酷视

\'Don\'t know, don\'t care,\' I sternly told myself, ignoring the natural reaction of my heart to turn back and comfort her.

Was it the result of considering her my partner for quite some time? Or was it just my innate drive to help those in need?

Whether the above was the case or if it was something entirely else… I didn\'t really care. For turning around now, as kind as it could be, posed as treason against Fay in my understanding of the matter.

And I wasn\'t going to put comforting my ex over the feelings of my actual, real, and faithful girlfriend who walked right by my side!

"Nothing happened at all!" Cassie shouted, still rooted in her spot yet unable to just give up and shut her crap. "I don\'t even know how either of us could ever think otherwise!"

The looks of the people around us started to grow slightly hostile. For the random mob on the street, a man walking away from a crying girl had to be the worst! Circumstances and the reality of the situation be damned, if the girl cried, it had to be the other party that was wrong!

\'Just like back in the days of my mom\'s parents, when a certain actress was proven to falsely accuse her ex of various, heinous actions, yet still retained her contracts while that poor man lost most of his connections and jobs!\'

Spiting in my soul at all those who threw angry looks at me, I took another step, acting as if I didn\'t care about Cassie or the looks the crowd gave me.

"It was just a class meeting! How could there be any studs at it?!" Cassie continued to scream… but her voice, rather than making me think things through only served as fuel to accelerate my steps.

\'Even if she\'s right… It\'s not about what happened at that party. It\'s about what she considered a possibility when she decided to go!\'

Thankfully, Cassie\'s voice quickly grew silent when I took the nearest corner, gritting my teeth when in a bid to escape from her annoying cries I increased the distance we would have to walk with Fay to reach our destination. And as much as I loved to walk hand-by-hand with her… I couldn\'t say I was comfortable being out in the open with her when there was an unknown threat looming over our heads!

"Does that mean there was some sort of stupid misunderstanding between the two of you?" Fay asked in a silent voice once we walked a considerable distance away from where Cassie caused her scene. "A misunderstanding that makes no sense at all?"

Hearing Fay add on to her question, turning it pretty damn specific… I nearly stopped in my tracks. Only the pressure of the threat potentially looming over our heads allowed me to keep walking rather than just standing in place to consider my answer.

"Now that I think about it…" I hesitated for a second, forcing myself to consider Cassie\'s last few shouts.

And as unhappy as it made me to admit her to be right, her words actually made sense.

\'This was indeed supposed to be just the late meeting of our class. So, unless someone was going to crash it, there would be no studs for Irene and that other bitch to set Cassie up with.\'

"Yeah. It seems that there were quite a lot of things that we somehow believed with all of our souls while they made no rational sense whatsoever."

After hearing my answer, Fay turned silent. She kept her mouth closed for quite some more time, only speaking out once she thoroughly considered whatever idea she had in mind.

"Hey, hon, what if…" Fay hesitated a little before averting her eyes away from my stare. "What if it was that girl who was the true target of the aura we smelled?"

Faced with Fay\'s suggestion, I couldn\'t help but admit there was some likeness in that statement.

I\'ve already seen how the intense aura could affect not only those to whom it was attached but even those around them. Just like that former landlord of mine didn\'t dare to speak a single word against my aunt, falling perfectly in line with her desires and plots regardless of the obvious risk he had to take.

"You know," I stopped my hurried walk, "I would never expect you to put her in your eyes," I muttered, slightly weirded out by how my current girlfriend was willing to look at some potential saving graces of my ex. "And for her to be attacked by someone\'s aura…" I added in a whisper, raising my eyes to the bright, blue sky as various thoughts raced through my mind.

Then, I shook my head upon the realization of something so obvious, I was already pretty much aware of.

"To be attacked by an aura and have your thoughts messed up because of it…" I barely voiced out those words before turning to look at Fay with all the seriousness in my eyes. "Can something like this even happen?"

Between the two of us, it was Fay who had some real knowledge about the aura. When it came to me, all I knew was what she already told me and how my aura would grow by a single point whenever I leveled up.

"I\'m not really sure," Fay put an ugly, self-dissatisfied expression on her face. "Maybe my mom would know…" she muttered, only to hesitate for a few more seconds before raising her eyes to my face and asking in a grave tone.

"In all this time that you\'ve lived in this world, have you ever…" Fay gulped down her saliva, indicating she herself felt at least slightly scared by what she was about to suggest. "Have you ever felt like there was some sort of an outside influence messing up with you and your life?"