Lady Misfortune: Daddy, I'll Be A Righteous Villainess!

Later that noon, Lady, Weiss, and Fallon gathered around for lunch.

They headed to the field where they were planning to spend the hour together. The topics they talked about on their way were random. That included how their morning classes went, the upcoming events in the school calendar, and some rumors that were spreading around the campus lately.

It's a light conversation in which Lady has done most of the talking, but Weiss and Fallon know that it's only a matter of time before it turns heavy.

"Well? Are we gonna bring it up or what?" 

Fallon was the one to start up the discussion. Weiss noticed that it was only when the three of them were finally all alone. Still as clueless as ever, Lady gave them a questioning look and asked, "Bring up what?"

"Don't be mad, Lady. I just feel like I should break it down to you when Weiss is around," Fallon muttered in all seriousness.

"You see, Lady, I heard about your conversation with Fallon yesterday at the parking lot," Weiss confessed with a wince.

"And he knew about our secret."

"Well, not really. I hardly know anything about what you two were gushing on about. More accurately, I overheard your, ummm… secret – or so he said."

"Oh, just a heads-up before you freak out. I didn't tell you last night at the party because I knew you wouldn't handle it well. This was also the only time I could speak with this guy."

"I'm so sorry for eavesdropping. I didn't mean to-"

Weiss stopped speaking when he and Fallon realized that Lady.exe also stopped working. 

The smile she's wearing a moment ago is now frozen on her face, her body still and stiff. She looks downright stupefied. They can tell that the gears in her head are turning so quickly that it's almost as if it's going to heat up from information overload. She's at a loss of words to say, sure, but the look in her eyes is telling a different story.

For a minute or two, the boys only stare at her guardedly – expectantly. 

"Y-You… Y-You…" she stammered out, trying to form a sentence but ended up breaking and bursting instead. 

"FALLONNN!!!"

"And she snapped…" her cousin deadpanned.

"Hey, I already told you my reason, and it's not like we can erase his memory by force. We can try hitting his head with a rock or something, but the possibility of killing him outweighs the chance of giving him amnesia."

"Yes. That's smart of you. Thank you for not doing it…" her classmate said with an unamused tone and expression.

"You don't have to worry about me leaking your secret. I swear I won't do it whether I know everything about it or not. But it does intrigue me. I would like to learn more if you two were willing to allow me to." 

"So formal, dude."

"I just feel like I'm asking for something so big."

"Oh, it's big indeed. But I doubt she'll be able to explain it."

At that, he turns and checks on Lady once more – only to find her muttering and fumbling with what to say, mouth opening and closing in a panic but to no avail. Seeing the way she fidgets nervously and flails her hands about, Weiss can tell that she's in no condition to hold a proper conversation at the moment. Fortunately for her, Fallon comes to her rescue.

He suddenly holds the sides of her face, gently forcing her to look at him, and says, "Want me to take over?"

"O-Okay," was her timid, sober answer. 

By that, Fallon meant that he'd do the explaining in Lady's stead. Weiss is quite impressed that they can communicate like that.

"Besides, someone needs to keep Belle and Hearty away. We don't need anyone else discovering our secret, do we…?" Fallon told Lady, which earned a guilty expression from Weiss.

"Oh, no offense. It just isn't for everyone. But since she's giving me the go-signal to let you in on this, I think you're alright. So, don't feel bad about it."

"Still, I deeply apologize. It's not my intention to spy."

"It's fine, it's fine. Let's just get this over with."

Fallon took Weiss to a nearby oak tree while Lady met up with Belle and Hartigan at the usual spot. 

It would have been safer if they had chosen somewhere a little further. But it seems like her cousin wants her to see her classmate's reaction at the very least. It's not like they can hear them from where they are, anyway.

Too busy watching the boys and being a bundle of nerves, she didn't realize that she's acting so out of character that it caught her friends' attention.

"Are you okay, Lady…?" Belle chimed in with a look of concern.

"You look tense."

"Oh, yes, yes! I'm okay…" Lady blurted out hastily.

"Just thinking about something."

"By the way, what's your cousin doing there with that guy…?" Hartigan asked, observing Fallon and Weiss from afar.

"Don't tell me he did something to you! Did he hurt you?! Is that why they look so serious?! Is he giving him a piece of his mind?! If that's so, maybe I should go there and-"

"N-No! Don't! W-Weiss didn't do anything, Hearty!"

"But why does Fallon look more serious than usual?"   

"W-What do you mean? H-He always looks like that."

"Hmmm… Are you guys hiding something?"

"Of course, not! They're just talking, okay? No big deal!"

"Well, they can do that here, can't they?"

"It's probably p-personal. Maybe about that TV show last night?"

"How is that personal, Lady?" 

To her dismay, her lame excuses ended up intriguing Belle and Hartigan even more. They've been talking so loud that Fallon and Weiss have no choice but to pay heed halfway through their conversation. 

"I told her to keep them at bay, not make them cause a riot," he sighed, wondering why he even expected anything from this cousin of his in the first place.

"So, those two don't have any idea about this whole… reincarnation thingy?" his companion inquired with a wistful expression, feeling like he could never move on from this mind-blowing, soul-crushing discovery. 

"No one does. Except you, of course."  

"What about you? How did you react when you found out?"

Fallon looks back at him then, giving him an enigmatic expression. Weiss returns his inscrutable gaze with arched brows. 

"How surprising. You actually believed everything I said?" 

"E-Eh? Were you lying?" 

"No, no. It's all true. She died and was reborn, we're in some book she made for fun and we're its characters, there's this protagonist and she's the antagonist – it's all true. But you've got to admit that you think it's a bunch of crap. I won't blame you if you don't believe it right away."

"But I do, Fallon. You said you already proved that she could predict the future multiple times. It's not like you to make up a story like that, anyway."

"Oh, yeah? Just what do you know about me?"

"You mentioned before that you're expecting me to do a background check on you – and well, I did. I know how devoted you are to Lady, considering that you keep declining offers after offers from abroad just so you can be with her. You two are so close that you're often labeled as twins. Also, both of you had a major character transformation at one point, at least according to the database I found-"

"Hold up! That's an awful lot of personal information! Where did you even get those?!"  

"I have my sources."

"You sure you're not part of a syndicate?"

"I think that's more unlikely than you lying to me." 

Fallon fell silent, regarding Weiss in contemplation.

He couldn't believe that he really believed it. That's easier than he expected. He wasn't sure how he'd respond since this was the first time he's disclosing a big secret to someone else – one that he kept with his cousin for six long years. It's strange enough that he could explain everything to him concisely. 

To him, Weiss was still supposed to be a close acquaintance at most. But for some reason, Fallon already felt like he could trust him.

"You know, my cousin may seem like a reckless airhead who's gullible enough to follow a shady-looking stranger just for a piece of candy, but believe me when I tell you that she's a very tough nut to crack too…" he continued after a brief pause on his part, earning a half-confused, half-incredulous look from his companion.

"What I mean is that she doesn't open up just to anybody. She's got this habit of bottling it all up until she explodes, which she only does to those she knows she can always trust. The sad part is that they're not many. Heck, I can count them with only one hand. When it comes to her deepest thoughts and feelings, her positive bubbliness gets reduced to this negative ball of energy. She's a complicated person. To tell you the truth, even I myself can't tell what she's truly feeling most of the time."   

After hearing all of that, Weiss can't find a single word to utter.