"This was fun!" Mao merrily exclaims with both of her arms in the air once the three beyblading teams finally emerge from inside of the restaurant.

"It's nice to hang with each other outside of the stadium from time to time." Max positively claims while he purposely steps to the left and boldly slides his arm around Audrey's shoulders.

As a response, she merely squeezes his wrist until she was able to remove his arm from around her shoulders.

"So would you and your team hang out with us another time then?" Wenling curiously poses toward the stoic captain of White Tiger X.

Lee merely folds his arms in front of his chest as a visible sign that he ignores the young girl only to receive a rather stern reprimand from his coach, "A beautiful woman is talking to you, Lee."

"Probably," He unwillingly huffs under his breath with his eyes away from Wenling while her face maintains a rather cheerful expression.

"I look forward to it." The brunette teen was excitingly affirming, which was instantly catching Master Tao's ears and thinking, 'Interesting reaction,'

"You three should probably head on back to the dojo. I bet Kai's worried sick about you guys." Hiromi jokingly teases at the bluenette that stands off to her right.

"Pft, as if! His mind is solely focused on blading for this tournament." Takao swiftly downplays the idea that their captain would even bother to worry himself about them.

He then shrugs his shoulders with his hands inside of his jacket pockets before he deliberately adds, "Then again…that's his M.O."

The young teen audibly giggles at the comment while she nods her head in agreement, "Welll...we should be going on ourselves."

"Takao?" The brunette softly calls out to her former teammate, who causally responses with a, "Hm".

She suddenly draws closer to him, gently presses her lips against his cheeks and wishes him a "Good night".

"And thanks again for today," The girl included with her eyes closed and head slightly tilted before she waved him off to rejoin her squad.

Max's question soon cycled through his mind at what just occurred between Hiromi and himself.

"Yo…" The blonde was swiftly catching himself after noticing his friend with a hand against his cheek along with a visible daze expression on his face.

'Something must've happened.' The blue eyed male inwardly assumed after he closely studied his friend's facial expression and stance.

He then cracks a smirk across his face before he gently pats his friend's back and breaks his silence, "Let's head on back."

0000

'What's with this situation?!' Hiro inwardly contemplated to himself about the present topic of conversation being their shared past together.

He briefly closes his eyes, leans his forward against his fingertips and mentally ruminates, 'Did she just say she has feelings for me?'

Meifeng laid her wooden chopstick across the bowl in a horizontal fashion and verbalized, "I know it's a bit of a shock for you…but it's not as if I'm demanding you to take responsibility."

His eyes then widen from shock after he processed the fact that his "date" expected no type of response from him about her confession of romantic feelings toward him.

"It was something that I needed to tell you." She finally reveals the reason behind her sudden confession to him with an unreadable expression on her face.

Her silver hair then droops in front of her face as she slightly bows her head and offers an admission of guilt, "I apologize for ruining our decent outing."

'Okay…is this a prank or something?' The bluenette was fretfully wondering if she was setting him up while a camera crew was actually filming his response and waiting to yell "Gotcha!"

Instead, the young woman physically motions for her coin purse, pops the security clip and accurately produces her portion of their meal.

"It's for being a rude date." Meifeng casually explains while she pushes her chair away from the table and stands to her feet.

'Wait…is she leaving?' The young man privately ponders since her chopsticks rest against the edges of her bowl along with her now empty seat at the table.

"Uhm Mei…" Hiro unknowingly caught himself once her intense gray stare eventually connected with his own pair.

He nervously scratches the nape of his neck, casts his sights away from her when he politely suggests, "Let me at least...walk you back,"

The silver haired woman continued to blankly stare at him as if she inwardly deliberated over the idea until she finally voiced, "I would like that."

The blunette physically nods his head, stands to his feet after he pays for their meal, and removes her portion from the table.

The older Kinoyama was reaching out to grab her hand, dropping the circular coins in the palm of her hand, and stating, "Consider it a truce."

Her gray eyes drifted from the metallic objects in her palm when she notices that he had not quite removed his hand from underneath hers.

This time it was her turn to nod her head as she broke the physical contact and proceeded to head out of the building.

The two traveled in comfortable silence, which was surprisingly natural instead of a rather strained and awkward silence.

Upon their arrival in front of her team's hotel, Meifeng then turns to bow and graciously thanks him for "…listening to me aimlessly reminiscing about their past."

She then politely wished him a "Good night" before she disappeared inside of the lobby.

