Alright guys, here is the final chapter before the start of the next arc. I'll try and get it done this weekend but of course no promises. Hope you all enjoy!
Purpose of a Hero
Some time passed as Kira and Andi were left on their own, the owner of the bedroom nowhere to be seen. As they started noticing more things in Melody's bedroom than they did before, they realize how cramped it must've been for both Nathan and her to share a bed together when they were small, or how uncomfortable it must have been to study in a desk that was just barely large enough to leave space for her knees, or how her room window was practically looking at another building, not giving the room enough light even with the hanging lamp on. Even to them, the state of the room itself began to feel like they were confining the girls every second in silence. "Five bucks says you can't get Mondronen to sit on the floor with a slice of pizza," Kira said to Andi out of boredom.
"Make that ten," The latter replied with confidence. And before they knew it, the bedroom door swung open slowly, creaking as it did. A figure stood just in front of them, coming into view under the shine of the hanging light. Both Kira and Andi expected that Melody had returned, but their mouths dropped immediately at the sight of her.
"So, what do you guys think?" The redhead said.
"What do we—" Kira stopped mid-sentence before shaking her head, trying to make sure she wasn't seeing wrong, "Wow… I mean, yeah, I guess Andi was right…"
"Really? It's a little big in certain areas," Melody said again.
"It's… Well, it definitely needs some fixes in certain areas…" Andi said, nodding albeit slowly and rather unsurely. She wasn't lying, Melody could definitely feel a lot of space in her chest area. When she looked down, eyeing the aquamarine blue lines that stopped right under her ribcage, encircling the large blue teardrop insignia, she realized the small wrinkles that build up just underneath her bust. She shook her hands, having them covered with large hems of sleeves, watching the small frilled ends shake in response.
"Hmm… I really dig the material a lot," Melody mused, "Feels like something from a scuba diving suit but more… comfortable."
"Yeah…" Kira awkwardly responded, "Not to be rude or anything, but I think that design could only fit your mo—I mean… Teardrop."
"Beggars can't be choosers, Kira," Melody chastised with a rather sour expression, "Not every hero uses the same costume."
"I think it's less of the design and more of the… Uhhh…" Andi told her with the same amount of odd discomfiture towards the redhead. Then, the shorter girl gestured to her chest. More specifically; her breasts. When Melody looked down again, she realized what they were talking about: the v-neck of Teardrop's jumpsuit was a better fit for a bigger bust, as it would be too low for something otherwise. And in Melody's case, she was definitely showing way more of herself than she wanted too. So that was why they seemed so uncomfortable looking at her.
"… I think I might've not thought of this through," Melody said to herself, feeling a rising blush on her cheeks.
"D-don't worry about it! You look better than I expected," Kira reassured her, joyfully clapping her hands in conviction, "Oh, and, besides, you still haven't worn the accessories!"
The pyromancer then picked up two boots and a pair of gloves, while some of her fingers squeezed in the little face mask and offered all of them to Melody with a smile full of eagerness. Melody glanced at Andi, who was also seemingly keen into seeing her wear her mother's accessory. Without much thinking, Melody sighed in defeat, reaching out to grab the boots, gloves, and mask. It didn't take her long to remove her shoes and exchanged them for the boots, while she fitted in the gloves on her hands and placed the mask over her eyes. In an instant, she definitely felt the difference. It was as if a breeze flowed through her body. Her skin was kept cool by some sort of circulating system, even her boots felt light.
"Woah," She breathed out, looking at her left and right hands over and over again, "Trippy."
"Damn," Said Kira as got off from the bed and approached the redhead with ecstatic joy splattered on her face, "You look really good in those! It really fits you!"
"Minus the breasts, of course," Andi chirped. When Kira gave another disbelieved stare, Andi merely shrugged, "What? It's true."
"Okay, let's not talk about my boobs for the rest of the day," Melody deadpanned, staring blankly at both Andi and Kira through her mask. However, if she could be honest with herself, she felt happy. Almost as if she had found the fulfillment that she had been looking for. She couldn't stop looking at herself from checking every nook and cranny that her eyes could find. So, this was how her mother felt while superheroing? A small grin formed on her lips. She stared at the palm of her hands in some sort of trance before something flashed across her eyes… "Ah!" Melody yelled under her breath, pulling back her head in shock.
