The unabashed thirst for gossip was almost comically apparent in everyone's eyes as they stared without reserve at their table. And why wouldn't they be curious? Ezra, who usually greeted everyone that entered the café if he recognized them, was unusually quiet now, the injury on his face becoming more apparent and darker in shade by the minute as he held onto the hurt cheek with his palm.
His vis-à-vis was a very handsome guy that some of the more older customers recognized because he too was once a frequent customer two something years ago. The new customers, though, were just curious why Ezra, who they had come to recognize as a friendly guy, was looking so coldly at this new handsome hunk.
Needless to say, all these unspoken questions were directly poking Damien, the only person not part of the ongoing drama at their table, right at the back of his head. He turned his face towards the other customers, shrugged his shoulders, and made an expression of 'bruh, I don't know anything either' then he made a shooing gesture at them, clearly asking them to mind their own business before setting up a stand on the edge of the table to hide the situation on their side from these nosy people.
He could have sworn he had heard a very conspicuous series of tongue clicks from all around despite the tables being so far apart from each other that voices below or within the average human perception range should be undecipherable. He couldn't help but sigh in disbelief.
'Good thing Maria has prepared these stands. Her frequent customers are assembling into a sort of certified local auntie info broker network each day, except some of these people are grandpas and others highschool brats... What a relief too, that the interior of her café is so wide.'
His eyes then turned to the two guys sitting across each other. Ezra was looking at Louis in a dazed anger. As someone who thought he knew Ezra well enough, Damien could tell that it was a dazed anger. Meaning the guy was just angry or worried about something and was looking on in front while lost in thought about the thoughts that were making him angry, but it instead looked like he was just giving a hateful look to Louis.
Louis looked uncomfortable under that stare as his eyes darted around the place, trying his very best to not accidentally look into Ezra's angry eyes. A very awkward look was visible on his face.
Damien tried to recall how the three ended up like this. Back when he had asked Ezra how he got himself hurt, he saw Ezra wobble about dramatically as he touched his face in shock. The movements were so exaggerated that Ezra stumbled and almost fell, but he and Louis quickly ran up to the guy before he could fall flat on his nose and break it.
They then supported Ezra back to the seat where Louis covered him with a blanket and then took a seat opposite him. Damien wanted to question why Louis was here, but he was worried about Ezra, so he just sat besides him and tried asking him if he was fine.
It had now been about fifteen minutes, and Ezra still had not moved from his dazed state. At the beginning, Louis too seemed too shocked and was in the same dazed state as Ezra had been, but eventually, he was forced to wake up under Ezra's frosty gaze.
"Ah, um, Ez... Ezra I mean, can you please not look at me with the eyes of someone thirsty for blood. We do not have a good history for sure, but I'm just here to talk about... y'know, serious matters, so-"
"That's Ashton to you. Do not presume to call me by my first name to my face," came a subconscious retort.
Louis winced at the words and then nodded, "Understood. Are you calm enough to talk now?"
Damien nodded at those words, "Ez, come back from dreamland, won't you? I'm in dire need of answers to, well, a lot of questions currently."
Ezra was still looking on dazedly until he seemed to have finally registered those words and glared at the two, "Oh, brace yourself for this cosmic coincidence! I too have questions right now, okay? A whole lot of them. And you two are bothering me from thinking them through."
"Oh, Gosh Ez... You are really angry right now, aren't you? Or are you perhaps very worried about something? You always turn snarky when something's bothering you."
"Surprise, surprise."
"Why? What got you worried?"
Ez looked in irritation at Damien, "You're purposely annoying me right now, aren't you? Leave me alone for a second."
"I would, but you were really hypocritical a second ago, y'know."
"Excuse me?"
"What? You just told this guy not to call you by your first name, but earlier when you had been talking to me, you called him by his first name without any qualms."
Louis raised his eyebrows in surprise, "You were talking about me?"
"Damien, shut up." Ezra was annoyed that he could not find an excuse for himself but still argued, "No. Not you. Your sister. I unconsciously used your first name so that Damien can easily remember whose sister I was referring to. You know, Hughes is a pretty common last name, so I had to use your first name to specify the person."
Ezra felt very stupid saying that. He knew of no other person with the last name Hughes that had a sibling. He really did sound like a hypocrite.
"You were talking about my sister? Why?"
"I wanted Damien to look for Alicia Heathers on the Internet."
"Oh," Louis nodded gently in understanding. Alicia looked eerily similar to Alice indeed. Just, more beautified in an unrealistic sort of way. Even as a brother with obvious bias, it was an undisputable fact. Alice was a gorgeous girl in her own right, but Alicia looked like an impossibly filtered and even prettier version of her.
Damien couldn't help but raise a brow, "You know this Alicia as well?"
"Ah. Well..."
"What? Who is she? Why do you two know her anyway? Ez?"
Ezra shook his head, "It is as I had said earlier, you will not understand Damien. Why not give it a rest? More importantly, though, I can't believe you used such a cheap trick of getting me to look like a cheap hypocrite like that! You looking to die at my hands?"
"Ehehehe."
