There was absolutely nothing wrong with her expressing her sorrow, in fact, it would only be unhealthy if she were not to do so. So why should she be criticized for crying?

Why should anyone be criticized for crying?

​​

Be it if they are a child, a baby, an adolescent, an adult, an elderly, a man, or a woman, an orphan, or a rich kid.

Why would there ever be a restriction, a stigma on people who were able to show how weak they are?

Emilin was not endorsing people who only knew how to cry, without the will to solve anything, waiting for others to do so for them, in fact, she didn't believe people needed to cry to express themselves, but for Emilin, who had been suppressing it for so long, this was a breath of fresh air.

Why should those who are able to admit that they are weak be ostracized when in reality, they are the ones who are truly strong?

The ones who are able to come to terms with themselves.

That was the key point, right there.

When Emilin thought about coming to terms with herself, her previously tense shoulders and face naturally relaxed.

"Ha..." Emilin smiled, her residue tears still sliding smoothly across her face.

With this oddly familiar scene, Emilin was reminded of a scene that occurred around the time she was born, after her parents took her back to their house at that time, something similar had happened.

Emilin's memories of that time were somewhat fuzzy and so she couldn't remember why she had smiled and cried like that, but truthfully speaking, even now she didn't know why she was crying and them smiling like this.

Still, she liked it, quite a bit at that.

Emilin wiped the tears streaming down with the back of her hand and chucked at herself, not in a self-deprecating way, but rather one similar to that of a sigh of relief.

Emilin looked up at Noah, who was looking back at her strangely as if he had been looking at the most wondrously peculiar creature that had presented herself on earth.

Then she leaned forward into a bow, introducing herself again.

"I'm Emilin."

"I know," Noah responded as if unfazed yet his heart was in turmoil.

Everything he had done today felt out of character, in fact, if Noah didn't know any better, he may have very well assumed that someone else had possessed his body.

He was going crazy.

"I'm introducing myself again so I hope we can start off on a new blank page."

Emilin's stomach churned, but she didn't allow herself to sound unnatural, yet even so, she felt like her voice was somewhat foreign.

'Is this my natural voice?' She questioned herself.

Yet such a doubt hadn't been able to stop Emilin from continuing. She was going all in here, double or nothing.

It wasn't as if she had anything to lose, because as previously mentioned, she was at terms with herself at the moment.

Noah didn't know if Emilin was just a bluff or if she had a truly big hand, but he could only see himself go all in at this point.

There was no need to ask any more questions seeing as Emilin had already made up her mind.

And he couldn't hold back either, he could only go all in, or forfeit for life.

Yet her next question was unexpected, to say the least.

"Can you consider being my friend?"

Emilin struggled to string even just those words into seamless lines, yet despite how tense she was once again, she actually hadn't felt this alleviated in a long time.

Noah could feel the sincerity in her words as if she would be most honored to have him as her friend, which only made him even more confused.

"What? Your what?" Noah frowned, genuinely this time.

Was he just friend-zoned before even saying anything.

Was he supposed to be relieved or sad?

Was it okay that he seemed to be feeling both at the same time?

It wasn't weird, right?

However, even if he were to have all those aforementioned questions answered, Noah still wouldn't know how to respond to Emilin's seemingly simple question.

It was then, a honking sound sounded from behind Noah from a point of view that Emilin would be able to notice.

She knew exactly who it was, after all, it was the person she had been waiting for before Noah came up to her.

*Honk* *Honk*

"Well my ride is here, so consider it okay? Pretty please?" Emilin said before she promptly turned around, hiding her nervousness and embarrassment.

Still, she wouldn't hide it for too long.

After all, after this event, Emilin had learned her lesson, suppressing her emotions was too tiresome.

She needed the right outlet to express them.

Breaking down crying wasn't going to solve anything, so Emilin needed another creative outlet to express herself with.

Emilin would let it all out when she got back home, as for now, she got into the car.

It was a dark SUV that had stopped right in front of Carlson's restaurant.

The person on the driving seat, after having made sure that there was no one moving around and that he could park there for the moment stepped off.

The man in his early-mid 20s with a handsome countenance came out of the vehicle.

He walked to the shotgun, opening the door, before signaling at the young lady who had just started approaching him.

"You guys are finally done, you sure ate for quite a while," Xander commented offhandedly.

He didn't mind too much, after all, his sleep schedule had already been screwed up with the project he was currently working on, a little more wouldn't change much in the long run.

Emilin had contacted him, telling him to eat first since she wasn't coming back to eat that day.

Xander didn't find that strange at all since Emilin had already made it clear that she had come to Opaque City for a whole other reason of her own, completely unrelated to him, and if it was important enough to make her travel, then Xander was sure that it would be important enough to warrant a few meals.

Then Emilin had contacted him once again to tell him that he could go rest first too since she wasn't going to be done here any time soon. They really were eating for quite a while.

In truth, Emilin had only sent that second message since Xander had asked her to tell him when she was getting home, to her apartment that was across from him.

He was scared that she would get into some trouble or get lost, so this was just precautionary.

She hadn't expected him to offer to drive her home, in fact, she had wanted to reject at first, after all, there was simply no need for all that trouble, to have him drive all the way here and then all the way back for no apparent reason.

Well, it was safer than a cab, though Xander had given her some poor excuse, saying that he had to come out to digest anyway, saying that it was on the way, which Emilin knew clearly was not the truth.

This place was not on the way of anything, at least not anything that this young doctor could ever want to go to or even walk to, much less driving.

In fact, once you were driving somewhere you had no plans to drive to in the first place, it was already clear as day that it wasn't on the way. Not to mention not once had Emilin ever seen Xander go for digestive walks before.

He had always eaten and then hit the books right after, so much so that Emilin worried that Xander was a little too enthusiastic.

She didn't worry for long though since that aspect was rather good for her.

Well, Emilin was hitching a ride, so she didn't mind too much, Xander was offering, after all, it's not as if she had woken him up in the middle of the night to come to pick her up, that she wouldn't do.

Emilin then stepped in the car, and Xander closed the door behind her, heading back to his own seat, but not before giving Noah a glance, wondering who this person, who his little master was with could be.

***

Noah was at a loss once again.

Emilin had just left with another man, who though was good-looking just like her, clearly looked nothing like her!

In the middle of the night too.

He didn't know how he wanted to interpret this.

Well, no. He knew exactly how he WANTED TO interpret this, just not how he should interpret it.

She had droped a bomb on him before leaving on her mary old way, not even giving him a glance, not looking back once.

What was he? A bomb testing site?

Instead, it was the older man, whom Noah didn't know the exact relations when it came to Emilin who gave him a glance, but even then, it could only really count as a passing glance at most.

That man had this arrogance about him.

Noah could just feel it.

After all, he wasn't lacking in arrogance himself.

That man, whom Emilin left with had a deep-seeped arrogance, one he could associate with.

He didn't show it at face value, he wouldn't look arrogant to normal people, but to Noah, it couldn't be more prominent.

It was something seeped into his bone marrows as if he had been born, knowing he was better than others.

'How peculiar,' Noah thought, before finally taking a step away from the position he had been previously rooted in.