Nekopara - ReUnion

Chapter 3: Goodbyes Under the Full Moon

".. cover for him..."
"handle that..."

Slowly waking up, Minuit could barely hear what was going on around him. As he opened his eyes, he was greeted by agressive, white lights, much to his displeasure.

- "Yes, for the 100th time, he's alive and well. I know you don't trust me, but you know I wouldn't do that."

Recognizing Charlie's voice, he turned around, seeing his friend seemingly on the phone, standing in the middle of a rather small and empty room.

- "Oh. He's waking up. See ya." Taking the opportunity of his friend coming to his senses to hang up, he approached him.

- "Char..? Where are we?"

- "Your torture room."

- "... What?"

He let out a small chuckle.

- "Man, I'll never get tired of your facial expressions. You should see the face you're making right now.. I almost want to take a picture."

- "I'll kill you."

- "You're welcome to try." Charlie laughs as he throws a water bottle to Minuit, getting up from what seemed to be a makeshift bed, built from a few blankets put one on top of the other, which would explain why his back hurts so much.

- "Oh yeah? I might win this time around." Showing a cocky smile, the taller of the two was taken aback by Charlie's sudden offensive, barely able to avoid a direct punch to the guts by throwing the bottle at him. "So that's how you want to play, huh? Fine by me."

- "Shut it and come get your beating, sucker."

Taking advantage of the room being a rather large empty space, Minuit knew what Charlie's speciality was, and so, he went to confront him directly, hand-to-hand, trying to put as much pressure on him as he could, as to not give him any occasion to whip out a knife from wherever he kept it hidden.

As one blow was answered to by another one, Charlie started talking and asking questions to Minuit.

- "So. How'd it feel? Putting both of our asses in danger, like it was a regular ass sunday afternoon?"

- "Huh?" Startled by the strange question, Minuit lowered his guard, confused. Immediately taking advantage of the confusion, Charlie landed a heavy hit in the middle of Minuit's face, making him nearly fall.

- "COME AT ME!" He yelled.

As Minuit regained his footing, blocking most of Charlie's hits, which suddenly became faster and much heavier, he noticed that his usual carefree expression was replaced by a much more serious one.

- "Dude, what the hell are you even talking abou-" He could not even finish his sentence as Charlie started talking over his words.

- "Nuit. Just answer me. Was it worth it? Putting you, me and your family at risk, because you 'had to explain yourself' ?"

It was then that it clicked for Minuit, Charlie intentionally provoked him to deliver a beating.

"Here we go again.." Minuit thought, retaliating with his own blows, this time making contact, altough Charlie braced himself for the impact, jumping backwards right after.

As Minuit looked at his friend, he immediately tried to analyze his facial expressions, trying to decipher if he chose to have a serious fight for the fun of it, or for a different reason.

"What's up with him? He's way stronger than usual. And he looks way too serious. Did he become this strong all of a sudden? Or am I just this rusty?"