itbomm

chapter 8: this is the morning after

'How annoying,' Athanase thought as he weaved flowers into a flower crown. He glances up at Athy, who picked two big pink roses and kept her gaze down. 'They're still looking at you, Athy,' he tells her, noticing her eyebrow twitching at the statement.

'I know, Athan!' Athy had thought to him with a cry. 'What do I do?'

'Well, it's not like we can just tell them we don't want to see our mom. They'll think that we're lying and trying to suppress our feelings at such a young age,' Athan huffed, picking up a white daisy and adding it to his flower crown. 'Well, we could always ask Claude, but in Toska, this was what caused him to stop calling for us as often as he does. I don't think he hates her, but there's definitely some baggage going on there, and that was the reason why he hated the twins in Toska.'

'Then he can't find out we want to see Diana,' Athy thought with the utmost determination, picking up another pink rose.

'Wouldn't it be better to get ignored by him, though? I thought you wanted minimal contact with him,' Athan frowned.

'I know, but... there's a lot of pros to this plan as long as we act like Jennette,' Athy pouted.

'If you say so...'

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'I've had enough of trying to leave like I don't have a clue,' Athy inwardly groaned. 'This is so uncomfortable.'

'I think you've been handling it pretty well,' Athan hummed, flicking through his book on Siodonna, looking at photography of various sceneries. 'Especially since Diana would've been the best mom if she survived during childbirth.'

'Ugh, don't be like that,' Athy shot him a flat look. 'She's not even our real mom, anyway.'

'I vastly prefer her more than my previous life's mom, that's for sure,' he snorts. Pausing when he hears quiet footsteps leaving the room. 'Ah. They left.'

'I'm going to follow them,' Athy hummed, getting off the sofa and trotting over to the door. 'Wanna come with?'

'No,' he flatly thinks back. 'Something bad always happens after you ask me that, and I want no part in it.'

'Not true.'

'Meeting Claude and ruining the original plan of getting ignored.'

'That... was kind of inevitable, wasn't it?'

'December of last year. You wanted to sneak into the kitchen for chocolate, but since we were too short to reach the doors, you dragged me along to help. But then, since you got so scared because there was a rat that hadn't been caught yet, you ended up screaming and accidentally whacked the table and got flour spilled all over me and further freaked out because I looked like a ghost and—'

'You are so fucking mean to me. I'm telling Lily that you're absolutely evil.'

'Good luck with that. She thinks I'm an angel.'

'Ugh, I hate you.'

'Love you, too.'

'Athan, I fucked up!' Athy had soon cried, throwing herself onto the sofa and onto Athan's lap. 'What do I do? I made everything worse!' she mentally screeched, hugging his midsection.