°•.˜"*°•𝓞𝓷𝓮 𝓸𝓯 𝓽𝓱𝓮 𝓰𝓲𝓯𝓽𝓮𝓭 •°*"˜.•° (C. Madrigal X Reader)

Chapter eighty eight: Lantern

I was fiddling with my twine necklace as I stared at the person asking me to dance. I recognized them but faintly. They were blonde and had fair skin as well as piercing blue eyes. Maybe I had seen them in the hallways a few times at school but it was hard to tell with the mask. All I knew was that I had never interacted with this person before. Although, their voice sounded odd, like I had heard it before but...Like everything else about this person, the voice was only faintly recognizable.

"I'm sorry, I've already said that I don't feel like dancing" I said as I smiled at the stranger.

I'm not sure why I refused him. Maybe it's because I was paranoid, a lot had happened to my family and I, with June and all and I didn't know who this person was. Maybe it was because I was simply not interested in dancing then.

Or maybe it was because I desperately wished to dance with someone else...

I turned around to go back to looking for Camilo, only to hear a sigh from the stranger behind me. It made me feel a bit bad for them. Maybe I was too harsh.

"Oh, c'mon Y/n" the person said, their voice sounding different. "You aren't gonna dance with your valentine?"

I turned around to see the person's form melt away to reveal my valentine. His dark auburn hair, golden brown complexion on his slender build. His stupidly pretty chestnut eyes, freckles splattered across his cheeks and the bridge of his nose and that all too familiar smirk.

"Camilo..." I said in an oddly happy sigh.

"The one and only" Camilo replied, a soft smile tugging on his lips.

I let out a laugh. The person had curly hair that was tied into a cute, little, high ponytail and a few strands of hair were falling over their face and mask. The mask itself was very pretty. It was mostly white but it had golden decorations on the edge of it that were very intricate and gave the mask an interesting shape since they fell off of the side of the mask a bit.

He was wearing his usual white blouse, but the top two buttons of the collar were actually buttoned up this time instead of being kept open like usual. Over the blouse, he was wearing a yellow waistcoat with a v-cut that had darker yellow stripes on it. Camilo was also wearing a yellow blazer that was the same colour as his usual ruana.

Camilo was also wearing dark brown pants and shoes that resembled ballroom dancing shoes but there weren't heels so they weren't really made for dancing. To top the whole outfit off with a red tie and a chameleon pin on his blazer that resembled the dragonfly pin that I was wearing on my vest. I know that Mr. Valladares planned that.

"I thought you ditched me, Valentine," I told him.

He froze for a moment before his smile returned to his face. His hand came up to rest on the back of his neck.

"Yeah, you're right" Camilo said "Being called that is...weird."

I laughed again at his bashfulness. He went from being so confident and snarky to being nervous and shy.

"How did you hide from Mirabel and I?" I asked "We were looking for you."

"Awww" Camilo said, moving his face very close to mine "You missed me, didn't you, Y/n?"

I chuckled as I pushed him away a little. He laughed with me for a bit.

"No, I didn't" I answered, jokingly "But really, how did you hide from us?"

"I just hung out in the back of the line and avoided you guys, it wasn't that hard" Camilo said casually.

I shot him a look of disbelief.

"Okay, fine, maybeee..." Camilo sighed "Maybe the fact that I shapeshifted into other people helped me. Just a little bit."

That explanation made more sense. Of course he was good at hiding, he could just shapeshift to disguise himself as someone else. It reminded me of how I would always win games of hide and seek when I was younger since I would just shapeshift into someone else isntead of actually hiding.

"Why did you try to hide from us anyway?" I asked, flicking him on the forehead "You ditched me, Camilo."

"Ay!" Camilo exclaimed, rubbing his forehead "I was just trying to create suspense, I'm sorry"

I gave him an unimpressed look and scanned him up and down. I think he noticed because he stood still as I did it. Then I made eye contact with him again and I swear I heard his breath hitch. I sighed.

"Well, I guess your efforts were worth it" I confessed "You look really good."

Camilo froze up again before turning away from me. The mask helped to hide it a bit but I could still see that he was blushing since the tips of ears were red. Now that his hair was in a high ponytail, I could also see that the back of his neck turns a shade of red as well.

"You look, uh, you look good too" Camilo replied once he finally got the courage to look me in the eye.

I laughed at his nervousness. I apreciateed his nervousness at times like this. It was nice to see this side of him or rather, it was nice that he was comfortable enough with met to show me this side of him. Camilo was under a lot of stress as one of the people that the town depended on, one of the infamous magical Madrigals.

He never really had any freetime and was almost always seen helping someone else in one way or another. Which was admirable but I couldn't help but feel bad for him since I had seen him come home after a long day of helping people around town and practically collapse on his bed.

He always had to keep a happy, confident and somewhat smug act, the Camilo that the townspeople were used to. It was almost comforting to see that he didn't feel the need to keep up the act around me and he let himself act more...human.

"Hey, you still owe me a dance" I stated cheekily as I held my hand out towards him in the same way that he did when he initally asked me "Would you do me the honour of dancing with me, valentine?"

The soft smile on his face grew into a bright grin. I could've sworn that his smile was brighter than the latern hanging over the dance floor. His cheeks were dusted with a dark rose colour and his freckles were made more obvious because of it.

"Of course, mi vida" he replied, his eyes falling half-closed and glassy like a doll's.

He took my hand and I pulled him to the middle of the dance floor, just underneath the largest latern.

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A lot of descriptions in this chapter, huh?

-Kolour