In Grande's restaurant, Alice went back and forth to the kitchen, after using up all the reasons to delay getting to the table. Alice, who exuded an aura of anxiety, turned to Louise—
"Ah! Louise, why don't you have a spoon! I'll get it!"
"Oh, just the fork is enough..." Louise was still a little confused, why her habit was only noticed today. But as soon as she finished speaking, Alice rushed into the kitchen.
"Uh, thank you." After a moment, Louise took a sticky wooden spoon. She would never touch her food with this thing.
"Ah!" Alice shouted again, "What a dirty spoon! I'll go get another one!"
"Need not… "
Alice didn't care what she said and had already turned to the kitchen.
Zach sat on the main seat, smiling and shaking his wine glass.
Louise looked at Zach with searching eyes, 'What's wrong with Alice? ', her eyes asked.
Zach raised a finger, smiled, and waited for Alice to come back with a clean spoon. He stood up, walked to Alice's seat, and pulled it away himself, "Alice, sit down."
Alice sat down nervously, not giving the spoon to Louise anymore, holding it tightly in her hand, "Zha, Mr. Zach..." When she was nervous, Alice would add Mr. to Zach's name.
"Don't worry." Zach kept smiling. In fact, he felt some inexplicable pride. Saying it would make people think, well, it's disgusting. Grande's sister has grown up, and as a brother's vampire, he has a sense of accomplishment.
Louise continued to look at Zach, the meaning in her eyes had changed to 'What the hell is going on! '
"We should celebrate." Zach returned to the main seat and raised his glass incomprehensibly, "Our Alice has grown up."
Alice had lowered her head.
Louise couldn't help it, she knew everything about Grande. If Zach wanted to say that yesterday's 'accident' caused the secrets of everyone in Grande to be exposed, she really didn't think it had anything to do with the celebration.
"Let me explain." Zach smiled without any embarrassment and took back the wine glass that no one touched. Nonsense, this is breakfast!
"Well." Zach pondered deliberately, "Let's use a more old-fashioned way of sharing, Danny. How about you talk about it first."
say what
"Do you still remember? The first time you confessed your true identity."
Danny lowered his head and dealt with breakfast in silence. At the same time, he still had some complicated emotions. He was suddenly called by name, which caught him off guard, "Uh... remember."
"Tell me about it," Zach encouraged. "Friends, family members, lovers? Or, unlucky enough, a killjoy like a hunter."
"Well, I'm more unlucky. I'm a hunter." Danny pursed his lips and stared at his food.
"Oh." Zach lost interest and glanced at the dining table. There was no other alien on the table. Zach waved his hand, "Then let me think about mine. Well, it's a bit long ago."
Louise withdrew her eyes, feeling like she was about to witness a milestone in the life of a foreign race. Very weird.
Zach frowned, trying to remember. "I seem to have an older brother, or a neighbor, or just a friend who escaped famine together. His name, uh, Ilea. Something like that, I think." Zach tilted his head, "I can't remember. ." He said that if he didn't remember, he wouldn't remember.
Zach raised a finger, "But I remember what happened." Zach seemed to be recalling history, "The first time is always memorable."
It took Alice so long. James also solved the problem in the bathroom and appeared in the restaurant, just in time to listen to Zach recall the past.
"I'm trying to explain to him why I need to serve a new aristocratic gentleman who kindly takes in refugees like me during the day, but at night I have the time and ability to hunt a deer that can feed him for a week."
James glanced at Zach, glanced around the table, and concluded that everyone, like him, had no idea what Zach was talking about.
"You will never believe that I used to be a very clumsy guy with words." Zach tugged at the corner of his mouth, took a sip of wine, and felt a little complacent among the expressions of "I believe you are an idiot" on the table. look. Don't be surprised. After four centuries of training, Zach's complacency is nothing to despise.
"So soon, I was exposed." The statement was short and direct, "I started to be taught a lesson. Ilea, uh, that's probably the name. Forget it, just call him Ilea. Anyway, it's already People who turn to dust don’t mind.”
