The celebration was in full swing. Everyone was laughing and dancing. Cheers came from all sides.
Ezra was a little late, as he managed to fall asleep at his textbooks. After all, last sleepless night made itself felt.
"Oh, Elodie will surely be unhappy about that!" - Ezra thought.
She had told him so many times to follow the regime, and he didn't care.
Ezra literally flew into the main square, carefully looking for Elodie in the crowd. It wasn't an easy task considering the number of people gathered here today.
But in the end, his attempts were crowned with success. At the other end of the square stood Elodie, dressed in a light blue outfit and with her hair arranged in a beautiful hairstyle. She was laughing merrily at some guy's joke. Ezra saw him for the first time. He frowned, feeling an unpleasant prickling in his chest. Why is it this guy who makes Elodie smile like that, and not him?
Ezra waved his hand in a welcoming manner so that she could see him.
"Sorry, I was a little late" - he looked guiltily at the girl.
Elodie just smiled knowingly.
"Oh, Ezra, it's okay. It's not a big deal. By the way," - she turned to her companion, - "this is Christopher McCarty. We go to the fine arts section together".
"So they go to the section together? I wonder why I didn't know anything about this Christopher?" - Ezra felt a surge of annoyance.
The same guy gave Ezra a friendly smile and extended his hand for a handshake. Ezra didn't like him very much, and he couldn't understand the reason for this dislike, but for decency and not to offend Elodie, he still returned the handshake.
"Ezra Squall. Nice to meet you" - Ezra muttered.
"Ezra, are you okay?" - Elodie looked at him with concern.
Apparently Ezra's face wasn't as neutral as he wanted it to be.
"Yes, yes, I'm okay" - he forced a nervous smile.
Elodie gave him a puzzled look, but did not continue the topic.
Christopher continued to say something, and Elodie smiled and laughed in response, inserting individual lines and causing an answering smile on Christopher's face. Ezra also tried to keep up the conversation as much as possible (after all, he didn't know this Christopher at all), but almost every time his remarks were out of place. This angered Ezra more and more every time. And he had no idea why it bothered him so much at all.
The last straw was when Christopher invited Elodie to dance.
"I'm sorry, buddy, but I already invited Elodie to this dance in advance. Maybe next time?.." - Ezra was saying the last words, already leading Elodie to the center of the square, where everyone was dancing. Elodie looked at him with interest, raising her left eyebrow mockingly.
"And what was that just now?" - she asked as soon as they joined the dancers.
If only he knew what it was now. Although deep inside he already guessed the reason for his inappropriate behavior this evening.
Ezra felt slightly uncomfortable under the gaze of those blue eyes. Elodie was smiling broadly, clearly having a lot of fun. But after receiving no response from Ezra, she sighed and said:
"You don't have to be jealous of me, okay? Christopher and I are just friends, nothing more" - Elodie relented.
"What a stupid thing. As if I have nothing to do but be jealous of you" - Ezra snorted, but his cheeks were treacherously covered with blush.
"Whatever you say, but it looks really cute when you're jealous of me like this" - Elodie giggled cheerfully, smiling at Ezra with the most dazzling smile he had ever seen in his life.
Well, maybe he was really a little jealous of her after all.