Kira noticed her sudden yelp and immediately went in to close their distance with worry etched across her face, completely taking over the joy that she had earlier. "Hey! What's wrong, Mel?"
Andi also stood up, she walked over to her friends seemingly trying to find whatever had made Melody shriek like that. "Nothing… Nothing…" Melody said in between her panting, her eyes still affixed to her palms. Almost as if she was checking if there was anything wrong with her hands.
"Is it your hands? What happened, Melody?" Andi squeaked in distress, placing her hand on her friend's shoulder.
As Melody calmed down, she faced them. Her face seemingly overridden with sweat. "I… I thought I saw… I thought I saw blood all over my hands…"
There was an awful silence that overcame them. "B-blood, Mel?" Kira asked, "Are you sure?"
The girl in question couldn't even explain it. The surge was too quick for her to experience again. That brief flash, like a dark omen in her vision, took her by surprise. For less than a second, she could've sworn that she had seen blood everywhere, but she could feel it the most on the palm of her hands. Every skin that was touched by the gloves were cold and cramped like they were being held by unseen phantoms. What's worse… she could clearly remember that cold disgusting red liquid was being seeped in, not pouring out.
"What am I doing…?" Melody managed to breathe out, still looking down at her hands in apparent fear and disgust, "I shouldn't be doing this…"
"Wha—what are you talking about?!" Kira raised her voice, putting another hand on her shoulder, "If you want to change now, it's not too—"
"No, you don't understand," The redhead lowly snarled. That fierce intensity wasn't like Melody to just spout out, out of nowhere, making Kira reel back in alert. "I thought that I could… Ah, who am I kidding…?"
"It's okay, Melody. Talk to us," Andi reassured her again, seemingly standing her ground unfazed by her friend's sudden change in nature. Melody herself seemed to calm down, slowly glancing back and forth at herself and her friends.
"I… I thought that I could look like my mom when I wear this, but… I just get reminded of her death." Thousands and thousands of emotions were pulling down her heart, suffocating her chest with excruciating pain. It was as if her body was refusing her to speak to her friends, perhaps out of complete fear or pure spite towards herself. She knew that it could as well be a part of those two. Her head was wrapped with foggy headaches like thunderstorms raining nails, forcing her to remove her mask even though she knew that it wouldn't help one bit. "I wanted to be better…" She continued the moment she got the strength to keep herself stable, "Better than who I am right now. I thought… I thought wearing this could at least get me to look like what I want to be: so that I could look like my own mother… But every time I even try to think about it, I keep getting reminded that she isn't here anymore. And I'm just fooling myself trying to act like who I am not…" Both Kira and Andi exchanged glances, unable to foster any words out of their mouths.
"I'm just… sick of having to be 'Crybaby' all the time…" Melody said under her breath, almost pleading, "I know Clara is like that to everyone. I get it! But at the same time, I-I… I can't shake the feeling that she's right… A-and when I think about how my dad could've heard it… how he'd hear me saying that to myself… I couldn't bear—"
Her voice was silenced when a fourth voice entered.
"Melly…?" The three girls instantly turned their heads towards the end of the stairway, their hearts caught in each of their respective throats as their face flushed into a complete paleness. There stood a tall, lofty man in red hair, wearing an apron over his tubby stomach. One of his hands grasped the steel railing of the stairs, while the other held a folded apron. When the girls slowly looked at his face, they knew it would be less than what they would hope. "Dear God, Melody…" Carlyle mumbled again.
"Dad…" Melody whispered the same, unable to look at him directly. But she knew what he was most likely shocked about, "Sorry… I… I took this without permission. I'll just—" But then Melody—and her two friends beside her—were immediately met with an unspeakable amount of confusion and surprise when the towering redheaded man ran over to his daughter and hugged her tightly in his arms. They couldn't even remember how fast he must've walked to get here, just so he could scream out at the top of his lungs.
