He got very rich all of a sudden last year. Nobody understood why. He spends so much money...

They stared at each other for a second. Then Vash turned back to where Jerome had been standing, but he'd already ran off to wherever he was supposed to be. Maybe they should've given him a proper thank you after all: he'd given them very helpful information without asking for anything in return...

"We need to talk to him," said Matthew, and he didn't mean Jerome.

Sitting in class was awkward. Emma sat right in front of them and it was strange to see her act as if nothing had changed after they knew so much more about her, and what she - no, what B - had planned to do. Interestingly enough, the three Emma's were a lot easier to distinguish now that Vash paid attention to them: he saw Wally giggle with Feliks while Flanny was trying to have a calm conversation with Tim-Govert, and when the teacher asked a question, B raised her hand, while Wally gave Feliks a look that made it clear that she, unlike her sister, had no clue what the answer could be.

Matthew, meanwhile, kept muttering to himself in disbelief. "How could he? How could he, of all people, let someone be forgotten? Didn't he realize how much he could make Gilbert suffer like this? He knows this isn't just some trivial thing. He's seen it happen to me... He's felt it himself before..."

"We will ask him after class," said Vash. "We can't judge before we know the details. Perhaps it wasn't even him. Or perhaps Gilbert did something nasty to him and it was completely justified."

Even more awkward than Emma's presence was the fact that during Vash and Matthew's serious contemplation, Alfred was laughing and shouting as if he didn't have a care in the world. The geography teacher couldn't keep order and she was almost crying from all the chaos. Alfred waved at her, yelling: "Don't cry, Katyusha! You're an amazing person like everybody else! Don't let the students get you down!" It was ridiculous for him to give her this pep talk when he himself was one of the reasons she was on the verge of tears. "This hero will save your..."

He stopped. He'd caught Matthew's eye. His mouth opened slightly, as if he was going to pronounce the letter F, but Vash couldn't hear him speak: in that moment, his voice was softer than Matthew's.

They didn't even have to ask him to come. Immediately after class was over, Alfred followed them to their lunch spot next to the Machine.

"I tried to warn you, Mattie!"

"For what?" said Matthew darkly. "That you're an asshole? That you're a hypocrite?"

"Calm down," said Vash, putting a hand on his friend's shoulder. "Let him explain."

"I... I..." Alfred stuttered. "Wait, how much do you know?"

"Everything," said Matthew.

"We know what you did," said Vash, "and it wasn't stealing cats."

Alfred was still looking at Matthew. "Everything? Like what I did and that I'm a jerk? You're right there: I'm a big-time asshole. But do you know about Emma?" Vash was tempted to ask: Which one?

"About B, you mean? That she wanted to make me disappear in exchange for money that she could use for her club? Yeah, I know that."

Alfred swore and made a face. "That's the most disgusting thing..."

"Then why did you do it?" Matthew demanded, interrupting his brother. "You're the guilty one. You didn't even just think about it: you actually did it. What did you want so much money for: more hamburgers? A new skyscraper?"

"I didn't do it for the money," Alfred said, his voice tensing. "I thought... I thought I was being a hero... when, in fact, I was making myself worse than Emma... Am I a bad guy now? I don't even wanna think about it... But I know one thing," and here he pointed at Vash: "you would've done the same for your sister!"

Matthew blinked. Vash furrowed his eyebrows. What did Lili have to do with anything? He looked at Matthew, as if to ask: Do you have any idea what he's talking about? Matthew blinked again, and then spoke, slowly piecing the puzzle together. "You trapped a guy in the Machine... so that the money and stuff was gone... to prevent Emma's plan from ever happening... so you could save me?"

"I know what it's like to be forgotten," Alfred answered, "and I would never, ever, ever let that happen to my brother, no matter what."

Perhaps he was right in saying Vash would've done the same for his sister. Nevertheless, a preventative strike like that was a stupid thing to do. And why would Alfred know... "Matthew," he asked softly, though probably loud enough that Alfred could hear it, "how would Alfred know what it's like to be forgotten? Isn't he one of the least forgotten people in the entire school?"

But Matthew shook his head. "Yeah, well... he does that on purpose which is kind of the point... You know how you didn't want to make friends until recently? Alfred has a similar thing... He had this best friend when he was little..."

"Let me guess," said Vash sarcastically to Alfred, "he started following you around like a needy duckling and asking for favors constantly?"

"No," said Alfred. "He forgot me. He forgot about me, and then he died."

Vash and Matthew waited silently. They were expecting Alfred to elaborate, to tell them the details of this friendship, and how this could have happened, but they should've known he wasn't the kind of person to tell them things like that.

