Beast Gacha System: All Mine-Chapter 269: Versions

"Yo, slut!"

Cecilia’s involuntary smile was uncontrollable the moment she heard that voice. A wide shy grin spread across her face before she could stop it. She immediately shoved her face into Arkai’s armpit, hiding, muffling herself, dying.

"Oh, you little bitch." The voice drew closer, dripping with affectionate venom. "Our sensational, scandalous, shared cunt."

Arkai couldn’t help but grin too. He wrenched Cecilia’s chin away from his armpit, forcing her to face the one who had just insulted her like hell.

The princess herself, Angela, stood there with her arms crossed and her smirk devastating.

But Cecilia slipped away from his grip and immediately reburied her face against his side, hugging his waist like a child hiding from a monster.

"Come on, face your friend with pride, Cece." Arkai’s voice was warm, teasing.

Angela approached. Closed the distance. Raised her hand—

PLAP.

Her palm connected with Cecilia’s butt. Sharply and satisfyingly.

"Hic!" Cecilia hiccupped in shock, her face still firmly pressed against Arkai’s side.

"What are you queueing for?" Angela’s voice was light, amused. "Feeding your boyfriends?"

"Shut up." Cecilia’s response was muffled, indignant, completely undermined by the fact that she was still hiding.

Arkai nodded to the princess with a small, respectful inclination of his head. Now he knew for sure, even in this fabricated world, Cecilia and Angela would still be the best of friends.

"Princess."

Angela’s smirk became more teasing. "I genuinely expected someone like you to actually marry her, you know." She shrugged elegantly. "Just ’someone like you’. Not literally you." She paused. "Congrats on the engagement."

"Thank you." Arkai’s voice was warm and sincere.

Cecilia’s muffled voice emerged from his side, "I hate you both."

Angela snorted. "No you don’t."

"...no I don’t."

Angela grasped Cecilia’s hand, even though Cecilia was still hiding in Arkai’s armpit, and dragged her toward the lunch line. They grabbed food together, piling trays with extra portions for Eastiel and Oathran, who were still buried in their textbook somewhere.

When Angela finally had her tray balanced and was about to leave, Cecilia peeked out from her hiding place.

Her smile was sheepish.

Angela sighed.

"Girlie." She shook her head. "Good for you, alright? It’s good for me too, actually. Now I have a four-in-one ally." She grinned. "Good job."

Cecilia’s smile widened. "Wanna sit with us to eat?"

"Nope. " Angela’s response was immediate, firm, and accompanied by a very specific look. "We’re having our one and only compulsory social day this semester." She leaned in slightly, lowering her voice. "I’m sucking Stevan’s dick after lunch."

Cecilia snorted.

The compulsory social day was the first day of the semester after long breaks. A mandatory three-hour lunch break designed to break the ice between students after a long pause in school activity. It was a tradition in many academies, a way for students to catch up within circles, and even form new cliques.

For Angela, the princess, these windows were hell. She would be subtly hunted down by students who wanted to get closer to her, who wanted favors, who wanted access.

She would, indeed, prefer private time with her boyfriend.

"Then, see you later." Cecilia waved, her hand still slightly hidden behind Arkai’s arm.

"See you." Angela waved back, turned, and walked away with her tray of lunch.

Cecilia looked at her best friend’s back as Angela disappeared into the crowd, her tray balanced effortlessly, her posture radiating that particular confidence that only came from being utterly comfortable in one’s own skin.

She looked young and energetic, alive in a way that the real Angela never was. Thousands of times more than the real her in the real world.

"What’s wrong?" Arkai asked, soft, concerned. "You look sad again."

Cecilia’s gaze lingered on the space where Angela had been.

"You might misunderstand Angela." She said thoughtfully. "She’s actually not crass and energetic and outspoken like this in the real world."

"She was actually... very... impossibly restrained."

Arkai waited, letting her find the words.

"This version of Angela..." Cecilia’s smile was wistful. "Even I’ve yet to actually see it until now."

Arkai looked at her deeply, watching the way her eyes held a complex mixture of joy and grief. She was mourning this world’s version of her best friend, a freer, happier Angela that the real princess could never be.

The thought made him consider his own best friend.

Roarke.

This world’s Roarke was young. Loyal. Untouched by Sienna’s poison. He was everything he could have been, or... should have been, without her influence.

"Rinne..." Arkai’s voice was rough. "He’ll never exist here, huh...?"

He understood now. Finally, truly understood why Cecilia had wanted a ’specific child’ so desperately. His own misunderstanding, which, now he agreed, was ridiculous, the elaborate theory about her needing multiple men to conceive, was embarrassing.

He’d keep it in his mind for himself as a private joke at his own expense.

But the grief was still real. The loss was real.

"Yes." Cecilia nodded slowly. Then she looked up at him, her eyes meeting his. "But maybe we can try to conceive him? So this world can have him too?"

Arkai glared at her.

"That’s what you were trying to do." His voice was flat, but his eyes were warm. "Let’s return and try to conceive him later. Uh... together." He cleared his throat. "If I don’t have much luck, then Eastiel and Elder Brother might."

Cecilia batted her eyes at him, making Arkai chuckle despite himself.

When Arkai and Cecilia returned to the classroom, trays laden with food, they were met with a wall of sound.

Cheers, and whoops, and chaos. 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝓮𝒘𝙚𝙗𝒏𝙤𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝒐𝙢

A crowd had gathered, students packed shoulder to shoulder, standing on tiptoes, craning necks, all focused on something in the center. The noise was deafening, full of shouts and laughter and the particular energy that only came from something stupid happening.

Arkai and Cecilia looked at each other, then they slipped into the crowd.

The students parted immediately when they saw Arkai Dawnoro. A path opened like magic, and they stepped through into the center of the madness.

There, surrounded by a ring of screaming students, were Eastiel and Oathran...

...arm wrestling.

The textbook set aside forgotten on the desk, pages open to diagrams of spatial displacement. Theories abandoned. Knowledge set aside. All pretense of academic pursuit gone.

Eastiel’s arm was straining, veins popping, his golden eyes wide with effort. Oathran’s expression was infuriatingly calm, but the slight tremor in his arm betrayed the intensity of the struggle.

"AAAA—ELDER BROTHER JUST GIVE UP!"

Eastiel was strained, incredibly so.

"I WANT THAT FURBALL TRINKET ON ME TOO, YOU LITTLE SHI—"

Oathran snapped, his composure cracked.

"CECILIA GAVE IT TO ME HERSE—"

Cecilia watched them tiredly.

Her gaze drifted to the trinkets on Eastiel’s belt, the fluffy keychains, the little charms. One was a pink rabbit, round and soft, attached to a loop near his hip. Another was a fluff ball with googly eyes, a trinket shaped and painted like an orange cat, and one was strings of pearlescent beads.

Oathran wanted one.

Of course he did.

She was about to intervene when movement beside her drew her attention.

Arkai set the tray down slowly.

Then he pumped his guns out of his sleeves. His forearms, those magnificent, corded forearms, rippled to life as he flexed. Muscles bulged. Veins appeared. The students around them gasped.

"BRING IT ON!" Arkai’s voice thundered through the classroom. "I WANT THE PINK RABBIT SHAPED ONE—"

Ah.

This was her life now.

This was her life now.