"OHHH MY DEAR MELODY'S ALL GROWN UP!" Carlyle boomed in joy. There was a little squeakiness to his voice as he kept embracing his daughter while twirling her in his arms, "I CAN'T BELIEVE IT! IT FITS YOU SO NICELY, MY SWEET! OHHHH YOU LOOK EXACTLY LIKE YOUR MOTHER, MY DEAR MELLY! OH, MY SWEETEST DAUGHTER MELODY IS NOW BIG ENOUGH TO FIT IN HER MOTHER'S FOOTSTEPS! I'M SO PROUD OF YOU! I'M SO PROUD OF YOU!"
Melody wasn't given enough time in her position to think straight. She seemed to have forgotten whatever she was thinking of saying before this. "Dad… okay… I… Dad!... DAD, LET ME DOWN!"
Carlyle stopped after a few more twirls, as per Melody's orders, before letting her go completely. But he wasn't done just yet, as he still had his whole face split into an abnormally joyous smile. "Oh, my sweet! How I've waited for this day! Okay! Okay! You stand there and don't move while I—"
"Wait, wait, wait…" Melody raised her voice just to match his. A few seconds passed as she slowly regained enough balance to stand on her own two feet and asked; "You're not… angry?"
"Angry? Why would I be angry!?" Carlyle asked back in incredulity, "I put your mother's costume in your toy box when I promised that you'd someday use it, remember?"
'Of course!' Melody screamed inside her own mind, 'That leather chest used to be a toybox, so that's why there were so many of Nathan's stupid little scratching posts!' Both Kira and Andi approached the two with the same unbelievably bewildered expressions. While Melody was still trying to dig through her memories to see if there was anything that she left out that Carlyle might remember. She looked back at her dad with an addled expression and slowly said, "So… the time I last saw this costume was…"
"Yep! When I accidentally burned your mom's trophy shelf, which at the time had this costume on display, while cooking dinner!" Carlyle said with a hearty laugh, reminiscing back to his past memories, "You were so worried at the time and begged me to store it in your room!"
"… I did that?" Melody muttered under her breath. A second paused, then another, and another. Melody was in her thoughts again, seemingly still refusing to believe that anything like what Carlyle had explained was her doing. Kira and Andi could see her face darkening again, and almost immediately that they began to worry. But then Carlyle placed a hand on her shoulder, then her cheek, and lifted her by the chin.
"You were just four at the time… and we just got better from going to your mom's funeral. But I guess… you were still clinging on to her, even months after. Seeing how you were still too small to understand how to let go while your entire life is surrounded by Harmony's greatness…. I did my best to father you on my own, but I knew I didn't do my best because you were still trying to find—even now you still are! —some way to replace what used to be your mother figure…"
The more she listened, the more she felt like she was taken back to the old days, where she had just got the news that Teardrop was killed by her own sidekick. The more she listened, the more she realized how very naïve she must've been to wish that there must be some way she could repay her mother's debts to the world. Even now she knew that, unconsciously, that was what she was doing. She had gotten so worked up over not being able to do anything, angry because someone else had insulted her bloodline, all because she thought she was the replacement of Teardrop.
"Hehe… I couldn't hold myself back when I saw you in that suit," Carlyle sheepishly said, "Because I knew in time you could be a great hero just like your mother. Maybe even better! I'm still waiting for the time where you can prove that you're a great hero all by yourself!"
Melody said nothing. She awkwardly glanced straight ahead at her father before looking down at the floor, her expression seemingly unchanging, making her thoughts hard to read. Even her two friends were wondering what she could possibly be wondering at this moment. But the two decided not to say anything either because regardless of what just happened, they were still worried. It was then that Carlyle straightened his back and laughed again, "Well, I better pull out those pizzas from the ovens! Can't leave the customers waiting with their stomachs growling! You kids should come down anytime soon. Oh, and, if you want to join me, I'm getting ready to take out some of the pizzas out of the oven, and cook the rest…"
He held out his hand and presented a clean white apron, seemingly just her size. Without saying anything, his daughter accepted it, before Carlyle gave Melody one last forehead kiss and ruffled her hair before jogging down towards the stairs. "Love you, my Melly dear! Just wear that costume when you go down!" He shouted at the top of his lungs just as he disappeared. Andi and Kira's eyes were affixed to the towering man, seemingly still bewildered by how energetically joyous he was at the presence of his own daughter. The both of them then averted their eyes to Melody at the same time, who was, again, still silent. This time, however, she was looking at the hand that held the apron, her expression hidden from behind.