"Don't 'Ehehe' me. Stop causing me trouble. If you can't already tell, I'm in no mood to talk at the moment."
"But you have started talking a lot right now, though? It's because of my genius evil trick. Are you calmer than before now?"
Ezra stared unimpressed at Damien for a minute before sighing and rubbing his face with his palms, "Tell me it's a lie and that you two are only hallucinating."
"Hallucinating about what?"
"What else apart from the fact that I've got a face that's doing the puncline limbo - it went low and didn't quite make it back up!"
"Wow Ez, so sarcastic? Uh well, so you want me to lie and say that you've only got on a 'Fist-of-Fury Facial Makeover'? Well, who knew paint could be so avant-garde!"
Ezra's face fell into his crossed arms over the table in sorrow, "I'm doomed!"
Louis could not find any entry into the conversation, but his eyes seriously darted in between Ezra and Damien with thoughts unknown. He was silent for a while before telling Ezra, "This must have been what Penelope meant when she said we carry anything we acquire from that world while in character, back to our real world."
Ezra groaned at hearing that, "She must have wanted to warn us about injuries being carried back too but was cut off in the middle when her role resumed."
"Uh, what are you guys talking about? Who is Penelope?"
Louis looked at Ezra's face in concern, "But if injuries can be carried back, then there is a possibility that-"
"Quiet. Shh. Don't continue. Let's live in delusion. At least let me live in delusion."
"What do you guys mean? And hey, who is Penelope?"
"But Ez—Ashton, this is a profoundly disconcerting possibility... This, we should not dismiss lightly."
"Then what do you propose we do about it, huh? We can't move a limb there. Can't move or speak when we most want to. We are evidently powerless, subjected to the whims of some enigmatic entity's control. And we don't even comprehend what that place is or why we end up there. Hell, most people we encounter there, we cannot even engage in conversation or deliberate over the situation with them outside of that realm because they might not exist in our own world. Ha... So absurd... the more I speak, the more ludicrous it sounds..."
"Ashton... Let's calm down. Take a deep breath for a moment."
Ezra could not help but wear a pout, "This is so humiliating. I can't believe I'm acting like this, and you are so composed."
"I'm not without concern either. But right now, I'm more worried about you."
"The hell—"
"OKAY! I know I'm being a real bother right now, but since you two are having this indecipherable conversation right in front of my nose, I'm just going to assume that you have no qualms about not hiding it from me, soooo... Please. Explain in human terms."
Ezra fixed a fake disbelieving gaze on Damien. "Wait. You were still here?"
Damien rolled his eyes. "Oh, come on!"
Ezra sighed deeply before shaking his head. "It's as you say. I have no intention of hiding it from you, or anyone for that matter. The problem is, no one believes me when I talk about it. Your presence here neither causes me problems nor provides any benefits."
"Come on, Ez. If you genuinely want to discuss something, why wouldn't I or the others believe what you say?"
Ezra scoffed, "My words are too fantastical to be believed, right? You all clearly dismissed them a few times now. But, to be honest, I would have done the same if I were in your shoes. Imagine hearing that your friend disappeared into an unknown realm in the middle of class when you don't remember anything of the sort happening to them. It sounds absurd, doesn't it?"
Damien's expression shifted from disbelief to confusion, and he furrowed his brows. "I thought you were joking. You kept up with the joke for a few days, but you never laughed along with us. Ez, what's going on?"
Ezra sighed again, leaning back in his chair. "What? I said what I said. Look at this injury on my face. How could it have appeared out of nowhere? Damien, I'm in a genuinely ridiculous situation right now. And it's not just me—Hughes and, oddly enough, my ex are caught up in it too."
Damien just stared at him in disbelief at those words. He trusted Ezra of course. In fact, he trusted Ezra the most among anyone in his life. But he still needed to clearly think over Ezra's almost unbelievable words.
Seeing him go quiet in thought, Ezra suddenly felt guilty. He did not want to cause worry to Damien over his own problems. He had previously spoken of this fact to his friends, Damien included, because he just wanted to make sure if he disappeared from this world when he travelled to the other realm. As it had turned out, he would return back to the exact second that he had disappeared so none of them had noticed uptil now.
Now though, he said all that because he was not in his right state of mind and just kept on speaking whatever came to his mind. Having now calmed down somewhat, he regretted telling anything to Damien.
Shooting a look at Louis who looked unbothered about these secrets being revealed to Damien and even raised an eyebrow at Ezra, expression clearly asking 'What's the matter?', Ezra felt uncomfortable. He turned back to Damien and wanted to laugh his earlier words off as a joke but before he could do so, Louis started to speak to Damien,
"I think you should know something very important."
When Louis got Damien's attention, he turned serious and spoke slowly, "We have been going around this revelation earlier but you need to know that-"
"Hey, HEY HUGHES! Speak less! What are y-
"We can die from this."
"LOUIS F**KING HUGHES, YOU SUNNOVA-
Damien closed Ezra's mouth with his palm to stop him from interfering, cold sweat forming on the back of his neck at having heard Louis' words, "What did you just say?"
"There is a possibility that death in that realm that you just heard about, can lead to death in this world for us too."