Dragon Raja

52 - Be Gentle As You Lay Me Down Tonight

Arc 5. The Far North.

Leaving no way to find her, Y/N parts ways with her friends. But, back at Cassell College, the Ace Team come across information of an organization that has ties to Herzog. In order to infiltrate and collect intel, Johann is sent on a private mission where he meets a peculiar girl, and encounters a ghost from his past.

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Present day, December, 2014. Cassell College.

Winter nipped at his nose and turned it bright pink. A stark contrast to his bright golden eyes. 

He had nearly forgotten how heavily it snowed in Chicago. After spending all spring and summer in Japan, perhaps he had grown accustomed to the warmth and the echoing sound of cicadas around every corner. He wondered what winter was like over there as well. 

Did pretty girls go around singing and swaying? Did they also bundle up close to their friends? Make snowmen? Did they follow the tradition of kissing beneath a mistletoe?

From the corner of his eye, Johann Chu watched a couple lean in close beneath the mistletoe that Cassell College traditionally put up every winter at the far east altar. 

Beneath the snow crunching at his feet and the light flakes of snow that settled atop his head, he tore his gaze away from their shy act of affection. Their lips had barely grazed each other. They smiled and blushed and held hands as if all was grand and divine in the world. 

But the scenes that surrounded him—the singing, the laughter, the mistletoe, the innocence and happiness of winter—it all seemed so...monotonous.

And he remembered the first winter he experienced when everything was not so mundane.

When the sky was dull and the singing was skewed, like a nightmare song playing on repeat. When the lights on the grand tree flickered and flashed and the snow felt like little pins stabbing through skin. When he could make out a scowl on a certain face in the crowd that so visibly and undeniably, hated winter.

"Well this is a surprise," A voice called him out of his mindless daydream. "Johann Chu hardly makes way to this side of campus,"

His eyes flickered to the side, not having noticed that he had walked right past Caesar Gattuso and his lackeys.

"If I recall correctly the Amber Hall still belongs to the Student Union—as per a very specific request," his voice sounded the same, Johann thought. Like he'd so easily dismiss the ever so obvious elephant in the room.

They hadn't spoken to each other, aside from casual and formal greetings and despite their well-known rivalry, in an entire year, plus a little more.

"Caesar," was all he could manage, like they were strangers who barely knew each other. As if they hadn't gone through an entire life-threating mission together a little over two years ago. 

Caesar dismissed his friends and they fled without another word. Dispersed like a flock of birds, he approached Johann with the same arrogance he had before their mission. Caesar Gattuso would never lose his spunk, after all.