"Casper. Why aren’t you doing anything?"

At her question. He turned to look at her, raising an eyebrow at what she was trying to say.

"Doing what?"

"About Viviana."

"What is there about Viviana that I need to know?"

Aveline stared at him from the corners of her eyes, wondering whether he was just playing dumb or if he actually was being dumb right now.

It was so unbelievably obvious to Aveline, that the idea of others not grasping the same thing didn’t even appear in her mind.

"About her and you and Killian."

"What?"

But seeing his clueless face turn more and more confused. Aveline finally realized, this dumb bastard was still unaware.

"...you seriously don’t know?"

Come on, the way the two of you always looked at Viviana. Always smiled with her, always searched for reasons or excuses to be with her. It was unbelievably easy to determine why.

For Aveline, who had to hang out with these people nearly every day. It got to a point.

It was just really frustrating. Unbelievably frustrating, how Viviana herself also seemed unaware of this was even more frustrating to Aveline. You were right in the middle of the two of them, so why are you the most blind to what’s happening?!

She balled her hands into a fist.

"Then...how do you feel about Viviana?"

"She’s a good friend of mine. We’ve known each other since we were young after all. The Hayes Family and the Laurent Family have always been pretty close."

"...is that all?"

Aveline felt her frustration arise even more. How could someone like this even exist? Casper was the most talented, genius awakened of their generation with only Viviana as a close second. Yet he still struggled with teen hormones like this.

"You’re such a dense bastard."

For the first time in the conversation, she turned to face him fully. Grabbing his hands and staring directly into him.

"Hey. How do you feel when I do this?"

Aveline’s blue eyes met with his, their fingers interlocking in both hands. Despite Casper regularly training for hours on end each day, his hands were smooth and free of any calluses. Making it quite nice to hold.

He seemed a bit flustered, "It’s awkward I guess? And embarrassing."

She nodded, Casper’s feelings being within her expectations.

"Then how would you feel if you were doing this with Viviana?"

"That...I don’t know how I would feel."

"How about if it was Killian doing this with Viviana?"

"That—!"

Sometimes, you had to give things a little push to set them into motion. Aveline was just kick starting the engine a little bit here.

It was obvious to her who the winner would be anyways.

So while these two competed, and one inevitably lost. She could approach and comfort the loser. At which point, they would feel so grateful. They would also fall in love with her and she too would get to acquire her own love.

That was unless Viviana decided to go on the polyamorous route and decided to take them both...

She probably wouldn’t, but the possibility was there.

"I would feel...angry? I don’t know. Killian’s a good friend as well."

"So you should be happy for him no?"

"...I don’t know."

She faintly smiled, seeing Casper’s self doubt. It only further assured her of her own plan.

Holding Casper’s hand up to her mouth, she gently kissed it. Watching as Casper turned red in the face and immediately withdrew his hand.

"Then how would you feel if Viviana did that to you?"

"T-that—what was that for?!"

Her face was completely still, aside from her faint smile. Barely moving an inch even as Casper frantically fidgeted around at her small act there.

"If I were you. I would go find Viviana and tell her before someone else does."

"Tell her what?!"

Casper stared worriedly at her, Aveline was always a bit odd. But she was acting especially odd today!

"Before Killian beats you to it. "

Left with that ominous message, Casper soon left. Still filled with questions about what exactly Aveline was trying to say.

As for her, she quietly put one of her hands to her nose. Smelling the lingering scent left behind by Casper. Feeling her own heart rate increasing from a steady rhythm to its current frantic beating.

Because unlike those three fools, she was very well aware of her own feelings after all.

But she was patient, she could wait. The one she wanted was guaranteed to lose anyways.

---

"You know...no offense to Audrina but she’s kinda ruining it."

"I think that is an offense to Audrina."

When taking their seats at the start of the play, the group couldn’t help but simultaneously think to themselves.

’Are any of them even good at acting?’

Raymond and Ellen were doubtful, but they would probably be quite good at it. They just gave off the vibe that they could do it, and they had yet to disappoint so far.

