Do My Calculations

Yes, we've had to do a particular novel theme study in English class for this semester. Meanwhile, here's something between study-breaks that I need to come up with.
I do not own Dante, Vergil, Sparda, Eva or anything else in DMC. I just own a copy of one of the games and play like a freak.

Entry Fourteen: Unusual Lunch

Vergil and Dante pooled their allowances for the purchase of a book they can use for a longer time. It was not that Dante would use it much, but Vergil would.

Nay would have had the book to herself regardless of whether they paid for it or if she used her own allowance.
The book was addictive.

Dante has invited Nevan to the event Freshie Night 2. Vergil would not go again even if the former had pleaded; judging by the sample of music played in the cafeteria at the booth where FN2 tickets can be bought, it will be as much a bore as the last one to him.
According to Nay, as long as there is no live band performing, she will not go.
Brian – although he had gotten over how he had to repeat a subject of his first semester – did not bother asking any staff member or function organizer whether or not he and his friends can bring the crowd to a moshing fit. Perhaps the prude adults will demand that the five wear semi-formal clothing, but none of them are fans of crisp cotton or itchy polo shirts. Maybe Zack or Jimmy would tolerate cotton, but John and Matt would sooner swallow chocolate bars whole than wear shirts with vests.
They are also somewhat too attached to their 'I-don't-give-a-shit' fashion statements to attend this fest six months after it just happened.

"Shall we attend the occasion, brother?"
The accent in that voice made even the hardest-concentrating reader there frown and look up.
"I think it would be entertaining, Agni."
Those near-identical voices were considerably deep for young adults, but the two clearly possessed the look of international students from the July Intake of their foundation year program.

"It's her," Agni exclaimed with surprise at seeing the short student reading a book with a dark cover.
"Aren't you from our Globalization class?" the more authoritative of the lookalike brothers questioned Nay.
"I think so," she replied shortly, hoping this would not interrupt her reading for long.

Vergil found intrigue in the two who can talk to strangers so easily. "Are you twins?" he asked just for the sake of curiosity.
"We are," the two spoke in unison. "I am Rudra, and this is Agni. We're from India."
"Is this your boyfriend?" Agni asked Nay.

He would have praised the more youthful-looking boy's nerve if he had not been peeved at that, despite that the question was not posed to him.
Nay, on the other hand, just frowned again and shook her head silently. She liked to talk of it as much as Vergil did, which was hardly ever brought up under even the most boring of circumstances.
"No; he's my house-neighbor and he has a twin brother, you see. Now, that twin brother has a girlfriend. I heard you're going to the Freshie Night event."
"Yes." "We are." Agni and Rudra spoke respectively. "Will we run into them there?" Agni asked.
"I'm sure you will," she responded, rolling her eyes. She was glad to return to the excitement of the book when the brothers left.

"They're sure annoying."
"You're telling me."

While they knew Dante seemed doubtless in attending this Freshie Night on Thursday without Vergil's accompaniment, he seemed to always look to them for tips in dealing with Nevan. It is true then, what Vergil said about his treatment of commitment as something new, and having Nay around helps Dante understand some women better.
Some. Not all.

Lunch with Dante had become less than a regular thing nowadays, so when he did join them for lunch, he contributed to the initiations of conversations.
"I used to think falling in love is for people who wanted boring lives," he remarked, but did not emphasize on how boring his two tablemates were. "But there's this feeling I had after meeting and knowing her, and I feel – she's worth it, Verge. I mean, she's worth giving a shot at."
'You mean that she won't give you a big opportunity cost even if you broke up with her,' Nay thought those cold words, but neither of them listened.

They can sense, though, that she had suddenly gone still while staring at her plate of fish-and-chips. The dish of the cafeteria is normally served as a slab of fried fish meat, a bunch of French fries with a quarter of them burnt from overcooking, a little cup of tartar sauce and a lump of vegetables in a nonexistent corner of the plate. It was the corner of a cabbage leaf she stared at, focusing on a dark, moving tendril that crawled and snaked on the green surface that faded around the edges.

"What's that?" Dante asked sounding a little disgusted himself.
She kept the small remainder of her fish away from the vegetables and used one stick of potato to shove the crawly thing off the plate, but it ended up being cut into two. The shorter part also began moving. They will probably multiply if left alive for too long.
"It's a worm," Vergil stated, gulping; he had never seen worms on plates his whole life, and this scene is close enough to make him sick.

It amazed the two how she could still eat the rest of the fish-meat calmly while something so considered 'gross' by girls stared at her. Her heart pounded, but she tried not to panic. She grabbed a different potato stick – one that has not yet touched the worm – and dipped it into hot-sauce. She always had hot chili sauce with meat or nachos.
She then dabbed the sauce-wet potato stick on both worm-halves regardless of which was longer. After some unmeasured seconds, both strings lay still.
Nay pushed the plate away from her. Dante stood up to take a closer look at the worm and see if it was truly dead.