"You… uhh… you okay?" Kira said, tapping on the redhead's shoulder.
"Yeah," The answer was almost instant. It seemed like Melody wasn't thinking, after all. Or she might be out of her trance for now, "I guess I got weird over nothing."
When Kira and Andi walked up beside her, they saw a soft smile gleaming under the dim afternoon light that broke through the windows of the living room. For a second, the antennae girl could see her chuckling to herself while still staring at her apron, just enough to be softly heard in the silence around them. Taking another look at her own gloves, Melody saw… nothing out of the ordinary. It was just a matching colored light green glove. She could still feel the warmth surging all over her after Carlyle had embraced her tightly as if taking away all of her initial worries. The overwhelming coldness, the unbearable sting in her head, and the blood on her hands were all gone.
"Hey, umm…" Kira started, "Sorry for forcing you to wear those."
"Yeah, no, it's okay," Melody reassured her, "Look, gimme some time to get out of this getup. Don't want to wear this to the table, after all. Besides, I still got to take out the greasy pizzas out of the ovens."
"Alright," Andi smiled, "So, meet you downstairs?"
"Oh! Let me help with the pizzas!" Kira enthusiastically said. Helping Melody was what she came to do, after all.
Andi chuckled at that, "Don't worry, Mel. I'll keep an eye in case Kira starts burning the spoons and forks."
"Oi," Said the pyromaniac in annoyance.
"Thanks, guys," Melody said to them with a smile, interjecting their conversation, "I must've looked really embarrassing, wailing in front of you guys like that."
"Hey, it's okay!" Kira patted her on her shoulder, "I should've realized sooner that things were weighing you. I could've done more than just cry non-stop on your shoulder this morning."
"I mean. In hindsight, Kira admitted that she cried more than you did," Said Andi, hiding her snort as she turned her head away. But the second that she did, Kira quickly pulled her long antennae ears without her noticing. And immediately yelped in pain, regretting her decisions, "Ow! Ow! Ow! Not the ears! I'm sorry! I'll stop!"
Melody couldn't be happier to live in that moment, knowing both her friends saw her as Melody Halloway, not Teardrop. Of course, having been the one that supposedly became Kira's shoulder to cry on, she couldn't help but feel that perhaps she had been. She was unsure, she wouldn't deny that. But to know that the reason she had forgotten a lot of important things in her childhood was that she had refused to look at herself further than the reach of her mother's legacy made her realize something.
Like her father had told her, Teardrop used to be such a pivotal point in her life that she had forgotten the most important thing to remember after she died: that she was her mother's kid, not Harmony herself. That meant she had her own life to fulfill; her own purpose. And even if she knew how important it was to remember Teardrop's legacy, what mattered was how she would learn from it. "We'll always be here for you, girl," Kira nodded exaggeratingly, seemingly satisfied with herself, "Alright, then! We'll go down first and wait for you there."
"Sounds good to me," Melody nodded, "Again, sorry for making a big fuss."
"Don't worry about it," Andi told her, smiling, "Just make sure that you cook the best dang pizza when you get down."
"Of course, I will," Melody said, "Clara betted that I couldn't make something decent, after all. I'm more than willing to shove her words into her own mouth and make her eat that."
"Just don't take your time with Nathan too long, got that?" Kira teased.
The redhead only rolled her eyes, "Yeah, yeah, whatever. Now get out before I kick you downstairs. Don't forget to take the spoons and forks with you."
