The Cold (8)

"You?" Charles was stunned.

"You're the one who stole all our belongings?" His eyes burned with anger.

"I didn't steal anything. They just came to me," she appeared offended.

"Where are our marbles?" Alex turned cold.

"They're mine now," she narrowed her eyes.

"Are you kidding me?" Charles shouted.

"Please give us our belongings back," Luke joined them.

"Maybe she sold them," I didn't like how loud they were being.

I couldn't focus on the rest of the episode playing on the screen. Increasing the volume, the main character's voice filled the entire room. If I were them, I would break into the rooms of the people who lived here to search for our belongings. Although I wondered how our stolen stuff would fit inside the shack, I didn't care since the things that mattered weren't inside my dorm room anyways.

"We will have to report you," Alex warned her.

"Report me, I didn't steal them anyways," she took them lightly.

"You don't even have your marbles with you," the fan site master knew they were helpless.

"Because they were stolen by you!" Charles raised his voice.

"Can you be quiet?" I couldn't stand them fighting anymore.

"If you really want your stuff back then search for it on your own," I pointed out.

To support my point, I got up from my seat to kick one of their doors open, pausing the episode. Seeing the door not budging, I chanted explosion on all the doors at once. I smiled as I placed a barrier over me while covering my ears. Creating large holes in each of the doors, the chucks of its remains splattered into the main common room, making the owners freeze. These people were being too peaceful, not making use of everything we learnt in school.

I wasn't surprised when piles of our belongings were stuffed into all the rooms, messily thrown together. Finding some twinkling objects in one of the piles, I walked into a room. I began to throw Luke's precious collection of watches on the ground to find the blinking objects. The things made in the first district were durable anyways, not likely to produce a scratch. Making the room messier, I discovered the item I was trying to find were actually our marbles.

I wondered how stupid they were to put all the marbles together in one place. Counting all four of them in my hands, I began to distribute them to the others. Nobody could use our marbles without our permission, it activated from our fingerprints and face detector. I scoffed when everything was solved from just breaking in. My fans were too stunned to react, forgetting about the fact we could contact the school to report them now.

"Collect your things while you can," I gestured to them.

Charles ran to the rooms to place all his possessions into his inventory, Alex following him while carrying Luke's marble. Luke chose to stay behind to watch them, feeling disgusted with them taking the pictures and videos for weeks. Unfortunately, other than my marble, I couldn't find any of my belongings when I scanned the rooms. It seemed they were keeping my stuff somewhere else.

I sighed as I pressed a button to resume the episode. Violence was always the answer when you were in these kinds of situations. Popping some strawberry flavoured pudding into my mouth, I hoped they would let me watch my anime in peace. I wanted to get through the entire season today. Noticing them coming into the main common room, I wondered how they managed to collect their belongings so fast.

"Let's leave Rika," Luke got the signal from them.

"Wait, I need to finish this episode," I was at a good part.

"You can leave without Rika," the fan site master unfroze, fiddling with the gloves she wore.

"Don't you see her wanting to stay?" She brightly smiled.

"This is akin to kidnapping her," Alex opened his marble to report them.

"But you're the same. Your family kidnapped her from her parents to have her be your cousin's partner. Do you think we don't know about this fact? Trying to separate her from her family?" She laughed.

"We're her family," Alex dismissed their ridiculous claims.

"You're no better than us," my fan agreed with her.

I froze when I realized they were right. These fans knew me better than myself. I was too used to the situation that I never thought it was weird to be Luke's partner. I was around kidnappers this entire time, confining me to the school or their mansions. This reincarnation was increasingly becoming more annoying and a pain.

"At least we'll treat her better than you guys," she added.

"You guys were kidnappers all this time," I looked at them in a new light.

"You actually believe them?" Charles looked a little offended.

"Who nurses you back to health whenever you get sick? Who cleans up after you? Who gets you ready for school every morning?" Alex tried to point out.

"Do you think you can survive without us?"

"Maybe?" I skimmed through my memories.

"All my kidnappers were nice people," I recalled.

"Thank you for bringing me here. I never knew I was kidnapped this entire time," I turned to my fans.

"You can stay as long as you want," my fan site owner offered.

"Rika, if we were your kidnappers, would we let you visit your parents like we have all this time?" Luke stabbed a weakness in their argument.