LUCK'S DIARY: A Change in Fortune

CHAPTER 9

Trying to control her furiously beating heart, Keone took a few deep breaths before walking towards them with a small, awkward smile. The beautiful stranger turned her attention towards Keone with a pleasant expression on her face. 

"And who is this pretty little thing?" she asked Vincent with a smirk.

Keone would've been offended at being called little, but compared to this goddess, she looked like a mouse. 

"Seriously, how tall was she anyways?" she wondered.

"I'm Keone Moronez," she answered, "And you are?"

"Alyssia Abelli, but you can call me anything you like."

Is she flirting with me? What if she is? But what if she's not?

Having never dealt with any kind of advances in all her life, all sorts of thoughts were rushing through her head at breakneck speeds. She wanted to play it cool and flirt back, however, she had zero idea how to. Realizing she's gone quiet for a few awkward moments, she tried to stutter out an apology, only to bite her tongue hard enough for it to start bleeding. Her hand flew to her mouth to cover the blood, eyes already tearing up from the pain.

Alyssia rushed forward immediately and guided Keone to the bathroom to try and stop the bleeding. Even though she could quite possibly bleed out, Keone was more focused on the shivers radiating from Alyssia's hand on her lower back. She was sure her heart would jump out of her chest. 

They reached the bathroom and Alyssia made Keone gently rinse out her mouth to get rid of as much blood as possible so she could see how bad it was. After some minutes of rinsing her mouth, Keone was stopped by Alyssia who tilted her head side to side, trying to get a better looked at her tongue. 

Gosh, she's so pretty.

Keone mentally slapped herself for thinking that but she couldn't help it. Being so close to Alyssia made her beauty more apparent. Her skin was flawless, even with the few beauty marks littered across her face. She had a combination of both soft and sharp features, Her eyes were round but reserved which contrasted magnificently with her high cheekbones. She had a small button nose, her lips were rosy and heart-shaped, her eyebrows were angled upwards, and her lashes brushed her cheeks whenever she blinked. What caught Keone's eyes the most, however, was the forest she saw whenever she looked into Alyssia's eyes. Derion's eyes were green too, but they were vastly different from her's. 

Alyssia watched as the stranger named Keone, zone out once again. There was a weird, itchy feeling in her chest whenever she looked at Keone, but she just brushed it off as unimportant and decided to ignore it.

Simp.

Ignoring the voice in her head, she tapped Keone on the forehead to get her attention, but it didn't work. She tried shaking her a bit and calling her name but that didn't do anything either. She took her hand and squeezed it before pinching the skin, this definitely did something seeing as Keone jumped up with a sound of fright. She quickly pulled her hand away and steadied Keone on her feet before she fell. Alyssia couldn't tell if Keone was always this easily frightened or it was because she was around a stranger. Either way, she was concerned she was gonna hurt herself with all this jumping around. 

Keone hurriedly thanked Alyssia for helping her and bolted out of the bathroom. With all the weirdness going on right now, she wouldn't put it pass Alyssia to cast some kind of spell on her. At least that's what she wanted to believe. It was either that or she was just so used to talking to only Vincent -and in some way- Derion, that she completely forgot how to talk to new people. There was no way she was going to admit that, however, so she just ignored it all together.

She navigated her way back towards the dining room where she heard Vincent and Derion laughing over her earlier clumsiness.

"Ha ha guys, laugh all you want." she grumbled.

This caused the two to erupt in another fit of laughter which annoyed Keone even more. She sat slouched beside Vincent, sulking and waiting for them to stop behaving like children. After two full minutes of seemingly unending laughter, she just about reached her limit and was about to slap the both of them when Alyssia stomped into room. 

"Grow up you two." she said, while slapping the backs of their heads.

They groaned and grumbled about Alyssia being a killjoy before eventually shutting up. Eager to know what was up, Alyssia had them recount everything that has happened, including what was in the diary, then she just sat rubbing her jaw, lost in thought. Keone was thankful she wasn't the only one who couldn't grasp the sheer ridiculousness and bizarreness of the situation. There was admittedly still a lingering thought in her mind about this all being a really well thought out and put together prank and everybody but her was in on it. If so, she didn't think it was the least bit funny. She didn't actually believe that, but it didn't stop her from discreetly looking around for hidden cameras. Satisfied, she turned back to the others and zoned in to the conversation.

"What do we do from here?" Alyssia asked, still rubbing ner jaw.

"She has a very nice jawline," Keone thought to herself, "Not that I'm staring or anything..."

"I mean, this all sounds very fantastical and not in the least bit possible - not that I think you guys are lying or anything - it's just so hard to wrap my head around it." Alyssia finished.

Looking around at everyone, Vincent rattled his brain for something to say, anything at all that would help make sense of everything. Or maybe even something. He thought back to the lady in the bookshop and wondered if they could somehow find her again. Clearly she had something to do with craziness, or at least knew something that could maybe help point them in the right direction. But where would they even start looking? They saw her at very different places, almost like she just packs up the entire building with all the books and disappears before reappearing elsewhere. They had to find that lady somehow.

A plan was forming in his mind, it had many holes and barely even passed as a plan, but it was something and all the kinks will be worked out soon enough. He turned to the group and tapped the pen in his hand on the small table. They turned to him and he got ready to tell them his plan.