Chapter 1: The Detective and The Server/Clerk

A young man wearing a black coat, white t-shirt with a patch pocket, and red sweatpants sits at a table in the corner of the ballroom. His legs bounces up and down anxiously.

His caramel tresses fall over his eyes as he hangs his head down. It's only been an hour and he already wishes he was anywhere but here. Actually, no, he's been wishing that the entire night so far.

So not anything that different from usual, really. He covers his face with the palms of his hands.

'Fuck. Why the hell are they all wearing suits and dresses?! I should've worn one too,' he thinks to himself. Oh, wait, he didn't have one. Neither could he buy a suit even if he wanted to...

'Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Why are they even wearing suits? Who wears a suit to a class reunion!?' Though considering the sample size to his theory, everyone does, apparently. Aside from him, at least.

'Well, not everyone.' Corentin peeks a glance at one particular woman.

She has a standard lobe piercing with a stud, tufts of chestnut hair sticking out from the front of her dark blue beanie with an orange patch. She's wearing a dark blue jacket, white baggy shirt with orange around the neck, jeans, and orange sneakers with white laces.

Corentin looks back at himself. Her clothing was clearly a conscious choice.

His clothes... well, it's comfy. 'The comfiest,' he assures himself. Comfort is greater than style any day!

He sits there for a bit, thoughts stirring in his mind. After a little while, he begins picking at the dirt under his unruly nails, bored. Eventually, he stops caring about the surrounding people, so he pulls out his phone and presses into an Idle game. As he's about to start tapping, a really nice sounding voice makes him jump.

"So... you don't like dressing up either?" He fumbles with his phone, nearly dropping it.

"Oh, sorry, I, ha, I didn't mean to startle you," she says with a slight laugh. He looks up to see who's talking to him after slowly, and carefully, putting his phone away in his pocket.

'What do you know,' he thinks to himself. He nearly lets out a sigh, but catches it and stomps it down his throat to never see the light of day again.

"Uhm, what did you say?" She's pauses for moment. Now, finally paying attention and up close to her, he manages to get a good look at her features. She has tan skin, the hazel donuts that are her irises, and is beautiful, if a bit androgynous in her looks.

'I think I remember her, yeah, she's...' he vaguely recalls her.

'Yeah, she's... yeah I don't remember her.' Why did he even try? He can recite the number of bumps on the wall, but can't remember for the life of him his once classmates names. Though it's not like anyone knows his name aside from the teachers, so he thinks it's pretty fair.

"Right!" She exclaims in a burst of energy, making him flinch. "I said, 'So... you don't like dressing up either?,'" she repeats word for word, including the exact intonation. She seems to be quite the personality.

Corentin's sigh abstinence lasted for all of thirty seconds, as her words conjures one from his mouth. He decides he doesn't have it in him to come up with some half-assed lie to save himself the embarrassment. So he tells the truth.

"You think I can afford one?" he utters, making whatever her name freeze.

"Oh, uh..."

"It's fine. Not like I know how to tie a tie anyways," he adds.

"Can't you just look it up online?" She raises an eyebrow.

He looks her straight in the eyes. "I'm the type of person to wear whatever is comfy into work, worry about wearing something so ugly, and then do the exact same thing the next day. Do you really think I could be bothered to learn how to tie a tie?"

"No!" she cackles. He slightly jolts back, his eyes wide. It's been... a long time since he's made someone laugh. He doesn't even know what she found funny. He was actually hoping that little speech would deter her. He's not really in the mood to speak to anyone, especially a socialite like her.

Her sudden bout of laughter quickly ends, and she sits down at his table, across from him. Her arms support her upper body as she leans forward with a smile on her face.

"You're... Corentin, right?" This causes him to blink. Great. Now he feels like an asshole for not knowing her name.

"Uhm, yeah, you're...?"

"I'm Val," she introduces.

"Nice to meet you," he doesn't really know what to say aside from that. He wipes his sweaty palms on his pant legs.

'Why are you talking to me? I don't know you,' he thinks, getting more anxious the longer the conversation goes on. What can he say?

'I need to avoid mentioning jobs at all costs!' he inwardly tells himself. So he instead blurts out the first thing he noticed about Val when he glanced at her earlier.

"You like the color orange?" She slightly perks up, sort of like the ears of a dog at mention of a treat.