"His name was Davie," was all he said. "He liked forget-me-nots. Ironic, huh?" And after a painful laugh, he went back to their original conversation: "Anyway, so I was the bad guy. I found Emma's plans, got pissed off, wanted to shoot her dead, but that would cause too much trouble and we can't even have weapons in school so my gun was back at home. But I had to stop them, and the only way I could think of besides killing Emma was to put someone else in the Machine. I couldn't put Emma or one of her friends in, because if the others realized what'd happened, they would kidnap Mattie anyway and throw him in there to get their friend out. So I had to pick someone less popular. And since Gilbert wasn't really... one of us anymore, y'know... I thought... Well, I thought it wouldn't matter. But it did. I chose Gilbert because not many people would miss him and he'd just lie around in there and be forgotten, but that's the whole damn reason it was wrong. Nobody deserves to be forgotten, no matter who or what they are. And there I'd watched myself become the villain. And what's worse, he can die. I killed him. If I was a real hero, I would've thrown my..."

"He's alive," said Matthew.

Alfred blinked, forgetting the end of his sentence and starting somewhere else, pointing his finger at Vash out of the blue: "And now that Mattie was all happy and confident, you had to go and ruin it by letting him find out what they were gonna do to him! Now we gotta start all over, after he'd finally learned to stand up to me... Wait, Mattie, did you say he's alive?"

"We don't have to start anything over," Matthew replied. "Just 'cause some dumb girl made me sad doesn't mean I've lost all my confidence. And yeah, I'm kind of sad right now, but I'm also kind of happy: I gained two friends, or three, or... I don't even know how many. And yeah, Gilbert is alive. He's one of my new friends. He's a bit... unusual, but he's a good kid. We're gonna help him get out of there..."

"Thank god..." said Alfred. "But wait, don't you know... How the hell are you gonna... Oh jeez, what's she doing here?"

Before he had time to guess who she was, Vash felt a pull on his arm, and someone was tugging him away from his friends and Matthew's brother.

"Hi-i!"

"Hi there, Wally," said Vash. He was not amused.

"Hi!" said Wally again, but this time there was some sort of gleam in her eyes and her voice sounded surprised, even touched... She'd let go of his arm. Right. Wally. He had accidentally called her by the correct name, and now she was all impressed. Flanny, meanwhile, waved at him softly, probably hoping he would utter her name as well.

Wally soon recovered from her quiet moment, flipped her hair back, and announced: "Alright, neutral teddycheese! Time to work on our Viking art project!" Oh, great. He'd forgotten about that.

"No Wally," he told her firmly. "I'm busy with my own project right now. We can work on that thing in the weekend."

"Well," whispered Wally, pulling him further away from his friends as her voice changed to the bossy tone of B, "I have good news for your project as well. I found out who stole the cats."

"What?!" How the hell did she figure that out? After all Vash and Matthew's hard work, they still knew nothing, and here B came running up with the answer!

"It was simple, really," B bragged. "All I had to do was ask all my friends: there are twenty-eight of us, so someone must have seen something, I thought. And I was right: Lucija had seen the whole thing happen. She hadn't told anyone until I asked about it, since it would've ruined her image to talk bad of a club member and this might have stood in the way of her admittance..."

"Who is it?" Vash demanded.

"If I tell you, can we join the Wallflower Pact?" asked Wally. Vash let out a hard sigh. What the hell was their problem? And hadn't they told him B was the manipulative one? Wally was clearly just as stubborn.

"Please?" Flanny whispered. "Can we be your friends?" And Flanny, too.

Vash shook his head. "No, Emma. I've told you numerous times that I'm not interested. That goes for all three of you."

"But why?" asked Wally. "I saved your butt from Ludwig, remember! I'm always nice to you!"

"Is it because of B?" asked Flanny.

"Is it because of Matthew?" asked Wally.

"It's obviously his pride," said B to her sisters. "This supposed 'neutral policy' he wants to maintain."

But Vash shook his head again. "No, Emma. It has nothing to do with your faults, nor with B or Matthew or my pride or my neutral policy, which, for your interest, is not the same thing as my pride. It's not even because of the nasty things the three of you agreed to do to my best friend. Since two of you feel bad about having had these thoughts - assuming Wally felt as bad as Flanny did, but was too dim-witted to apologize - and the other one doesn't even remember who Matthew is, and none of you actually did those things, I could forgive you for thinking about them. The reason I don't want to be your friend is much simpler than that. You can't force friendship."

"Hein?" said Wally, which Vash knew was 'huh' in French (though it sounded more like a nasal version of Matthew's 'eh').

"You can't force friendship," Vash repeated. "That's the reason. It happens, or it doesn't. I never wanted to be friends with Matthew, but something clicked between us, and suddenly I had a friend, and I'm glad for that. If we ever get to know each other better, and it turns out we get along, I could give you a chance, but you can't expect me to be friends with you just like that. The more you try to push friendship in my face, the less likely that it will actually happen. It doesn't make a difference how many favors you do for me. Friendship doesn't work like a vending machine: it's not a trade, nor is it 'fair'. So I cannot promise to be your friend, nor can I say that a friendship between us will never happen. I'm sorry to disappoint you."

"But..." Wally was clearly disappointed. "What about the cats? We found out who took the cats!"

"It doesn't matter who took the cats," said Vash. "If necessary, I can figure it out on my own. Stop trying to force a friendship out of me that doesn't exist."