'I'm an idiot!' Hiro Kinoyama surmises about himself.

0000

"You just might have some good taste in food." Julia sincerely complimented the blonde male after he generously fronted the bill for their two invited guests.

"I can't take all of the credit." Miguel promptly speaks up before he honestly mentions, "I did have a little help though."

Her sights then landed on him as he nervously chuckled with one of his hands at the nape of his neck after he briefly spared his teammate a glance in their direction.

The young woman simply sighs, rests one of her hands on the side of her hip and makes known, "Then I definitely owe you a favor."

An expression of shock was displaying on his face right before he was able to excitingly verbalize, "I look forward to it!"

The brunette physically nodded her head and rotated it until her sights distinguished her twin amongst the other members of Barthez Battalion.

"Let's go, Raul." Julia vocally voices once she signals that she was done with her conversation and casually approaches them.

Raul was shaking his head right before slightly bowing at the waist in order to graciously express gratitude, "Thanks for the dinner."

"Anytime," Mathilda chimed in with a smile, which was returned by the male twin prior to their departure from in front of the restaurant.

Claude was physically folding his arms in front of his chest and blatantly opining, "I still don't like that diabolical twin."

The pink haired teen vocally scoffs at her teammate's rude comment about F Dynasty members.

"You don't but I know somebody that likes one of them." She boldly remarked with a roll of her eyes at the light blue haired male.

0000

Spencer easily balances a wooden toothpick in between his teeth before he honestly admits, "The lil dude from Saint Shields was right about the House special."

"It was actually pretty good." Ian was vocally expressing his opinion while repeatedly tapping his now full stomach with one of his hands.

His sights then scan his comrades' face when he follows up with, "So what's next on the agenda fellas?"

"What time do we have to be at the airport again?" The silver haired teen inquired about their flight's departure time in the morning.

Bryan was providing a simple response to his teammate's inquiry, "Early,"

The shortest member of their group leapt up, roughly tapped the back of the tall teen's back and eagerly encouraged, "Live a little,"

"Yeah, whatever," One of them retorts instead when a familiar image crosses Tala's line of vision as they make their way back to the host hotel.

A group of girls ventured up to the entrance of the hotel when a girl, who was in the far back with curly raven black hair captured his attention.

"My name is Tala by the way," He formally introduces himself to the young lady that sits off to his right, who in turn tells him her name.

"Archimedes"

0000

"Talk about a night!" Audrey was wearily exasperating after aimlessly kicking her boots off one by one in the corner and plopping down on a loveseat.

Her green eyes swiftly cut over to the two brunettes when she inquisitively needles, "Looks like you two were getting pretty chummy at dinner tonight,"

"You're one to talk. Your idol was all over you." Wenling simply refuted after she located a seat on the sofa and crossed her legs at the ankles.

The dirty blonde visibly rolls her eyes before she instantly corrects her teammate's statement, "More like an annoying pest,".

"I can't believe I use to hardcore fan girl over such an egomaniac pain in the neck." The girl audibly grumbled about her naivety towards the male blonde.

A "humph" was emitting from Archimedes while she was casually tossing in, "You've finally discovered your true self, congratulations."

"As if you not did anything stupid before, ice cube," Audrey merely ignores her captain's comment about her "true self".

Her sights then roamed over to the ceiling when she calmly voiced, "I didn't realize it until we were battling them. It was right before the match, he waved and they completely lost it."

"I mean those girls were trampling over each other after jumping over the stands just to get him."

"Max isn't all that bad." Hiromi promptly speaks up in order to defend her friend's reputation.

"He's pretty laidback but works hard to improve his skills. Sure, he's a bit silly and often oversteps his boundaries but he generally means no harm." She provided further defense for Max's personality.

"I guess." The dirty blonde was begrudgingly uttering after briefly glancing at her teammate.

"At least he shows his emotions regardless of the situation." Wenling honestly verbalized with her arms now in front of her chest.

She then was tilting her head upwards before making known, "A few guys should learn a thing or two from Max Tate."

Hiromi inwardly ponders about how she could get the girls to change the topic of their conversation when Archimedes' voice breaks her out of her thoughts.

"Reality bites harder than fantasy. You either deal with it head on or don't even let it bother." She somberly recited with a deadpan expression on her face.

"Besides, it's time we head off to bed. We have an early flight to catch in the morning." The raven haired teen was dutifully reminding about their obligation for tomorrow.

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06.12.18 Major editing edits