Disclaimer: I do not own the characters of Avalon Web of Magic. As for the main plot of the story, it is based on the video game Persona 4 by Atlus. I am merely using the plot to help create an AU of sorts for the characters of Avalon.
Emily stopped Kyle just in time by placing her hand between their faces, her face burning red as she realized what he was going to do. Why was he doing this? There was no way he had developed any feelings for her in the few interactions they had.
"W-what are you doing?!", she demanded, pushing herself away from him.
"Damn, rejected already…", he sighed, "Hmm… But I don't feel sad about it…"
His face broke out into a bright smile, surprising the female in front of him, "That means I don't have any feelings for you!"
"Wait, what…?", Emily looked confused, trying to figure out what was going through his mind.
"Don't you see?", he asked, excitedly, "If I don't have feelings for you, then I proved the Midnight Channel wrong!"
"Midnight Channel?"
"You know, the rumor that if you stare into a blank TV screen at midnight while it's raining, you get to see your soulmate.", he explained, looking shocked that she didn't know.
"You mean that weird rumor that's been going around?", Emily still felt lost, "Why has this gotten to do… Oh… Ooooohh!"
Realization finally hit her. He saw the Midnight Channel, and from the looks of things, it worked. However, he is also saying that he is proving it wrong, so the person that he saw was… Oh.
"What the hell… That's a flimsy reason to try to kiss someone.", she said, trying to sound angry. However, she sounded more embarrassed than anything. Still, the Midnight Channel sounded interesting. Could there be a magical reason behind it?
"What it showed me was messing with my head.", Kyle explained, "I just wanted to keep the facts straight, so thanks Em!"
"Whatever.", she huffed, "Besides, we need to go back inside soon, otherwise the others-"
"HOLD IT THERE, PUNK!", Adriane's voice cut through the ally, as the two turned and saw the whole group right before them.
"-will come looking for us…", Emily finished.
Without saying another word, Kara and Adriane marched up to the sandy-haired teen and glared at him.
"So, you intentionally hurt yourself with a soda can, so you can get some alone time with our friend, huh?", Kara stated, looking pissed.
"Huh? What, no. I have no idea what your talking about!", Kyle protested.
"Can it, punk!", Adriane snapped, "Who do you think you are?!"
"Alright, alright, calm down guys.", Emily came in, firmly planting herself between her friends and Kyle, "I wanted to come here so that the janitor would complain about mopping anymore blood on the floor."
"What about the idea of going to the Pharmacy?", Molly chimed in from behind them.
"Well, as I got a closer look, I figured he didn't need a tampon shoved up his nose, so there was no need to go there.", she explained.
"Come on, there was nothing weird going on! Just let me go!", Kyle complained. In the inside, he was now thankful that Emily stopped him from kissing her. If they would have walked into that scene, he would have come back home in a coffin.
"Guys…", Emily pleaded again. From the corner of his eye, Kyle swore he saw her jewel that she always wore, glow a pale blue.
"… Fine.", Adriane relented.
Seeing her back off, Kara did the same, "Whatever you say… But if he does something to you, don't hesitate to tell us."
"Sure thing!", she smiled cheerfully.
After that little mishap, Kyle decided it was best to split from the girls, who didn't seem to notice or care, and stick to the food court. Taking out his phone, he noticed that Marcus had tried calling him a few times before just sending him a text message.
We're going to the food court on the mall to talk about the Midnight Channel. Be there at noon!
"Kyle is that you?", speaking of the devil, he saw his group of friends standing in front of him with trays filled with food, "We tried calling you, but you weren't picking up! Looks like you were here all along."
"Sorry Marcus, but there was something that I had to do.", Kyle explained, "It was about the Midnight Channel-"
"You saw Emily, right?", his friend interrupted him. Surprised, Kyle looked at the others and saw that they had serious expressions on their faces.
"Yeah… How did you know?"
"Because we saw her too."
"Okay, so let me get this straight.", Joey stated, "So you basically forced yourself in Kara and her friend's shopping day, just so you can talk to Emily about a weird dream that you two shared?"
"Yeah.", Kyle confirmed, "I was trying to find a way to talk to her, but then a random can helped fixed that!"
"Which gave you a bloody nose.", Marcus concluded, "And since Emily knows a bit of medicine, she volunteered to help you."
"Yep!"
"That's alright and all.", Joey said, "But what was with that part about you trying to kiss her?!"
"To try to prove the Midnight Channel wrong.", Kyle answered, looking as if that was an obvious explanation.
"But from what you also said, she rejected you!", Adam snickered.
"That's right. So, since she rejected me, and I didn't feel sad about it, this proves that the Midnight Channel was wrong about us being soulmates!", Kyle proclaimed.
"Of course, she would reject you, you idiot!", Joey cried out, "Any girl would do the same thing, soulmate or not, if a person they barely interacted with just suddenly leaned in for a kiss!"
"That's right!", Marcus chimed in, "If you truly are soulmates, then a small rejection wouldn't stop you two. In fact, this would only mark the beginning, as you two find yourselves meeting each other more and more. Even if you don't want to see each other, there they are, just around the corner! By then, you tolerate each other's company, but that soon evolves to friendship, then to love! That is how soulmates work!"
"Dude, how much romance anime do you watch?", Kyle asked, "This is real life, you know."
"Besides, I think we're getting off topic here as well.", Joey reminded, "We're here to talk about why we all saw Emily in the Midnight Channel."