"Well… I've got to go meet Nevan now… at the library…" The taken Sparda twin bowed awkwardly to mark his leave.
Vergil had half the mind to throw the plate and let it fly like a saucer, but the need to keep his cool had him set it carefully on another table.

"Hello, you two," a familiar tingling melodic voice greeted them.
"Hello, Nevan," Vergil replied, trying not to glance at the plate on which a worm died of cell-killing chili sauce.

"Dante just left earlier. He said he's going to meet you at the library," Nay told her.
"You mean that he didn't know that I know there's a Northern Building entrance for the library?" She seemed genuinely taken aback.
"No matter; even if he had left, you will do just as fine."

"What?" Vergil was confident she was talking to him and not Nay.
Nevan suddenly took his hand in hers, pulling in a coercing way to make him stand up and follow her. "You are willing to spend time with me, aren't you? I mean, provided that you don't have anyone else to be with, or talk to, or…"
"He's single," Nay yawned as she packs her hot-sauce bottle into her bag. Class may be resuming in fifteen minutes, but it is still less than half an hour.
It was an abrupt thing for Nevan to have pulled him to her like that. There is something dangerous about her, and Vergil did not like it one bit. He still had to withdraw from her without hurting either Nevan or Dante, however.

"No, I'm not single. We're not," he said, hoping he did not pull out his hand from hers too quickly.
"What?" Nay was caught by surprise at this sudden act of defense.
"I mean, she and I go out – stuff like that."
"I see," Nevan stated, "then I should not be interfering in your business. There's no shame in being in a relationship, though," she added before leaving with a nod to Nay.

The two began walking off to class in silence. Nay did not display any expression about Vergil's suspicions and his sudden staging of his and her relationship towards each other. She still made a disturbing remark saying "I'll need more than a worm to get out of this mess."

Bonus: The Blame Train – Leader's Burden

According to John, Jimmy is the evil genius of their bunch, so Nay, Dante, Vergil, Agni and Rudra aimed to test it out.
"Excuse me, Jim?" Dante asked the tall fellow.
"Ah, you are the sir of sirs. What can I do for you, sir yes sir?" Jimmy asked in his casual, eccentric manner.
"Is it true that you are the one among the five of you guys who leads the team?"
"D'oh, that's ridiculous," Jimmy pronounced the last syllable like 'lose'. "If anyone is a secret leader of our team, it's Zack."

Agni found Zack browsing collections upon collections of notebooks, pens and mechanical pencils in the stationery store.
When asked if he leads the five, he answered: "I'm sorry, but you got the wrong guy. I'm smart and clean and all, but if you seek the organizer among us, that shall be Brian."

Brian was at wit's end when deciding between buying a Coke and buying a grape soda. Now strawberry started to look good.
"Hey, girlie. Don't spare me your sympathy," he said as a reminder that he had failed a paper badly and needed to repeat the subject.
"We're in the same boat," she affirmed, taking an apple soda for a change. "I wish there were watermelon soda."
His face split into a grin at that idea. "If you go in business, you'd start that, won't you?"
"I don't have the kind of drive an entrepreneur does. What about you?"
He looked at her blankly.
"To put it plainly: are you the official leader of your gang?" she asked.
"You guys see me as leader pretty easily, but I tell you, Matt is the guy we looked for when we're up for throwing parties."

So off goes Rudra to meet this Matt in person. He did not look the type of one who throws parties, but attitude has always saved his bones.
"I'm here to ask if you are the clandestine ringleader among your friends."
Matt looked to the right and left, and then rolled his eyes. "Power isn't necessary brains or brawn. Power sometimes comes when you got inside information on your rivals or enemies. That's what we got John for."
"John is your ringleader, then?"
"Go talk to him and you'll find out."

"Ouch!"
Kester and John collided into each other for the reason that Kester had his nose in the short novel he had to read while John was distracted by a distant laughter.
"I'm fine." "We both are." The two insisted so when Vergil was about to help them up.
"Yo, Verge; how's reading the theme study book going?" Kester asked.
"I've gone halfway through."
While Kester left, John was to stay back awhile because the half-demon wanted to speak to him. "Do you recall our chats of evil?"
"Yeah – I told you Jimmy's the evil mastermind among us and you don't have to ask me if I am because I'm too short to be leader."
'Did he really know we had a joint plan to ask that in the first place?' Vergil wondered, smoothing back flyaway hair near his forehead.

The book mentioned was 'The Outsiders', and readers of the book would be familiar with it.
As for Agni and Rudra's appearance here as human twin brothers… I needn't say much.