Both Andi and Kira bid her friend goodbye. Seemingly satisfied with themselves. For the two, as they walked downstairs together, it was as if they could breathe a sigh of relief. And for Melody was the fact that she had rediscovered something about herself, and was happy to know that she could be better after all. It was like that fight she had with Clara on the rooftops, and she needed to be reminded yet again that it took more than a parent's status to make a hero. Returning back to the kitchen after changing back to her usual attire, having realized Kira and Andi would have probably already gone back to rejoin their friends, she was met with Nathan again. He came up just in time as she got down from the stairs, turning to the corner of the stairwell and finding him washing his hands. The half-leopard boy perked his head up. Melody knew if he had cat ears, they would stand straight. "Back already?" He asked his childhood friend
Melody scratched the back of her head, "Yeah. Are Kira and Andi outside?"
"Yep. Just took the drinks with them," Nathan said, turning off the faucet of the large sink, "Anthony's cooking the last two big ones with your dad. I assume he wanted you to help?"
Looking at the folded apron on her hands, it was clear that he was referencing to that, "Yeah. The large pepperoni, right?"
"Yep."
"Cool," The redhead said in return, before realizing something, "Wait, what do you mean 'back already'?"
The instant she had asked that question, Nathan was already approaching towards her while drying his hands on a piece of cloth. "Well, I assumed you'd take your time enjoying yourself longer, considering how much fun I've seen you had playing dress-up," He said with a smirk. Before Melody could comprehend her shock and ask him how he could've known, Nathan reached his hand into the front pocket of his white apron and pulled out a smartphone. As he placed it in front of her eyes, she was met with a photo of herself in Teardrop's suit, taken from the gaps of the railings from the stairway. Immediately, her face became flustered completely, before shrieking into the air.
"UWAAAAH! NATHAN YOU IDIOT!"
"Woah! Hey! Haha! Chill! Chill!" Said the feline-boy as he was fighting the redhead's punches. He should've thought twice before taunting her before because he almost forgot how strong Melody was, and how ruthless she could become. Just from holding her back as she tugged at his collar, he could already feel himself facing some kind of rabid uncontrollable wild animal.
"IF I DON'T SEE THAT DELETED IN THE NEXT TEN SECONDS, I SWEAR TO GOD, NATHAN, I'M GONNA—"
"W-why?! I don't think you look bad at all!" Nathan tried pleading as she was beginning to suffocate him from her weight pressing down on his chest alone.
"I don't care! Just give me the damn phone!" Her hand was reaching out past his ear, trying to grasp the phone that he held.
Nathan outmaneuvered here by tucking his tail and retreated back a few steps, still apparently trying to calm her down, "Hey! Whoa! I'm not kidding, you know! I mean, obviously, I've been curious if you'd look like your mom at all!"
"What?" Melody said in confusion, stopping her attacks.
Nathan gave a rather awkward shrug as if he had just realized how embarrassing it might've been for him to say that, "Weeeell… Considering, how you'd always look up to your mom, I would've thought you'd try putting on her cape sooner or later…" Hearing that, the redhead slowly hung her head. "Is that really how everyone pictured me?" She thought to herself. "But honestly…" Nathan then began hiding his face, "You'd look better as your own hero."
Melody looked up, wondering if she had just heard right. She was always the first one to know what Nathan would say at times like this, and she would've definitely expected him to start getting cocky, most likely trying to find a way to playfully blackmail her with the picture that he had just taken. Even if she knew that he wasn't actually being serious, it was also very annoying of him; and Melody knew how Nathan would just love to annoy her. "I mean, I know how great it'd sound like if you'd become Teardrop 2.0, but honestly, I think the suit would just give the current Melody Halloway a little spice," He commented, seemingly drifting off into thought. God knew what he was picturing about when he snapped out of it a second later, "Anyways, if it wasn't for your red hair, you'd look exactly like her."
She didn't know why, but she felt like something had suddenly started flying around in her stomach. Probably because she needed reassurance from someone who knew her better than the others, other than her dad, of course. But deep inside she knew it might be something else. The redhead would almost call him 'sweet'. "You're such an idiot, you know that?" Melody sighed in defeat, "If I see that photo on anyone else's phone I'm gonna beat you up with it."
"Oof, so quick with the threats," Nathan winced in response, "I take back what I said about you being hero material."