"Maybe it's because we all get to marry her in the future?", Adam proposed.
"Hell no! I only have eyes for-!", Joey stopped himself, his face red.
"Eyes for Adriane only, huh?", Kyle finished for him.
"Well… What I meant was…", Joey stammered trying to find his words.
Adam laughed with Kyle, "Dude, your hopeless!"
"Aww, don't worry Joey.", Marcus comforted, "You still have a chance!"
"G-guys!", he protested, though his face was red, "We're getting off track here!"
Unfortunately, they couldn't get back on topic in the end, as they just spent the next hour making fun of each other. By then, the some of the girls in the group had taken a break from shopping and had returned to the food court.
"Great, more boys!", Heather complained, as she sat down in a nearby table while dropping off bags of clothes. Next to her, Tiffany, Kara, and Adriane had also taken a seat with their own bags full of clothes. Seeing that his crush was there, Joey suddenly took interest in his chili fries.
"Dammit Kyle.", Kara groaned, "Did you really have to bring in your friends?"
"Hey, they came here on their own.", her brother defended himself.
"Sorry if we're bothering you!", Marcus apologized, "But we decided to have a little guy-to-guy talk here."
"Well, at least someone is decent.", Heather huffed, before getting up from her seat, "I'm going to get something to eat."
"Oh, me too!", Tiffany chimed in, following her.
"Hey, where's Emily and Molly?", Kyle asked, looking around for the two girls.
"Molly accidently cut her hand with a broken hanger.", Kara explained, "So Emily took her to the Pharmacy for some bandages."
"Hey, that sounds familiar.", Adam joked, while nudging Kyle with his elbow.
Adriane and Kara caught this and glared at the sandy-haired teen.
"So, Kyle… What was this guy-to-guy talk you were all talking about?", she asked, her cool gaze freezing the group of boys, "Are you telling something that you shouldn't?"
"Me? Naw…", Kyle sweated and glanced at his friends for confirmation.
"Yeah, we don't know what your talking about!", Joey added.
"You sure?", Adriane growled, switching her gaze to Adam.
The teen nodded vigorously, "Yeah, man. I was just mentioning… Me accidently cutting my hand as well! There were looooots of blood everywhere that even Kyle passed out!"
"What's going on here?", Molly's voice popped up. The whole group looked to find her and Emily standing a few feet away.
"Nothing.", Kara and Adriane answered, nonchalantly, as their murderous intent disappeared when their healer returned. Just then, Heather and Tiffany also returned, and the atmosphere returned to normal.
The whole shopping day ended with no other incident, with Kara's old friends taking their clothes home and the other girls heading for Ravenswood. As for the boys, they decided to head to Kyle's home to play some games. Recently, they discovered that the creator of their favorite MMORPG, Oak Story, had created another game called Oak Story 2. While the titles are similar, the gameplay and story were completely different from the original. They had recently downloaded it into their laptops and were creating their characters.
"Hey, what character are you choosing?", Marcus asked, "I'm going for the Knight!"
"Typical.", Joey remarked, "I'm just taking the Archer class like before."
"Dude, all those classes are lame!", Adam chimed in, "The Heavy Shooter sound more fun than those two."
"Agh! I was wanting to try that!", Kyle complained, "Eh, I'll just choose Berserker then…"
"Hehe, too slow!", Adam stuck his tongue out.
"What should be our character's names then? Want it to be like last time?", Marcus proposed.
"No way! We made them in early middle school!", Joey protested, "Let's choose some cooler names!"
"Like what?", Adam asked.
"Let's just use our chat nicknames to be simple.", Marcus offered.
Not seeing much of a problem with it, the group finished creating their characters and was soon booted into the new gaming world. From there, they immediately met up with each other, created their guild, and began their monster hunting.
"Agh! Hey Joey, there are still too much slimes on my side!", Kyle complained, as his character was starting to get swarmed with enemies.
"Here, let me cast shield- Woah!", Marcus tried to help, but more monsters appeared on the map and began to attack the group, "Joey! Adam!"
"I'm coming but my arrows are only killing so much!", Joey answered.
"Why did we come to a higher leveled area?!", Adam complained, as he tried to blow bullets through the mob in front of his character.
"So, we could level up faster?", Kyle offered.
"Crap, I'm running low on health!", Marcus panicked, "Does anyone have potions?!"
"I do, just let me get to you!" Joey called out, however, there was a mob of slimes currently in between them.
"Agh, just retreat!", Kyle ordered, "This is too much for us!"
The group then did a tactical retreat, though not before the slimes dealt a little more damage to them. They then entered a town, safe from any monsters from attacking them.
"Damn… That was harder than I expected…", Adam sighed.
"Yeah, let's not go to any higher-level areas anymore…", Joey proposed.
"Though it would at least be helpful if we were able to help heal each other.", Marcus pointed out, "I was nearly killed, and Joey couldn't hand me any potions because of the distance between us."
"Are you suggesting that we get a healer in our team?", Kyle asked.
"It would be very helpful for us in tougher areas.", he explained.
"True, but I don't want to have a stranger in our team…", Adam remarked.
"You want someone in school to play with us? Is that what your asking?", Joey asked.
"Hmmm… Well…"
"Whatever let's just log off and take a break.", Kyle proposed, already logging out from his account. The others slowly agreed, as they closed their own computers and got up to stretch. As they did, they heard the front door open and the sound of girls talking downstairs.