In The Middle (IDENTITY V FF)

3

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CHAPTER THREE:
Gathering

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Eli was exhausted. The dinner earlier was like a total hellhole (well, only for him), especially when he saw how out of control some or most of the hunters were.

Obviously, Michiko was well exempted from this, since she was more like a mother towards all of them, including the survivors.

An example of what Eli was trying to describe as 'out of control' was Joker. From his name alone, you could already get what Eli meant by 'out of control'. The hunter was a big fan of firecrackers and other fiery and explosive things, which didn't sit well in the dining table. Explosions here, enflamed napkins there. Pure. Disaster. Eli was even in a state of panic when he found out Joker was planning to light his owl's feathers into flames.

Another was the duo, aka Xie Bi'an and Fan Wujiu, the White/Black Guards (mostly known as Wu Chang altogether). Eli could already see how bad things were gonna go right when the two slender beings stepped into the Dining Hall. Mischievous grins were painted on their face when they appeared, and Eli thought they were nothing but bullies. They would mostly taunt the youngsters, especially Robbie. Because of this, they were almost - ALMOST - choked to death by Michiko's ghost, which sort of gave everyone in the table the goosebumps.

Although those people were ticking him off, he tried his best to look on the bright side and just focus on the food and good things. Like how Aesop was sitting beside him. He felt at ease knowing his friend was close to his side, far off from the disaster that was unfolding across them.

"Let. Go. Of. My. Hair!" Fan, the Black Guard, gnashed his teeth as his head tilted towards the direction it was being pulled.

"You're ruining my braid! You let go first!" Xie complained as he wailed in agony when Fan decided to grab his long braid harder and harsher.

Michiko was in between them, trying to separate the pair that were close to ripping each other's hair apart. Joker was laughing and cheering both sides on while grinning widely, and Burke did nothing but spectate while he chugged on his flask. It looked like someone was wrestling with their reflection, the only difference was that the other side seemed to have the colors inverted.

"Woohoo! Go Fan!" Joker howled. "Go Xie!"

"I told you to stop cheering them on- Xie! Let go of Fan's braid right this instant!" Michiko was enraged as her normally pale face went paler as blood drained out in anger. "But he started it!" Xie retorted and Fan yowled. "See?! Even Michiko said that you should be the first to let go- OW!!!" 

Eli's frown only got bigger as he spectated the scene. 'Is this how things go in the hunter quarters? If so, then heck, I'm glad I'm a survivor' was what kept running on Eli's head as he watched Xie and Fan ruining each other's well-braided hair.

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Joseph felt bored. Even though it was supposed to be entertaining since everyone was here, he still felt like it was better when everyone was in their respective quarters. But even so, a few chuckles would still come out of his mouth as he spectated Xie and Fan's childish fight.