get it," Esmeralda pounded the table.

Naeem sure was right about the Gorilla thing.

"Street urchin looking? You sure got some audacity with a face that looks like a naked mole rat," Neem hissed and his snake copied him.

"Guys, please could you-" Isolde's male friend tried to interrupt but he was harshly shoved aside by Esmeralda.

"You do talk a lot of bullshit for someone blessed in the ways of wisdom," Esmeralda hissed back.

"Of course I talk bullshit. Otherwise, you won't be able to understand me," Naeem threw his hand in the air in an exasperated manner.

So dramatic.

 This embarrassing quarrel went on and nobody tried to stop them anymore. We were using the toddler method where we just let them exhaust themselves.

Which they finally did after half an hour. Until then, the others already started to have small talks with Isolde and her friends. I was in the middle of a great conversation with Arthur about swords.

"I wish you were snow-white, so you could just fall into a coma after one simple poisonous apple," Naeem's shouted, his voice hoarse from all the arguing.

"Oh yeah says the Rapunzel. Instead of hair, you probably just let your parents down. Does the Grand advisor know that his son is on his way to becoming the next whore of Babylon?" Esmeralda shot back, looking tired from all the screaming.

"Do your parents know their daughter is on the way to become some old man's third wife?" Naeem shouted back after drinking a glass of water handed to him by Louis.

They both slumped back, breathing heavily and gulping down water. Naeem made a hand gesture that probably means they will start this again after regaining some energy.

"I was saying, Isolde, do you wanna come to my brother's wedding? it's during the winter vacations," Gunhild asked Isolde in a hopeful voice.

Everyone looked at them in shock. Well, in Louis case, with just the right combination of disgust and shock.

What? They talked for half an hour and suddenly they are Damon and Pythias?

Girls are so weird.

With bated breaths, we waited for the midget's answer.

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GLOSSARY

*Whore Of Babylon: Babylon the Great, commonly known as the Whore of Babylon, refers to both a symbolic female figure and place of evil mentioned in the in the book of Revelations 17. She represents the deadly sin of lust. Her full title is stated as Mystery, Babylon the Great, the Mother of Prostitutes and Abominations of the Earth.

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