Thomas as well, with how whimsical he was normally. It was hard to imagine his face having an expression for any emotion other then calm and happiness. But he had also failed to disappoint so it seemed he was also quite good at it.

Audrina on the other hand...

"That smile was so creepy...I didn’t even know she could smile!"

"What you thought her facial muscles were paralyzed or something?"

"Honestly? Yes."

In Arthur’s defense, Audrina had so far. Yet to make an expression other then blankness and glaring.

Seeing her smile like that was extremely unnerving!

The fact that she also even held hands with Thomas there was surprising as well. Since Audrina loathed physical contact with others. Going so far as to physically stretch and squeeze herself to not touch others whenever she had to.

Aside from that, her mediocre acting was also quite immersion breaking unfortunately. As well as the fact that Aveline was never interested in love, or dating.

"Now that I think about it. Did Aveline ever like Casper? Or is that another thing that this play changed like the whole Killian and Viviana thing."

"This whole play is historically innacurate, I don’t think it’s a surprise that they changed this as well."

Zachary leaned forward slightly, looking to his left at where Noelle was. Asking a question he had wanted to ask for a while.

"Is that Aveline accurate to the real one Noelle?"

She raised an eyebrow, having already expected this question from Zachary. For a hero fanboy like him, his first thought would definitely be to ask the Asteria right next to him.

"How would I know?"

"You’re an Asteria. How would you not know about the one Hero from the Asteria Family?"

"Aveline died twenty years before I was even born. I’ve never even met her before. Let alone talk to her. " 𝗳𝐫𝚎𝗲𝚠𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝘃𝚎𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝗺

He insisted anyways, "But surely you’ve heard about her? It wasn’t that long ago after all. There must be loads of people in your family that have met her."

She pursed her lips, memories of her past family reunions coming back into her mind.

"My family isn’t very stable. There’s a reason I’m an only child after all."

The Asteria Family might have been the most honorable Family, and one of the strongest. But it was still one of the Families.

Naturally, rather then focusing its ugliness outside. It was inside instead.

Compared to the other Families where the members at least tried to act like they cared about one another (even if they didnt). The Asteria Family just put away with all these pretenses.

Despite them being related by blood, the infighting within the Family was so intense. That even just having multiple children could already be considered a concerning matter. Noelle herself wasn’t even allowed near the other Asteria members in her generation, due to fears that her much higher talent and potential would cause great envy among them.

Like Noelle said, there was a reason she was an only child.

"My father has met her however...he said that she was very eccentric. So I guess that part is accurate."

She had actually asked about Aveline before. As the only hero produced by the Asteria Family. The young Noelle was naturally curious on what the real deal was like. Not the inflated stories she heard from the public.

"He was also quite young at the time. But he distinctly remembers that she was very carefree. Often ignoring advice from any of the elders."

"That sounds surprisingly accurate to what nose sources say about her."

"If most sources say it’s accurate. Then it’s probably accurate."

"Anything else?"

She shook her head, "They don’t really like to bring up Aveline a lot. She was a rebel within the Family. An outlier that they don’t really want to see repeated again."

Within the Asteria Family, Aveline was a massive thorn in the elders side. Her carefree and recklessness caused many of them a great amount of hair loss.

Recklessly using Asteria money, mobilizing the Asteria army using fabricated messages, fighting and severely injuring her own relatives who tried to talk her out of doing such things. She was a rebel through and through, who treated the Family as her personal piggy bank and plaything.

With her SS+ rank strength, she was practically unstoppable. Meaning the entire Family had to move along to her whims even if they didn’t want to.

To be honest, Noelle looked up to her quite a bit.

Not for her heroic acts, which she did also respect quite a lot. But for her personality and way of life instead.

Her freedom from the Family was inspiring. She didn’t partake in any of the infighting or politics at all. Instead, she just aimed her spear at their heads and told them to listen or else she would beat them to a pulp.

Very inspiring.