Chapter 20: Aggressive Lunch Break

Snapping out of his stupor, Renan regained his wits and was all smiles as he entered the room.

"Sorry, but are we perhaps disturbing something here?" He said while slowly walking over to them.

He now stood at the far end of the coffee table that was in between two comfy couches, and where the ladies were currently sitting and having their lunch together. Celestine focused her eyes particularly on Renan and glared daggers at him. Meanwhile, the cute girl across from her with the silver short hair was also looking at him; except that her gaze only contained pure and utter respect towards him, which is the exact opposite of the supposed angelic-looking lady over here.

"Good afternoon, President Renan."

Renan turned his head to meet eyes with her and regarded the cute girl with a friendly nod. "Mhm. A very pleasant afternoon to you as well, Secretary Ayuda."

After their exchange of simple pleasantries, a rude voice suddenly interjected into the flow of conversation.

"What are you two manwhores doing here?" Celestine asked with a cold expression.

"...Huh? Excuse me, but what the hell did this b*tch just call us?" Alec spoke in turn as he approached right next to Renan after closing the door behind him.

The tall youth's arms were menacingly crossed over his chest while a blue vein distinctly popped out of his forehead. Even though she was clearly aware of his ire, instead of stopping there she further instigated him as if that wasn't enough for her.

"Why do you look at me with such eyes? Are you mad at my words, or maybe you're hurt by it? Or, better yet you're feeling both, which just proves that I hit the nail on the coffin with that one." She indifferently stated.

And hearing this while on the receiving end of it, Alec let loose a laugh that wasn't actually a laugh and got a little closer to her.

"Hahaha… You miserable son of a bitc—"

"Well, well, let's not get too heated from all this bantering, shall we?"

Renan hurriedly interjected between them when he sensed that things were getting quite out of hand. He quickly pulled Alec to the side and whispered to him, "Bro, let me be the one to handle this, okay?"

"Nah, scratch that man and let's just get the hell out of here. We can go eat our lunch in the cafeteria instead." He indignantly replied.

"And what? Do you seriously want a repeat of some random dudes and chicks coming over to our table and acting all coy and friendly towards us?"

"Well… it's not like I want to, but…"

At this point, he didn't know what else to say as a retort, so he eventually decided to just close his mouth as well as his eyes and accept his fate. Renan sighed helplessly when he thought about their dilemma of being the popular kids in school. Sometimes, fame can be quite a tiring and troublesome thing to the person suffering from it, because everyday you would have to deal with people and you almost never have time for yourself. And that is why whenever they did have this rare opportunity, these two best friends always opted to eat their meal where there's some privacy to be had.

"Look bro, I know it's hard for you but you've got to reign in your temper. Otherwise, you would be playing right into this evil woman's hands." Renan consoled him by putting a hand on his shoulder and saying: "Think of this as mental training and try to ignore her and just talk to me; or better yet, you could also try chatting with Therese here. This is your guys' first time meeting, right? I'll introduce you to her."

"Okay then, I'll do it." Alec slowly inhaled and exhaled some hot air through his nostrils as he begrudgingly said: "It's just a girl's petty insults, nothing to be worked up about."

"Yeah, yeah, that's the spirit. Look, I'm gonna try and talk to them while casually placing myself on that couch over there."

Renan briefly glanced towards the third couch that was situated on the other end of the coffee table. Then, he peeled his gaze back to Alec and said: "Follow my lead. When we reach near enough to sit on the couch I want you to be the first one to take it, okay? Alright, let's go."

After their little pep talk, they began setting their plan into motion. Renan turned around to face the girls and put on his signature smile.

"You two are having lunch here, right? Do you mind if we join in?"

He circled slowly behind Celestine's couch and steadily approached his target. Consequently, his action evoked a mean reaction from Celestine just as expected. Her gaze turned even frostier than before, like absolute sub-zero type of coldness. But shocking enough, her voice was even icier than her expression that it could literally send chills running down one's spine.

"Do you even need to ask such a stupid question when you already know the answer to it? Obviously, it's a big no you buffoon."

"Hmph! Well, I don't really care what you say since I've also already decided on something." Alec closed in on the couch and firmly planted his ass on it while saying, "We're going to be eating our lunch here, understood ice-queen?"

"Hah! Typical brutish male behavior, always forcing themselves unto others and never considerate with how they would feel about it. Fine, do what you want then—I'll just ignore you guys either way and immediately leave when I'm done with my meal."