"Like you're any different, pervert," She scoffed, leaving the leopard hybrid a figure frozen from shock at what he had just heard, "So, are you going to help taking out the rest of the food, too, or what?"
"Well… I was thinking I should leave it to you," Said Nathan, watching her unfold her apron and putting it on.
"Right. Well, man the tables, then. See if there are any more customers coming." And with that she began reaching up to her hair, tying it with a rubber band that she had found inside the front pocket of her apron. She let go of her ponytail, shaking her head briefly to make sure that it stood in place, before jabbing Nathan sharply on the side of his torso as she strode past him.
The human cat surely had expected that, but he knew it was his fault for taking the picture anyway. "Could've been more subtle…" He groaned in pain.
He's right. She should be more subtle. This was a story about everyone, not just hers or even her mother's. Even if she had wanted it to be. When Carlyle spoke to her; when he had shown the smallest amount of sadness reminiscing about the months he had wasted taking care of her with Harmony gone, Melody realized just how very insignificant the role of Teardrop's greatness had in her life. Granted, being circled around by people who were once a respected colleague of Harmony's, she had to be reminded of it every single day. However, it had somehow stopped bothering her when her childhood friend told her of how he had actually felt when looking at her. Subtlety; because not everything had to rage against the dying of the light. "H-hey… Here's the pepperoni you guys ordered," A stuttering Anthony said when he noticed Melody coming up to him while he was preparing to take out a still-hot pizza out of the fire from the oven, "Careful… Use mittens if you must…"
"Sorry I couldn't be here earlier, Anthony," Melody said as she helped set up the circular tray for him to place the pizza on, right next to another one which she assumed belonged to the larger table of her party as well.
"O-oh! It's okay, Melody, really," Anthony reassured her, carefully placing the giant pizza peel aside, "Mr. Halloway wouldn't let me shove it all to you, anyways…"
Poor him, Melody thought. She did try to get her father to loosen up a bit on the poor worker, but it seemed like nothing much had changed. Furthermore, she couldn't really do anything to help, either. Anthony was under Carlyle's jurisdiction by default, so any words she had would go against basic non-chain restaurant rules. "ANTHONY!" Then boomed a voice from some other side of the kitchen, "WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU?! WE'VE GOT TWO MORE ORDERS, DAMMIT! HURRY YOUR ASS UP WITH THAT PIZZA BEFORE YOU RUIN ANYTHING ELSE!"
The young adult in question grimaced, but it didn't take him long to regain his posture, "G-guess I have somewhere else to be! Haha… I-is it okay if I leave these to you, Melody?"
"Of course," The redhead immediately responded, already preparing to take the pizza trays to their designated tables, "I can handle these, don't worry."
"T-thank you, Melody," Bowed Anthony before already turning around in a hurry, disappearing out of sight. She steadied her hands and picked up the two heavy trays. While carefully aligning them together, making sure that not one side of her hands was leaning too far, she proceeded to walk towards the exit door. When she got there, she didn't expect to see the dining area to be so lively. Considering how it had been some time since she rejoined her friends, she would've thought that they had gotten to one or more conversations with each other, but instead she was met with the sight of Clara Ramirez with one foot on top of the connected tables while holding Lyon McAllister's throat by the neck and aiming a steel fork at his eye. Nathan had already also seated himself on one of the tables, and he himself seemed extremely taken aback at how the situation had regressed.
"Call me fucking 'easy' again, you little coal-skulled creep! I fucking dare you, bitch!" Said the taller girl in a very rude manner.
"Oh-ho~! You misunderstand me, Clara!" Lyon said in complete cheerfulness even in the brink of being suffocated and castrated, "I never said that you would be easy. On the contrary, you are very difficult! I was just mentioning how you are always very hypocritical of yourself!"
"He's right," Eris Blackwood said with her mouth full of pizza, "You've never cooked anything in your life, have you, Clara?"
"To think she'd order fettuccini and didn't know what it meant," Lyle Wolfsbane muttered to himself, but loud enough for Clara to hear. He then proceeded to give a very condescending smirk, "Haha, imagine if someone else burned the girl's dorm down. She'd just aim for Kazani and Halloway anyways."