Zach paused briefly, as if silently apologizing to someone in his heart, "Ilea began to teach me a lesson. He asked me if I had secretly stolen the noble gentleman's food. Of course, I denied it. He continued Asked me if I bribed the noble gentleman’s bodyguard to poach the deer.” Zach shrugged, “Of course, I, who was not good at words at the time, continued to deny it.”
"He began to call me a disloyal person, thinking that I had tarnished the goodwill of the noble gentleman who was willing to take in refugees, and refused the deer I gave him." Zach looked helpless, "People in that era were too, why? Say it, be honest."
Zach raised his eyebrows, "Including me, I was eager to prove my quality and told the truth. I told this Ilea, that kind noble gentleman, is actually the ancestor of the vampire clan named Toledo. I Chosen to be his 124th direct blood relative, overnight I had fangs, claws, and manipulative red eyes."
The atmosphere at the dinner table became strange, and Brian, who had been staring wide-eyed as if he was listening to a story, asked unhelpfully, "Then what?!"
"He ran away." Zach glanced at the people at the table and shook his head in disappointment as if everyone didn't show expectations. "He was scared away. I haven't seen this guy named Ilea since. .”
Well, just like the confusing beginning, this story has an extremely hasty ending.
"Can you please stop talking about these things all morning? It's off-putting!" James said in an irritable tone.
"I didn't tell Laura our true identity..." Alice, who was still nervous, her voice overlapped with James' words, and then disappeared automatically in a shrinking voice.
James glanced at Alice, his originally irritable expression was stunned for a moment, as if he had thought of something. He glanced at Zach again, who was shaking his wine glass, twitched the corner of his mouth and stopped talking.
Zach ignored James at all and looked at Alice with a smile, "This has nothing to do with telling others your true identity. The important thing is to be honest with yourself and take the first step. Be honest in this world. Treat yourself, this is growth.”
As if to explain to the audience, Zach chuckled, "If it weren't for that guy named Ilea, who was so frightened that he ran away. I'm afraid it would have taken me a long time to realize that I was not a lucky person. Refugees taken in by nobles, but new vampires."
Therefore, the so-called honesty means recognizing yourself!
Looking at the unclear expressions of the people at the table. Zach tilted his head, "Can't you hear the difference? The former is the bondage left over from the life process that has ended, and the latter is the real life process I am about to start."
Zach chuckled twice, "If someone says now that I am a lucky refugee, I will be angry. My definition in this world and this time is one and only one - vampire, Zachary Toledo." Zach raised his wine glass and said, "Grand."
"This is so stupid!" James lowered his head. Forking his own breakfast, it seemed that he just couldn't help but want to complain maliciously about Zach. "You need to scare away an innocent person to know what you are! Stupid!"
Zach didn't want to pay attention to the detective who was about to leave after breakfast.
right! Originally, this breakfast was used by Zach to comfort Alice who had to reveal her secret to her friends. Zach chose an extremely tricky angle, using "a frank understanding of himself" to eliminate Alice's worry about scaring away her friends. How can James be allowed to cause trouble here!
"So James, how do you recognize yourself?" Zach kept smiling and tapped the wine glass, "Wait, James. Who are you? The vase-like son of General Lance, Patton Police Department A police detective with his hands tied, or a human being having breakfast in the restaurant of a foreign family. Tell me James, how do you know who you are now."
There were some harsh scratching sounds from James' fork scraping against the plate.
James stared at Zach. If the fork in his hand were made of silver, he would definitely fork it out!
"Zach!" Louise slapped Zach on the arm.
Zach shrugged, "Did I say something wrong? James, do you have any other 'identities' that I missed?"
"It's not leaking!" James dropped his fork and stood up, glaring at Zach fiercely, "It's too much! I'm definitely not the guy who messed with breakfast! Goodbye!"
Leave.
"Zach." Louise twitched her lips helplessly, watching James walk out of the restaurant, her tone a bit reproachful, "Didn't I tell you to be a little nicer to James?"
