"H-here are your drinks...!"
After setting the drinks on the table, the server fled, leaving the four of them trapped in that tiny space. Even the air seemed to have frozen.
The silence in the private room pressed down on everyone's chest like a boulder.
Greg and Vivian sat side by side on the bench to the left.
Greg kept his head down, his hands resting on his knees, his gaze fixed on the teacup before him as though it held the ultimate secrets of the universe.
Vivian turned her face slightly away, her long, aqua-blue hair falling over most of it and hiding her expression. But her tightly pressed lips and faintly trembling fingertips made it clear that she was anything but calm.
Ellie sat directly across from them.
Her arms were crossed, her posture straight and stern. Her gaze swept back and forth between Greg and Vivian with undisguised scrutiny and coldness.
She said nothing, but that silent pressure was more suffocating than any heated interrogation.
Wendy sat by the window, holding a cup of tea she hadn't dared take a single sip from.
She felt as though she were sitting on the edge of a volcano, liable to be swallowed by erupting lava at any moment.
She quietly shrank farther into the corner, trying to make herself as inconspicuous as possible while frantically calculating her chances. If a fight really broke out, would she make it out alive?
"Princess Vivian, it's been three years since we last met, hasn't it?"
Ellie finally spoke.
Her voice was calm, yet carried an edge impossible to ignore.
Vivian stiffened slightly, then slowly raised her head to meet Ellie's gaze. "...Yes. Three years."
"I remember my young master telling me that the last time you two were walking together in the