A Gift From a Far Away World (A Seven Knights Fan Fiction)

Round 9: Lit A Fire in your Heart (Part 2)

At Heart Jewel orphanage, afternoon-

Kris was leisurely sitting on an armchair at the patio of the orphanage, enjoying afternoon slightly chilly breeze as he observed the game of tag the younger children played at the front yard. Yui and Snipper seemed to have too much fun running after each other, while the slightly older boy and girl-Evan and Yuri- were watching to make sure no one ended falling and getting hurt.

Rudy was entertaining Li with a game of blind chess. It was amazing how the smaller boy could remember every move he made on the board while Rudy seemed to have to put so much effort in remembering his own as his eyes were covered with a layer of cloth to prevent him from seeing the chessboard. Hellenia and Heavenia dutifully moved the chess pieces per Rudy and Li's request while gossiping.

Kris looked aside slightly and found Karin on the sideline, a bit further away from Evan and Yuri, also watching the kids. However, Kris noticed her periodical glance at Evan and Yuri talking for a few seconds before she seemed to remember herself, blushed and quickly moved her gaze away from them, back to the kids. She looked kind of down, though, like she wanted to join them but didn't have any courage to approach them.

Kris had no idea why he thought about this. It was just... well, Evan was too much like Rudy in some ways, and he had a feeling that Karin had a thing for Evan. Remembering their short conversation after he and Rudy tried the costumes earlier...

Yuri was still teasing Kris and the blushing Karin when Evan showed up in the living room.

"What's going on here?" the brunet asked, frowning as he looked at Karin covering her steaming face while whimpering, Kris letting out a long suffering sigh and Yuri cackling. Hellenia, Heavenia, Yui, and Ariel just chuckled and Rudy made a forced awkward smile. "Ah, Yuri! You're teasing Karin again, aren't you?" Evan immediately accused, like it was a recurrent event. "Sheesh, I told you to tone down the teasing. Karin is very shy, you know."

Evan sounded just like Rudy when he was reprimanding Dellons after he teased Kris too far, and the way Karin looked at the boy with adoringly grateful expression as Yuri turned her mocking face and attention to Evan and away from her just then was too much reminiscence of what Kris often did in the past.

"T-thanks, Evan," Karin whispered softly, her face still red but she was smiling happily and Evan blinked once at her before he grinned so brilliantly that Kris was reminded once again of how Rudy usually behaved.

It was probably too farfetched to consider Evan's feeling for the new girl as romantic since he was still a kid, and Kris had a strong suspicion that Evan was as dense as Rudy in this field. He felt slightly bad for her. She was in the same shoes as Kris after all.

Kris turned his gaze back to Evan, where Yuri was hugging his arm and smiling at him lovingly now. Kris raised an eyebrow at seeing Evan smile awkwardly while conspicuously trying to pull his arm back from her, his eyes darting to Karin's position repeatedly.

Huh. Not as dense as I thought after all-Kris moved his attention to Karin again, and now she looked down at the ground, smiling solemnly, not noticing how Evan looked at her. Not dense at all. He definitely notices Karin. But he doesn't seem to know how to handle the 'triangle' part, huh? Since apparently Yuri has a thing for him too-Kris smirked. This would get interesting soon.

In the absence of Dellons' scheming, Kris plotted.

~ # ~

"Have you all decided your first partner for the dance tomorrow night?"

Mother Elena asked during dinner, which caused everyone's attention to shift from their food to her instantaneously.

"Of course!" Yuri was the first to answer in exclamation. "We are so totally paired up for the dance! Right, Evan dear?" She grinned while snatching Evan's arm again in an excited, too tight embrace, which caused Evan to wince slightly.