"This woman…! Your haughty attitude like your above all else is really getting on my nerves, y'know that?"

But she deigned to even utter a word of response to him, and completely she disregarded his existence and treated him as empty air. Silently, she ate her food with the same aura as a queen would; and like a true queen, she would not be moved by anyone under any circumstances.

On the sidelines, Therese was clearly flustered and afraid by all of this, so she instinctively tried to make herself as small as humanly possible to not attract any attention. In her view, she was like a cute little rabbit quietly watching two apex predators battling it out in the wilderness. That's the honest feeling she got while being a part of this tense atmosphere.

"I am truly sorry for troubling you, Vice-president Sison. But I hope that we can all have a peaceful, civilized lunch together as friends rather than strangers. I swear that we won't be disturbing you girls that much."

Renan interposed in a timely manner and coolly mediated with an amicable expression in order to smoothen out the rough entry. Nevertheless, he didn't invoke any sort of reaction as the sounds of her eating were the only things coming out from her.

"...Well, I'll just sit here then. Excuse me."

Subsequently, the two put down their bento boxes on the coffee table and began eating alongside the girls. A short while later, Renan broke the awkward silence hovering around them by presenting a conversational topic to Alec who was sitting beside him.

"By the way, before I forget, why didn't you video call me when you got inside the game Alec? Were you not online yesterday night?"

"Huh? Oh, yeah... I wasn't. Sorry, but I was visiting my grandparents at that time. Grandpa celebrated his birthday and I totally forgot to mention it to you, my bad."

"I see. Then do you have any other plans for tonight?

"Hmm? No, I'm completely free so I'll be logging inside the game for sure."

"Oh? In that case, don't forget the nation and town where I'm residing in, and my character name is the same as usual."

"Yeah, I remember it. I'll wait for you to come pick me up in the town square."

"Great. I'd like to introduce you to somebody when we get there. And don't ask who it is, because I'll be keeping it as a secret for now."

And unexpectedly, right at this very moment, Renan looked over to Therese who was silently listening in on their conversation and asked, "Incidentally, Secretary Ayuda, have you ever heard of the VR game called Fatal Fantasy?"

"Hueeh?!"

Therese reflexively jolted on her seat when she heard her name being called out all of a sudden. And with a soft, stuttering voice, she replied to him, "W-Why yes, President! B-But why are you asking me that?"

"Well, I was just wondering if you have an account? Maybe the four of us here could form a party and work together. Do you play, Vice-president Sison?" He asked her out of sheer politeness, and not because he actually wanted her to join his team in the game.

"Why does it matter to you, President? Anyway, I'm done with my lunch. Enjoy yourselves people."

Celestine took the bento box with her and got up from the couch. Without further ado, she walked away from them and headed for the door. Therese hurriedly got up to follow her, but not before she could properly say her goodbyes to the two.

"It was a pleasure meeting you here, President as well as varsity player Herschel. I hope we can have another chance of meeting like this again someday."

She bowed respectfully to both of them, and with that, she left the student council room to run after her dear friend Celestine who was getting ahead of her.

When they were finally gone from their sight, Alec released a long-awaited sigh of relief and spoke up: "Seriously… I don't understand how a terrible woman like her can have such a good friend staying by her side. Is the secretary retarded, or is she secretly into masochism…?"

"It's none of the above, and she's actually quite a smart girl and a prim lady as well. Too bad I didn't get to properly introduce you to her, she would make a fine sister-in-law."

"Heh, you're pretty funny. But I do admit that her looks aren't half bad, and the way she conducts herself is also very cute. Wait a minute... Why the hell are we even talking about her?! Look, it's almost one o'clock! Let's just quickly finish our lunch so we can go back to class!"

Alec showed him his smartphone that he conveniently took out from his pocket just now, and on its huge screen was the current time displayed—12:46 PM.

"Yeah, you're right. It's Sir Garth's science class next and I don't want to miss it. Let's hurry and clean these bentos up."

Renan ducked his head and buried his face in the bento box once more as he resumed eating again, only this time expressing more vigor than ever before.

"Phew..."

He wiped the cold sweat that was threatening to drip down his forehead, because he knew that he dodged a major bullet with that one and avoided answering a straight-out embarrassing question.

Why would he even think of putting him in an awkward spot like that in the first place?!