Alpha Academy BL

Chapter 97: Chapter 97

"Is there any game you want to try, Dio?" Louis asked when they got to the stalls.

"Lou can choose." Dio answered simply.

"Are you any good at darts?" Louis sheepishly asked, stopping in front of a stall. "I’m not very good at games..." - or sports - but that was a silent addition.

Dio agreed to give it a try, it was a game of darts alright but instead of a board, he had to pop balloons with it.

Louis watched Dio pop a balloon on his first try, his proud smile souring when he realized that he never knew how good Dio was with games and sports that involved precision.

Now that he thought about it, he couldn’t say for sure what Dio’s likes and dislikes were. Dio had always gone along with what he wanted and chosen what he liked every time for him to tell.

Louis picked off a piece of chipping wood from the counter of the stall, lost in thought. He couldn’t even say what Dio’s favorite food was, what kind of friend was he?

"Lou?" Dio calling his name made him look up.

"What?"

"Don’t like the game?" He asked, a searching look in his mismatched eyes.

Louis blinked in confusion. "No, no I do, you’re so good at it after all." He said absently, more guilt eating at him at the satisfied look on Dio’s face.

"Choose a prize, Lou."

Louis looked at the array of balloon animals. "Sure, what’s your favorite animal?" He blurted out.

Dio cocked his head to the side, "My favorite animal? Don’t have one, what’s yours?"

Louis glanced at the prizes again. "Mine is a gi..."

"Giraffe?" Dio completed it for him, already getting the miniature balloon version of a giraffe.

Louis took the prize and looked away, muttering his thanks. His attention was pulled back around by the voices of girls.

"We saw you hit every one of those balloons, could we trouble you to win a prize for us?" Two Omegas surrounded Dio, looking up at him with pleading eyes.

It was a decent request and anyone would have agreed to help them out but perhaps due to years of Dio looking up to him to help him out with everything, he expected Dio to ask him what he should do.

Instead, Dio just nodded to the handler and was handed another bunch of darts.

Louis was a hot mess, how many times did this exact scenario have to happen for him to realize that Dio wasn’t an extension of himself and was free to make his own decisions?

He held his balloon animal tight as he watched the girls totally disregard their initial request of wanting a prize and just went right after Dio. At first, they stood some distance away from him but shortly after, they shucked away their pretenses and all but hung off his arms.

Louis had to force his fingers off his giraffe so he didn’t pop it, holding the balloon animal by its extended neck.

"You got a prize too? So did I," An Omega wearing a smile approached him, she also held a balloon animal.

"I didn’t actually win this myself," Louis admitted, a little self-depreciatingly.

"I did, here have mine." She offered her balloon animal to him, misunderstanding his words.

Louis didn’t get a chance to reject it because she shoved the unicorn right into his arms.

"W-Wait..." freēwebnovel.com

"It’s fine, I would have had to get rid of it anyway, might as well gift it to someone else." She said in a carefree manner, her smile never leaving her face.

"Oh, thank you." Louis returned her smile for the first time.

"Want me to win you more prizes?" She offered.

Louis faltered, he was sure that wasn’t how things were supposed to go. Shouldn’t he be the one doing the winning?

"I’ll do that for him, you don’t need to trouble yourself." Dio coldly interrupted their conversation, holding up a bunch of balloon animals by their tails.

Louis gaped in shock, looking past Dio to see the stall handler packing up. "Dio, did you empty the store of its prizes?" He asked in disbelief.

"Where does Lou want to go next?" Dio asked, ignoring his question.

"I’ll ah... I’ll get going now, it was nice to meet you." The Omega said, quickly making herself scarce.

"I think we’re fine with this," Louis said nervously, looking down at all the balloon animals they both had in their possession. "Why don’t we drop this off with Henri and get something to drink?" He suggested instead. The last thing he needed was for Dio to empty all the stalls of their prizes.

Dio’s expression turned hopeful. "Really?"

"Sure!"

-*-

Henri sat peacefully on his wooden bench, still people-watching. Louis and Dio had been gone for over twenty minutes, and although he had been approached by a handful of people, none of them stayed long enough to be a nuisance.

Henri wouldn’t call himself a romantic or even someone that was vaguely interested in the thought of romance but even he could see that Louis had Dio eating out of his hand, it made for a very uncomfortable interaction.

He didn’t fancy being the third wheel but Louis seemed stuck on him and he had just about given up on convincing the Alpha otherwise. He wasn’t a love specialist, he was certain they’d straighten out their issues eventually. All they needed was a little time...

His thoughts were interrupted when he caught sight of the very pair he was just thinking about - talk about the devil. They were also both heaving a couple of hundred pounds in balloon animals with them.

*merely a slight exaggeration*

Henri’s eyes rounded when they both dumped their horde of balloon animals on him, the prizes spreading out on the bench he was sitting on, some even falling to the grassy ground.

"We got you some prizes." Louis beamed.

Henri gave him a look. "Some?"

"We’re also about to get a drink, do you want..."

"I’ll pass." Henri immediately cut him off, not trusting them to not bring an entire stall’s worth of drink this time.