My Moon: An Enjolras Love Story

forgive a thoughtless fool

SÉRAPHINE POV

Donatien, our waiter, arrived with our food shortly after the exchange between Enjolras and me. We did not have very much time to eat as the boys had to be heading back for the resumption of classes in about thirty minutes. But I intended to make the most of our meal time by talking to everyone and trying to get to know them a bit better. I started with Enjolras because we were already in the middle of a discussion.

"If I may apologize for offending you," I began.

"We're good, like I said," he offered sincerely.

I gave him a small smile and turned my head to the others at the table. I had met the majority of them: Enjolras, Marius, Combeferre, Courfeyrac, Joly, Grantaire, and Prouvaire. There were only two more students I had not yet met, so I called down shamelessly to the table to ask for their names.

"Hey! You two!" I gestured. "What are your names?"

"My name is Lesgle," one brunette man chuckled. Nodding towards the other one, he said, "That's Bahorel."

Bahorel nodded. "Good to meet you! And impressive job with Enjolras, you being new among us; you don't know how difficult it is to stand up to him."

I smirked as I began eating my food. These really were some of the greatest people I had ever met, and I could tell we had the potential to be great friends. I had never known a feeling of such strong like for so many people, and I had never other than when I first met Éponine wanted so badly to spend time with people and get to know everything about them. Never have I wanted to share so much about myself and learn so much about someone else -- or, in this case, many people.

"A toast," I suddenly declared, "to new friends."

"To new friends," everyone agreed, clinking their glasses together and drinking in harmony.

Lunch went by fairly quickly after that. We did not have a lot of time to eat, so we simply enjoyed the meals we had in front of us and resumed talking. I very much enjoyed getting to know the boys, and I looked forward to potentially spending more lunchtimes with them. I considered inviting them over to my house for dinner, but then I decided that would get too crowded and unpleasant. Another day, maybe. I looked forward to that day, whenever it would come.

We all finished our lunch after fun and lighthearted chatter. Éponine and I had to say goodbye to the schoolboys, so we walked outside and hugged (or shook hands with, depending on the stoicism of certain men in question) the boys one by one. We bid our final goodbyes for the day as the boys all headed off into the direction of the schoolhouse.

"Catch you later, Séraphine!" Éponine called, slowly inching her way away from the group and heading towards the opposite direction.

"Hey! Where are you going?" I asked, under the impression that we would spend the day together.

"I'm really sorry; I forgot to tell you, my father needs me today to, er...help him out with something. But I'll see you tomorrow!"

I nodded. "Yeah, see you then." I had to warrant a small chuckle: Éponine believed I was unaware of her illegal activities. She thought she kept it a well-guarded secret from me that she often partook in thefts and conning with her parents and their crones. Despite my disapproval, I could not bring myself to tell the law enforcement because I wanted so badly for Éponine to stay out of trouble. The last thing she needed was trouble with the law, although I would have loved to have seen her parents, the Thénardiers, receive just that. The difference between Éponine and her family was that Éponine cared. She cared about other people, she cared about more than making money to spend on frivolities. She was doing the exact same thing as her family, but for some reason it was much easier for me to condone her actions.