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Chapter 21: Cheeky chicken

"Oh! thanks... I guess..." She replied shyly.

They walked side by side on the campus, although Uriel was mostly on a tight schedule these days, he was certain Mister Scofield would understand if he took the evening off. After all the first year students had been through, the least he could expect was to be given a small break.

"Hang on a minute please, before going for lunch I have to call my boss and tell him I won\'t be coming in today." Uriel said as he took out his flip phone from his pocket, but it didn\'t have battery and it was off.

When Medusa noticed this, she quickly took out her phone in fear that a cryptid might be lurking nearby, but Uriel hurried up and explained.

"Don\'t worry, It\'s nothing, I just forgot to charge it."

"Whew! Don\'t scare me like that!" She said after heaving a sigh of relief, but she still confirmed that her phone was working properly.

"I can\'t call him and he\'ll get worried if I don\'t show up, would you mind accompanying me to the library?"

"You work at the library!? that\'s incredible! I knew you were smart but I didn\'t think it was like that." She said in amazement.

"Don\'t make assumptions, I\'m just a janitor there. If it wasn\'t for mister Scofield\'s help I wouldn\'t have been able to pay my ticket."

"I see... maybe It would have been better that way..." A somber expression that started as a shiver crawled up to her face.

"I bet many students think that way, but I don\'t... I came back after all. There\'s something I wanted to ask you, but this is not the right place and I\'d rather discuss it over lunch." Uriel was set on asking her for help to discover what was his trait about and how to tap on its power.

"Uh, sure..." Her past expression gave way to an odd feeling in her stomach, a mix of nervousness and anxiety. Something that felt bad and good at the same time, something she had never experienced again. It was similar to fear, but at the same time, similar to excitement.

Medusa kept silent during their trip to the library, she waited outside for just a few minutes until Uriel came back and then they kept walking around the campus.

"Oh crap! I don\'t have any money on me!" Uriel said out loud. "I\'m sorry, I\'ll have to make a quick trip to the dorms too."

"I\'m not a tourist, stop dragging me around campus! Besides, I invited you today... The truth is, I want to thank you for what you did for me back then." She blushed lightly.

"What do you mean what I did?" Uriel couldn\'t think on anything, nothing worth a meal at least.

Medusa walked on the grass, under the shadow of an oak tree, and took out a blanket out of her backpack. She then sat on it and patted the spot right next to her.

It was a beautiful sunny day, the rustling of leaves was like the soothing song of mother nature, and there was a pretty girl sitting in front of him. For a brief second he thought it looked like the very picture of a \'picnic\', something he had seen on movies but never experienced himself.

"I was so scared, despite all my training in martial arts I was helpless and you helped me survive that night. Had I listened to Shaker I would have probably fallen due to his annoying trait, but that\'s not it." She lingered. "You saved my dignity... I... When Miss Dragonfang asked me to..." A single tear was about to fall off her cheek when Uriel stopped her.

"Hey! there\'s nothing to thank me for. Anyone would have done the same in my place."

"You know that\'s not true, silly... Anyway, I brought lunch with me to repay you, I hope you like it." Uriel gulped down his saliva in anticipation.

All of his life he had tasted nothing but processed food and he knew she was wealthy, not rich, but wealthy enough for his standards. As she put her hand inside the backpack to take out the food Uriel thought on all the possible dishes he had only seen on TV dramas and read about on magazines or books.

As if that wasn\'t all, it was a girl\'s cooking, the legendary cooking skills of a girl his age.

Although he had a girlfriend before, they never did this kind of thing together because she always claimed that she needed to keep her image or that her father was too strict and didn\'t allow her to have a boyfriend. Tina kept Uriel a secret the whole month they were together, but Uriel understood her situation and never insisted on having dates or doing couple\'s stuff. There was also the money issue, even if he wanted to, he wouldn\'t have had the money to pay for a date, not even a picnic like this.

All the excitement built up to that moment died the second Medusa took out from her bag two small instant noodle cups.

"It\'s cheeky chicken! I\'ve really grown fond of this." She said with a smile as she took out a vacuum flask filled with boiling water. All of Uriel\'s dreams of tasting different vegetables, meat or even fish, crashed onto a disappointing pack of instant noodles.

"I- uh, sure..." He said with a wry smile as she filled his cup with water.

Although it wasn\'t quite what he expected, he had to admit that being served by a beauty didn\'t feel bad at all. Even if those were the same instant noodles he was accustomed to, eating with someone was a completely different experience.

When Medusa started eating from her cup she held her hair to prevent it from getting inside and only took a small bite, but after a short while they became more comfortable with each other and started slurping them in the most exaggerated way they could making annoying noises and having fun.

They didn\'t say a single word during the whole meal but Uriel felt some sort of intimacy.

"Oh right! I brought this too..." she said taking an orange for dessert.

"Is this an orange!? I\'ve only seen them in movies! Wow, it\'s texture is not what I expected." He said caressing the fruit\'s skin.

"Yes, I love them after a good cup of cheeky chicken." She chuckled.

The sweet and citric taste sent Uriel in a two way trip to heaven. He had never, ever, eaten anything but synthetic food. For Medusa it was just a fruit, but for him it was a whole world of experiences. From the juiciness to the flavor, even the crunchiness was a surprise for him. He could only describe it as an explosion inside his mouth.

"So, what did you want to ask me?" Medusa said blushing slightly and pressing on her cheeks with the palm of her hands, her pretty and tough girl appearance heavily contrasting with her meek attitude.

"Oh, that!" He said after coming back from his culinary experience.

"I wanted to ask if you would like to help me uncover the nature of my trait... I know there\'s something else, there\'s a hidden... What happened? why are you frowning?" He changed the course of his speech when he noticed she was upset for some reason he couldn\'t understand.

"It\'s nothing, continue..."

"But..."

"I said, continue!" She said loudly.

Not wanting to upset her even further, Uriel proceeded tell her about the hunch he felt and how he could sense some sort of energy coursing his body but didn\'t know how to tap into it.

"I see, but what do you want me to do?" She shrugged.

"I was thinking, since you have a trait maybe you could tell me how does it feel like or how do you activate it." He said in a pleading tone.

"I don\'t know much about traits, maybe you could ask Luna. I mean, I would love to help you, but all traits are different and they should feel different too."

Dejected, Uriel sighed and lowered his gaze. It wasn\'t sadness but the mix of all the negative emotions he had experienced so far in life. Ever since his parents disappeared it was as if an unlucky star shone all the time over his head.

Medusa stared at him for a few seconds and thought he was even cuter than she had initially thought. She had been feeling drawn towards Uriel, but up to that point she didn\'t know the reason, because he wasn\'t that attractive compared to others. There was, however, a certain charm to him, something that she couldn\'t explain.

"I\'ll help you!" She said decisively.