Solution

Helia tried her best to subtly exchange a look with her friend, but her grandmother had seen enough. "Girls, you know you can't hide things from me. Eventually, I'll find out, and I'll be mad that you didn't think of telling me earlier. So, spill it out."

Suzu calmly and satisfyingly drank a sip of her iced tea after she said what she wanted and waited for the youths to answer her.

The granddaughter kept on looking back and forth between her grandmother and friend with a worried look until she eventually mouthed sorry to Kyohi and turned to Suzu.

"Things at school is rocky, especially for Kyohi."

All the old woman did was nod and silently urge the girl to continue.

Helia took a glance at Kyohi, sitting as if she wanted to be a cube of sand, and then finally let out what she had been holding in.

"Because of me, Kyohi's getting unfair and nasty treatment..."

"What did you do?" Suzu asked.

"I," The girl looked for a good word to explain. I may have publically embarrassed the daughter of the number one donor of the school who also happens to be a business tycoon..."

Although the old woman did not choke on the tea, she still looked at her granddaughter with wide eyes as she blinked dramatically. The expression that said, 'Excuse me. What did you say?'

"Yeah." Without needing to hear her grandmother's thoughts, Helia answered what was on Suzu's mind.

The grandmother averted her eyes from the girl but kept on blinking as if she was trying to get out of her daydream. She was surely not expecting that kind of thing to happen in a course of a month.

The girl that was in the middle of the two family members spoke up when she and Helia couldn't bear the silence. "It's not Helia's fault." This sentence shook the grandmother out of her thoughts and try to understand the meaning behind those words.

"What do you mean by that, young girl?"

Kyohi nervously fixed the thick-lensed glasses at her nose before she looked straight into the clear eyes of the old woman. "Even before Helia came, the daughter of the tycoon already hated me and did bad things to me." But Suzu's eyes were too clear for that she was intimidated and slowly looked down as she continued in a whispery tone. "Since the beginning of this year, their pranks have subdued but that was it. The daughter wanted Helia to be on her side but she took my side... I deserve to be treated this way..."

Hearing that, the friend gave an expression of hurt, anger and unbelieving next to her. "Umm, nobody deserves to be treated like sh*t, especially people like you. What are you saying? Are you trying to piss me off? 'Cause, it's working. If you want me to list one hundred things I like about you, I will list them and give them to you if that's what it takes to bring your self-confidence. Girl, you are amazing. What the heck are you talking about?"

Kyohi raised her head and met with the eyes of her friend. Even from hearing the tone, one could easily tell that Helia was disturbed by how Kyohi had low self-esteem. Now, looking at the face, the girl could believe that those words were true and came from the bottom of her heart. That was when she realised why her friend had loads of friends back in the UK. She was a wonderful, straightforward and justice person.

"What my granddaughter said is right." The grandmother nodded in agreement and gently cupped the fragile hand of the girl. "I don't know who is responsible for how you feel what you feel right now. But I say they go back to their mother's womb and restart life to get some common sense and knowledge into their useless brains." After saying that, she nodded to her own unrealistic suggestion as if she deserved a Nobel prize for being too wise.

"Don't forget to count me in when you guys are doing this. I'll also bring Vesper into this sh*t. There is no way he's missing the party." Helia said and also held Kyohi's hand from the top of Suzu's hand. "We've got you."

Kyohi almost laughed from the same energy the duo emitted but froze when the grandmother told the two in a whisper, "I know a good mountain where things and people don't come back once they get in." The old woman even winked in the end, making the girls' smiles disappear in an instant.

Suzu then continued, "Don't forget. One of my friend is a butcher. He knows all about meat." She smirked and let go of the girl's hand to stand up. "You are eating here, right? Let me cook lunch."

----

Unexpectedly, the lunch wasn't in a gloomy or sad mood from the previous conversation. Instead, it was quite a show. Suzu teased her little girl every time she had a chance and Helia asked Kyohi for a backup in defense.

Although many said that when three people have a conversation, one is always left out, the pair of grandmother and granddaughter managed to include the girl naturally and friendly. The conversation was, of course, entertaining and fun to be in that the amount of time Kyohi spoke in a total of only an hour was equivalent to how much she spoke in the whole of last year. Helia was surely bringing the suppressed side of her friend unforcefully.

"What should I do about this lunch?" After eating the food her grandmother made freshly, Helia remembered the lunch she carried to school and asked Suzu about it.

The old lady took a glance at it before she resumed cleaning the kitchen table. "You are going to be hungry anyway around three. Keep it on the table so that you won't forget to eat.

"Okay." Helia obeyed her granddaughter and skipped her way to the dining room where she left Kyohi waiting. "Where's your lunch box? Let me keep it on-" But abruptly stopped seeing her friend going through a photo album her grandmother must have given her while she was gone.

The girl rushed to Kyohi as if she was a race car and slid on the album with her entire body, blocking the other's view.

"No! My dark history must remain in the shadow!!" She exclaimed and cradled the object inside the three-layered shield, stomach, legs and arms; also known as the unbreakable human security.

Kyohi was taken aback a bit but she was already used to her friend being like that, so she laughed it off. "You have a beautiful family."

"Thanks..." Helia gradually sat up while she blushed and faced the other side of the side, the opposite of where Kyohi sat.

"There was a redhead boy around our age. Is that who you've been telling me about? Vesper?" She had seen multiple photos of the same two children, one boy, and one girl who was obviously Helia.

The boy had a warm smile and a cute face but as they grew up, his masculine side began to show and the last photo she managed to see was probably taken just before Helia moved. There were six people in the photo. Her friend, her friend's parents, the boy and probably the parents of the boy standing outside a house all with happy faces.

Since Kyohi didn't have much experience with the concept of a 'happy family, the photos in the album were something she admired deeply. She didn't even know if she had a picture together with her grandfather with faces like that. She wished for a family, a normal family like the one her friend had but that was impossible considering the harsh reality.

"Yep. That's Vesper." Helia replied and shyly removed a photo of her and him dressed up as ghosts on new year's day for some reason she didn't understand. "This is embarrassing," She said as Kyohi looked at the photo excitedly.

"It must have been fun." Kyohi commented and looked at her friend for another photo.

As Helia kept letting Kyohi see the photos, Kyohi understood why her friend was unusually shy. All the pictures were very silly but cute. Something very typical for children to be doing. Pretending to be a mermaid, superhero, or pirate, all with the same blanket, and creating art with their mother's makeup every now and then, appearing like a pair of clowns. But at least they looked happy in all.

"I didn't know my parents were sending these here. They should have just kept them in the back of the closet or something." Helia murmured as she collected the pictured she showed and put them back into the album.

As she also took back the silly picture of her applying red lipstick on Vesper's eye brow, an idea popped up in her head, making her pause midway.

The worried Kyohi asked, "What's wrong?" But was returned with a firm grasps on her shoulders as if she was going to be devoured right there. Helia didn't seem to have heard her as she brought up that photo in front of Kyohi's eyes like she was possessed.

"What is this?"

"I think I know what to do."