Most of the occupants of the table burst out laughing. Even Kira whom Melody didn't expect to be enjoying herself after being reminded that it was her fault that they were eating out. Everyone seemed to be having fun, and the redhead couldn't find anything besides the screaming terror to change her mind otherwise. It was infectious, or so to speak. Because she could feel a small smile rising from her lips. "Here's the pepperoni and Hawaiian," Melody called to the table, placing the two pizza trays with steaming hot pizza on top, "Anything else I can get you, sirs and madams?"
"Yeah!" Shouted a new voice. It was Epiphany the Ghost again, and this time she appeared out of thin air just in front of her host, who was being uncomfortably getting in the way of his salad. "You got anything worthy for the undead?"
"Epi, I'm trying to eat!" Sirius exclaimed as the phantom lied the top of her body on the table, aiming her rear at her host.
"Mel, you're seriously not letting me taste the same disgusting thing he is, do you?"
"I thought you liked plants," Andi asked her from beside the table.
"Honey, plants grow from the corpses of the living," Epiphany said with a grin, "That is to say: I also like to bathe myself in the gory beauty of blood and bile!"
"Yeah, yeah… Just don't say that kind of stuff on the dining table," Melody dismissed her, thinking that it was probably just the ghost's playful self. Besides, why would a ghost need any form of supplements? "You sure you don't want anything else, Sirius?"
"N-no, thank you!" Sirius stammered, suddenly recognizing that his name was mentioned, "I like eating salad!"
"Ugh! That's why you're so short, shrimp!" Pouted Epiphany, before she completely surprised the smaller boy by jumping on his lap and positioning herself sideways with her legs up, and her arms wrapped around his blushing neck. As the others looked away in decency, Melody turned to Kira, who had just nudged her on the side.
"Thanks for letting us eat here," she said. The redhead in question had her eyes widen a bit, before falling into a soft smile. It almost felt like it had been so long since anyone had felt grateful towards her. But alas, Kira wasn't just anyone; she was Melody's best friend.
"Yeah, this is the best pizza I've ever had," Narruk Mondronen commented as he took a slice into his mouth with a satisfied look on his face.
"Probably because dogs aren't allowed to eat fatty foods," Marcus McPherson said, eating his own slice, "Careful, you might upset your stomach."
"Funny," Oliver Ferdinand joined in, "I always thought you were the one with the sensitive stomach after—"
"A-TA-TA-TA! Let's not discuss that here, okay?" Marcus silenced his childhood friend without any hesitation as he smacked his hand over the raven-haired boy's lips. Oliver merely looked at him with blank eyes, seemingly had already expected him to do so. Watching as the table turned into another bickering mess, Melody took a step back, just enough to reach the wall on the opposite side of the table. Watching the scene unfold in front of her just showed her how much more that Harmony didn't have. This was her class, this was her friends, and this was her life. Even without Nathan, she could feel like she had known these people for years.
She was happy. That was what all that mattered to her at this moment. The smile that she gave Kira didn't disappear, it remained stuck on her lips for a little while longer. Every time she breathed, she felt like she was letting go of something that was tightening her chest. She let her arms rest behind her, taking her time enjoying herself on her own.
"Ouch!" All of a sudden, her fingers started to sting.
She lifted her hands, recognizing that familiar pain as if close to something that she thought she had left behind. But just when she thought she had seen the blood draining into the spaces between her fingerprints, there was nothing. Yet, the phantom pain was still there.
When she looked behind her, she saw a decorative potted plant with its prickly leaves were right behind her hands. With a puzzled expression, she left the scene, thinking that she had unexpectedly touched one of the sharp edges. Little did she know that the leaves began to crumble and wither not even a few seconds later…
Purpose of a Hero
Oooooh spooky. Anyway, I hope you guys enjoyed this little mini-arc. May seem unnecessary, but it was some needed character development for Melody. Let's just hop right into the preview!
NEXT TIME ON THE PURPOSE OF A HERO:
Chapter 26: Halloween Festival: Start!