Chapter 201 - Control Your Emotions

"Hey," Lei greeted Petunia after bumping into her in the hallway along with Gem, Fily, Von, and Venedette.

"Hmm," Petunia shrugged and ignored him, making Lei stop walking in disbelief.

"Oh! Lei?" Gem said after bumping her head into his back for suddenly stopping in front of her.

"Did she just ignore me? Are her memories still not back?" Lei asked, ignoring Gem's complaint which made Gem pout.

"What makes you think that's Petunia?" Gem asked with a straight face for ignoring her earlier.

"Huh? Who else could it be?" Lei answered while pointing out the closeness between this new child-looking girl and Fily.

He knew there was no way a stranger would just suddenly approach them and become close to Fily, especially a child. It was Fily after all, the know-it-all girl who would bombard your mind with information if she's half-asleep. 

"I'm so disappointed in you," Gem said and then walked faster to catch up to them which urged Lei to run up to her too.

"What do you mean? Are you kidding me right now?" Lei said and then immediately shut his mouth after remembering the fact that he had just talked to Von about something interesting and that his mouth was not used to talking a lot yet.

"That's what I thought," Gem said while laughing inside after seeing Lei's upset face.

"What?" Lei mouthed while pushing Gem back so she would be at the back of the line in the cafeteria for playing with his feelings.

He was a hundred percent sure that the silver-haired kid with bright green eyes that Fily was talking to was Petunia because she resembles the emerald eyes and silver fur that Petunia had when she was still a cat.

But because both he and Von were not allowed to see Petunia's human form yet when she transformed because of lack of clothes and confidence the next day to visit her room in the Yacht, Von and Lei never had a chance to see Petunia alive yet.

At least that was only until today, "But for real though, she's Petunia, right?" Lei asked Gem again which Von noticed and made him interested in the conversation as well.

"I thought she's older than us? Why does she look like a six-year-old?" Von asked while courteously giving Gem his place in the line so she could go get her food first before him.

"I don't know, that must be her age when she became a cat?" Gem said and greeted the cafeteria people who were handing out the food to them on a silver platter.

"What is this place?" Gem asked after being amazed by the variety of food in front of them over the big long glass that stretches out from one end of the whole cafeteria to the other, containing all of the food that their Patients might need if they preferred to eat in the cafeteria.

"It's a cafeteria, don't you have this in your school?" Von asked while playing cool about it.

"No, I skipped school, remember? Maybe the closest to this place was the abandoned cafeteria in our orphanage. Since food isn't really that bountiful there, we just eat what we were given on a daily basis. We're lucky if we get two loaves of bread at that time, but now, I can't believe this! First I get to experience being royalty and now they're even giving out free food for everybody?! This is heaven!" Gem said excitedly and jumped to the next vacant station in front of her to receive the free food that she was talking about from the person on the other side of the glass dividers.

"Who's gonna tell her it's not free?" Von with his hands inside his pockets, whispered to Lei while watching Gem enjoy the time of her life by filling up her tray and even carrying some loaves of bread with her mouth.

"You, probably," Lei said and proceeded to push Von in front to keep the line going while also helping him get the tools and food that he wants from the variety of choices.

Once the team has settled down on a table, Lei quickly noticed Venedette on another table, talking to other people, probably participants of the tournament too, about grown-up stuff.

And while she was busy being social, the circular table where the kids were currently eating was just silent and awkward, especially with the two boys being unfamiliar with this new Petunia whose emerald eyes were lingering at them.

"W-What's up?" Von said with a mouth full of carrots that he loves so much with rice in a dish called Chopsuey, one of the few things that his mother could cook very well in this world.

"Why aren't you asking me anything?" Petunia said and also started eating after finally getting their attention.

"Like what?" Lei asked with an unamused expression, taking this opportunity as his time now to give back what she and Gem both just did to him earlier.

"Like, how did you turn into a human? Or is that really you? Anything like that. I haven't heard from you guys since I woke up. Are we still friends here? I thought we were already friends or something," Petunia said without looking at any of them.

"Huh? What are you talking about? Wasn't our friendship was strictly for business purposes only?" Lei said which took Petunia aback.

"W-What?" Petunia said with teary eyes and trembling lips, making everyone at the table stop eating and watch as Lei successfully made the child-like version of Petunia cry with just a simple teasing.

"Hey! Hey!! Why are you crying?! I was just kidding! And you started it first so don't blame this on me!" Lei said in a very defensive tone while trying to talk Petunia out of crying but it was already too late.

The old child burst into tears, making the whole cafeteria aware of how she was upset, and Lei, as guilty as he was, immediately stood up and reached to Gem and Fily to at least help her calm Petunia down.

"Don't look at me like that. I'm just peacefully eating here, and besides, I don't want to deal with that child again, so good luck," Gem said and stuffed her face again with food while Fily just shrugged at Lei.

"I'm not a child!" Petunia said while crying out loud.

"Yeah, yeah," Gem only said and nodded even without any care about what was happening.

"Please?" Lei begged Fily who finally gave in to his request.

"Petunia, calm down your emotions. You're not a child anymore, right? You should be able to control your emotions by now. I know it's hard, your mentality is not yet that stable, but just channel your emotions into something else first, okay? Lei was just joking with you. You never took that seriously before so why cry over it now. It's not worth it, right?"

"Okay, what should we talk about then?" Petunia asked while wiping her tears.

"I'm sorry," Lei whispered to Petunia and apologized to everyone else before sitting back in his seat and waiting for the tension to calm down while Gem and Von were just literally sitting there, watching the show the entire time as if they were just viewers who could do nothing to help other than watch how things progress.

"Well that was fast," Von remarked and then continued eating his favorite food while Gem only shrugged her shoulders in agreement to what he just said.

"Fily?" Petunia asked with her ragged breathing, still asking about the topic that they could talk about to diversify her emotions into something else.

"How about the flight potions then, do you still remember that?" Lei said, trying to help ease the situation down by asking the very thing that he was meaning to ask since earlier if things just went smoothly from the start.

"The one I promised to do with you?" Petunia said and sat down, finally calming down after remembering her moments with Lei while they were talking about their business relationship about the Flight potions.

"Yes, that one. I'm really sorry about upsetting you, I didn't know you would cry that easily-" Lei said and paused when he saw Petunia's eyes filling with tears again due to her sensitivity with his words so he cleared his throat and tried again but with more respect and formality this time to avoid upsetting her.

"I mean, I'm really sorry about that. I just really wanted to talk to you about the flight potion earlier and Gem just had to ruin things up for me- I mean she did something to upset me and I thought doing the same thing to you will satisfy my emotions, but it did not. So I'm really sorry for that," Lei said and shoved a full glass of water down his throat so he could continue talking.

"Sorry again," Lei said which made Petunia finally feel his sincerity and honesty.

"So it was Gem's fault all along?" Petunia said, turning her head to Gem who was just alerted after hearing her name brought up in the conversation.

"What? I was just eating peacefully here!" she said and pouted which made Petunia roll her eyes at her.

"Yeah right, it's always you who starts the fight anyway and then pretend to have nothing to do with it at all," Petunia said with an annoyed face.

But instead of getting annoyed at her too, Gem just took her words as a compliment and scooted closer to Petunia for a hug even though her hands were full of food remains.

"You're so cute when you're upset," she said and then laughed. "And did you know that I love hugging your human form?" Gem added which made Petunia flustered and the anger in her heart melted immediately.