Zach had to be distracted at this time. Remember, Louise had spoken for James more than once or twice. If it was just a little bit of goodwill between humans when we first met in Grande, wouldn't it last a little too long
"Louise." Zach curled his lips, "Why did you help him? I'm not wrong. He forgot that he was still a guest, and there will be no good consequences for contradicting the host." Zach shook his head, "I He rarely appears in this position (as the head of the table), but he will not restrain himself at all."
Louise frowned and was silent for a while, "Don't you think it's childish for you to do this? We obviously have a relationship of mutual trust, but you have to fight like this."
"Trust?" There was no way to refute. That is to say, it is the kind of relationship where big things are okay but small things are constantly bad. Zach twitched his lips and shook his head, "This has become a habit. When he started, I unconsciously wanted to tease him. If you want to persuade me, you might as well let him obey more rules."
Louise was silent. This time, Louise didn't use her usual way to resolve the momentary embarrassment, which was strange.
Zach sipped his wine, the atmosphere at the table became awkward in silence, and Zach shook his head. This breakfast is for Alice, Zach is ready to return to his original intention, "Ally..."
"Do you remember Susan?" Louise suddenly spoke.
Zach frowned, "Your 'old' friend." 'Old' represents the past tense, the two opposing parties (Aisela's people), this friendship can no longer exist.
"That time Susan came to Grande and was very interested in James. Do you still remember?" Louise didn't look at Zach because she was the one who brought Susan to Grande, and she felt guilty.
"Remember, it was just a coincidence that we met James in Grande. What makes me uncomfortable is that she wanted to inquire about things that Grande shouldn't inquire about." Zach responded.
"Then do you remember that after Mrs. Quinn's dinner, I knew that she was working for Ethela, and then she came to me again and wanted to clarify something?"
Zach frowned, "Remember, I remember telling you not to go. If you insist, we can handle it."
Louise still didn't look at Zach and nodded, "I just wanted to draw a clear line, and she wanted to apologize. She said that before the dinner, she really didn't know about the relationship between our Grande and the mayor."
Zach pursed his lips, does it make sense to say this now.
"You know, in my previous profession, it was not easy to make friends." Louise frowned. Just like what Zach had prepared for Alice before, Louise's current self-perception is that of Glen Germans, not the 'single women' they once were.
"In order for Susan to forgive me, at least don't misunderstand her personality too much..." Louise's voice became smaller, "After all, she is in the word-of-mouth business..." The volume replied, "She said something like this to me, 'Since you are qualified Rand has become friends with the son of General Lance, so just keep it good. I actually have no interest in that James. I have read some reports about him before, and I know that it will not have anything to do with a profession like mine. Why? Maybe she approached him deliberately because Aesela was interested in him.'"
Zach had to ask, "What interest can Ethera have in James?"
"I asked." Louise finally looked at Zach, with some worry in her eyes, "Susan said, not to James, but to 'Lance'."
Zach opened his mouth. Sure enough, did you miss something in what you said about James just now? As the first James to come from the west to the easternmost town of the Federation, there is indeed something else that Zach doesn't know!
Perhaps it's important to mention here that Zach doesn't know, but someone does. Crowley knew because she forced herself on James, and since then, James had been extremely repulsive to the devil.
And that woman Ethera! Zach had to care about what Anthony's opponent was planning.
Zach shook his head and focused. As the master of Grande, he couldn't let James disrupt his breakfast plan. James? Lance? It's not important, Grande's sister is important.
"Alice..." Zach wanted to smile again, but his face was a little stiff, and he clicked his tongue irritably, "Alice, the only thing I want to say is that Laura and Kepler were not scared away, no matter what you showed them. What, they didn’t scare away. You are Grande’s sister, their friend, this is your identity, don’t worry.”
It was very unZac's style to state his intentions in such a straightforward manner, and he felt a sense of boredom.
In time, Austin came to work with his team, and Zach had a place to vent. Oh, the elevator is still in a mess. (..)