"Yeah. I know some people can find it obnoxious, but I've always loved it," she answers.

"What's your favorite color?" She seems genuinely curious, which surprises Corentin. He thinks for a moment.

"Uhm, I... haven't really thought about that for years. I used to like red," he replies.

"And you don't now?"

'I gave you an answer lady, what do you want from me!?'

"Uh, I, uhh... I guess Green or Indigo seem cool." He quickly decides to change the topic from colors to something else.

"Anyone you wanted see specifically?" he inquires as his eyes sweep across the room. He sees former teachers, and classmates mingling about.

"What?"

"I mean, here. At the reunion. Any past friends, enemies?" He feels better talking about other people than himself. Of course, he wouldn't prod the topic of love even if someone holds him at gunpoint.

"My old friends. I just felt it'd be good to catch up, you know?"

"I don't, not really."

"Hm." She grabs her chin with her index and thumb, seemingly thinking as her eyes stare up into nowhere. Her gaze slowly and surely shifts to match his as a smile grows on her face. There's a sparkle in her eyes.

'I don't like that look.' Whatever idea she's cooking up inside that head of hers, he knows he probably won't like. She opens her mouth.

"If that's the case, want me to introduce you to some of my friends?" Val proposes.

Corentin abruptly shoots up from his seat. The scraping of his chair as he stands up straight can be heard through the entire ballroom floor. Before he can even get the chance to say that he, "Needs to go to the bathroom," the sound of the chair across from him wantonly pushing out from under the table as well, hits his hears.

He nearly jumps out of his skin as he looks up and sees Val standing. She doesn't give him any time to protest, quickly grabbing his wrist and pulling him along.

"C'mon, let's go!"

A deep sigh escapes his lips. He just wants to be left in peace. So why did this natural disaster in human skin take an interest in him?

Plus, they are already making a scene. Nearly all of the forty-two people here are watching the two of them. If he suddenly pulls his arm from her grip or tells her off, he might attract even more undue attention.

That also isn't mentioning that she seems to be a genuinely good person. 'I'd have to be a massive dickhead,' he thinks to himself.

So he just relents to his fate. He can talk to a few of her friends, and then say he needs to go to the bathroom, escaping from conversation. Problem solved.

*****

Corentin walks out of the men's bathroom after washing his face and hands.

"I don't remember talking to people being so exhausting," he mumbles to himself. Then again, he barely remembers talking to people in the first place. He only says the bare minimum to his co-workers and customers.

"Hey!" His face falls as he turns his head to the side. There he sees Val who quickly walks up to him.

'Why the hell is she waiting for me...'

Corentin takes a quick glance around, and upon seeing nobody, decides to just get it out there.

"Why are you so pushy?" he asks her bluntly.

"Huh?" Eyes wide, she seems to not understand what he just said. He chooses to explain it more clearly.

"I can't tell what goes on inside your mind. I mean, does anything go on inside there? You see some poorly dressed SOB sitting in a corner alone, and you decide to hang out with him? Like, what? What do you want from me, genuinely?" By the time his little tirade is done, Corentin is out of breath.

Val doesn't respond. "So? What is it?" he presses.

"You looked like a good guy, plus... you seemed lonely." She gives a weak shrug, a frail look adorning her face.

Corentin doesn't know what's worse. That she said that with a straight face, or that he actually believes her. He struggles for a while, eventually deciding she at least deserves an apology and explanation.

"Look, I'm sorry for exploding like that. It's just... being around people isn't really my, "thing," I guess. And then you come along, and start pushing me to meet your friends... and, yeah." There's more he wants to share, but doesn't feel exactly comfortable doing so. Especially to a person he met just a few hours ago.

She puts on a sheepish smile as she rubs the back of her head. "Ah, gotcha! Sorry about that, Corentin."

'Great. Hopefully she leaves me alone now.' He let's out a sigh of relief as she understood him. Well, that is until she opens her mouth again.

"Hey, want to get something to eat?" she suggests.

'Don't you understand that you give me so much anxiety!?' He internally screams at her. But he sees her expectant look. Corentin dies a bit inside as he let's out a small,

"Yes."

It seems she did not, in fact, get the memo. He really can't decide if she's stupid, oblivious, or naive. Maybe all three?

