1

Noel

In the midst of the spring, everyone in Westwood was restless while waiting for the flower viewing season, especially the students of Saint Iriha University. Be it the first year students or the final year students, they all have this strange similarities of liking to watch the floras bloom, as Saint Iriha have wide estate, and most of the land, excluding the track field, the football field etc. most of them were covered with flowers. Everyone was excited, well, most of them, not Noel though.

Noel stared blankly at the gooey meatball spaghetti. As he scrunched his lips into a fine line, he reluctantly poked the hard yet strangely soggy meatballs while wandering what kind of sorcery the kitchen lady do to make it turn out like this.

Apparently he ran out of luck, especially on his first day of enrolling in this university of Saint Iriha, the university that one of his folks recommend him to go. Starting from enrolling late because some clerk didn't do their job well managing his enrollment documents to some douche who already targeted him the first thing in the morning, and finally getting to the canteen late, leaving nothing but this soggy spaghetti that was in front of him as for now.

He stared at the trash bin while having a mild inner conflict.

"Should I throw it away? I can see a face on it."

"But I need to eat something to look normal to people."

"What for? That 'thing' looks like it could hurt you physically, and mentally."

"How about a sip? We'll at least look human by doing so."    

"And reducing years of this immortal life? It's better not eating and staying healthy than eating that and suffer."

Determined, Noel stood up, swept the metal tray into his arms and casually trashed the meatballs into the trash bin. While being on his way to put the tray, Noel glanced at the entity that he left inside the bin. The meatballs looked like it almost mouthed a curse word at him.

Noel flinched.

In his whole years of life, he had never heard of or read about a talking meatballs before. Though that gross entity creeps him out, it’s behavior struck his curiosity in wanting to know about it more.

‘Guess I’ll look out for any keywords relating to talking meatballs later.’ The young man thought.

Noel stepped away from the bustling cafeteria and decided to head to the school library. Sauntering his way through the slightly empty hallway, his vision was suddenly blocked by a muscular arm, that was separated by a leather jacket.

He stopped abruptly when someone stood in front of him. Before else, his eyes fluttered in confusion as his eyes gazed at the blocker’s chest.

This person is huge…

He thought, realizing the fact that the person in front of him is a huge one, as he was only the height of his chest, Noel looked up to meet the person's eyes. The person grinned, wanton intentions were hidden beneath his blue eyes.

"Hey, you got any money? We're a bit broke here. Mind lending us like, all of your money?"

The other two people on his back—one with an army cut hair and bronze skin, while the other one with a short ginger hair and freckles—who looked like his friends, maybe, started chuckling among themselves and sneering at Noel. He then looked around to see the other students just walked away, didn't want to get involved with him. Noel pondered a bit.

So this is what it felt like to be cornered. He has read this scene countless of times in romance books where the heroine would be cornered by the hero and the heroine would start blushing and her heart skipped a beat.

Though, the difference between his condition and the scene in the books were that he's not a heroine and the person in front of him is someone he doesn't even know and never met before. Oh wait, maybe he was that douche that targeted him in the morning? Anyways, he didn't even blush or anything else even though he’s so close to his chest. Even though seeing him did send something unknown and tiny inside of Noel, and he did admit that his heart skipped a beat once when he was first cornered, but it was only because of how stinky the person in front of him smells that it baffles him.

Did he not take a bath or anything?

Noel stared at him with unblinking eyes for a while, enough to make the douche and his group felt disturbed. The douche scowled.

"Hey, give us your-"

"I'll give it to you. Wait a moment." He quietly heaved a sigh. In this particularly beautiful day, he really didn’t want to send anyone flying into unconsciousness, so he should just abide to his commands and he’ll probably leave him alone.

Noel fumbled inside his backpack before taking out a pouch and handed it over to the douche. The douche snatched it away from Noel’s hands, gaining a small wince from him because of how violent his pull is, he opened the pouch while still glaring at Noel. That hostile glare was then replaced with an empty expression, when he looked at the contents of the pouch, eyes widened in disbelief.

"T-This..."

His two other followers who were curious of his reaction also took a look inside the pouch and their jaw dropped in surprise.

Inside the pouch, were shiny gold nuggets, all of them were medium sized.

"We... We're rich...."

The ginger haired, freckled guy said.

"No, this is mine!"

The douche snarled while hugging the pouch to his chest. Out of the blue, the supposedly peaceful hallway turned into a fighting ring, when the three of them started throwing punches among themselves.

Noel sneaked his way out of the increasing crowds, shrugging his shoulders towards those guys who mindlessly fought for a single pouch filled with gold, and threw their friendship away.

He wouldn’t knew whether they will reconcile or not, but he mocked them for their greed upon a measly riches given to them. 

Truthfully, humans are really a weird creature.