*****

"So, what do you do for work?" he says as he stuffs his mouth at a table in the ballroom. He's given up at getting rid of her at this point. It's also inevitable that the topic of jobs would come up before the night's end, so he pulls off the bandaid. He'd rather get it over with than stew in fear until it finally comes up.

"Hm? Oh, I'm a detective," she says it as if it's the simplest thing in the world.

Corentin accidentally inhales after hearing her words. He begins coughing as he chokes on a bit of food. Tears well up in his eyes.

"A-Are you okay!?" He holds up a hand, silently telling her to wait a moment. Finally, his throat clears as he coughs up some food. All the while the thought of,

'She's the one who cracked that fifty year old cold case!?' plays in his mind. He knew one of his classmates was the detective that did it, but he didn't expect it to be her!

"I'm fine, I'm fine," he tells her after a moment of catching his breath. He eyes her as she looks at him with a bit of concern.

'Should I ask? No. I probably shouldn't...' For now, he resolves to ignore that a genius detective is before him. It'd only make him more nervous if he thinks about it constantly.

"What do you do?"

"I'm a server at a restaurant. I also do part-time work as a clerk in Wulmart," he explains. He let's out an inward sigh of relief after finally letting it out. Now, all he can do is fretfully wait for her reaction to this news.

"Huh. Did you always want to be a server and clerk, or...?" I look at her. She looks at me, before averting her eyes with an embarrassed expression.

"Val, I don't know if there's a single person in the world that dreams of working in a two-bit local restaurant or wulmart."

"Haha, yeah... that was a stupid question, wasn't it?" she laughs awkwardly.

"Yes, it was," he straightforwardly affirms. After that, silence reigns over their conversation.

Corentin notices that she doesn't seem to have much experience in dealing with loners such as himself. She might even be feeling just as anxious as him. Which begs the question, why is she trying to talk to him again? Why not hang out with her friends? This one question has been eating at him this entire time.

There has to be some reason that she's hanging out with him, but what? Corentin goes down a mental list of possibilities.

'She loves me? That's very unlikely.'

'She knows me somehow? Well, clearly dumbass.' Welp, he's already out of ideas. That did not help at all.

He chooses to think about it differently. 'What do I know about her?' he asks himself. He thinks intensively, remembering his few hours of interaction with her.

'She's surprisingly awkward for one. Definitely trying to hard to get to know me, and quick to feel bad when I tell her off. She clearly knew me somehow, and approached me shortly after a few words with her friends she probably hasn't seen in years. Which is odd because I clearly recall her telling me they're the main reason she's attending the reunion. She's a detective, so she clearly has a strong moral compass...' Corentin slowly starts to piece it together.

'So she clearly knew me. Why does she know me?' The only thing he can think of is that she knew of him in their time at school.

Which meant that she had to actively... pay attention to him during their school years. Again, why? The realization hit him like a slap to the face.

'Lonely. I looked lonely.' He gazes at her in exasperation. She raises an eyebrow in return.

'No. Please don't tell me that she seriously feels guilty because I had no friends in high school. That's stupid!' It really is idiotic. But from what he knows of her so far, it sounds exactly like the kind of thing she'd be stuck on.

'Then seeing me alone again at this reunion, in a corner, must've made her feel terrible...' He really wants to tell her to shove that guilt of hers somewhere else, but just can't.

In a weird way, it's kind of heartwarming. His parents don't even think of him nearly as much as she seems to. Though it is weird. Though he's met his fair share of weird people in his line of work, so not that weird all things considered.

"What are you thinking about?" Her words snaps him out of his thoughts. He inspects her face as he muses his next words.

"I'm wondering about an idiotic friend of mine," he tells her.

"Really?" His eyes meet hers. He smiles for what seems to be the first time in their entire encounter.

"Yeah. She's pretty stupid, constantly feeling guilty about things she really shouldn't feel guilty about." Val flinches, and Corentin's smilflinched,

"Oh. Uh, I, uh, gotta... go to the bathroom," she hurriedly excuses herself. As soon as she's out of sight, Corentin's bursts out laughing.

"Haha, yes! I got rid of her!" He cheers. He nearly pumps his fists in victory, but stops himself. His laughter already bringing a bit more attention than he'd like.

This wasn't that bad of a bad night.